Major Taylor

by Conrad Kerber

  Back in the States, inquiring minds wanted to know about black passengers on luxury vessels. A curious reporter from Wisconsin, having never heard of a black man traveling first-class on a luxury liner—especially one as grand as the der Grosse—launched an investigation into the matter. The intrepid reporter went to work, first interviewing several people who were at the pier. He then apparently contacted Norddeutscher Lloyd, the ship’s builder in Germany, to see what they had to say on the delicate matter. After a thorough inquiry, he was unable to find the name Marshall Taylor or Major Taylor on the ship's manifesto.

  Rumors of his apparent desertion spread to France. The rumors hardened into sheer panic. Frantic cablegrams raced under the ocean floor, reaching America in the form of pithy questions. Where is Major Taylor? Did he or did he not board the der Grosse? The reporter eventually published his conclusion: just as he had done when booking hotels, Taylor, unsure how he would be received in first class, had booked the voyage under an assumed name. Since no one the reporter spoke with could say with any certainty whether Taylor was onboard, France bit its collective tongue.

  Back onboard, a black man looking a lot like Major Taylor began losing his sense of equilibrium. Queasiness was setting in. He tramped onto the deck to shake off his wobbliness, but the constant swaying and the steady hum of four thirty-one-thousand horsepower engines was getting to him. In the ship’s smoke room below, men and women danced, tossed money into the ship’s pool, and clanged glasses. For one black man, however, things were coming to a head. While his shipmates reveled and Europe waited, one of the world’s fittest athletes—a man they called “the bronze statue”—grasped the ship’s railing, dropped to the deck, extended his head over the side, and threw up into the Atlantic.

  ___________

  * Reports of the agreed-upon dollar amount varied widely from one source to another.

  Chapter 15

  “THE MESSIAH”

  Taylor staggered down the gangplank and onto the shores of Cherbourg, France, on the overcast afternoon of March 11, 1901. A large cluster of European photographers and special correspondents, babbling in a polyglot of foreign tongues, escorted him to the rail station. Flashbulbs popped in his ashen face. They hopped aboard a train pointed east. After the usual pleasantries, someone made the mistake of asking him how his first voyage across the beautiful Atlantic had gone. It had been perhaps the most miserable days of his life; he had spent four of the six days dangling over the ship’s railing or the nearest toilet, and had hardly eaten a morsel. His bloodshot eyes rolling in his head, Taylor mumbled something about how he had wanted the captain to turn back to New York, or better yet, to just throw him overboard.

  The special train chugged out of the ancient fishing village, past the hedgerows, and into the city of lights, arriving in Paris at one in the morning. At the Gare St. Lazare rail station, every customs official and customs employee—none of whom had bothered to declare Taylor’s blue varnished bicycle case—formed a circle around him, ignoring all other passengers. Taylor learned that he wasn’t the only one feeling a bit woozy. Greeting him there, fresh from Coquelle’s wedding reception, was Breyer, anesthetized by an evening’s supply of vintage champagne. Delighted to hear someone speak fluent English, slurred or not, Taylor greeted him with a handshake. He told him how excited he was to finally be in France, and that he looked forward to seeing the beautiful country he had heard so much about.

  As he would be for the next few months, Taylor was grilled for comment about his chances against World Champion Edmond Jacquelin. “They say he’s the best man in the world,” said Taylor, his voice starting to come around. “Well, when I’m in form, we’ll see how I measure up to him right enough.” The ubiquitous question about whether he would ever break his stance against Sunday racing brought a laugh, a shrug, and a classic Taylor reply: “Before I left home, I swore to God that I would never race on the Sabbath, and I don’t like the idea of going to hell.” Taylor seemed surprised when someone asked him if he sailed under an assumed name. “Why would I bother with a fake name?” he asked. “Everybody on board knew who I was.”

  At three in the morning, veiled under a thick fog, the woozy party stumbled into the fabulous marble and gilt Hotel Scribe where visiting royalty often stayed. Breyer headed for the bar. Taylor, dying for rest in a motionless environment, went to bed.

  Paris rocked.

  The Paris Taylor entered that spring was a glittering thing. The final years of the 1890s brought forward so much prosperity, enterprise, and freedom, the French dubbed it La Belle Époque—the beautiful period. Life was humming along so well a pamphlet titled Right to be Lazy made the rounds, promoting three-hour work days and a healthful “regime of laziness.” Some took it seriously, demanding more pleasurable locales where prosperous Parisians or visitors could spend their newfound wealth and free time. To fill this void, racetracks, circuses, and operas sprang up all over. Plus there were the twenty-seven thousand cafès that, when combined with all the wine bars and cabarets, gave Paris the notable distinction of having more drinking establishments than any place on earth. France drank as never before.

  All the fancy watering holes and eateries were splendid, but what really kept wheelmen, horsemen, and politicians coming back were places like the large stone building down on 12 rue Chabanais, near the Louvre Museum. On the outside, it was disguised as just another French cocktail lounge. But it wasn’t the façade that drew people to it. On the inside, excited men—some women too—were handed a green alcoholic drink called absinth and then escorted down a long corridor that wound past elaborate rooms lined with velvet, ormolu, and tiger skin. But it wasn’t the elaborate interior, either. Not until they arrived at the “selection salon,” where gorgeous women were dressed in scant lingerie and gesturing in velvety French accents was the real inspiration for their visit finally unmasked.

  The building was the home of Le Chabanais, the world’s most famous and luxurious maison closes, a French euphemism for brothels. It had none of the cavorting monkeys like the Moulin Rouge, just some of the world’s most beautiful women in the grandest possible settings—ne plus ultra, as the French called it.

  In later years, Ernest Hemingway, between visits to the six-day bike races, drew inspiration there or at neighboring cabarets, as did performers Humphrey Bogart, Marlene Dietrich, and Cary Grant.

  Artists found themselves so captivated they lived there—literally. The famous French painter Henry de Toulouse-Lautrec, an avid bike-racing fan who sketched several portraits of Arthur Zimmerman, deftly juggled his passions, drifting to and from the racetracks and his address of record: Le Chabanais. Many politicians and visiting royalty insisted that it be a part of any visit to Paris. At the 1900 Paris Universal Expo attended by Tom Cooper, Eddie Bald, and Floyd MacFarland, the visitors were so thrilled they gave the Japanese room, with its hanging rhino horns and exotic overtones, an award for, of all things, “best design.”

  And the place swarmed with athletes. Given that the proprietress, a one Madame Kelly, was a member of the high society Jockey Club, her equestrian friends, including prominent Americans, wore out the winding path leading to its doors. And wherever horsemen went, wheelmen were not far behind. Endeavoring to make visiting wheelmen feel at home, the Madame and her wealthy partners, who used nom de plumes like Pointy Nose and George the Cavalryman, had rooms fitted with Eroto-cycles, a half-bicycle, half-sex toy—a bizarre-looking contraption that only a turn-of-the-century wheelmen and willing courtesans could possibly figure out. Some people came there or to neighboring establishments like the Moulin Rouge just for the musicals, while others indulged in carnal pleasures. The faded notation for just such an establishment found buried in Taylor’s vast scrapbooks reveals nothing about the reason for his visit.

  The “storm” that commenced at six o’clock on the morning of March 12 would not subside until late June. The moment Taylor and Buckner stepped onto the streets of Paris for what they thought would be a peaceful early morni
ng stroll down the Avenue de l’Opera, shopkeepers, fashion designers, photographers, and journalists were at the ready asking questions such as, “How did you sleep last night, Major? How will you fare against the Great Jacquelin? How was your trip over?” For hours, Taylor shook the hands of fan after fan as he and Buckner wound down the long avenue. “It had been three years that the cycling season has passed without having seen this transatlantic star whose name has crossed seas and continents,” raved one reporter. “But this time,” he continued, “we have him!”

  Perhaps from years of watching Brady’s handling of Corbett and many theatrical stars, Taylor had learned how to handle the press. He also knew how to keep his name in their papers. “Major Taylor,” wrote one American journalist who was shocked he didn’t have a press agent, “has a happy facility of keeping in the public eye about as prominently as any theatrical star ever did.” But in France, the birthplace of world cycling, no effort would be needed. Everywhere he went he was mobbed, talked about, or written up.

  The French press, convinced his seemingly innocent early morning walk was worthy of a breaking news story, retraced his movements in Talmudic detail in their papers. One writer even issued a special dispatch, informing his readers that Taylor had actually “crossed the street.” Another reporter came dangerously close to crossing that historic line in the sand. “Taylor’s arrival in France . . . the heroic guardian of the Sabbath,” he said, “can only be compared in importance to Zimmerman’s visit of eight years ago.” Up to that point, such talk among reporters was considered sacrilege, so he carried on gingerly. “Taylor arouses curiosity all the more, and is surrounded by mystery because of the color of his skin.”

  Because he was being covered by some writers who knew nothing about bike racing, many reporters focused on him personally, delving deep into his childhood like inquisitive therapists. They also appeared to be competing for the preeminent physical description of him. In their unique 1901 French way, they described his flaring, v-shaped back muscles, broad shoulders, muscular legs, and washboard abdominals ad nauseam. But their greatest fixation seemed to gravitate toward his ankles and calves. If there were a hundred ways to describe calf muscles, the esteemed French writers coined them; they were feline-like, effeminate, powerful, shapely, and beautiful. “No man,” wrote one French journalist, “had ever been presented to the public in a more flattering fashion.”

  While they certainly profited in a big way, the obsession wasn’t the exclusive purview of the reporters who massed at the Hotel Scribe seeking interviews: the nation’s cycling-crazed tifosi were insisting on it. So much fanmail poured in demanding to know everything about him, newsrooms became overwhelmed. What was he wearing? What does he look like? What did he eat? Where did he go? And surely the favorite of the ladies: Is he married? “Major Taylor,” one of them gushed, “is one of the most beautiful athletes you will ever meet.” When front page stories weren’t enough, they published a four-page excursus with photos of him flexing and Daisy, “La future Madame,” coiffed elegantly.

  Taylor had grown accustomed to the singular life of fame, but this was a different strain. In America, it was less personal. In France, where Major Taylor posters were being hawked for five francs and countless people gathered at the Grand Palais to stare at his life-sized photograph, it was a penetrating, in-your-face infatuation. At first, he seemed to favor the American model. Preferring a fair amount of airspace around him, Taylor was, he said, a bit annoyed with all the people “who came to see me and looked at me right in the eyes.” “Are blacks not seen in Paris?” he asked a reporter, feeling as though he was the only black man in the country.

  Mustachioed photographers in frock coats tailed him like bear cubs, setting up their heavy tripods and capturing his every move, mood, and nuance. As he was without a doubt Europe’s most newsworthy subject, images of him in everything from his briefs to a tuxedo would appear in newspapers. Everybody wanted to be in the picture. The leaders of France’s expanding automobile industry, Henri Fournier and Count de Dion, made sure their faces were seen in papers all over Europe sitting proudly next to the visiting megastar in their early machines.

  Because the number of automobiles in France outnumbered those back home, Taylor was slow to warm to them. He even told a reporter he couldn’t stop laughing when he saw those heavy cars Parisians called omnibuses “wandering pitifully on the Champs Elysees.” But later, after the two automotive magnates invited him to lunches and fought over the promotional currency his endorsement would bring, Taylor thrilled them by announcing his desire to buy an automobile and bring it home with him. “The people of Worcester,” he said in a mammoth understatement, “will be rather surprised to see me come back on a 16-horsepower.”

  Trainer Buckner had seen great fame before but even he couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. He sat back and watched European nobility toss calling cards his way, inviting him to dinners and horse races. “The Europeans were absolutely crazy over him,” he would tell an American reporter. Only days off the der Grosse, before he had even stepped on a racetrack, France and Europe were full of Major Taylor. Had the girls of Les Chabanais modeled string bikinis on the Avenue de l'Opera during his stay, few would have taken notice.

  On the Avenue de la Grande Armee, where the gates open to the fortifications into Neuilly, stood the trendiest resort for wheelmen and wheelwomen in the world. The café de l’Esperance, one of many Parisian cafés for ardent sportsmen, was a bicyclist oasis where riders sat around sharing big, fat lies about their storied racing days. The place was so thoroughly enjoyable, people practically lived there. One rider reportedly hadn’t missed a single day in nearly a decade, leading some to wonder if he really had that wife he said he had.

  A predecessor to today’s sports bars, its attractions were numerous. On its walls were pictures and murals of all past French greats—Bourrillon, Huret, Cassignard, and others. Maps of all the best cycling routes were strewn about. On race days, after struggling just to get in the place, avid wheelmen gathered in the main room, sipping wine and staring at a large pillar on which were pinned telegrams announcing the results of races from across Europe. At all other times, people hovered either inside, in the midst of its Bohemian smoke and noisy poolrooms, or outside, where, like the rest of Paris, tables and chairs sat on a wide sidewalk.

  On the happy occasion when elite riders happened through the place, a wide path cleared, and caps were doffed. When its most revered foreign guest Arthur Zimmerman first strolled through its doors eight years before, the encomiums and the flatteries that were heaped upon him scarcely knew a limit. In the colloquial of the Café de l’Esperance, wheelmen hadn’t stopped chatting about Zimmie since that first visit.

  On a cloudy late March day in 1901, all such talk temporarily halted. In an unannounced visit, Major Taylor stopped by, nearly bringing the place to a standstill. Everyone gathered around, including former greats Bourrillon, Huret, and Morin, eyeing him up and down and asking for autographs. Newsmen, having already abandoned all their professional objectivity, joined in, giving the café the look, feel, and sound of a papal visit. Few men fit into such a place better than Taylor. Bring up gearing, tires, wheels, or that race he won back in ’97 and he could talk a person’s ear off.

  While surrounded by that entourage, conducting interviews, and reminiscing about his early racing days, Taylor’s attention was suddenly diverted. In the distance, he spotted smoke billowing from an automobile as it puttered down the long cobblestoned road leading to the café. The car, a spanking new Fournier two-seater, sputtered to the curb. The hazy sketch of a man materialized out from its wind-whipped interior. Through the fog, Taylor saw a majestic man, heavily muscled, placing a white straw hat over his mussed hair.

  It was Edmond Jacquelin, the Triple Crown winner and champion of the world. The gathering, unable to believe their good fortune, tossed confetti on the boulevard and quietly cleared a path. The two men—one black, one white, one from the New World, the other
the Old World, one brash, the other reserved, both skilled boxers—circled each other like two heavyweight prizefighters. Jacquelin’s taller frame towered over Taylor, his steely eyes gazing down at him. Taylor looked up and offered his hand. There was a long pause. Finally, with a pained smile, Jacquelin shook Taylor’s hand. The world’s fittest men locked hands firmly together.

  The crowd gasped.

  “I did not expect to find a very large man,” Jacquelin then said, “but you are really smaller than I was led to believe.”

  “I was led to understand that you were a very large man for a sprinter,” said Taylor, “but did not expect to find a giant as you are.”

  Someone tossed a tape measure at them. They began to take measurements. Laughter interrupted the seriousness of the occasion.

  “You have remarkably big legs,” said Taylor, in a relaxed jocularity.

  “Yes, but yours are much prettier,” laughed Jacquelin.

  “That’s not the point,” said Taylor. “I am afraid yours might be quicker.”

  “But suppose yours prove quicker than mine. What then?” retorted Jacquelin.

  As the two racers continued their exchange, the café owner brought out a bottle of vintage champagne and popped the cork. Jacquelin, born in Santenay, a well-known appellation of Burgundy wine, raised his glass and looked on in astonishment as Taylor sipped his glass of water. Flabbergasted at his ability to abstain, a reporter later asked him how he did it amid so much peer pressure.