Major Taylor

by Conrad Kerber

  The chairman and secretary of the League of Victorian Wheelmen, assigned to greet them at the rail station, found themselves choked off by the growing multitude. The crowds were so thick, their coachmen had difficulty steering their horses in and out of the “surging crowd” that awaited the Taylors at their hotel. That evening, nearly everyone of note in Melbourne showed up at the Port Philip Hotel for a “monster welcome reception” held in their honor. McIntosh, who considered it his primary calling in life to keep everyone happy and in drink, strutted around making sure champagne glasses were topped off at all times. “McIntosh,” someone joked, “gave away enough champagne to christen every battleship in Europe.”

  Melbourne’s Lord Mayor Jeffries made a toast to Taylor’s worldwide fame and his reputation as a true gentlemen and first-class sportsman. Following a thunderous applause, Taylor took to the podium and told the audience how overwhelmed he was with the hospitality and kindness of everyone in Australia. He added that while he knew everyone had heard of his exploits on the tracks throughout the world, “no one present,” he felt sure, “had heard anything of his ability as a speaker.” His persiflage brought laughter all around. Daisy looked up at him, smiling demurely while batting her eyelashes.

  Rundown from all the traveling, riding in the rain, responding to press attention, and overall excitement of his honeymoon, Major took ill with a nasty flu and fever. At one point his temperature exceeded 104 degrees. For the better part of two weeks, he hunkered down in his Melbourne hotel room to recover. While he may have been relegated to his room, his inactivity didn’t dampen his celebrity. He was the talk of the town. Throughout the day and night, Australian newsmen hovered in the lobby of the Grand Hotel in curious bunches, clamoring to be the first to scavenge any tidbit of news about his condition from Daisy or his doctor. When there was nothing new to report they simply elaborated on the previous day’s story, which was, in essence, an elaboration of the day before.

  Taylor’s fame was so widespread even theatrical promoters tried piggybacking on the public’s fascination toward him. “What Major Taylor is as a record-breaker in the cycling world,” trumpeted Old Dreary, a theatrical promoter, “so ‘Zaza’ promises to prove in the theatrical sphere.” Taylor must have read that ad and chuckled. Cigarette manufacturers, of all people, also tried leveraging his wide-reaching fame. Has Major Taylor heard, asked the makers of Home Cigarettes before lying through their teeth, “our cigarettes do not injure one in training?”

  By mid-February, Taylor had recovered. In front of crowds at the St. Kilda Cricket Grounds, similar in size to those in Sydney, he put on a clinic, winning the International Scratch Race and the Grand Match Race, among others. “It’s no use,” remarked Joe Morgan, one of his Australian rivals. “He’s just too good.”

  Between the Melbournian public and the press, there was no end to the superlatives heaped on him or the descriptive nature of his physique. “Major Taylor is a very cleanly built, neatly packed parcel of humanity,” claimed one reporter before moving on to the ubiquitous comparison of him to a racehorse. “No comparison of his build would be better than perhaps that of a thoroughbred racehorse . . . being highly strung, alert, nimble, quick to take advantage of an opportunity, and with an indomitable determination to pursue to the very end.”

  Before leaving Melbourne, Taylor took part in the Racing Men Association’s inaugural Benefit Race. Profits from the race would help support cyclists injured from racing. With Taylor’s name on the race program, it seemed a certain success. Yet despite the weather being so atrocious that one reporter deemed “it being nothing short of heroism to venture out at all,” eight thousand fans showed up, helping to bankroll the fund for some time to follow.

  Taylor, always a fair-weather rider, was having a bad-leg day, losing to a talented Aussie named Joe Morgan. Always the gentlemen even in defeat, Taylor rolled over to Morgan and shook his hand. “Just the fortunes of war,” he said graciously. When asked by a reporter if the race was fair, Taylor replied, “I didn’t congratulate and shake Morgan’s hand for show. I meant it.” But Morgan could not suppress his feelings. “I feel as sprightly as a punching bag,” beamed a waterlogged Morgan. Beating a legend like Major Taylor was enough to make a man the talk of his town for the rest of his life. Feeling as though he had just slain Achilles, Morgan scampered home, then surely spent his remaining years reliving the moment to everyone who would listen. “It was the proudest moment of my life,” he said later, his eyes welling up.

  Despite his slow start, Taylor was pleased with his stay in Melbourne. “Although I was a sick man when I reached Melbourne,” he later remembered, “I left that city in a blaze of glory . . .”

  From Melbourne they sped northeast on the Great Southern Railway back to Sydney. Major was scheduled to compete in the lucrative Sydney Thousand Handicap beginning on March 7, 1903. Considering that the average annual income at the time was a couple hundred dollars, the huge purse—at $5,000, the richest in the world for a nonmatch race—attracted professionals from all over the world. For many riders, winning meant financial salvation, and with 114 cyclists competing in the event, collaboration among them was a certainty. With all these forces mitigating against him, Taylor knew he stood little chance of winning.

  The semifinals were scheduled to start in the evening under the newly installed arc lights, but as race day dawned, sheets of rain dropped out of the Australian skies, soaking the grandstand and muddying up the infield. A convention of cyclists stirred nervously in the riders’ room, listening to the rain ping off the roof while waiting for the weather to stabilize. It didn’t. Hour after hour, the rains kept falling.

  Meanwhile, anticipating perhaps the largest crowd ever to attend a sporting event, the railroad commissioners held emergency meetings to discuss the best way to handle the influx. Australians were so eager to see the races that when the rain finally relented at seven o’clock that evening, newspapers were “besieged” by fans demanding to know if the race was on. But by then, the city was saturated and the race called off.

  Days later, under sunny skies, a relatively unknown American named Norman Hopper, given nearly a football-field’s head start by the handicappers, won the event by a nose. Sensing collusion, a reporter howled his disapproval. “Taylor has proven himself a clean sportsmen and the adoption of the tactics of the cricket hoodlums, instead of impressing the visitor, must oppress him.” Taylor had the opportunity to join in combinations with other riders, but as usual, he chose not to. “I could have bought a place in the final of the Sydney Thousand,” he said, “but I’m here to win races not buy them.”

  The alleged collusion stirred up a hornet’s nest in Sydney. The newsmen swooped in, asking never-ending questions and banging out story after story for weeks after Taylor’s departure. Regardless of the outcome of the race—which crystallized the nickname “Huge Deal” for McIntosh—it was a resounding financial success; an astounding fifty-five thousand fans showed up, quite possibly a world record.

  At the end of March, following their stopover in Sydney, Daisy and Major turned around and rolled nine hundred miles southwest, past Melbourne and into the city of Adelaide. The city was ready for them. At the train station, they were engulfed by another eager throng, then entertained at a reception party at their hotel on par with those in Sydney and Melbourne. McIntosh roamed about the place, smothering guests in broad smiles and sneering at his caterers who failed to top off champagne glasses. “McIntosh turned on the parties as though there was no future,” one of his friends recalled.

  By this time, Taylor was peaking. Unfortunately, the astute Australian handicappers knew it. At one event, the two-mile Adelaide Wheel Race, Taylor’s lonely figure hung so far back of the rest of the field he may as well have started from the outback. One of his fourteen rivals, a brawny Aussie named John Madden, the designated limitman, bent over his machine some three-and-a-half football fields ahead of him. Taylor must have had to strain his eyes just to see him.

 
It didn’t make any difference. In front of a crowd of twenty-two thousand, among the largest in Adelaide history, Taylor mowed down twelve other riders before somehow blowing past Madden right before the line. It was an amazing display of raw speed. “Experts here are now satisfied,” confessed one previously agnostic Australian reporter, “that he is really the marvel that the continental and American press proclaimed him to be.”

  Days passed. Record crowds continued to pour into the track, even in the rain. Taylor continued to win races, including the prestigious Sir Edwin Smith Stakes and the Walne Stakes. “He simply won as he liked,” grunted one of his rivals before stalking off the track

  At a ceremony after the Smith Stakes, a photographer gathered a contingent of “titled aristocracy” for a photo shoot. Taylor, looking modest and contemplative, sat on his bicycle, the colorful winner’s ribbon draping from his shoulder down to his feet. Trainer Melville straddled Taylor’s rear wheel, his scarecrowish figure merging flawlessly with his forlorn countenance. “Sir and Lady something,” wrote one American reporter, referring to Lady Smith and her noble husband, stood next to Taylor, covered from neck to feet in heavy Edwardian garb. Thick-set Macintosh, perhaps ruminating on how best to spend his profits, was the only one exhibiting any semblance of a smile. He had his reasons. Taylor’s visits, one man raved, “puts the league on velvet.”

  Before leaving town, Daisy and Major paid an unannounced and heartfelt visit to a private hospital. There, they expressed their sympathies to a rider named Wayne who had been seriously injured during a race that Taylor attended. Lying there in despair and agonizing over his future as a cyclist, Wayne felt overwhelmed by their compassion.

  On April 16, 1903, under a blue moon, Major and Daisy left the land down under, having turned the place upside down. In twenty-seven races stretched out over nearly four months, Major had won an astounding twenty-three. At track after track, he had gained the admiration of thousands of Australians. “The events,” wrote one reporter, “aroused a pitch of enthusiasm that has never been witnessed here before.”

  Back in the states, a New York Times editor who had been following the Taylors’ overseas odyssey was amazed at the attention the honeymooners were receiving as well as all the money being made. “Major Taylor, who combines cycling with preaching in the Methodist chapels on Sundays, is far on his way to making a fortune . . . far more than the best-paid editors, university professors, or nine-tenths of the legal profession.”

  In the years after Arthur Zimmerman’s visit, cycling had lost some of its popularity in Australia. Taylor’s tour dramatically changed all that. “It will be many long years,” wrote a track scribe with a twinge of nostalgia, “before the American’s phenomenal rides are forgotten.”

  Having signed a contract with the French tandem of Breyer and Coquelle before going to Australia, the Taylors’ ship steamed out over the Indian Ocean toward the Suez Canal en route to Europe. Somewhere along the way, the ship experienced mechanical problems and had to be serviced in India, stretching out their voyage to over a month. Though Major had never been anywhere near India before, people certainly knew who he was. While idling there, he was lionized by the press and the public. They presented him with an elegant ebony cane handcrafted by Indian artisans, a high-status Victorian walking stick often used by barristers assigned to the high courts of India. It was an unexpected gift that he prized highly.

  When they finally arrived in France, the European cyclists were in prime condition and Major had lost his edge. What followed was the same old traveling-man-from-America pattern: lose early, gain form slowly, then bury the natives on their home turf. Before leaving, despite sleeping upright in ordinary day coaches nearly every night, he took twenty-eight firsts, twenty-one seconds and seven thirds. And as he had done the year before, he defeated Thor Ellegaard on a Monday—the day after he had been crowned 1903 champion of the world. Large crowds continued to flock to see Taylor race, including more than eighty-five thousand at a meet in Paris.

  This four-month European excursion turned into a romantic and nomadic haze that neither of them would forget. Her first time experiencing the diverse sights and sounds of the Old World, Daisy was in awe as reporters, photographers, and sports fans mobbed them at every stop. For her, each day was a European postcard: fields of lavender, lavish chateaus, centuries-old farms and churches, everything steeped in history.

  Before setting sail from Cherbourg, Daisy and Major finished their long honeymoon with a shopping spree. They kicked a few tires around Paris, bought a French car and motorcycle, then rode them onto their departing ship. A sizable crowd saw them off in grand style. The society writers in the Parisian dailies launched into a frenzy. In fine detail, they described Daisy’s elegant “up-to-date” raiment and Major’s “gentlemanly bow with cap in hand” as they smiled and waved good-bye to their European friends, an extra $40,000 lining their pockets. It would be nearly twenty years before a baseball player, a man named Ruth, made that kind of money. A penniless horse-tender not so many years before, Taylor was now one of the wealthiest athletes. “Of all those people who used to poke fun at the Major,” wrote sportswriter Charles Sinsabaugh, “how many today are able to show the bank account that this colored boy might expose? Not one.”

  A bright ray of sunlight hovered over the Wilhelm der Grosse as it carried the Taylors and other dignitaries—William Rockefeller and Cardinal James Gibbons—west across the Atlantic. They were on their honeymoon, they were in love, and they were the talk of the civilized world. Life couldn’t get any better. Over an eight-month period, the young couple had met countless celebrities, civic leaders, royalty, and sportsmen. They had been invited to elaborate social gatherings at the finest establishments on three continents. They were feted and praised by religious leaders in town after town. At every turn they had set an example of class, elegance, and dignity for all to see and follow, especially African Americans who looked to them as role models.

  But they had also traveled more than twenty-five thousand grueling miles. Upon his arrival on September 23, Major unloaded his new toys, turned the hand crank on his Renault, and announced his retirement to the press. “I am satisfied I have done enough,” he said.

  PART III

  Chapter 20

  GOING DOWN UNDER

  At no point during his twenty-seven years had Hugh McIntosh been taught the meaning of the word no; maybe his inability to understand the concept began when he was a penniless teenager pedaling pies at racetracks throughout Australia. The moment he received word of Taylor’s retirement, he scurried to a telegraph office and fired off a barrage of cablegrams.

  McIntosh wasn’t the only one after him. Astounded by the number and enthusiasm of the fans in 1902–1903, several Australian promoters wired competing offers. But Taylor, who had probably never been serious about retiring or signing with anyone other than McIntosh, got better at the negotiating game each year. Leaving time for rival promoters to up the ante in their bidding war, he shocked locals by storming around Worcester at the dizzying speed of fifteen miles per hour in his new Renault, the tousled hair of his poodle whipping in the wind.

  No doubt taking Taylor’s retirement threats seriously, perhaps McIntosh slid a quote from an Australian paper into one of his cables. “If I ever ride again,” Taylor had said, “it will be right here in Australia.”

  Still in an unpacking mode and busy renovating his house, Taylor stalled. Once again backed by a well-heeled Sydney syndicate that his rivals called “a school of sharks,” McIntosh offered a contract on par with the previous season, again no Sundays. This time, however, he wanted Taylor to stay longer and race more often. But after eight years of nonstop travel, Taylor was concerned he might start wearing down, if not physically, perhaps mentally. In his cabled response, he not only rejected more frequent racing but asked for £500 more than the previous season. “. . . will not guarantee to race more than three times weekly for £2,000 exclusive of prizes,” he wrote.

  Acced
ing to Taylor’s demands for a thinner racing schedule, McIntosh sent over a contract for his signature. Suddenly, wrote the Worcester Telegram of his short-lived retirement plans, “Taylor had a change of heart.” To not accept such an offer, remarked Taylor, “was like passing up too good a thing.” On October 28, 1903, just weeks after returning, Taylor signed on, making his perhaps the shortest retirement on record.

  But had he been paying close attention, Taylor may have sensed something different in McIntosh’s tone this time around, as if he were leaving something out, something if not nefarious perhaps a bit cunning.

  Oblivious to it all and still beaming over her honeymoon experience from the previous season, Daisy scurried through the house, stuffing the luggage she had just unpacked. At 10:12 on the morning of November 13, 1903, they boarded a California, bound train, pausing in Indy for a long interview with reporter Milton Lewis, who once tutored Taylor’s siblings. From Oakland they ferried over to the Broadway wharf and then steamed across the Pacific on the Sonoma, stopping briefly in New Zealand before arriving seasick in Sydney.

  But this time, Sydney would have a different feel to it. Already lurking at the Sydney Cricket Grounds stood a frosty, calculating man who had often been at the center of Taylor’s greatest distress.

  People often say that everyone has a polar opposite somewhere in the world. If they are right, the man waiting onshore was, for Taylor, just such a man.

  Floyd MacFarland was not a typical bully; most bullies are more bark than bite. With six-foot-four inches of sinuous muscle, MacFarland could—and occasionally did—take matters into his own hands. Twenty-six years old in 1904, one year older than Taylor, the long, linear San Jose resident was a blunt man with a low, insinuating voice and clawlike hands. He was a dyspeptic man—fighting, raging, and hauling off at racing officials, rivals, promoters, even spectators at the drop of a hat. Ever since he first materialized on the prestigious Eastern tracks in the mid-’90s, he was at times such a God-awful nuisance, officials didn’t know what to do with him. While his torrential outbursts and remarkable racing skills helped fill the stands, racing officials grew concerned that his antics, taken too far, may harm bike racing’s image. No matter what they tried, MacFarland continued to cause trouble, eventually becoming among the most heavily fined and oft-suspended riders in the peloton. During one six-day race in Boston, he lunged and cussed at paying customers, becoming such a holy terror the NCA rehabilitated him with a six-month sentence for “rioting.”