After his long period of convalescence followed by weeks of training himself nearly into the ground, Taylor glided back to the universe amazingly fit and lean. He now had an important decision to make. Upon completion of his first series of races, he had fulfilled his contract with Coquelle. With the lingering lawsuit finally settled, he could avoid any further embarrassment. Major Taylor was free to go home and retire in peace. He sat down and had a heart-to-heart talk with Daisy. He asked her if she wanted to go home. “Just say the word,” he said. Before she could respond, he leaned across a café table and winked at her. “I’m just striking my winning form,” he said assertively. “I did not want to leave Europe,” he remembered later, “until I made a credible showing against the new field of riders over there.” After years of careful and caring observation, no one could read Major’s idiosyncrasies better than Daisy. Seeing that familiar competitive gleam in his eyes, she shook her head. No, she did not want to go home.
Apparently Mrs. Daisy Taylor wanted to stick around and watch huge swaths of people eating their words. She would not regret her decision. One by one, the greatest cyclists in the world, new pros and veterans alike, fell by the wayside: Poulain, the previous year’s French champion; Friol, current French champion; Penyon, English champion; Verri, Italian champion; Van Der Borne, Belgian champion; Jacquelin; and then Thor Ellegaard, Danish champion. It was a remarkable comeback. Having seen Taylor on his first visit, Ellegaard, a two-time world champion, was stunned at the incredible turnaround. “In all our great match races,” he told Taylor humbly, “I have never seen you display such form . . .”
The big crowds, which had subsided because of his weak early performances, returned. The reporters ate their words and newspapers flew off the stands again. L’Auto’s daily circulation, which was twenty-five thousand before Taylor’s 1901 visit, reached a quarter million. Daisy smiled. Coquelle wiped the sweat from his brow, then ran to the bank. And just in case anyone thought his series of wins were flukes, Taylor bludgeoned them a second time.
In an important handicap event called the Race of Nations, Taylor passed Dupre, Friol, Schilling, Rutt, and others. Behind him, the peloton was in shambles—the world’s fastest men scattered all over the track. There was only one man left out in front of him, a ghost from the past riding hell-for-leather. Out of the corner of his eye, just as he had back in 1901, Edmond Jacquelin, his face twisted in pain, watched helplessly as Taylor ripped by him for a convincing win. Taylor had set a track record right in front of his old rival, the ultimate payback against his detractors. “We had the last laugh,” he noted with an avenging tone, “and the papers were profuse in their apologies for rushing to their conclusions.”
Before sailing home that fall, Taylor set two world records that would withstand decades and thousands of assaults—the half-mile standing start in :42 1/5, followed by the quarter mile in :25 2/5, both on the Buffalo Track in Paris. It took a while, wrote the Worcester Telegram, but “once he got going he cleaned them all up.” All things considered—his age, inability to train in the South, and his long layoff—the latter half of 1907 may have been the most remarkable of his celebrated career. “Major Taylor,” wrote Coquelle, “was the most extraordinary, the most versatile, the most colorful, the most popular, the champion around whom more legends have gathered than any other, and whose life story most resembles a fairytale.”
But in the real world, all fairytales eventually end. The Taylors returned in 1908 with much of the same results—a sluggish start followed by a stronger finish. But for Daisy, every race that season took on a feeling of finality. Unlike previous seasons, she often stayed in Paris while Major’s train whistled into one European town after another. Though he began winning again toward the end of the trip, she couldn’t help but notice that it took longer each year for him to find his form. His age was showing. During one race his good friend and mentor Birdie Munger, who was in Paris on business, had the satisfaction of watching him win by a fraction. But the twenty-length routs of yore were now measured in inches.
In September, Daisy saw him race for the last time. He had a different way about him, heaviness in his stride. At times, he looked stale, tired, uninterested. Pictured wearing pants drifting halfway up his lower leg, even his meticulous attention to his attire began slipping. There was inevitability in the air, a strong sense that things would never be the same. “The advancing years,” wrote one columnist upon his return, “have put on him the handicap which nothing can beat out.”
Chapter 22
MY DARLING WIFE, I WANT TO COME HOME
The spring of 1909 emerged under rain clouds. So did much of the summer and fall. Taylor returned to his headquarters in Paris for one last season, struggling with the unusually wet weather, the waning interest in him, and the inevitable physical decline of aging. Perhaps not wanting to see him on his last racing legs and tired of lugging their daughter through myriad hotels, Daisy watched Sydney grow up in Worcester along with her maids and servants.
It would prove to be a wise decision. There was little to cheer about that season, especially the concession Taylor made to Breyer and Coquelle. Since breaking into professional racing in 1896, Taylor had almost certainly drawn more fans than any athlete in any sport anywhere in the world. But his position as the world’s fastest man and greatest draw was fleeting. The enormous crowds that used to show up to watch him work out and annoyed him when they “looked him right in the eye,” became a thing of the past. And everybody knew it, especially Coquelle, who had coldly given him the choice between racing Sundays or staying home.
As a deeply religious man, it had been an agonizing decision, a partial apostasy that weighed heavily on him. He had signed reluctantly. “I was obliged to break my rule never to ride on the Sabbath . . . when I thought of my wife and child I weakened, as better men have done, and signed the agreement that demanded my racing on Sunday.” Birdie Munger thought he’d never see the day. “I did not expect that,” he had told the Boston Globe, “for I believed Taylor would stick to his decision not to race on Sunday until he died.” While working on Taylor’s machine one Sunday in 1899, Munger told the Globe that Taylor even threatened to go home if he persisted. It would be only the first of many daggers to his pride. The next would come later—on the track.
In each town—Paris, Rome, Copenhagen, Milan, Bologna, Geneva, Roanne—he sat alone in his hotel room at all hours of the day and night, composing heartfelt letters to Daisy and Sydney, by then a lively five-year-old. In the letters his intense love for them flowed from each page, as did his profound feelings of loneliness and despair. They reveal the heart, mind, and soul of a world-famous athlete on the decline, a man who had largely concealed his inner self from his fans and the press.
From his room at Berlin's Hotel Askanischer Hof in June 1909, Taylor watched the rain fall while penning a note on a postcard in the flowing Victorian script of that lost era. His mood, as it had throughout his career, mirrored the weather.
Daisy, my dear wife . . . everything is beautiful but the weather, and it is horrid. . . .Do not be surprised to see me at any old time now as I am riding very badly and things are not coming along my way too fast so I am liable to beat it for home soon. How is my darling little Sydney, how I long to see her, and as for you, dearie, I just cannot begin to tell you how very much I should like to hear from my granny more. . . . Don’t forget to pray for me, you and little Sydney too. I need your prayers every minute in the day. Now good bye to both my dears, may God continue to keep you both for me, love and kisses from your loving husband. Marshall.
His physical decline in previous years came gradually, like cotton falling through still air. But the regrettable season of 1909 saw a precipitous downward slide, more like a boulder tumbling down a cliff.
June 14, 1909
Daisy, my darling wife, only a few lines to say that I did not do as well as I expected to in the Grand prix of Neuilly. Rutt beat me in the semifinal, and he won the final also from Dupre. . . .
Friol, Poulain and I were all shut out in our heats. I was awfully disappointed at not having made a better showing, because I was feeling fine, never felt better, but I was not there with the kick.
A few weeks later amid another rainstorm in Düsseldorf, Germany, Taylor watched out over the River Rhine, writing over the familiar din of trains whistling into town:
I failed again in the Grand prix of Buffalo last Thursday night, failed to even get into the final. And why? Try as hard as I may, I simply cannot ride as well as I did last year, and I have already had to make several sacrifices and concessions in my contract which means several hundred dollars, all because I cannot win often enough. But I am trying to use the best possible judgment in every way, to get all out of this seasons riding I can, because in all probability this is my windup, unless I can make good in the championship. So far I have only seven hundred dollars to show for all my hard work and tiresome sleepless nights, and this season is more than half gone.
Strangely, given his estimated net worth of around $75,000 to $100,000 in 1909 dollars, many of his letters revolved around money and expectations of greater material possessions—expectations he either placed on himself or was placed on him by others.
I am so pleased that you are a home loving girl, and that you appreciate your little home and keep it up so well, it makes me long to see you in a still nicer one, or in a beautiful little farm. You know how pleased I would be to give you all those nice things if I could, don’t you dearie. But what I have given you was the best I could afford, and if the time ever comes that I can afford better, you will have still a nicer house.
Now dearie, about coming home; It is true I am not winning as I expected to, but I am still getting paid for getting up, and as badly and as anxious as I am to see you and dear little Sydney and to be home with you once more, don’t you think I had better stay a while longer and get as much money as I can before leaving, because dearie, this will surely be my finish this season owing to the poor showing I have been making so far, so for that reason I rather thought I had better make as much as possible while the sun shines.
Taylor’s spirits temporarily lifted when he saw his friend, Hugh McIntosh, stirring in the grandstand one afternoon. After meeting with William Brady in New York, McIntosh romped through Paris with a gorgeous actress with whom he was having an affair, trying to track down Brady’s old heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries. America had been searching the four corners of the earth for a “great white hope” to dethrone Jack Johnson, the new black heavyweight champion of the world. McIntosh, who had promoted the racially charged Johnson-Burns fight in Australia in 1908, thought he could dust off the thirty-five-year-old former champion and throw him in the ring with the younger Johnson. Taylor must have chuckled before wishing him good luck with such a crazy endeavor.
McIntosh had come into Taylor’s good graces for his role in booting Floyd MacFarland and Iver Lawson out of Australia following their callous treatment of him. Deep into the reminiscing stage of his career, Taylor probably stayed up into the wee hours of the night with his friend, reliving that memorable royal honeymoon year of 1903. Underneath his magisterial and tough-guy persona, McIntosh had a soft spot for the downtrodden, including African Americans. One day, he noticed that a black man whom he had befriended at a Turkish bath in Australia was very ill. He asked him what had happened. When he was told that he had been beaten mercilessly by a racist white man, McIntosh agreed to replace the man’s wages so that he no longer had to work in pain. It was a pledge he honored for the rest of the man’s life.
McIntosh certainly enjoyed the fortune he made during Taylor’s visits to Australia. “Gates of 50,000 to 60,000 were commonplace,” he told the Sporting Globe. But he also appreciated what Taylor stood for and the message he had so eloquently spread. “He was almost as good a preacher as he was a cyclist,” he often boasted.
McIntosh wished Taylor well, then slipped into the night, never to be seen again by Taylor.
Taylor then tried putting on a brave face as he composed another letter to Daisy:
My darling wife: I am getting down to weight slowly; I haven’t got it on your friend Jim Jeffries very much now. Ha. Ha. Ha. After putting in a good solid weeks work when I come back next Monday I ought to be coming along nicely. I am sprinting as fast as ever even now but I am not strong enough just yet, it takes a long time for that part of my training, but it will come in time, you know . . . dearie how I wish you were here . . .
He soldiered on, riding and living in his own personal purgatory.
I rode yesterday against Poulain, Meyers and Arend, and what do you think, I actually finished last in every heat. . . . Well, I cannot possibly do any better, I have tried and tried, and have done everything possible to get going faster, but nothing I have tried seems to be of any use, so there. I am really discouraged for once in my life, and I am starting for Copenhagen at eight o’clock. It is now six a.m., and I would much rather be starting for home, dearie. However, I am going to be brave and try to make the best of it, but it surely makes me feel bad to think that I am well and strong but cannot beat these fellows. Well, I hope it will be over soon. It came near being over with yesterday, as I had another fine of a hundred francs to pay and it was most unjust at that. But say, sweetheart, when a man is married and has a good wife as I have, and a nice little baby girl, he will take a good deal, and stand for many things that he would not, were he not married. So . . . I just paid my fine like a little soldier, but it did hurt me so. I stand for many things now that I never thought I could put up with, and for which I never would stand up before I married.
When Daisy did not reciprocate promptly, Taylor’s loneliness and anguish deepened, revealing vulnerabilities few knew he had.
Why don’t you write any more dearie, almost in for over two weeks since I had a letter from you . . . I have received three post cards . . . but no letters, why have you stopped writing me? How is my dear baby? Tell her that dad will be home soon and he is going to bring home something nice from Berlin, and also you too if you are a good girl dearie. Now I must close, will write to you again from Hanover. From your loving husband Marshall.
His intense love for Daisy was equaled only by his love for Sydney, who was frittering away time with their poodle and pet kangaroo in their backyard.
My darling little Sydney, here is a letter and some post cards for you from Berlin; I know you will be pleased to get them. Granny told me in one of her letters that you are now big enough to go to Sunday school, and that you are such a good little girl, I was very pleased when I read that and I hope that you will not miss a Sunday now that you have started, and if you go every Sunday “dad” will bring you something nice when I come home. I have tried to send you postcards every day, but I think I have sent you all of the different kinds; it is hard to find new ones. . . . you must take care of all the cards that dad sends to you and show them all to me when I come home. Now good bye, be a good little girl every day . . . your dear daddy. You must not forget to pray for daddy every night.
Now nearly thirty-two years old, Taylor’s body couldn’t recover from all the tiresome train travel like it had in his younger days. On the backstretch, wheelmen murmured that he was through. He had strayed into the great slipstream in which all athletes eventually find themselves. He was near wit’s end as he bedded down for the night at the Palace Hotel S. Marco in the Etruscan city of Bologna, the steady susurration of the river Po in the distance.
August 28 1909.
Daisy my dear wife: . . . I am going to make one more desperate attempt to beat these boys before I leave, but I cannot do it while traveling so much . . . I did not get to ride my match with Poulain as I expected last Thursday night owing to my very poor showing in the big race in Copenhagen, but if I can get to riding like my old self I can easily get a match with him later. I would also like a match with Dupre if I get going better. Now cheer up both of my dear girls, it won’t be very long before you will have your own dear boy back with you o
nce more, and dearie how pleased we shall be after almost five long months now, but it seems more like years than months doesn’t it dearie; so keep up your courage and try and make out for a few weeks more.
October rolled in with thick dark clouds and strong autumn winds. Because he was not of the right mind to sit through a spate of emotional farewell parties, Taylor did not announce his true intentions to the press. In fact, he cut off their scent by expressing his desire to return in 1910. It seems to have worked. Comparatively few showed up on October 10, as he emerged on a European track for the last time amid the Roman-era ruins in Roanne, France.
What he had asked for in his letter to Daisy he received; Coquelle had saved Charles Dupre, the best rider for last. In match races, the young Frenchman had ridden away from every top rider that year. He had also won the prestigious Grand Prix of Paris before topping off his remarkable season by becoming world champion.
A pistol was raised at the line. The startman squeezed his fingers around the trigger. Dupre, always a fast breaker, tore from the gate at a blistering pace. Taylor, his famous early speed from the turn-of-the-century now a thing of the past, chugged in behind, trailing him by several lengths. The hometown crowd, sensing another French rout, roared as the two men careened around the backstretch into the homestretch, both preparing to unleash their greatest efforts to the finish line . . .
Meanwhile, back in Worcester, Daisy read another letter confirming the end was near:
Well dearie I had a talk with Coquelle about next season, and it is all off. He did not tell me outright that he could not engage me, but told me openly that he could not give me what I asked for and of course, I could not come over for what he offered me . . .
Major Taylor Page 38