Major Taylor

by Conrad Kerber

  . . . Now after the terrible experience of this season, I am not at all grieved because I am not coming over again next year, but quite to the contrary, I am indeed pleased. As I told you several times before, dearie, I am full up with this business, and have been for a long time, and this season’s work just put the finishing touches on it. I regret very much now that I ever came back again, because if I had finished last year, you see how nice it would have been for you and little Sydney to have been with me on my last successful racing season and we could have finished by trimming them all, and on top. One thing that I am pleased for dearie, and that is that you and Sydney were not here to see everybody trimming me this year, so perhaps it is just as well that you did not come . . .

  Several hundred times on tracks all over the world, Major Taylor had sat behind a rival poised for one of his famous last-second surges. But this was no ordinary race, and Taylor’s speed was no longer considered extraordinary. Late on that crisp autumn day, the final bell signaling the final turn in the storied international career of Major Taylor rang out over the grandstand.* A loud echo reverberated back, just as an awed crowd watched Taylor, in a last show of supreme power and utter defiance, rip forward with every amp of his old power, crossing the line ahead of the new champion of the world. Dupre’s hometown fans sat cold and motionless in their seats as the curtain fell on the career of an American legend. “In my opinion,” one racetracker wrote, “he’s the greatest racing cyclist the world has ever seen . . .”

  Taylor scanned the faces in the crowd as they quietly slipped out of the stands. A somber group of diehard fans, some of whom had followed him since his first visit to the continent, watched as he left the track—his legacy and his shadow growing larger as he walked off into the sunset. “It is not likely,” one man uttered “that we shall look on his like again . . .”

  On October 16, 1909, Taylor left Paris’s Gare St. Lazare station for the last time. Gone were the crush of fans and reporters that had greeted him his first time to France. He gazed out his window as the train chattered west over the same terrain that first brought him to Paris during that memorable season of 1901. His mind rolled back to that carefree evening when he entertained Parisians with his remarkable singing voice and piano playing skills from the lobby of the Malesherbes Hotel. He remembered the grand match races against Jacquelin, a glaze of nostalgia coating his eyes. “In his prime,” Taylor would reminisce to a lone reporter, “Jacquelin was a faster rider than any of the men on the wheel today.”

  As he and five hundred other passengers boarded the La Provence in Havre, thick black clouds furrowed overhead. A light rain fell. Lingering over the Atlantic, a perfect storm awaited them. Twenty-four hours later, it struck with tremendous force. Gigantic tidal waves buckled steel plates and a tubular ventilator, threatening to capsize the vessel. Violently seasick, Taylor and other passengers hung on to whatever they could for dear life. Suddenly, sections of the handrail broke off and were carried away by the storm. Everyone onboard was seized by fear.

  Back in Worcester, Sydney by her side, Daisy was alarmed by the shuffling feet of the postman. She sat down to read the last of the letters from her homesick husband.

  Say, dearie, how anxiously I am counting every minute of the time that remains, just as I imagine someone in jail or prison must feel after doing about five years hard labor. Each month that I have put in over here seems like a year to me, but thank God it will soon be over with, and then I can return to you, dearie, well and strong, just as I left you; please God.

  The ship shivered and shook and metal bended and creaked as the bow plunged headlong into the sea and the stern rose toward the dark sky. Each time the ship’s bow pointed back down, claimed one passenger, “it seemed as if it would be its last.” Somehow the ship’s orchestra, trying to calm the passengers, played on into the dark of the night. “When the nose of the ship pointed down after climbing over an immense wave,” Taylor later told a reporter as though he was describing what would become of his own life, “it seemed as if it would never point upward again.”

  ___________

  * Taylor did compete in a few insignificant races in America in 1910.

  Chapter 23

  HUMILITY

  Eight years later, on a September day in 1917, Birdie Munger raced down a lonely New England road on his way to New Jersey. Not wanting to be late for an important event being held at the Vailsburg Track, he ripped along in his car, challenging the outer reaches of the speed limit. As he sped into a blind turn, out of the corner of his eye he spotted something rushing toward him at the same speed. He tried veering out of the way, but it was too late. He never said exactly what type of vehicle he hit, but whatever it was, it didn’t have a lot of cushioning to it. After colliding broadside, both cars came to unhappy halts in a ditch. Munger piled out onto the dust-covered road shaken, but in better condition than his car.

  Nothing was going to stop him from getting to the Vailsburg Track on time. He vacated his battered car, waved his thumb in the eastbound lane, went home, borrowed a friend’s car, and sped west again. His luck would be no better; his friend’s car broke down on a quiet New England side street. But Munger, like many former cyclists, had moved into the automotive business and was thus prepared. He tinkered and toiled and then drove night and day, stopping only for food, finally arriving in Newark on a Sunday afternoon.

  At the track, Taylor and eleven of his former competitors, including Howard Freeman, Nat Butler, and Mile-a-Minute Murphy, stood waiting. Much of the old guard had been invited as well, men like Arthur Zimmerman and Eddie Bald. They were in for an outrageous event.

  It seems someone had dreamed up the crazy idea of an old-timers race, and the comedic press had a field day with it. “Some of the champions” quipped the Newark Times, had competed “during Lincoln’s first administration” and as a result, few fans “had seen such highly developed beer muscles.” “One of the articles of agreement,” he continued, “ is that all wheels be shrouded in cobwebs.”

  Because the race was being held on a Sunday, track manager John Chapman didn’t think Taylor would show up. But to Chapman’s surprise, Taylor cabled him saying he had just returned from a hunting trip and that he would be in Newark for the race “with both feet.”

  With the race being a novel idea, no one knew what to expect. But with Taylor’s name on the program, fans came from all over, occupying every grandstand seat, press box, and open aisle space. Once the grandstand was overflowing, fans were herded into the infield.

  In a heartfelt moment, Taylor and Munger—close friends since those early Jim Crow days—embraced each other at the starting line as more than twelve thousand people looked on. Though they hadn’t spent a lot of time together since the late ’90s, their relationship had remained a special one. Reporters had composed touching articles describing Munger's role in Taylor’s career, and how his belief in Taylor during those early years in Indianapolis had bound them together in history. Like he had back in the mid-’90s, the old high-wheelsman held Taylor up at the line waiting for the crack of the pistol.

  Taylor’s pride may not have allowed him to reveal, even to his one-time surrogate father, the hard truth of his life since he had retired from the track. Today, with an abundance of financial advisors and diversified investments like mutual funds and managed portfolios, it’s easier for a successful athlete to live comfortably on his investment earnings in retirement. But during his era, mutual funds were in their infancy and advisors were few and far between. So Taylor did as many others did at the time, something he once told a reporter he’d never do. After being turned down at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute because he lacked a high school diploma, he had sunk $15,000, a sizable chunk of his liquid net worth, into a low-maintenance automobile wheel. His invention, which seemed like such a good idea at the time, attracted several wealthy investors, including his old bike sponsor Fred Johnson. But the Major Taylor Manufacturing Company, and other like ventures in which he invested
more money, failed.

  While holding up his old protégé on his bike, Munger’s eyes clouded over when Taylor turned and uttered some of his last words to him. “Well, Birdie,” Taylor said with a great deal of emotion, “you started me in my first race and you’re starting me in my last race.” It was a sentimental moment, a touching testament to the depths of their friendship.

  Despite three layers of excess weight around his waistline, Taylor hadn’t forgotten how to ride a bicycle. The minute Munger released him from his closed fist, he ripped out of the gate like a thoroughbred. He punched into the belly of the field, weaving in and out of traffic, emerging comfortably in the front pack of riders. An anonymous photographer sitting in a lower box seat snapped the last photo ever taken of him on the homestretch of a bike track. He was a picture of dogged determination as he poured over his bike, fingers grasping the handlebars, face pressed into the head tube, legs spinning out of time. Just as he had two decades before, he roared down the track in second place, poised for the kill, a big crowd cheering him as he swerved around the leader and on to another convincing victory. “No rider before or since his day,” wrote a newsman “ever developed a stretch sprint the equal of Taylor’s.”

  In the intervening years, his popularity with American racing fans had been left whole. Even local star Frank Kramer, who had just won his sixteenth straight American championship, was amazed at the affection shown Taylor that day. “He received a greater ovation than I or anyone else,” Kramer told a reporter in a 1953 interview. “Major Taylor,” he continued, “was one of the greatest athletes of all time.”

  Munger stood at the finish line with the same look of amazement he had on his face when he first saw a fifteen-year-old Taylor pass him in training sessions. An early fall breeze licked over the track. The two men who had meant so much to each other through the worst and the best of times shook hands and then parted ways.

  Christmas Eve, 1926, descended on Worcester like others that decade: falling snow, trees adorned with decorations, broad smiles on children’s faces, stores packed with last-minute shoppers buying the popular gifts of the day—electric trains, snowdomes, and radios. The Roaring Twenties had ushered in an exciting time of social change and economic prosperity as the recession at the end of World War I was replaced by an unprecedented period of financial growth. The stock market was soaring to unimaginable heights, buoyed by the second Industrial Revolution.

  But if one peered inside the window of Magay & Barron’s on 368 Main Street, life appeared grimmer. On display for all to see sat nine jeweled trophies and various medals that Taylor had won in cities across the world: Montreal, Canada; Adelaide, Australia; Hartford, Connecticut; Sydney, Australia; Paris, France. Local residents walked by the exhibition solemnly, dropping money in a hat to help him out, their minds wandering back to happier times in the life of their Worcester Whirlwind.

  For eighteen months, Taylor had been ill with shingles. The debilitating sickness had racked his body, sapped his energy, and further drained his finances. Having no real actuarial statistics to work with, insurance companies stayed away from insuring health-related risks. So Taylor, like most Americans in 1926, had no meaningful coverage. With the population shifting from rural to urban settings, more and more Americans were treated in hospitals instead of at home. This, and recent advances in medicine, drove the cost of medical care up substantially. Consequently, most of Taylor’s remaining assets had to be liquidated to meet the high cost of his medical care. Gone were three triple-decker rental properties he had owned, the plots of land he won as prizes, and numerous bank accounts. The beautiful seven-bedroom home on Hobson Avenue was sold, and the Taylors eventually settled into a tiny rental apartment on Blossom Street. Even some personal effects, like jewelry, had to be sold.

  But Taylor was not alone or forgotten. In a remarkable display of affection, the people and the newsmen of Worcester rallied on his behalf that Christmas season. Taylor was, and still is, perhaps its most famous citizen, but it wasn’t just his racing fame that had endeared him to the townsfolk. Since retiring from the track, he had proudly served as the unofficial city greeter for visiting dignitaries. Widely known as an all-around model citizen, he had become the quintessential poster child of everything the growing New England city wanted to be known for—diversity, friendliness, and tolerance. All this, and the sportsmanship he had shown around the world against the greatest of odds, were put forth in their pleas for help. VOICE PRAISE OF MAJOR TAYLOR headlined the Worcester Telegram on Christmas Eve, 1926, CONTRIBUTORS TO FUND FOR FORMER CHAMPION EXPRESS APPRECIATION OF HIS SPORTSMANSHIP.

  The fund for Taylor had been set up by, of all groups, the horsemen. He had become good friends with famous steeplechase jockey Harry Worcester Smith. In better times, Taylor, Smith, and other jockey friends—possibly the great Earl Sande, whom he mentioned in his autobiography—shot pool at Taylor’s former home while laughing and joking and jabbering gaily for hours. Somewhere along the dusty trail that was their lives, reinsmen dubbed Smith “the gentlemen jockey.” At no time had he earned this title more than during that cold Christmas season of 1926. “I believe Major Taylor, the black man, needs an interested and friendly audience more than ever,” Smith told a local reporter, “and let it not be a faint echo of the deafening chorus of years ago.”

  Smith continued to rally the local newspapers. In turn, they wrote touching pleas for help, which fired up the giving spirit of people from New England to Canada and as far away as Australia. “Enclosed find a donation for Major Taylor,” wrote one local woman. “I wish it were more, but a five-year illness has left me where this is the best I can do at this moment. If good wishes could be turned into cash, the amount herewith would be a million.”

  Money trickled in. Sometimes it was just a few dollars with a letter saying that was all they had. Others sent in more than $100. Individuals often sent contributions anonymously, saying only “from a friend.” Corporations like John Hancock Insurance contributed as well. “I think the response to my appeal through the pages of the Telegram-Gazette was wonderful,” Smith told a reporter. “I knew that Major Taylor’s friends would quickly rally to his aid, if asked. Christmas has been brightened for the man who one time was Worcester’s champion bicycle rider . . . I thank all those whose kind and charitable hearts are helping Major Taylor through a critical period.”

  A reporter eloquently spelled out the turn of events:

  The black man, racing against white for large purses, beating his rivals, fighting combinations of race against race all over the world, wrote his name in flaming letters high in the sky of sportsmanship. None ever shone brighter. . . . At 47 years of age, an insidious grippe laid hold of the fame that no human was able to conquer and today those bronze legs, which were sculptured in Paris and pictured all over the world, and which were always pushing to the front, are hardly able to carry their master.

  Caring locals responded. A steady stream of letters and checks arrived at Smith’s home, addressed to Smith’s wife who oversaw the fund, including one from George Baker, an avid fan of Taylor’s:

  Having arrived at that time of life when I find myself more and more inclined to reminisce, the letter from your distinguished husband which appeared in this morning’s Telegram, relating to Maj. Taylor brought to mind the many times I had seen the Major perform so brilliantly along with Eddie Bald and Tom Cooper—all stars of the day. Eddie Bald was from my hometown and well do I remember the brilliancy of these two performers—unquestionably the best in the world. I am highly sorry that the Major finds himself in an unfortunate position, and I am pleased to add my bit to the total. Please be assured this goes forward with every good wish—plus.

  George W. Baker.

  Throughout his life, Taylor had given generously to his church, community, and friends. He had given tenants breaks on rent when they couldn’t make ends meet. He had even donated money to those who had previously abused and persecuted him. In 1906 when the ground underneath San Franci
sco—the city where he had been denied meals and lodging—imploded in a colossal magnitude 7.8 earthquake, Taylor wired a sizable sum of cash to its suffering citizens.

  His inclination to give emanated from decades spent poring over the Scriptures, no doubt pausing on the verses of Matthew that dealt with helping the needy: “For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; I was naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me . . .”

  Now the former giver was one of them, the needy. Taylor had always lived his life under the central teachings of Jesus, the ethic of reciprocity: “Do onto others as you would have done unto you” and “love your neighbor as you would love yourself.” The people of Worcester knew this about him and responded in kind with their letters.

  From black and white, young and old, financial and moral support arrived—probably even from those who, decades before, had tried barring him from buying a home in town. The fund grew from $250 to $1,000.

  Tracking Taylor down for comment on the fund, a reporter snapped one of the last photos of him, skillfully capturing all the pathos of the moment. He stood up against a building wearing a thick overcoat, crisp tie, and a black bowler hat. His face looked stern and solemn, blending in with the dark sky. His eyes hung suspended in space, gazing past the camera, as if he were hoping to catch a glimpse of the past off in the distance. There, in the town that sheltered him from the racial storm that continued to tear the nation apart, Taylor was trapped in a metaphor for his new life.

  At forty-seven years old, he was afraid and empty. Despite the good wishes of his community, much of his money was gone. And with his waning health, the prospects for earning it back were slim. For a proud man who once stood on the highest pedestal in sport, relying on others spawned feelings of hopelessness.