Speed Kings

by Andy Bull

  Enmity exploded between them in 1926, when Melvil and his new wife went south for the winter and decided to found a new Lake Placid Club in Florida. He bought a three-thousand-acre plot in the Florida highlands, near a town named Lake Stearns. He even persuaded the Florida legislature to rename the town Lake Placid. The new club was to be run on the very same lines as the old one. He sought to reassure prospective members by telling them that “Florida has fewer negroes” than most Southern states, and that “we have no colord help” in the club. The Florida venture was a bust. Most winters, Melvil could count the number of paying guests on his fingers. So he turned to his son for help turning it around. Godfrey had assumed control of the original Lake Placid Club. He thought the Florida project a monumental folly and was convinced that his stepmother, Emily, was exploiting his father, driving the Florida club on so that she could take control of its finances. So Godfrey refused to release funds from Lake Placid North.

  Melvil wrote letters to prominent members of the club, briefing them against Godfrey. He told them his son was “a spendyr & not a provyder” and criticized his “peculiarity” and “lack of altruistic spirit.” Melvil was old, and many of the members knew that his Florida venture was a foolish one, but he still had a lot of clout. Many of the club’s directors were persuaded that Godfrey was not his father’s equal and would be unfit to take on the presidency of the club.

  Godfrey had been serving as the de facto head of the club in Melvil’s absence, but he would have to fight for the right to succeed him when he died. Godfrey was forty-one now and had committed the best years of his career to the club. And now his fellow directors had been turned against him by his own father, who was hell-bent on stopping him from ascending to the presidency. Godfrey decided that he needed a grand plan, a project that would eclipse anything his father and stepmother were doing in Florida and secure his position as heir apparent. And then the United States Olympic Committee got in touch.

  —

  The USOC wasn’t asking the town to bid for the Games; it was asking the club. The club was the single largest employer in Lake Placid, and the single source of revenue too. And while plenty of the locals objected to the Dewey family’s bigotry and their pomposity, no one would question their importance. The Deweys weren’t just pillars of the community; they were poles that kept the roof propped up. So they trusted Godfrey Dewey when he promised them the Olympics, believed him when he told them that, as great as the cost seemed, they would earn it back over and over again because the Games would establish Lake Placid as America’s first winter sports resort.

  But of course it wasn’t just the locals Dewey needed to win over. The club and the community couldn’t carry the cost alone, and he spent a lot of time in Albany lobbying Governor Roosevelt and the New York State Legislature. In January 1929, a couple of months before the IOC was due to make its decision on which city would host the Olympics, Dewey won what he wanted: both the state senate and the state assembly passed, unanimously, a bill pledging to support the bid. At the end of March, Dewey went back to Switzerland to present his bid to the IOC in Lausanne. He traveled with the backing of the members of the club, the citizens of Lake Placid, and the politicians in Albany, if not of his own father.

  Los Angeles was the only city bidding for the Summer Games in 1932, so that decision was done and dusted before the conference had even started. The competition to host the Winter Games, on the other hand, was fierce. There were nine bids. Two of them, from Lake Tahoe and Yosemite Valley, had the advantage of being in the same state as Los Angeles: the Californians were keen to hold both the Summer and Winter Games. There were bids, too, from both Duluth and Minneapolis, Denver, and Bear Mountain, a hundred or so miles away from Lake Placid, down in the Hudson Valley. Oslo in Norway, a city that could cite its experience of hosting the Nordic Games, had also declared its candidacy. The smart money, however, was on Montreal. The US press had already reported that the Games were going to be held there, forcing the USOC to issue a denial. It had one clear advantage over the American contenders: there was no prohibition in Canada. The pundits seemed to think that the promise of legal liquor would help oil the wheels at the IOC. But then, Dewey had an ace of his own: his was the only bid that included the specific promise to build a bobsled run for the Olympics. This, he said himself, was the “keystone” of the Lake Placid bid.

  Dewey had prepared with a diligence that did him credit. The IOC was impressed that he had traveled to Switzerland to present the bid himself, and the four-page sales pitch he brought with him seemed strikingly professional when set against, say, the efforts of Lake Tahoe, whose representative said, simply, “We have the requisite terrain and climate and we are prepared to spend anything up to $3m to provide whatever facilities may be necessary.”

  When word came, it wasn’t from the president of the IOC, or any of the other officials on the bid committee, but the stenographer. Dewey was tight with anxiety, waiting outside the boardroom. The stenographer passed him. And couldn’t resist stopping to whisper in his ear, “Vous avez gagné, Monsieur.” You have won.

  Godfrey Dewey returned to Lake Placid a hero. When he arrived back, in early May, a testimonial dinner was thrown in his honor, the largest in the history of Lake Placid. “From Lake Placid, from Saranac Lake, from Bloomingdale, Albany, St. Regis Falls, Wilmington, Plattsburg, and the Valley towns,” reported the local paper, “men and women gathered to show by their presence their appreciation of the efforts of Dr. Dewey.” Later that same week the people of nearby North Elba voted, by a count of five to one, in favor of issuing a two-hundred-thousand-dollar bond to raise funds for the Games. “Such united support,” the local paper noted, “was the most encouraging sign to officials.” Dewey did not dwell long on his successes. He had too much to do. He needed to start work on the “impossible” job.

  To build his bobsled run, Dewey needed more than just an empty stretch of mountain. He had to find a slope with a vertical drop of around two hundred meters over a distance of two miles, with a downhill gradient of between 4 and 12 percent, a northerly exposure so that the sun wouldn’t melt the ice, and space for the big banks at the turns and an access road running alongside the track. Dewey hired the best designer he could find, a German named Stanislaus Zentzytzki, who had laid out several bob runs in Europe. Lake Placid is surrounded by the highest mountains in New York: Marcy, McIntyre, Haystack, Colden, and Whiteface. In and around the peaks and their foothills, Zentzytzki found three possible sites for the new run. The best of them, at Mount Scarface and Mount Jo, were on public land. Lake Placid is in the heart of the Adirondack forest preserve. The land around the town is fixed, by state law, to be “forever kept as wild forest land,” which “shall not be leased, sold, or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, nor shall timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed.” Dewey argued that a “liberal interpretation” of the law would allow him to construct “sport and recreation facilities,” but what seemed “liberal” to Dewey was unacceptable to the environmental lobby. The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks launched a campaign to stop the construction of the run. For the next two years, Dewey had to fight the AFPA in the back rooms of the legislature and, ultimately, the courts of New York State. He didn’t make it easy for himself. He had an opportunity to meet with the head of the AFPA to negotiate before the argument escalated, but he was too proud to ask for an audience. Instead he waited for a formal invitation, which never came.

  At the same time, Dewey was in Albany, lobbying politicians to try to obtain state funding for the Olympics. He had secured their backing before traveling to Lausanne, but the bill they had passed contained precious few details about financial support and made no mention whatsoever of the bob run, despite Dewey’s plea that they promise to pay for it. In the end, he persuaded Assemblyman Fred Porter to introduce a bill authorizing the construction of a run on public land and appropriating seventy-five thousand dollars of fund
s to that end. The AFPA blocked it by appealing directly to Governor Roosevelt. A second, simpler, bill was passed. This made no mention of state money, or public land, but simply authorized construction of a run. Even then Roosevelt felt he had to consult with Attorney General Hamilton Ward before he could bless it.

  Dewey needed more. He had Porter introduce a third bill, one that reintroduced the idea that the run should be built on state land, with state money. He had found what he thought was a loophole in the law: he felt he could sell the run on the idea that it would encourage people “to visit and enjoy the wild forest lands,” thus fulfilling one of the purposes of the forest preserve regulations, which was to “stimulate public interest in preserving them for scenic and recreational purposes.” The legislature bought it. But the AFPA didn’t. It declared the bill to be unconstitutional and took its challenge to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York.

  Dewey grew ever more anxious. He needed the run to be ready a year before the Games started so that he would have time to test it properly. It was already nearing the end of 1929 and construction hadn’t even begun. Instead, he had spent his time trying to negotiate his way around the “serious obstacles” and “unwarranted complications” the environmentalists had put in his path. If he couldn’t deliver the bob run, the IOC would have to reconsider its decision. Every extra day of delay, he knew, made it more likely that Lake Placid would have to forfeit the Olympics.

  And then, Black Tuesday. On October 29, 1929, the stock market crashed, and the Great Depression started. It hit Lake Placid hard. Barbara Tyrell Kelly, who grew up in the town, a “child of the Depression,” remembers in her memoirs how “the [Lake Placid] Club was the engine that provided employment. It kept many citizens afloat in those hard times prior to the 1932 Olympics, but there were not enough jobs to go around. Many families moved in together and shared what money there was. Most families had gardens, and many raised chickens. Those that had extra space often took in paying boarders. Barter for goods and services was common.” Kelly slept in a bed with four of her cousins, all of them spread widthways across the mattress. The citizens were hungry for the work the Olympics would provide. But they knew, too, that unless Dewey was right and the Olympics did establish the town as America’s leading winter sports resort, it would be only a short-term fix, and one that would leave them with a lot of long-term debt.

  Public enthusiasm for the project began to wane as the costs started to mount. The estimated budget had escalated to well over a million dollars. It grew further when the IOC president, Count de Baillet-Latour, visited Lake Placid in 1930 and announced that, in his opinion, “when the Games are over, something tangible and physical must remain in Lake Placid as a memorial to the Games.” He decided that an indoor ice rink would be just the thing, and made it clear, in private, that this wasn’t a suggestion but an order. The rink added another $200,000 to the bill. Desperate for cash, Dewey and the organizing committee hired a firm to conduct a fund-raising drive around the northeastern United States, in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. They hoped to get $250,000 in donations. While they met with “good will and good wishes” wherever they went, they raised only $37,000—just enough to cover their expenses.

  While Dewey’s team was conducting its fruitless fund-raising drive, the courts were still weighing the matter of whether or not the bob run could be built on public land. The lower court had ruled that the AFPA was right, that building the bob run on either of the two public sites Dewey and his architect Zentzytzki had in mind would undoubtedly be a violation of the “forever wild” law. Dewey, with the support of the attorney general, appealed the decision. Just as he had done with Roosevelt, Dewey tried to bend the appeal court to his will by arguing that the wrong decision “would compel the abandonment of the Olympic Winter Games in New York State, and undoubtedly for the United States in consequence.” The threat didn’t work. The judge told Dewey that if the decision cost Lake Placid the Olympics, so be it, since “constitutional provisions cannot always adjust themselves to the nice relationships of life.” On March 18, 1930, the Court of Appeals upheld the original decision: the land must remain “forever wild.” Less than two years out from the Games, Dewey didn’t have the money to pay for his bob run, or a stretch of land to build it on. The AFPA was triumphant. The association had staged what the academic Peter Hopsicker describes as “the first major environmental protest of any Games in modern Olympic history,” and it had won.

  Dewey wasn’t ready to quit yet. He found a spot on the north slope of South Meadow Mountain, a mile and a half outside the town. The land there was owned by the Lake Placid Club, which meant that he was free to build on it. The problem was that it would cost a lot more to build there than it would on either of the two public sites. Dewey had already fought to persuade the state legislature to set aside $125,000 to cover the cost of the run—double the original estimated cost. If construction went ahead on South Meadow, he would need to double that sum all over again. And the organizing committee was so broke that Dewey had to borrow the money to fly Zentzytzki back out from Europe to draw up a fresh set of plans for the new site.

  So Dewey was forced to return to Albany, cap in hand, to plead for another $375,000 of the state’s money. Governor Roosevelt had one eye on the presidential run he was planning for 1932 and was loath to commit so much money to facilities that would be used for only “about a week or two.” He decided to veto the bill for additional funding. Dewey was furious. He had been foiled again. He questioned Roosevelt’s “good faith” and said publicly that the governor was “the one man who can seriously jeopardize the very holding of the Games.” Roosevelt wasn’t going to be bullied. He put Dewey back in his place, told him there had been, to this point, “no suggestion that the State would be called upon to appropriate any large sum,” and that the idea he was under any “obligation” to grant another $375,000 was entirely wrong. Dewey was wise enough to realize he had picked the wrong fight. He apologized to Roosevelt and sought instead to convince him that saving the Games would be the shrewd political move, “much more popular than otherwise” with the electorate. Roosevelt relented. At last, Dewey had a private site for the run, and the promise of public money to pay for it.

  Just weeks after the first shovel of earth was turned, a scandal erupted. On September 25, Roosevelt received a letter from David Mosessohn, the editor of the Jewish Tribune and an executive on the Jewish National Council. Why, Mosessohn asked, was the state using taxpayers’ money to pay for a bob run on land owned by the Lake Placid Club, an organization that was “un-American” in its promotion of “race and religious hatred?” He warned that the Jewish community of New York, two million strong, would “not sit idly and see State funds spent on property from which they are now barred.” He hired a lawyer, Mark Eisner, to represent the Jewish community of New York, and instructed him “to prevent improper use of State funds and to seek recovery of such funds as have been expended without legal warrant.” When Godfrey learned of the complaint, his mind flashed back to 1905, when, as a young man, he had seen his father drummed out of his job as state librarian.

  But Mosessohn was right. Life at the club continued much as it always had. No drinking, gambling, or “dancing declared offensiv of good taste or morals,” no “conduct, dres, or manners which might justly offend the refined family life”—and no Jews. Godfrey refused entry to one woman, the wife of a member, because she had a single Jewish grandparent. He shared his father’s prejudices, but he was, as he told his father, always mindful of “the importance of regarding not merely facts but also appearances.” He was a hypocrite who cloaked his bigotry in kind words. He told Otis Peabody Swift, who had been hired to run the publicity campaign for the Olympics, that “personali, it hurts me veri much to seem to hav a relijus or racial prejudice.” But in private he revealed a different side of himself. He told his confidants that this “nu Jew attak will giv us much valuabl publiciti” because it would show “w
hy our members have always declyned to admit them.” He couldn’t have been more mistaken.

  The New York Times and the Herald Tribune picked up on the Jewish Tribune’s story. Public opinion turned against Godfrey Dewey, just as it had turned against his father. And there were indeed plenty of people in the town who objected to the Dewey family and the way they ran the club. But very few were willing to speak out against them publicly. The Tribune found one, local postmaster Sol Feinberg, but even he would only go so far. Nonetheless, he thanked Mosessohn for “having raised the standard of the Jewish people of that section in the eyes of their neighbors.”

  Dewey argued that the Lake Placid Club had actually signed up to an easement on land in South Meadow. It would be transferred to the state, which would be allowed to operate the run without interference from the club. This, Mosessohn countered, was a “transparent subterfuge,” since the deal also stipulated that if the state failed to maintain the run, ownership would revert to the club. Eisner, meanwhile, prepared a solution. He suggested that the club should forfeit all claims on the land in South Meadow, and that if the state did fail to maintain the run after the Games, ownership should be transferred to the Parks Commission, and by extension the citizens of the town, not the members of the club. If that happened, the Jewish National Council would withdraw their protest. Dewey had been utterly outmaneuvered. He had no choice but to accept Eisner’s terms.

  On December 4, shortly before construction was finished on Mount Van Hoevenberg, a meeting was held in New York between members of the Olympic Organizing Committee, the Jewish National Council, representatives from Roosevelt’s office, and the Lake Placid Chamber of Commerce. “Harmony was established.” The new land agreement was signed, and the council officially withdrew its protest. Godfrey Dewey did not attend. He was too angry and too busy, and, to be blunt, his views were too toxic for his presence there to be anything but a hindrance. He had been pushed to one side.