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FURTHER Thoughts on Some Issues of EARLY OLYMPIC History

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FURTHER Thoughts on Some Issues of EARLY OLYMPIC History FURTHER ThOUgHTs ON sOME IssUEs OF EARLY OLYMPIC HIsTORY BY DAVID C. YOUNG, CLAssiCs, UNiVERsity OF FLORIDA, gAINEsvILLE ince publication of my book The Modern Olympics: A would have added a few details and some variety to my Struggle for Revival1, a number of friends in the ISOH reports about the actual 1896 contests? Shave sent me corrections and their thoughts about my new book; several other new studies of Olympic origins Coubertin’s belief about French physical (and military) have been published; and the first reviews of my book have degeneracy. In a most cordial letter, Allen Guttmann sug- appeared, one of them here in our joumal2. Suspecting gests that, when I proposed that Coubertin formed his that A Struggle for Revival may provoke further interest notion of French degeneracy vis-à-vis German physical and discussion, our editor, Anthony Bijkerk, has suggested readiness largely at Brookes’ prompting, I overlooked the that I might elaborate on some of the topics raised there, strong tendency of the French at that time to make the same and I have agreed. For it gives me an opportunity to observation. Perhaps I overstated the case; but I did not say acknowledge corrections and points made by others who Brookes was the only influence, nor deny French input on have read it, to update a few items, to correct some errors Coubertin’s forming this conception. I stated it “did not and omissions myself, and to append a list of “Corrigenda derive only from the French sources suggested. He proba- and Addenda”. bly got that idea, too, mainly from Brookes” (my p. 70, emphasis added). Perhaps my word “mainly” is ill-chosen; Widlund’s corrections. Ture Widlund sent me a friendly, and it should read “much of that idea, too, comes from congratulatory letter about my book--with an almost Brookes.” But this theme recurs more frequently in Brookes’ embarrassingly long list of typos and outright errors, for own writings than in Coubertin’s. Since in 1889 Coubertin which I thank him heartily. Perhaps the worst is my almost cites Brookes’ 1866 speech on this very theme and quotes incredibly careless error (pp. 148, 227, n. 1) stating that him verbatim5-while no one, as I recall, has adduced a pas- 6 Thomas Burke (USA) won his heat and the finals of the 1896 sage where he cites Taine, Le Play, or Didon for this idea -I high hurdles; it was of course Burke’s teammate Thomas think the evidence suggests that Brookes played an impor- Curtis who won those hurdle races, not Burke. I have it cor- tant role, along with (I emphasize) general French thinking rect on page 152. Other corrections made by Widlund are in Coubertin’s forming this vital element of his philosophy. incorporated into my “Corrigenda and Addenda.” My erroneous statements about an AAC “boycott” of 7 The Budapest alternative. Where my book discusses polit- Brookes’ Olympics. Peter Lovesey kindly corrects my ical difficulties in Athens with respect to holding the first writing of an Amateur Athletic Club (AAC) ‘boycott” of IOC Games there, I should have mentioned the possibility Brookes’ National Olympian Games (NOG). I judge that he 8 that Budapest might hold that Olympiad instead, citing is right, identifying a real flaw in my book . Nowhere in George Eisen’s excellent article on that topic3. the sources which I used was the word ‘boycott” actually To my bibliography of original sources on the 1896 used. But I concluded that the AAC carried on an unoffi- Games, I would now include some items of which I did not cial, if not explicit, boycott of the NOA Olympics partly know when I submitted my manuscript to the press. They because Lovesey’s book itself states that the AAC was cre- Fall, 1998 — Page 29 ated to combat the NOA’S announcement of the 1866 NOG 1866 London Olympics13, and their general absence from in London; “[The first AAC prospectus] was cobbled togeth- the others. I still doubt that the elitism of the AAC and kin- er with no more purpose than to thwart [Brookes’] National dred southern amateurs vs. Brookes’ NOA’s egalitarianism Olympian Association [NOA].” It appears that I read too is irrelevant (see next paragraph). But I admit that I was so much into Lovesey’s word “thwart,” and others similar intrigued with the seeming paradox--that the founding and there9. His letter now quotes John Chambers, principal bastion institutions of amateurism (itself the cornerstone of founder of the AAC stating (February 1866) in a journal edi- the IOC Games for most of a century) had begun as an anti- torial, “We shall do all we can to promote the objects of the Olympic movement--that I probably overemphasized the athletic club and the Olympian Association” (emphasis conflict. Naturally, I wish I could rewrite the sections where added10).” I spoke of an AAC boycott of the NOG, but cannot. I sug- Yet even in this very editorial, Chambers himself goes on gest that readers of my book supplant such phrases as to insist that, “There can be only one locality for the forma- “AAC boycott of’ with words such as “AAC’s indifference tion of such a club and that is London. The Amateur to.” Element . can only hope for undivided success by making London its headquarters . London as a centre is . essen- The mechanics clause, attitudes toward social class, and tial” (Lovesey, p. 20, emphasis added). These remarks open- the difference between Brookes (and his NOA) and elitist ly conflicted with the first stated goal of the NOA Charter amateurism (and the AAC). The mechanics clause, which (published before the AAC was formed), to hold Games “in excluded “mechanics, artisans, and labourers” from ama- rotation in or near the principal cities or towns of Great teur eligibility (no matter how pure of financial gain) was Britain” (my Struggle, p. 33). adopted by the AAC during its second year. But it seems to When Chambers insists on “one location,” with the have been strictly enforced only for club membership; a few “headquarters” and “centre” in London, he surely means (not many) working men-tradesmen, at least--particularly that the AAC should be the central “undivided” umbrella from the north, actually competed in the AAC Amateur for all athletic clubs in Britain. Here he must also have con- Championship meetings, as Lovesey’s book notes 14. sciously disputed another item in Brookes’ published NOA Brookes and the NOA, however, never adopted the charter: “That this Association [NOA] shall form a centre mechanics clause in any form in their amateur definition, for the different Athletic, Gymnastic, Boating, Swimming and clearly invited working class entries. Cricket, and other similar societies....” (my Struggle, p. 34, In his review of my book, seemingly to correct my com- emphasis added). There can be only one “centre” of any- ments on the class differences between the NOA and the thing. It is as if Chambers and the AAC invited Brookes AAC15, Hill remarks, “Both Brookes and Coubertin had the and the NOA to abandon the goals of their charter before attitude toward class that one might expect of their time their first Meeting (or disband). Naturally, the NOA did not and backgrounds. Although both were determined that accede to that suggestion; there seemed to result an open working class men should not be excluded . , there was no rift. question of mingling.” To equate the background of “What a blessing it would be to all concerned, or con- Brookes, the son of a Shropshire country doctor, with that of nected with amateur athletic sport, to be in a state of union Coubertin, a titled nobleman and urban Paris aristocrat, one with another.... The National Olympian Association seems an exaggeration. I do not believe Brookes had the was established for this special purpose.... There is no insti- customary English attitude toward class, that is, “what one tution in England more entitled than the N.O.A. to hold an might expect” of him. To improve the lot of working class Annual Championship Athletic Meeting. It is thoroughly men was the explicit reason why he founded both the representative, which the Amateur Athletic Club is not.”11 Wenlock Agricultural Reading Society (“with a view toward Lovesey’s letter rightly suggests that most AAC members extending to the working classes those facilities and advan- probably abstained from most NOA games for a variety of tages which wealthier individuals can command at home”); reasons, noting first that the leading amateurs in the AAC and the Wenlock Olympian Class (“for the moral, physical and in the south were university men, who competed in and intellectual improvement of the Inhabitants of the athletics only during regular school terms--‘The summer Town & Neighbourhood of Wenlock and especially of the term was for other pursuits”; and second, that “geography”- Working Classes,” my pp. 8-9). Such concern for the work- -the distance from London and the remoteness of a place ing class was not “customary,” and I think it separates like Wenlock–probably dissuaded the southern athletes12. Brookes apart from most non-working class Englishmen of Thus Lovesey’s point seems right, that it was not so his and even later days. If not unique in this respect, I think much a policy of the AAC, but an attitude which the AAC Brookes’ attitude toward class was atypical. When and its traditions fostered in gentleman amateurs of the Coubertin calls him a “Typical Englishman” he misses the south that caused their sparse participation even in the July, mark16. Page 30 — Journal of Olympic History The motion for London in 1896 at the 1894 Paris Congress, pointed to a possible resolution to a difficulty.
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