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Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 1324671 DYRESON, MARK SANFORD AMERICA'S ATHLETIC MISSIONARIES: OLYMPIADS AND THE AMERICAN MIND, 1896-1920 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA M.A. 1984 University Microfilms International 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor. MI 48106 AMERICA'S ATHLETIC MISSIONARIES: OLYMPIADS AND THE AMERICAN MIND, 1896-1920 by Mark Sanford Dyreson A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 19 8 4 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfillment of re­ quirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. U SIGNED: /' yt(/K 1 / Vl-'XjuL APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved on the date shown below: 'PaulA. Carter Date / Professor of History ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. George Brubaker and Dr, James Donohoe for the support and encouragement they gave me in the academic world and the paths to knowledge they revealed in their classes. I especially would like to thank Dr. Paul Carter for directing this project. He provided always helpful criticism and unfaltering support for my endeavor. He gave me the freedom to explore many tangents and always let me know when I was on the right track, I would also like to add a special note of thanks to Major H. J. and Mrs. Wolanin. Without their support and kindness my struggle for an education at the University of Arizona would have been far more difficult. Finally, let me say thank you to Gwen Bostick, who cheerfully suffered through the typing of this manuscript. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page 1. INTRODUCTION: THE OLYMPICS AND THE AMERICAN MIND, 1896-1920 1 2. ATHENS — 1896: SEE, THE CONQUERING HEROES COME 21 3. PARIS — 1900 AND ST. LOUIS — 1904: OLYMPIC SIDESHOWS AT WORLD'S FAIRS 36 4. LONDON — 1908: THE "DEADLY SERIOUSNESS OF THE AMERICAN SPIRIT" SEIZES THE OLYMPIC GAMES 56 5. STOCKHOLM — 1912: THE WORLD'S GREATEST ATHLETES 74 6. ANTWERP — 1920: THE END OF OLYMPIC INNOCENCE 96 7. OF MELTING POTS AND OLYMPIADS, DEMOCRACY AND SPORT: THE AMERICAN OLYMPIC EXPERIENCE 117 REFERENCES 129 iv ABSTRACT Baron Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympic Games in 1896 as an athletic forum which might inspire the nations of the world to com­ pete peacefully instead of resorting to war. Between 1896 and 1920 the United States used the Olympic Games to demonstrate to themselves and the world that they were "the chosen people." The American press popularized American Olympians as the champions of American ideals and muscular proponents of Mission, They saw in American athletes' victories evidences of the special qualities they felt made their nation great. In the public's eyes American Olympic champions stood for democracy, the essential correctness of the "melting pot" and universal fair competition. Olympic triumphs confirmed the divine providence of American civilization. In promoting nationalism through the Olympic movement, Americans prag­ matically adopted the attitude that winning was not everything, but the only thing. v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: THE OLYMPICS AND THE AMERICAN MIND, 1896-1920 "In short, in life, as in a foot-ball game, the principle to follow is: Hit the line hard; don't foul and don't shirk, but hit the line hard!" (Theodore Roosevelt's advice to American Youth, 1900)1 "Winning isn't ever/thing, it's the only thing." (An American axiom gleaned from the rhetoric of Vince Lombardi in the 1960s)2 On March 2, 1896, a small contingent of athletes gathered at the docks of Hoboken, New Jersey to begin a journey to Athens, Greece for the first modern Olympiad. The American Olympic team had booked a transatlantic passage on the North German Lloyd Lines' steamer Fulda. The send-off was a raucous affair, punctuated by cheers for Princeton University and the Boston Athletic Association. America's first Olympic team sailed first-class on the Fulda; sumptuous banquets, masked balls and comfortable deck chairs beckoned, and servants waited on the ath­ letes. The trainers kept close watch on their charges, exercising them in 1. Theodore Roosevelt, "What We Can Expect of the American Boy," St. Nicholas, May 1900, p. 574. 2. The October 1968 issue of Quote had Lombardi asserting, "Winning is not the important thing; it's everything." Lombardi him­ self later claimed: "I have been quoted as saying, 'Winning is the only thing.' That's a little out of context. What I said is that 'Winning is not everything—but making the effort to win is,'" in George Flynn, ed., Vince Lombardi on Football (New York: Van Nostrand Rheinhold, 1981), p. 14. The quote seems to have originated with Vanderbilt University football coach Red Sanders in 1940. See Thomas Tutko and William Burns, Winning is Everything and Other American Myths (New York: Macmillan, 1976), p. 4. 1 2 heavy sweaters and light, rubber-soled shoes on the second cabin deck, which the captain had ordered cleared for the team's workouts. 3 Some Americans viewed the revival of the ancient games as a dubious proposition. "The sun of Homer, to be sure, still smiles upon Greece, and the vale of Olympia is still beautiful," wrote Rufus T. Richardson in Scribner's New Monthly Magazine. "But no magician's wand and no millionaire's money can ever charm back into material existence 4 the setting in which the Olympic Games took place." A pessimistic commentator on Princeton's Olympic adventure ridiculed the notion in a letter to the New York Times: "Princeton may have a heavy surplus in its treasury, and its team may be in need of an ocean voyage, these are purely local questions." "But," warned the gadfly: the American amateur sportsman should know that in going to Athens he is taking an expensive journey to a third rate capital, where he will not even have a daily post from the outside world, where he will be devoured by fleas, as was the emperor Frederick; where he will suffer physical torments greater even than at Saratoga Lake, and where, if he does win all the prizes, it will be an honor requiring explanation.^ The American contingent to the Olympic Games at Athens consisted mostly of college men. William Milligan Sloane, a Princeton professor of French history in Europe to gather data for his work on Napoleon, took interest in Baron Pierre de Coubertin's attempts to revive the ancient Olympiads. Sloane served as the American representative to 3. Richard Mandell, The First Modern Olympics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), pp.