CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
_THE NOBLE SPORT_
And then there was the matter of The International Sporting Club. It was among Gutzon Borglum’s most altruistic endeavors and certainly one that can be viewed without any reference at all to his art.
It may seem to some readers that there is something of a retrogression when an artist involves himself in a sporting club--that the whole effort militates against his ideals of his craft. But that doesn’t seem to be the way Borglum felt about it. Boxing was just another odd subject that interested him and one with which he believed he could do something. He may even have fancied himself as a fighter--and, in view of later conduct, it seems that he did.
Critical opinion being what it is, three propositions should be noted as a sort of prelude to what follows:
1. Many physicians agree that boxing, or, as it is sometimes called, “The Manly Art,” is an excellent physical exercise, particularly for those who win at it.
2. During the First World War, the United States Army made boxing an important part of the training of two million young men as soldiers.
3. After the war an extraordinary number of returned veterans (the estimate of the trade is 20,000) wanted to take up boxing as a profession because they liked it, or because there was a living in it with big money for those who reached the championship in any grade from bantam to heavyweight.
There was no tangible evidence that the sculptor had gone very deeply into the study of these matters. But as a man who had raised an army on his own grounds he was one who undoubtedly would listen to any harangue about what was good for soldiers being just the stuff for virile men who were not soldiers. And the appeal came to him without his making any move to ask for it.
One Sunday afternoon in 1917 there came strolling up the driveway to the Borglum home in Stamford a stranger somewhat noticeably costumed. As he alighted from his cab and started a leisurely march to the terrace the Borglums were conscious of a broadly checked suit, a flaming tie, a monocle and a bright-yellow cane. The man’s face may have shown a hint of Irish, but otherwise he was unmistakably British and impressively advertising it.
At the door he introduced himself as William A. Gavin of London. “But I have come originally from old Ireland,” he mentioned. “I was taught to love the arts at my mother’s knee. I have never forgotten the precepts she laid down for me.... ‘A great artist,’ she always said, ‘must live very close to God.’ And I have come here, sir, as a humble pilgrim. I have seen some of your magnificent work and I stand in great awe of it. I should esteem it a great privilege, Mr. Borglum, if I could go home and tell some of my friends that I have had the chance to shake your hand....”
Mr. Borglum invited him in.
Whatever else Mr. Gavin may have been, he was a finished worker. He has been described by some of those who knew him best as a somewhat small, round, dapper gentleman with an amiable manner who was stiff enough to be nearly pompous. But he knew how to take his time.
In due course he mentioned what had given him his interest
[Illustration: LINCOLN AND GUTZON BORGLUM IN HOIST]
[Illustration: PLASTER MODEL IN MOUNTAIN STUDIO
G.B. has his hand on T.R.’s nose. Lincoln Borglum is at left]
in sculpture. “I have learned,” he said, “what the human body looks like in motion. I know there must be strange techniques in the art that permits the transfer of this motion to blocks of stone or metal. I can sense it. I can see it although I cannot comprehend it. I have been able to recognize master productions. I have never failed to see that they were master productions--and I may say that so far I have never seen any that move me the way that yours do.”
“And you are not an artist?” inquired Mr. Borglum.
Mr. Gavin sighed. “Ah, no,” he said. “I wished to be. As a child I haunted the art galleries. But there were financial difficulties in the family and I was discouraged. I have given much of my life to sports.”
“Interesting,” murmured the sculptor.
“Yes, indeed,” returned Mr. Gavin. “In a way it has been an odd path--and not one, perhaps, that I should have chosen if I had been given the selection. But I feel that I have done a worthwhile thing. The strength of the nation may be said to depend upon its horses, rifle shots, swimmers, tennis champions, boxers, and, of course, cricket players. I have tried to make these people constantly better--and, in my small way, I have succeeded.”
“I like boxing,” admitted the sculptor.
“I had believed you would,” said Gavin. “At the moment boxing is my own principal interest. That is one of the reasons why I have come to talk with you. Unfortunately few people in New York have ever seen a boxing match. They do not know what it means to watch the effortless movement of a pair of skilled boxers--to note the extreme precision with which their effort is controlled.” To him, he said, such contests were the most beautiful thing in the world--expressive of the fundamental male instincts, inspiring. And after that he got around to the reason for his visit.
It had occurred to him, he said, that Mr. Borglum might be of help to him in raising the level of boxing in the United States. He had come from England because he hoped to do what Lord Lonsdale had done over there to get outstanding people interested in the art instead of the heedless ruffians who now controlled it. Gutzon’s name had been given him, he said, as that of a man whose integrity was well known to the community and who had expressed some sympathy with the people who were trying to make ring contests legal. If Gutzon would join his list of sponsors, he said--and he named several highly respectable men of Gutzon’s acquaintance--he would form an immense club, restore the manly art and form a national association to promote it. He, himself, he mentioned, would advance all preliminary expenses.
The sculptor joined this crusade without further pressure. Nobody connected with him could have doubted that he would. Boxing had some of the artistic appeal for him that it theoretically had for Gavin. He had known about fisticuffs since boyhood, and, as his sculpture progressed, his continuous swinging of the tools had broadened his shoulders and put power behind his punch. Boxing had become one of the things that he thought he might learn to do better than anybody else, and he had tried to prove it. His friend Bob Davis had brought the world’s heavyweight champion Bob Fitzsimmons to the sculptor’s studio just as a test. Borglum had made a somewhat secondary showing against the champion, but that hadn’t hurt his enthusiasm. Maybe he didn’t know as much about ring mayhem as a champion, but he still knew as much about the theory of boxing as anybody else. That’s what he was thinking when he signed Gavin’s prospectus--which was quite a prospectus.
It turned out that there was a lot of business about the boxing reform movement that Gutzon had not suspected. In September 1919 there came into being The International Sporting Club, Inc., of New York, an organization that was to show the National Sporting Club of London how sports really should be conducted. According to the plan ably outlined by Mr. Gavin, there would be 2,250 members. Each member, to get the great movement started, was to buy a gold-debenture bond for $500 as a sort of initiation fee. The bond was to pay six per cent annually. After that the dues would be $100 a year.
Land was bought and plans were drawn for a magnificent clubhouse at Lexington Avenue and Forty-ninth Street. Excavators came with suitable tools and began to dig a hole for this great temple of sport. Members rushed in to buy their gold debentures. The hole deepened and presently was surrounded by a high fence to keep New York’s enthusiasts from falling into it.
By the end of 1920 Gavin was beginning to be one of the most talked-about men in New York. He, of course, was managing director of the club. He was mentioned in press reports as the man in control of “organization and development,” which seem to have been his chief concern.
Major A. J. Drexel Biddle was first president of the organization. Gutzon Borglum, still eager for the return of boxing, suddenly found himself treasurer. The Army and Navy were well represented in the membership by people who had been active in the First World War--admirals and generals, and commanders and colonels. And there were so many more figures from financial and social eminences that the roster was a sort of _Who’s Who_. There was quite a sensation when this list of magnificent members moved into the struggle to get boxing back again.
Whatever may be said about Gavin’s effort to raise the level of the boxing industry, it is certain that the club presently began to make some headway. Senator James J. Walker, presently to be known as New York’s playboy mayor, led the fight at Albany and presently won it when the Walker Bill (Chapter 714, Laws of 1921, N. Y.) was passed. But he had a lot of amateur assistance. Biddle made an impassioned plea to Governor Alfred Smith and later broke through Tammany obstructions to lay the matter before Boss Murphy and demand his support.
When the bill was passed, as nearly everybody thought it would be, a testimonial dinner was given to Gavin. Jimmy Walker declared that the legalization of boxing in New York was due to Gavin’s skill in organization and to his tireless energy. He read a letter to the banqueters that Borglum, still full of crusading zeal, had written to him:
You have recounted some of the obstacles Gavin surmounted in the passage of the bill. They were great, no doubt, but they were small compared with those he has encountered in the founding of the International Sporting Club. And these are small compared with the obstacles that stood in the way of convincing the governors of twenty commonwealths of the wisdom and necessity of forming a national body. It seems that boxing, which has become the black sheep of the family of sports, and of which Maeterlinck says, “It is not a coincidence that the nations who love boxing do not know the knife,” is at last destined to come into its own.
Gavin went on. While the eager members were still peering through the fence at the empty hole at Lexington Avenue and Forty-ninth Street, he began a series of gorgeous entertainments for celebrities. At one of them, entitled “Ladies’ Night at the Commodore Hotel,” the women leaders of New York’s society looked at a prize fight for the first time in their lives. Gavin was a good promoter. The homeless club staged, in all, three bouts--Fulton _vs._ Wills, Carpentier _vs._ Levinsky, Herman _vs._ Lynch.
Georges Carpentier, the French championship contender, was the chief attraction and got considerably more publicity than he deserved. Champion Jack Dempsey, who, a few months later, was to knock out M. Carpentier, was present at the Sporting Club bout and was applauded with dignified acclaim. With all this enthusiasm roaring through New York, Gavin got some new ideas for his building. He arranged with Gutzon to carve marble panels for the main room and to produce a large piece of sculpture for the entrance. Borglum started to make models of the specimens required ... but it is hard to find any record of what became of them.
The third prize fight sponsored by Gavin was between Pete Herman and Joe Lynch at Ebbets Field, and it was not much of a success. It ended in a riot that caused the club to lose its license to promote private bouts and something like $40,377.32 in cash. Major A. J. Drexel Biddle walked out and trouble began to pile up.
In May 1921 some of the members who were no longer impressed by the empty hole in the ground on Lexington Avenue formed a committee and asked Mr. Gavin to give an accounting of the International Sporting Club’s finances. He did so suavely and willingly. There were 1,700 members on the list, he said. That was because of his care in selection. Some of these had paid only part of the $500 due on their debentures, but a total of $742,000 had been paid in and quite a lot had been paid out. The price of the building lot had been something like $250,000. There had been a charge of $105,000 for the digging of the hole. He had made an advance of $120,000 for steel, contractors’ fees and architects. And then there had been some expense--about $126,000--for “organization and development.”
There was further inquiry. Borglum became president of the club to succeed Major A. J. Drexel Biddle, and to the end he looked upon Mr. Gavin as a much maligned man.
It was discovered, during what remained of 1921, that Gavin had incorporated two organizations--The International Sporting Club and The Army, Navy, and Civilian Board of Boxing Control--which everybody knew about, and also The International Sporting Club Corporation. The International Sporting Club Corporation was a holding company designed to control the real estate--and the money--of the other two. When the membership investigating committee found out about it, it was in “an unhealthy condition.”
In November 1921, after he had spent another $62,000 for “organization and development,” Mr. Gavin got tired of all the mistrust and bickering. One night he and his attractive wife quietly slipped out of New York. They left no word of explanation or farewell. They left no purse to pay the current bills of the International Sporting Club. The investigators found that the membership had paid in a total of $1,013,478. Before the report was completed they received a nice letter from Gavin saying good-by to everybody, but they found no way to include it in the valuable assets which consisted chiefly of the hole in the ground. They found $149.69 in one bank. In another there was $3.52.
There were those who believed him incompetent to handle money, and those who thought him extremely competent--in his own interest. There were some, like Gutzon, who still believed in him. Nobody sued him; nobody charged him with any crime; no crime was ever proved against him. The money was spent. The members disagreed whether he had given them their money’s worth in excitement and novelty.
Gutzon got words of sympathy from Charles Dana Gibson, Postmaster General Hitchcock, Senator Coleman Dupont, Major General Leonard Wood and others. But nothing came of his efforts to retrieve the Sporting Club. Gavin was gone. The Club was gone. After a while the hole in the ground was filled by another building, the anguished creditors ceased their crying, and presently nothing remained in New York to mark the regime of Gavin except the boxing act. Borglum was never quite sure that it was worth bragging about.