Tom Longboat
1907
Perhaps no Canadian athlete
has been so acclaimed and defamed as Tom Longboat. The most
heralded of all Canadian marathon runners, Longboat was to his
sport, in his time, what Tommy Burns was to boxing, what
Maurice Richard would become to hockey, Marilyn Bell to
marathon swimming. His stature extended beyond his
achievements, beyond even the borders of sport itself. He
became something more. Only rarely does an athlete become a
legend. Many become stars, a few remain memorable, almost none
attains the status of legend. Longboat was an exception.
His is a name that, generations after his time, is still a
thing of magic, evoking an era. Longboat was larger than life,
the shining best of a shining period in Canadian athletics.
There is also a tragic side to the legend. Tom Longboat stands
too as the symbol of the fallen idol, a man devoured by his
own greatness, a hero who went from rags to riches and back to
rags again. Legend depicts Longboat as achieving great fame
only to squander it and die a drunken pauper. The image is
inaccurate, a distortion of the real Tom Longboat, but it has
somehow lived on. Such is the way of legends.
Legends are fashioned less by
those they commemorate than by others. They are gardens in
which common men plant impossible dreams and harvest crops of
make-believe. Good and bad are magnified, halftones overlayed.
Legends, by their very nature, consume the facts from which
they sprang. The subject becomes greater or smaller than fact,
finally not even its shape. And those whom legend most
immortalizes are those it most obscures.
So it has been with Longboat.
Legend exaggerates much about him, from the poverty of his
origins to the extent of his achievements, from the excesses
of his lifestyle to the wealth he won and lost, from his
corruption by society to the greed of his promoters. Most in
vogue until recently has been the demeaning side of the
Longboat legend. On February 27, 1980, the Toronto Globe and
Mail recalled him this way: '"Longboat was Canada's best-known
pedestrian in the early years of the century, a fleet genius
with a well-bent elbow. He ran and drank and roistered.''
But if there is one thing
legend has not distorted it is the climate of racism in which
Longboat lived. The newspapers of the day, reflecting the low
esteem in which Indians were held by white Canadians, referred
to him routinely as ''the Injun,'' the Redskin,'' and "Heap
Big Chief.'' Bruce Kidd, in his biography of Longboat, writes
that he was treated more like a race horse than a human being.
(12)
Writers wondered frequently
whether Longboat would squander his fame and when he was
deemed to have done so ''his heritage'' was cited in
explanation. Lou Marsh, the Toronto Star writer and editor
after whom the Marsh Trophy is named,
(a) described Longboat on one occasion as
''smiling like a coon in a watermelon patch'' and on another
as "the original dummy.'' Longboat overlooked such slurs and
when Marsh, who had once been his manager, died in 1936,
Longboat spoke of him fondly. "Lou Marsh was one of the finest
men I knew,'' he said. "He always remembered an old friend.''
Tom Longboat was born June 4,
1887, (13) in a log cabin on the
Six Nations Reserve south of Brantford, Ontario. An Onondaga
Indian, one of the six tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy, his
father died when he was a boy, leaving his mother to raise the
family of two sons and two daughters. Home was a meagre farm
but there is no evidence that Longboat in his young years
lacked for life's basics. His mother was a strong and capable
woman who went about the tasks of daily life with a quiet
dignity. One of the best accounts of Longboat's roots, and a
good illustration of white attitudes toward natives, was
published by the Toronto Telegram when Longboat was at the
height of his fame.
Longboat's
Early Days
Back in the Bush
Where and How
the Great Indian Learned to Run
is Home, His Mother and The Rest of Them
Tom
Longboat! You hear it
everywhere. The children on the streets speak of little else.
It is in the hotels, in the homes, yes, even in some of the
churches. And to the great mass of the public the picture it
carries is that of an Indian who with a long, graceful stride
that never tires, has gained world-wide fame as the greatest
of all road runners and Marathon winners.
But to a very few it carries
yet another picture, and that picture is of the place where
the great Indian spent his boyhood days and where his mother
still looks out on the world with stoical Indian indifference
to the fame her son has achieved.
Out in the
bush
In Caledonia they will tell you
that spot is about seven miles ''out in the bush,'' and when
you have driven that seven miles, past stump fences and
cultivated fields, that give you a better opinion of
civilization on the untutored savage, you turn down a road
that might safely be labelled "no thoroughfare,'' climb a
fence and follow a trail through a pastoral scene that is half
bush, half meadow and the rest swamp.
As you emerge from the trees
the fraternal or rather the maternal home of all the Longboats
bursts on your view and it does not take you more than half an
hour to realize that it is by no means imposing.
Longboat's
home
Built of rough, hewn logs, now
rotting away in spots, the crevices partially filled with
mortar and topped by a roof, the shingles of which are warped
by the weather of many a changing season, the Longboat home
could hardly be equalled for simplicity or the lack of
needless ornamentation. It is probably eighteen feet long by
fourteen feet wide, and as if to emphasize its scorn for
useless grandeur a shingle has replaced a pane of glass in the
window, while the single stovepipe that serves as a chimney
has been eaten away on one side till the smoke escapes on a
level with the peak of the roof and threatens at any moment to
further celebrate Tom's victories by making a bonfire of the
whole stately edifice.
Longboat's
mother
But it was a good looking
Indian woman who answered a knock at the cabin door.
Sixty-five years had turned her wealth of straight, strong
Indian hair to an iron grey, but it crowned a countenance that
showed hardly a wrinkle and out of which shone small shrewd
eyes that her long, hard journey through life had utterly
failed to dim. Hers is an Indian face and a good one. The
broad nostrils of the Indian are there with the cheek bones
almost rushing to meet them, the mouth is firm and the eyes
close together and rather small.
But a complexion that is as far
removed from the copper color as it is from the pure Caucasian
tint and the smooth folds of the iron grey hair above it lend
an effect to her general appearance that is indefinably
pleasing.
And she is straight and tall,
this mother of a champion. Beyond a little natural stoop to
her shoulders, and a slight limp, caused by an injured foot,
there is nothing in her appearance to indicate that toil or
privation have been hers, or that the years have treated her
otherwise than kindly. And as she came out leaning on a
roughly made cane and seated herself on the doorstep to be
sketched, he would have been a farsighted man who could have
told what thoughts were concealed beneath that impassive
countenance.
A Scene that will live
And truly that scene will live
long in the memories of those who witnessed it. The stoical
old woman sat on the doorstep, calmly indifferent to her
surroundings. Nestled up to her was her little granddaughter,
a merry little Indian tot of three, who hugged a rag dolly
just as her white sisters do. Behind them the little shack
that the wildest imagination could not transform into the home
of the man of whom all Canada is talking. And back of that
again the Grand River swept around a curve, washed the feet of
the little farm that knows naught of cultivation, paying its
tribute to the Longboat home, and then sweeping silently on to
Lake Erie.
Tommy's
brother
Nor was that all, for even as
we gazed our Indian guide and interpreter for Mrs. Longboat
speaks no English when there are strangers around exclaimed,
"There's Tommy's brother." And there shambled up a path a long
lanky chap clad in overalls, a coat a few sizes too large and
a disreputable soft felt hat, and a grin. He looked for all
the world like Tom Longboat in disguise. He didn't come all
the way either, but seated himself on the ruins of an old
buggy and allowed his grin full swing. That was Simon, Tom's
younger brother. He doesn't speak a word of English but our
Indian friend averred, "He run faster than Tommy."
An amateur
mill
But even as we gazed at Simon
the scene was again added to. A hundred yards beyond where he
sat live Mrs. Longboat's eldest daughter, her husband and
numerous progeny. And out of their habitation came two buxom
Indian lasses, who seized what looked like two good-sized
round cordwood sticks, and proceeded to pound diligently in a
hollow stump in front of the door. They were grinding the corn
to make that strong heavy bread that would give a white man
all the varied degrees of indigestion in one bunch, but which
makes the Indian fat and strong.
Tom's early
days
But what about Tom Longboat's
early days. While Mrs. Longboat posed for the artist, the
Indian guide, whose lips had been unsealed by slipping
something into his hand, talked ''Tommy practice running two
years,'' he said. ''He run every morning and every night. He
run down at the council on 24th May and get beaten. Then he
come home and run more. He run round this block.'' And he
waved a hand to take in a large tract of country. ''It five
miles and a half around and Tommy get so he run it in
twenty-three and a half minutes. Next 24th of May Tommy go
down to the council and run again. It a mile race and Tommy
win by near a quarter of a mile.
''Bill Davis was there and see
him run and he coax Tommy to go to Hamilton and run there."
Tom's early
training
From what can be gleaned in the
neighborhood it is apparent that while Tom Longboat was not
reared in the lap of luxury he had plenty of opportunity to
develop the muscles of his long, thin legs. While he was yet
small the mother would take him and Simon, one in each hand,
and walk them all the way to Brantford, a distance of twelve
or fourteen miles. Of course it was just as far back again.
When Tom was twelve years of age Tom ran his first race. It
was with a cow belonging to a neighbor. Tom got her by the
tail and ran her round the field until she died. He reaped
more trouble than glory from that race.
Tom as a
specialist
After that Tom went to the
Indian school in Brantford for about five years where he
learned to read and write. But his education did not destroy
his love of running. On his return he took up his old pastime.
He worked occasionally but while he did not hate work he loved
running, and while he often neglected the former, he never
allowed his interest in the latter to dwindle. Living in an
age of specialists, he made running his specialty, and the
result is that the poor Indian boy from the shack in the bush
is today being talked of in every country that breeds men who
try to develop speed and stamina.
Inside the
Longboat home
Much more of interest might be
written on this subject; of the inside of that hut with its
single room and its three beds, its three clocks, its cooking
stove of the vintage of the early sixties, its two lamps that
burn all night, its rich profusion of useless disorder, and
its big gilt-framed picture of Champion Tom. But this is
enough to show that when the citizens of Toronto want to do
something for Tom Longboat they might perhaps do it best by
providing a better home for his mother.
(14)
The Bill Davis who spotted
Longboat's talent at the Caledonia Fair was the same Bill
Davis who had run with Jack Caffery at Boston. He became
Longboat's coach, entering him in the Hamilton Bay race of
1906 and setting the stage for what turned out to be an
auspicious day in the annals of Canadian road racing. Longboat
stood out that morning from the field of runners who gathered
in front of the Herald Building but, as an account of the day
made clear, few were impressed at what they saw.
"At the age of nineteen,
gangling and unsure of himself, he cut a pathetic picture in a
pair of bathing trunks with cheap sneakers on his feet, and
hair that looked as if it had been hacked off by a tomahawk."
(15)
Then came the race and the
beginning of the Longboat legend. Of all who were misled that
sunny Thanksgiving Day, handlers, onlookers. the other fifteen
runners entered, none were fooled more than the unsuspecting
bookmakers. Several, for lack of information, put Longboat
down at sixty to one odds while others, assuming his chances
were hopeless, let bettors name the odds themselves. One such
bet, between an unnamed bookmaker and a citizen named J.
Yaldon, was pencilled onto the sheet at one thousand dollars
to two dollars.
The favorite that day was John
Marsh, an English runner who had won a similar race sponsored
by the Winnipeg Telegram. Longboat, at Davis' instruction,
used Marsh as a pacesetter, locking onto his heels and
sticking unshakably for fifteen miles. When Marsh sprinted,
Longboat ran with him; when Marsh slowed, Longboat did
likewise.
Onlookers bumping along in
carriages and wagons, and crowds watching from the roadside as
the runners passed, laughed at Longboat in the early stages of
the race. He held his hands oddly and his feet swished
sideways in a peculiar manner. But there was no laughing on
the Plains Road near Aldershot when Longboat made his move.
Marsh could only watch as Longboat sped ahead and disappeared
from view, headed effortlessly for the finish line in downtown
Hamilton. Longboat won with ease, his time of 1:49:25 just
seconds off the course record. Pressed even slightly, he would
have broken it. Marsh struggled into the Herald offices spent,
nearly four minutes behind.
Longboat's victory jolted the
Hamilton running fraternity. Bookmakers went white
contemplating the sudden debts they had incurred. J. Yaldon
was ecstatic at his one-thousand-dollar bonanza and others
reaped even larger windfalls. One bettor waved a ticket
calling for a payoff of three thousand dollars. Longboat was a
sensation. Ten days later he entered and won the Ward Marathon
in Toronto, a fifteen-mile race named after John J. Ward. A
city controller who wore a conspicuous red cap while following
the progress of the race by car, Ward saw Longboat sweep away
from a field of more than sixty runners to defeat a
highly-rated athlete named Bill Cummings by more than three
minutes.
When Longboat next raced, in
the ten-mile annual Christmas Day race in Hamilton, he again
sprinted away from Cummings to win with ease, clocking a time
of 54:50 that was a Canadian record by two and one-half
minutes. Longboat, who along with Cummings was knocked down by
an overturning rig in the early stages of the race, crossed
the finish line laughing and earned thanks from Billy Sherring,
who presented the prizes, that he had not gone to Athens the
previous summer to run the Olympic marathon.
Harry Rosenthal, a Toronto
businessman, became Longboat's first manager but the
arrangement lasted only a few months. Questions arose over the
amount of expense money changing hands as a result of
Longboat's heavily-publicized races and the partnership was
ended to protect his amateur status. At the direction of the
Canadian Amateur Athletic Association Longboat joined and took
up residence at the West End YMCA in Toronto. The Y entered
him the following spring in the Boston Marathon.
Such was Longboat's stature by
April of 1907 that he took Boston by storm. The press besieged
him on arrival, hailing him variously as The Speedy Son of the
Forest, The Onondaga Wonder, The Indian Iron Man, The Streak
of Bronze, The Caledonia Cyclone, Wildfire and The Running
Machine. He shunned interviews but newspapers were accused of
printing them anyway, the concoctions of frustrated writers.
One newspaper substituted the photo of an Indian football
player when it was unable to acquire a Longboat photo of its
own. (16)
So certain was the sports world
of Longboat's victory at Boston that his backers had trouble
placing bets, even after he fell in training and bruised a
knee. The glittering three-foot-high statue of Mercury,
furnished as first prize, was all but awarded to Longboat in
advance. The more than one hundred others entered were assumed
destined to fight it out for the silver cups to be presented
to the next seven finishers or the medals set aside for the
following twenty-five runners.
An estimated one hundred
thousand spectators turned out for the drama and Longboat more
than lived up to expectations, running easily for the first
ten miles and then turning away his challengers one by one. A
bizarre incident occurred at South Framingham when a train
pulled across the road. The first nine runners got past but
the rest were blocked for several minutes.
Longboat swept through
Wellesley to chants from the women of Wellesley College, their
screams turning his head but not slowing his pace. Soon
afterward the race became reminiscent of the Canadian
dominance of Caffery's day as Longboat and Charlie Petch,
another Toronto runner, passed Sammy Mellor of New York, the
1902 Boston champion, and forged into the lead. Petch was the
surprise of the race, his speed matching Longboat's for so
many miles that Longboat skipped several stops for lemon and
tea. But at twenty-two miles, after an exhausting climb
through the Newton Hills, Petch faded, eventually to finish
sixth, and Longboat pulled away. A crowd estimated at fifteen
thousand lined the streets near the finish as Longboat ran to
victory hats, canes and umbrellas being thrown into the air
in salute as he passed.
He crossed the finish line on
Exeter Street in 2:24:24 4/5, smashing by a full five minutes
the durable course record Caffery had set in 1901. Boston
citizens heaped the acclaim that was his due upon him but took
consolation from the fact that it was not another Canadian
sweep. Two Americans, Bob Fowler and John J. Hayes, finished
second and third.
Longboat collected his victory
trophy at the BAA Clubhouse and departed for a victory feast
of chicken broth and steak tenderloin at his hotel while some
of those he had beaten were still struggling toward the finish
line. So voracious was his appetite that the bill came to
three dollars and ninety-five cents. That night, at the
direction of his new manager, C. H. Ashley of the West End
YMCA, Longboat was in bed by eight o'clock.
En route home to Toronto,
travelling by train through Niagara Falls, Longboat became
acquainted with Lou Marsh, the Toronto Star writer who had
gone to Boston to cover the marathon for his newspaper. Marsh
wrote later that Longboat was anything but the dull-witted
creature some perceived. P> "The man who says this Indian boy
is not keen of wit knows not whereof he speaks,'' Marsh wrote.
"His head is full of ideas and he is one of the greatest
'kidders' who ever came down the line to fame.''
Longboat reflected on the race
at Boston.
"Do you know what was wrong
with those other fellows?'' he told Marsh. ''They didn't have
the grit. Some of them are fast enough but they couldn't stand
the pace. They couldn't stick. That is what wins races like
this. You've got to get out and run and stick through to the
end to win.''
A sea of celebrating humanity
engulfed Longboat as he stepped from the train at Toronto,
followed by a frantic Ashley who carried the trophy in
unstretched hands. The champion was placed in an open car, a
Union Jack about his shoulders, and taken to City Hall in a
torch light parade. Those who lacked torches set brooms afire
and held them aloft. Horses reared in fright at the flames.
Young women gazed at Longboat in rapture as bands played and
fireworks exploded around him. Street car conductors handed
out unpunched transfers, not knowing when normal transit might
resume. An uncle, also named Tom, met Longboat at City Hall
and kissed him on the cheek. A gold medal, on the rose and
purple colors of the YMCA, was pinned to his chest and the
mayor read a congratulatory address, highlighted by an
announcement of a five hundred-dollar gift from the city for
his education. (b)
It was a genuine and heartfelt
salute to a hero but the celebration was tempered by the tact
that Longboat was, in the end, an Indian. The Toronto Star,
after calculating with amazement that Longboat had covered the
Boston course at a rate of sixteen feet a second, reflected
the sentiment.
"His trainers are to be
congratulated, not only for having such a docile pupil, but on
being able to show such excellent results from their regimen.
It is to be hoped that Longboat's success will not develop
obstinacy on his part, and that he will continue to be
manageable. If he does not lose his head or begin to break
faith with the public, he has other triumphs in store, and as
much adulation as mortal men could wish. Canada makes no bones
about gaining a little glory from an Indian. In other matters
than foot races we have become accustomed to leaders from the
Six Nations." (17)
Newspapers compared Longboat
with Billy Sherring, contrasting the Boston Marathon of 190
with the Athens marathon of 1906.
The Two
Great Marathons
ATHENS
Date May 1, 1906
Distance 26 miles
Time 2 hours, 51 minutes
Sherring stopped to walk a couple of times
Sherring won by 1 1/4 miles
Sherring took the lead at 20 miles
Sherring's Age 27
Sherring's weight 122
Sherring's height 5'6"
Spectators 150,000
Course hilly
Temperature 80 1/2 degrees
BOSTON
Date April 19,
1907
Distance 25 miles
Time 2 hrs., 24 min., 20 4/5 sec.
Longboat never let up
Longboat won by 3/4 mile
Longboat took the lead at 17th mile
Longboat's Age 19
Longboat's weight 145
Longboat's height 5'9''
Spectators 200,000
Course hilly
Temperature 40 degrees
This chart, published in
several Canadian newspaper, differs in some instances with
other records of the two marathons.
That summer Longboat left the
YMCA. He was expelled for a curfew violation but glad in
leaving to escape the institution's strict rules against
alcohol and women. The place reminded him of an Anglican
boarding school in Brantford where an unnatural order had been
imposed on the natural ways of his Indian upbringing. In May
he had written a terse letter to Tom Flanagan of the Irish
Canadian Athletic Club.
Mr. Flanagan: Dear Sir I want to join
the Irish Canadian Athletic Club. Enclosed find a dollar.
Thomas Longboat
Initially, Flanagan said no, his objection echoing the
prejudiuce of the times. "The YMCA is the best place for him.
We could not handle them (sic) as well as they can. He is a
hard man to handle and we could not give him the attention he
requires. I told him plainly today we would have nothing to do
with him.'' Flanagan relented, however, when Longboat was
tossed out of the Y, and Longboat moved into a room in
Flanagan's Grand Central Hotel, competing thereafter in the
orange and green colors of Flanagan's Irish Canadians.
Unlike the Y, Flanagan did not
oppose moderate drinking he thought beer could be good for
an athlete nor did he object to Longboat spending time with
women. (18) Longboat thrived on the
new arrangement. Under Flanagan's management he ran a series
of spectacular races, including a Canadian five-mile record of
25:55 in Ottawa and a second easy triumph in the Ward
Marathon, lengthened in 1907 to twenty miles.
Flanagan was an entrepreneur at
heart and would have steered Longboat quickly into
professional ranks except for one consideration. The 1908
London Olympics were less than a year away and Longboat
towered over all runners of the day as the most likely to win
the Olympic marathon. So Flanagan bided his time. Yet while
Longboat remained an amateur he was soon accused of acting
like a professional, living without a job at Flanagan's hotel,
and even racing like one, since many of the contests Flanagan
arranged were the show-business, betting-oriented match races
common to professionals of the day. No one could be certain of
the arrangement between Flanagan and Longboat, and whether
amateur restrictions were violated, but Longboat was
disqualified by the New England Amateur Athletic Union after a
controversial race in Boston. The ban, declaring him a
professional, prevented him from running the 1908 Boston
Marathon and caused a swirl of controversy in Canada.
Sensing the danger to
Longboat's Olympic eligibility Flanagan hastily installed his
protιgι as proprietor of a cigar store to demonstrate that he
could earn a living. The store, featuring Longboat's name in
oversize letters on the front window, was located in the
Princess Theatre Building. Longboat sold cigars from tins with
his photo on the lid at a price of four for a quarter. He also
hawked pictures of himself in running clothes but the venture
was short-lived. Longboat had little aptitude for business,
the joke circulating in running circles that he smoked most of
the stock personally, and eventually the store passed into the
hands of a businessman named Charlie Ross. Ross removed
Longboat's name from the window leaving only the printed
underline that read, ''Athletic Cigar Store.''
Although Longboat went to
London amid extravagant press fanfare over his prospects in
the marathon, the race was destined to be his greatest
disappointment as an athlete and one that tainted him with
scandal. The outcome was spectacular enough on its own, with
Dorando Pietri of Italy collapsing repeatedly in the final
yards and being disqualified, but for Canadians it had another
dimension. Longboat ran well in the race, held July 24, 1908,
in hot humid weather over a 26-mile, 385-yard course between
Windsor Castle and the Olympic Stadium, but he collapsed
without warning at nineteen miles while in second place.
Removed from the race by doctors, he finished the course by
car. His handlers were speechless and Canadians reacted with
shock and disbelief when they learned of the news by
transatlantic cable.
Rumors flew that Flanagan,
operator that he was, drugged Longboat and threw the race
deliberately, collecting one hundred thousand dollars in
crooked bets for himself and his cronies.
(19) The charge was not
substantiated and no evidence was cited to implicate Longboat
personally, but a disturbing footnote was contained later in
the Olympic report turned in by J. Howard Crocker, manager of
the Canadian team.
"I consider it my duty to state
that my experience in racing leads me to believe that Longboat
should have won the race,'' Crocker wrote. "His sudden
collapse and the symptoms shown to me indicate that some form
of stimulant was used contrary to the rules of the game. l
think that any medical man knowing the facts of the case will
assure you that the presence of a drug in an overdose was the
cause of the runner's failure." (20)
Flanagan did not deny
administering drugs but swore they were given only to revive
Longboat after his collapse. Doubts remained but there were
those who came to Flanagan's defence, including, indirectly,
Crocker, who shied away from any suggestion that corruption
influenced the outcome of the race. The Hamilton Spectator
examined the race in a dispatch from London August 5, 1908,
and concluded that Longboat was a victim of the heat.
''Longboat ran a good race,''
the article said. ''Always up with the leaders he went along
with his Onondaga stride for seventeen miles. His bronze
countenance was bedecked with a nonchalant grin. Then came an
open space with no trees to shade the runners. Longboat could
not stand the glare and heat. There was nothing to it . . .
just one more incident in an athletic event that ran the
gladitorial games of ancient Rome a good second.''
So disappointed was Longboat at
losing that he announced his retirement, certain his days as a
runner had come to a humiliating end. But Flanagan quickly
convinced him to change his mind, and once home in Canada,
entered Longboat in a string of taxing races that stretched
through the fall of 1908 and included a new Canadian five-mile
record (25:06) as well as a third straight victory in the Ward
Marathon.
The flurry of victories
redeemed Longboat. in his own eyes as well as those of others,
and led to a decision that had been urged upon him for more
than a year. In November, 1908, Tom Longboat became a
professional runner. The lure of professional racing, with
huge purses featuring the best runners of the day, had become
irresistible. Longboat entered professional ranks with the
almost unanimous blessing of friends and admirers. Newspapers
forecast that his fleet legs would carry him to a fortune of
twenty thousand dollars.
Yet his new career started not
with a race but with a row over management. Flanagan expected
to handle Longboat's affairs as a professional in the same
autocratic manner he had as an amateur, at last cashing in on
spoils to which he felt entitled, but Longboat was not
altogether comfortable with the prospect. Although a committee
had already been established to handle Longboat's winnings,
(c) the assumption being
that he would squander the wealth on his own, Longboat
considered leaving Flanagan and turning his affairs over to
Tom Claus, a Mohawk friend from Deseronto, Ontario. The deal
came so close to being made that Claus announced it to the
press. Such was the interest in Longboat's professional career
that the news caused a furore. Sports columns bristled with
bitter criticism, the angriest coming from those who felt they
had lost a deserving stake in Longboat's career.
Said Flanagan: ''There has
appeared as if by magic a number of individuals who are hard
at work endeavoring to secure control over him for their own
purposes. Some of them, in the belief that I was his manager,
have made proposals to me with regard to crooked deals, which
have thoroughly disgusted me with the men and their methods.
Others have been earnestly at work, and with some success, in
undermining my influence with Longboat by the use of debasing
influences. These men have sufficiently degraded the Indian by
pandering to his weaknesses to render it very doubtful that he
could again be brought under a system of discipline that would
guarantee a fair showing.''
Added Rev. John D. Morrow, one
of the miffed Longboat trustees: "I can safely say that no
other man or number of men could have managed Tom Longboat but
Flanagan because the physical and mental make-up of the Indian
is so foreign to any other athlete's, and his disposition so
hard at times to understand that it took a man with invincible
resolution, and sometimes pugilistic ability, to gain the
desired end, and Flanagan is that man. "
Others joined the chorus.
Tim O'Rourke of the Irish
Canadian Athletic Club: ''Longboat, unless he is handled
properly, will not last three months as a professional runner.
He does not know when he is in condition to run, and will not
train unless he is driven to it. The way he is going on now he
would be pie for any decent runner.''
Harry Rosenthal, his first
manager: '`If he could be handled like a white man, don't you
think I would have stuck to him? You bet I would. I told
Flanagan when I left him what he was, and now Flanagan knows.
He is a terror. He has got to be very carefully handled to get
his speed out. Any man who takes him and thinks he has a gold
mine has a gold brick. He would be worth ten thousand dollars
if he would behave himself." (21)
Flanagan and Longboat patched
up their differences, however, and the wrangle ended with the
news that Longboat would launch his new career by challenging
a three-man relay team in a five-mile race November I I, 1908,
at Kingston. Tom Claus was unhappy at Longboat's change of
heart but the two remained friends and Longboat visited
Claus's reservation in Deseronto before the race, travelling
on to Kingston behind a team of greys with a young Indian
woman as a companion. Twelve hundred people watched Longboat
take the lead within half a mile, circling a skating rink at
thirteen laps to the mile, and hold it to the end. His time
was recorded as "about 26 minutes."
Longboat's true initiation as a
professional did not occur until a month later at Madison
Square Garden in New York City. The race was a storied
encounter with Dorando Pietri of Italy, the tragic Olympic
figure who was helped across the marathon finish line only to
be disqualified. Dorando, as Americans called him, and Johnny
Hayes, the man who became Olympic champion in Dorando's place,
both joined professional ranks after the 1908 games and were
signed by New York promoters to begin a series of elimination
races leading to what was billed as the world professional
marathon championship. Dorando and Hayes raced November 25,
1908, before delirious Madison Square Garden throngs, the
contest highlighted by ten-dollar ticket prices, heavy betting
and a near riot in the final laps. Dorando, in the triumph he
was denied at London, won by eighty yards in 2:44:20.
Longboat, invited to challenge
Dorando next, accepted gladly, and the race was scheduled for
December 15, 1908. The build-up was such that on race day the
Garden was packed well in advance and police strained at the
gates to control an unruly mob that refused to be turned away.
They failed, unable to draw nightsticks and swing them in the
crush, and barriers nearly gave way. Only the last-minute
arrival of a squad of reinforcements ''Pinkertons'' saved
the day.
Gate receipts totalled fifteen
thousand dollars with Dorando and Longboat each guaranteed
twenty-five per cent or shares of three thousand, seven
hundred and fifty dollars. (22)
Dorando took to the track in the same red suit he had worn in
London and Longboat, shunning a new outfit provided by his
trainers, wore the familiar orange and green colors of the
Irish Canadians. Race conditions within the Garden were
stifling, the air blue with tobacco smoke, and the track
required ten laps for each of the twenty-six miles to be run.
Longboat was accompanied by
Flanagan and a coterie of Canadians that included Lou Marsh,
who acted as an adviser to Longboat as well as a journalist. A
furniture retailer offered Longboat a bedroom suite if he
could build up a mile lead over Dorando by the sixteenth mile
but Marsh advised another strategy, recalling Dorando's
late-race collapse in London and noting that a scant three
weeks had passed since the Italian's race against Hayes. The
insight proved shrewd.
Crowds cheered themselves
hoarse as the two men ran close together for virtually the
entire race, Dorando often a few paces in front but Longboat
also surging now and then into the lead. But the real drama
was confined to the closing minutes. Just past twenty-five
miles, Longboat made his bid, his legs still fresh enough to
sprint, and the outcome was clear. Dorando tried for three
searing laps to hold stride and failed, his body so drained
that he staggered and fell unconscious. Handlers carried him
from the track while Longboat coasted to victory in 2:45:05.
It was as thrilling a triumph as he would ever know.
Among those who watched in the
noisy arena that night was a striking Mohawk woman named
Lauretta Maracle. Two weeks later, on December 28, 1908, she
and Longboat were married in Toronto. The wedding and
reception that followed at Massey Hall brought considerable
interest to bear on the woman who had married the hero. The
Globe noted with approval that she was an educated woman and
took heart that she seemed more like a white than an Indian.
''She does not like to talk of
feathers, war paint or other Indian paraphernalia. She is
ambitious for Tom and if anybody can make a reliable man and a
good citizen out of that elusive human being . . . it will be
his wife.'' (23)
The wedding took place just
five days before the second of Longboat's big professional
races, leaving little time for the couple to celebrate.
Instead they travelled to Buffalo, New York, where Longboat
raced Dorando Pietri for a second time on January 2, 1909, at
the 74th Armory. A rematch was not planned when the two raced
in New York City but the drama generated by the encounter made
one irresistible, so much so that neither allowed a prudent
amount of recovery time before it was scheduled. This was
especially true for Dorando who was running his third marathon
in five weeks. (d) The
Armory's normal seating capacity of eight thousand was
increased to nearly fifteen thousand for the race, with the
addition of extra seats and the sale of standing room tickets,
but New York speculators snapped up such huge blocks and
resold them at such prohibitive prices that actual attendance
totalled roughly eleven thousand including twenty-five hundred
Canadians.
Longboat wanted to run the same
race he had at Madison Square Garden, a waiting game capped by
a rousing finish, but Dorando set out at so fierce a pace,
covering the first mile in 5:03, that it was all Longboat
could do to hold on. So determined was Dorando to prove his
speed that he took Longboat through the first fifteen miles of
the race in 1:26:34 2/5, nineteen seconds under Longboat's
existing Canadian fifteen-mile record.
''Fifteen in 1:26:34 2/5 in a
twenty-five-mile race is not an exhibition by an extra lively
tortoise,'' Lou Marsh wrote later. "It is drilling from the
drop of the hat.''
Yet Dorando was the runner
headed for trouble. Despite his frequent use of what Marsh
described as ''the little brown dope bottle," the race ended
suddenly at nineteen miles when Dorando veered off the track
and collapsed into the arms of his brother, Ulpiano. Frenzied
Canadians surged forward to congratulate Longboat as Dorando
was helped staggering up a flight of stairs.
But the Canadian was also in
difficulty when the turn of events occurred, his feet aflame
with angry red blisters and a knee still bleeding from a spill
in the second mile. He might have been forced out himself had
Dorando been able to continue. Nonetheless, Longboat continued
alone through the remaining miles, walking painfully most of
the way, to prevent disputes over the payment of winning bets
to his Canadian backers.
The triumph elevated still
further Longboat's already towering public status but it
seemed only to worsen his strained relationship with Flanagan.
Before the month was out, complaining that Longboat would no
longer adhere to the most basic of training regimens, Flanagan
sold Longboat's contract for two thousand dollars to Pat
Powers, a New York promoter who helped arrange the Longboat-Dorando
races. Longboat, jolted by the suddenness of the move, told
Lauretta bitterly, "He sold me just like a race horse to make
money." (24)
Powers arranged the finale of
the world professional marathon championship, a race February
5, 1909, at Madison Square Garden between Longboat and Alf
Shrubb, the British distance champion who had been a
professional since 1906 and had run some of the world's
fastest times between ten and twenty miles. As the ranking
professional of the day Shrubb was considered the essential
runner to defeat for anyone aspiring to the title of
professional champion, even though he had never actually
competed at the full marathon distance. Longboat suspected
this lack of experience with the marathon's unpredictability
might prove Shrubb's undoing and he ended up proving the point
in the race, held before twelve thousand screaming spectators.
But the outcome may have been different had Shrubb not started
the race at so fast a pace that he eventually became the
victim of his own speed. just as Dorando had done.
Shrubb built up such a huge
lead over Longboat in the first sixteen miles, the margin once
approaching a mile. that the crowd turned on the Canadian and
booed. Consternation spread among Longboat's backers and gloom
reigned at the end of telegraph wires back in Toronto where
hordes had gathered to await the news. Then the tide began to
turn.
Longboat's legendary endurance
gradually prevailed over the fading Englishman. One by one
Longboat won back the laps he had lost until, with less than
two miles remaining, he caught and swept past Shrubb on a
crescendo of acclaim, the excitement akin to that of a great
prize fight decided in the final round. Shrubb, his energy
spent and his will broken, quit the race. Longboat, at the
pinnacle of his sport, now the champion of all marathoners,
coasted to victory in 2:53:40.
Subsequently, Longboat ran and
lost a so-called Marathon Derby that pitted him against five
of the top marathoners of the day, Shrubb, Hayes, Dorando,
Matthew Maloney and a waiter from France named Henri St. Yves.
To the amazement of the twenty-five thousand who paid to see
the race, held April 3, 1909, on a five-lap outdoor track at
the New York Polo Grounds, both Longboat and Shrubb dropped
out while victory went to St. Yves, the most unheralded runner
of the lot, in 2:40:50. Longboat was disappointed but he had
one consolation.
Powers' his new manager, whom
he resented as much as Flanagan, had agreed to sell his
contract to a buyer acceptable to Longboat if Longboat ran the
derby without a guaranteed purse, the only pay-off being what
he might win. Longboat came away from the race without a cent
but wound up with a new manager. Sol Mintz of Hamilton bought
Longboat's contract from Powers for seven hundred dollars.
(25)
The price reflected the swift
decline in the public's estimation of Longboat after his break
with Flanagan, whom the Toronto press lionized, and his defeat
in the derby so soon after having beaten Shrubb. Scandal
rumors followed the derby. St. Yves having been a forty to one
longshot, but no convincing evidence was produced, as none had
been after the Olympic marathon.
"Get this into your head,''
wrote Lou Marsh. "Longboat lost both races fairly. Pat Powers
is on the level. That is his reputation from New York to
Chicago. The Marathon Derby was won and lost on its merits.
Longboat did not lie down."
Marsh attributed the defeat to
inadequate training, as did Flanagan and others, reinforcing
the belief that Longboat relied on his talent alone. But time
has provided another view. Bruce Kidd summarized Longboat s
training habits this way:
Longboat definitely disliked
having a trainer crack the whip, and on several occasions took
time off to celebrate a heady victory. But there is no
evidence that he refused to train. In fact, he seems to have
had a particularly good idea of the type of training he
needed. The basis for his endurance was always regular
long-distance walking, usually twenty miles a day. He also
spent an hour each day in vigorous activity, such as
weightlifting or playing handball, which he loved. His running
was limited to two long runs at varied speeds each week and
frequent time trials. Longboat's training displayed early
forms of long slow distance and fartlek (speedplay) which are
both considered successful training formulae."
(26)
Professional races remained
common for several years, in Great Britain and South Africa as
well as North America, but few contests matched the sheer
spectacle of those that occurred in Longboat's fabulous year
of 1909.
Longboat raced successfully
until 1913, winning many of his races and rarely finishing
worse than second. Racing took him throughout the continent to
cities where the sport flourished and across the Atlantic to
perform before crowds in Britain. On January 2, 1912, he
competed in the last of three world marathon competitions at
Powderhall Stadium in Edinburgh, leading for fifteen miles
before dropping out with a bad knee, and he set a world
professional fifteen-mile record of 1:20:04 2/5 on Febnuary 5,
1912, also at Edinburgh.
In his three best seasons as a
professional Longboat earned an estimated seventeen thousand
dollars, a lifetime of earnings in many jobs of the day.
Promoters and handlers took some of the money but Longboat
retained a significant share and spent it freely on family and
friends. He dressed expensively, entertained, and bought a
house for his mother, eventually seeing his money slip away.
Some of it was lost on unsound investments, a reflection of
Longboat's lack of business acumen, but he rarely complained.
When his fortune was gone he simply returned to a lifestyle he
already knew.
What vestiges of professional
racing remained were extinguished with the arrival of World
War I in 1914 and the recruitment of Canadians to serve
overseas. Longboat volunteered in 1916 and served three years
in England and France, assigned to various regiments including
the 180th Sportsmen's Battalion. Popular as both a soldier and
an athlete, Longboat competed in military races and was once
assigned the dangerous job of carrying messages from one
battlefield post to another in France. He was wounded and
reported dead, leading to a jolting personal experience on his
return to Canada in 1919.
His wife Lauretta had
remarried. The development was wrenching for both of them but,
happy as she was to see Longboat alive, Lauretta decided to
remain in her new marriage. Longboat accepted the loss and not
long afterward married Martha Silversmith, a woman from his
own Six Nations reserve. They had four children.
Unemployed after the war,
Longboat sought work where he could find it. He held several
mill and factory jobs in southern Ontario and once travelled
west in hopes of establishing himself as a farmer. He found
work as a farm hand but it turned out to be an unhappy period
for Longboat and his family. Times turned so bleak in Alberta
that he pawned his racing medals to make ends meet. Moe
Lieberman, an Edmonton lawyer and sportsman who bought the
mementoes, kept them for a number of years, hoping someone
would care enough to redeem them on Longboat's behalf. No one
did and most were reported to have been melted down for their
gold. (27) Eventually, Longboat
returned to Ontario where he found permanent work with the
City of Toronto. He drove horses and swept leaves but for the
most part collected garbage.
Longboat remained an employee
of the city for nearly twenty years, a dependable man who
worked quietly, owned a car, provided for his family and had a
circle of close friends. But in the eyes of the public, white
society as mirrored in the newspapers, he had fallen to the
bottom. Collecting garbage was an ignominious end for someone
who had risen to such fame and glory, even an Indian. A writer
once described him as "a rubbish man, a particularly nice
rubbish man, an Indian rubbish man'' whom young boys no longer
looked up to. The unmaking of Longboat the hero began on his
return from the war when he tried and failed, in the face of
lapsed public interest, to revive his old racing days.
Stripped of the one asset society valued, he was reduced in
many respects to being simply a lowly native Canadian. An
insight into the attitudes Longboat encountered was contained
in an article by Lou Marsh.
Interviewing
Big Indian A Tough Job
Tom Longhoal More Taciturn Than Ever
Two Years in France
By Lou E.
Marsh
In my time I've interviewed
everything from a circus lion to an Eskimo chief, but when it
comes down to being the original dummy, Tom Longboat is it.
Interviewing a Chinese Joss or a mooley cow is pie compared to
the task of digging anything out of Heap Big Chief T.
Longboat.
I pried a cross-question like
the late E. F.B. Johnston in his palmy days but about all I
got out of Thomas after two years in France was a 'close-up'
of a set of magnificent teeth and a pair of beady brown eyes.
Here is about how the alleged
interview went.
"How'd you like soldiering,
Tom?''
"Sall right,'' and a wide
smile.
"Didja get hit'?''
"Nope,'' and an expansive
smile.
"They said you were buried up a
couple of times?''
"Nope! Just splattered with mud
and knocked down'" and another half-acre smile.
"What were you doing all the
time over there?''
"Oh anything carrying
messages, running despatch riding and digging ditches'' and
still more smiles.
He ducked
"How did you like the whine and
the crump of the big fellows?''
Tom showed life instantly. He
ducked and grinned some more. "I dodged them,'' he said, and
then thought a minute. "By Gingoes, I thought I'd never see
Canada again the first time."
"Did you get a chance to bag a
Boche."
Just a wide grin and a nod.
What in blazes is the use of
trying to interview a man like that .... He brought with him a
souvenir of C' Company, 1st Canadian Engineers Battalion,
Christmas dinner at Kalk-Koin, Germany. Here is the unique
menu:
Heinie soup
Boche beef
Austrian lamb
Turkey sauce
Canada and U.S.A. trimmings
Rhine apple pie
Santa Claus pudding
Coffee
Beer! Beer! Beer!
Music supplied by Gemman Band
God Save the King (28)
Longboat was dogged throughout
his life, and his memory after it, by the widespread belief
that he lost his fame to alcohol and spent much of his life as
a drunk. The seeds of the myth probably were sown when he was
evicted from the West End YMCA in 1907 or in 1911 when he was
charged with intoxication and given a much-publicized
suspended sentence.
Years later he had another
brush with the law. Driving home on July 7, 1935, to the Six
Nations Reserve for a holiday, he was stopped by police near
Caledonia. Charged with driving while under the influence, he
pleaded guilty and spent a week in the Cayuga Jail, sleeping
by night in a cell and swinging a scythe for the county by day
with other prisoners because he happened to be convicted
during weed-cutting week.
But there is no evidence, much
as Longboat enjoyed a drink, that he became an alcoholic. His
athletic record while professional races lasted, and his
victories in the military, not to mention his long steady
years of employment with the City of Toronto, belie the image.
In retrospect, the explanation
for his tarnished reputation seems to rest to a significant
degree with imposters who exploited his famous name, a not
uncommon occurrence in the age before television when public
figures often were known better by name than face. While
Longboat was overseas he was impersonated by a man on the West
Coast and several similar incidents happened at other points
in his life. The most damaging involved a dark-haired vagrant
who wandered about southern Ontario sponging drinks in
Longboat's name. Stung by the damage to his name, Longboat
wrote to the Hamilton Spectator shortly before his death in an
effort to set the record straight. The newspaper ran this
story on April 9, 1947.
Tom
Longboat Protests
Thirsty Imposter Arouses
Anger of Veteran Runner
The real Tom Longboat, a temperate silver-haired gentleman
from Ohsweken, declared war today on a thirsty black-haired
impostor, toasted often in district beverage rooms as the
veteran Indian marathoner. Enclosing his own photograph in a
letter to the Spectator, the real Mr. Longboat called the
bibulous pretender "a cheap two-bit impostor."
Mr. Longboat, himself described as a "perfect gentleman and
the soul of honor" by another great marathoner today, has long
been identified by some Hamiltonians who know no better, as a
tall youthful fellow with black hair.
''This, of course, is not so, as Mr. Longboat's picture
shows."
In his letter Mr. Longboat writes that, ''This man has been
capitalizing on my famous name for the last fifteen to twenty
years and I think it's high time I put an end to it once and
for all."
According to some prominent old athletes here the imposter
does not present himself among them, but rather among younger
men in beverage rooms.
''Tom Longboat is a perfect gentleman," Billy Sherring said
today, ''and the soul of honor. You can depend that Tom
Longboat wouldn't be looking for drinks in a beverage room.
Not even if he were broke.''
When Tom Longboat wrote to the
Spectator he had left his job with the city and, in declining
health, retired to his beloved Six Nations Reserve. Less than
a year later, on January 9, 1948, Longboat died there of
pneumonia. The headlines occasioned by his death were
reminiscent of those in his heyday. The funeral took place two
days later in the tribal Long House, his body prepared for the
service by the women of the reserve in the traditional way,
cloaked in handstitched burial garments without pins or
buttons. The building was heated by two wood stoves.
Mourners streamed to the
reserve to pay their respects, honored and ordinary, Indian
and white, old and young, cars threading over frozen roads to
fill the scene outside the Long House. Billy Sherring was
there as was Sol Minz, the last of Longboat's managers, and
Bobby Kerr, the sprinter who triumphed in London where
Longboat failed.
The service was conducted in
Longboat's Onondaga tongue, his deeds recalled and homage
paid. It was a simple and dignified end, burial following in
the quiet confines of the Long House burial ground. A flag
draped his coffin and near its head, in Onondaga tradition, a
notch was cut in the shape of a V allowing his spirit to
escape and join his ancestors.
Footnotes:
(a) Lewis Edwin Marsh was
born in 1878 at Campbellford, Ontario, and joined The Toronto
star as a copy boy in 1893. His interest spanned the world of
sport. An athlete and promoter as well as a celebrated writer
and editor, he once defeated Olympic sprinting champion Bobby
Kerr of Hamilton in a one-hundred-yard race. Marsh also became
widely known as a hockey and boxing referee. His writing was
colorful and direct, mirroring his life and manner of speech.
"He invested sport with a kind of gleam," The Star said at the
time of his death. For many years Marsh wrote a freewheeling
column called Pick and Shovel, its unpredictable contents
infuriating and delighting Star readers. Marsh died of a
stroke March 4, 1936, after forty-three years with the
newspaper. The Lou Marsh Trophy has been awarded annually ever
since to the individual judged by the newspaper to be the
outstanding Canadian athlete of the year.
(b)
Longboat never received the money although he tried several
times over the years to collect it. It went unpaid until Bruce
Kidd, researching his biography of Longboat, discovered it was
still outstanding more than seven decades later. Kidd
calculated that the grant would have grown with compound
interest in the meantime to ten thousand dollars and brought
the matter to the attention of Toronto City Council. A debate
ensued on how best to make amends and a cheque was issued in
1980 to Longboat's heirs.
(c)
The trustees included Rev. J. D. Morrow, a former sprinter and
close Flanagan associate; J. J. Ward of the Ward Marathon and
W. J. Little of the Montreal Star.
(d)
Between November 25, 1908, and January 22, 1909, Dorando ran
five full-length professional marathons, defeating Johnny
Hayes, Percy Smallwood and Albeit Corey, and losing twice to
Longboat. |