Olympic Wrath

The Olympic Games were revived from the grave of ancient Greece by Baron Pierre de Coubertin in 1896 to encourage international amity. They have been held eight times since, never without disorders ranging from disputed decisions to international scandals.*

In the U. S., altercation about the 1936 Olympics started in 1933 when the American Olympic Association met to consider sending a team to Berlin. One faction strongly opposed U. S. participation on the theory that Jews were being unfairly barred from German teams, while another faction argued no less earnestly that how the Nazis made up their teams was no rightful concern of the U. S. This semipolitical issue smoldered along for two years, while the American Olympic Committee was appointed, extracted a pledge that Jews would be allowed to compete for places on the German team and the Committee's chairman, Avery Brundage, went to Germany to investigate. It sputtered into fresh flame last fortnight when Jeremiah T. Mahoney, onetime New York Supreme Court Justice, president of the Amateur Athletic Union which is one of 30 sporting organizations represented on the American Olympic Committee, wrote an open letter to Dr. Theodor Lewald, head of the German Olympic Committee, saying that he was convinced that Jews were not being allowed a fair chance to participate in the Olympic Games. In Berlin, Dr. Lewald said: "Olympic pledges will be absolutely kept. ..."

Last week Charles Hitchcock Sherrill, U. S. member of the International Olympic Committee and onetime (1932-33) Ambassador to Turkey, arrived in New York after a seven-week trip to Germany to make sure that Helene Mayer, German-Jewish Olympic fencing star in 1932, would be asked to join the German team next year. Even before the Normandie docked, Mr. Sherrill was handed a letter from the U. S. Committee on Fair Play in Sports, asking him to support the move to withdraw the U. S. from the 1936 Olympics. The blast that Sportsman Sherrill uttered in reply promptly turned the flame into a thoroughgoing conflagration. Said he:

"As to obstacles placed in the way of Jewish athletes ... in trying to reach Olympic ability, I would have no more business discussing that in Germany than the Germans would have to discuss the Negro situation in the American South or the treatment of the Japanese in California. ... I shall go right on being pro-Jewish and for that reason I have a warning for American Jewry. There is grave danger in this Olympic agitation. . . . We are almost certain to have a wave of anti-Semitism among those who never before gave it a thought and who may consider that 5,000,000 Jews in this country are using 120,000,000 Americans to pull their chestnuts out of the fire. . . ."

Loudest reply to Mr. Sherrill promptly came from "Jerry" Mahoney who told the Social Problems Club at Columbia University: "The Nazi invitation ... is a subterfuge without cordiality or real sportsmanship." Retaliated Mr. Sherrill: "Why doesn't Jerry see to it that Jews are admitted as members of the New York Athletic Club, of which he is a member?" Snarled Mr. Mahoney: "I have nothing to do with New York Athletic Club policies. General Sherrill is also a member. I would like to know what he thinks of it." Any chance that the uproar might degenerate into a locker-room squabble between Mr. Sherrill and Mr. Mahoney was speedily destroyed by the Secretary of the Committee on Fair Play in Sports, William B. Chamberlain. Said he: "The issue is not Jewry against Germany but fair play."

By this time the New York Times had editorialized for withdrawal. The New York Herald Tribune's Sports Columnist Richards Vidmer decried Mr. Mahoney's objections, drew a two-column letter of protest from Editor Isaac Landman of the American Hebrew. The New York Post polled 35 members of the Olympic Committee, found 28 for participation, four against, three noncommittal. In Oakland, Calif., Fencer Helene Mayer, in whose behalf Mr. Sherrill had gone to Germany, said she had received no invitation to compete for Germany. In Chicago, Chairman Brundage of the American Olympic Committee made the sweeping statement which he had been threatening since the conflagration started. Said he:

"The Olympic Games belong to the athletes and not to the politicians. . . . Germany's political policy within or without its borders has no bearing on the subject. [The American Olympic Committee] will never allow our athletes to be made martyrs to a cause not their own. . . ." He said he planned a 16-page booklet containing "enough information to blow those who figure that Americans should not compete in the Berlin Olympic Games right out of the water. . . .

Final sparks in last week's angry squabbles came from Dr. Lewald in Germany. He announced that he had finally received Jeremiah T. Mahoney's open letter. He also exhibited a cable from tactful Helene Mayer. The cable: "Sickness delayed answering [invitation]. Acceptance left yesterday. Love. 'H.' "

*In 1900, in Paris, the French protested bitterly against opening the Games on Bastille Day while U. S. contestants objected to competing on Sundays. In 1904, when the Olympics were held in St. Louis, there were fewer disputes than usual because only four foreign countries competed. In 1908, in London, a series of squabbles aroused a world-wide sentiment in favor of discontinuing the Olympics: U. S. and Swedish flags were omitted from the decorations; Russia insisted that Finland should carry the Russian flag; officials infuriated the Irish team by adding their points to England's score; the U. S. tug-of-war team withdrew because British tuggers appeared in "monstrous boots"; Italian spectators were enraged when, after Marathoner Pietri Dorando had been dragged across the finish line, the race was awarded to the U. S.'s Johnny Hayes. In 1912, in Stockholm, the uproar concerned Jim Thorpe who was disqualified after winning the pentathlon and decathlon. In 1920, the U. S. team revolted at Antwerp because they disliked their food and living in an empty schoolhouse. In 1924, in Paris, a Frenchman was accused of biting an Englishman. In 1928, in Amsterdam, the French refused to march in the opening parade, England withdrew its football team, and referees' decisions aroused even more dissension than usual. The 1932 games in Los Angeles were relatively amiable. Finland threatened to withdraw when Paavo Nurmi was declared a professional. Italy and Japan are currently bickering about whether the 1940 Olympics should be held in Rome or Tokyo.

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