thanksgiving is a time for physical feasting and mental fasting. by the latter i mean trying to think out some of the problems of life which come as a sort of shade when we remember all our mercies. a bunch of these problems came up to me through a cloud of memories as i sat with my feet on the concrete and my collar turned up.
it was a gray, raw, miserable day—good indian weather as it turned out. it seemed as if the sun had covered its face with a blanket in one of those fits of depression when the impulse is to hide the face from human eyes. some 12,000 people were grouped—piled up tier above tier—around a great field marked out with long white stripes. it was a cold crowd, for all had their feet on a concrete floor. at one side a devoted little band of college boys screamed and sang their songs, but for the most part this great crowd sat cold-eyed and impartial. at one side of the field there was a dash of bright color where a group of stolid indians sat wrapped in big red blankets. just across from these was another group of men with green blankets. between them in the center of the field was a tangled mass of 22 husky boys in red or green, all fighting for the possession of a football.
ah, a football game! what is this so-called farmer doing, wasting part of the price of a barrel of apples when he ought to be at work? of course it is my privilege to say, “that’s my business if i want to,” but i will answer by saying that i was renewing my youth and studying human nature. you can’t improve on either operation for a man of my age. up some 250 miles nearer the canadian line the boy had been one of the 1,000 yelling young maniacs who sent these green-clad boys down to meet the indians. he could not come, but he wrote me, “be sure to see the game; it will be a peach.” as a peach grower, i am interested in all new varieties, and this certainly turned out to be one. it must be said that these green-clad boys came down out of their hills with a haughty spirit, wearing pride as conspicuously as they will wear their first high hat. they had not lost a game, but had trampled over two of the greatest colleges in the country. they represented the section where the purest-bred white americans are to be found. one more victory and no one could deny their boast that they could stand any other football team on its head. so they came marching out on the field, very airy, very confident, and fully convinced of the great superiority of the white man!
i know very little about football. when i played it was more like a game of tag than a human battering ram. here, however, was a round of the great human game which would make anyone thoughtful. here were representatives of two races about to grapple. the great majority of the white thousands who watched them were unconcerned—for a new york audience is composed of so many races and tongues that it has little sentiment. all around me, however, there seemed standing up hundreds of swarthy, dark men whose eyes glittered as they watched the game. you could not realize how many there were with indian and negro blood until such a test of the white and red races was presented. then you began to realize what a race question really means when the so-called inferior race gets a chance to test its real manhood on terms of equality.
it would have made a theme for a great historian as these young men lined up for the game. the whites trotted out confident and proud. why not? the “betting” favored them, their record was superior, as their race was supposed to be. the indians slouched to their places and shambled through their motions, silent and without great show of confidence. it came to me as not at all unlikely that a few centuries before the ancestors of these boys had faced each other under very different circumstances. francis parkman, the historian, tells of a famous battle in the upper connecticut valley. the white settlers had built a stockade as protection against roving bands of french and indians. one day this fort was attacked by such a band, which had come down the valley capturing prisoners and booty. it was a savage fight, but the white men held their own, and finally a frenchman came forward with a white flag for a parley. he actually offered to buy a supply of corn, as they were out of food, and then to retreat. in that gray mist, with my feet on the concrete, i could shut my eyes and see the ancestors of these football players. stern white men, gun in hand, peering over the stockade, and silent red men creeping noiselessly out of the forest to pile up their booty in sight—as price for the corn. the frost on the leaves told them that winter with all its cold and peril was approaching. here were the necessities of life—a tremendous bargain. yet back in the shadow of the woods were the captives—men, women and children—and the white settlers held out for them. for at that time, if not now, new england knew the value of a man to the nation. he was far above the dollar, even though the women and children would be a care and a danger.
in a way, something of the spirit of those grim old fighters lay in the hearts of these green-clad boys who had come down from these historic old hills. at that instant, at least, they, too, knew the value of a man. it was expressed by their little band of singers and cheerers led by the writhing “cheer leaders”—the glory and fame of the good old college on the hill. you could not have bought one of these boys for $1,000,000.
on the other hand, these shambling and big-boned indians seemed to have something of the same spirit in their hearts. silent and impassive, they seemed for the moment to have cast off their college training and gone back to the free, wild life, only carrying the discipline which authority and college training had given them. i wonder if any of these red men thought as they lined up on that field that it was the lack of just this stern discipline which lost them this country and nearly wiped out their race? men fitted to play this game of football never would have given away manhattan island, or permitted a handful of white men to drive them from the coast. over 1,000 men, each with the burning drop of indian or negro blood in his veins, were hoping and praying that in this modern battle the red men would humble the pride of manhattan, as their ancestors had lost the island. out of the gray mist there seemed to stride ghosts of stout dutchmen and thin yankees and silent, noiseless indians to watch this fairer combat.
at the signal the ball was kicked far down the field by a white man whose ancestors may have come with hendrik hudson. it was caught by a red man, whose ancestors may have been kings or chiefs while the white man’s were european peasants. back he came running with the ball to form the basement of a pile of 10 struggling fighters, and the game was on. you must get someone else to describe the game. i do not understand it well enough. the two groups of players lined up against each other, and one side tried to batter the other down, or send a man through with the ball. again and again came this fierce shock, and a strange and unexpected thing was happening. the indians had no band of singers or cheer leaders, no pretty girls were urging them on, no pride of superior dominating race, but silently and resolutely they were smashing the white men back. it was hard. these boys in green died well. there was one light man who took the ball and ran through the indians as his ancestors may have run the gauntlet, but they pulled him down. inch by inch the white men were battered back over the line. the air seemed full of red blankets, for those substitutes at the side lines were back into the centuries coming home from a season on the warpath. yet the green singers yelled on and shouted their defiance. then the white men made a great rally and forced the indians back, grimly battling over the other line. at the end of the first half the score stood 10 to 7, in favor of the white men. “it’s all over,” said a man who sat next to me. “they will come back and trample all over the indians, for white men always have the endurance.” a man nearby with a touch of bronze in his skin glared at us with a look in his eyes that was not quite good to see. back came the players, at it again. there was great trampling, but of the unexpected kind. these slouching and shambling indians suddenly turned into human tigers, and the plain truth is that they both outwitted and walked right over the green-clad whites. there was no stopping them. all the cheering and singing and sentiment and “race-superiority” went for nothing. for here was where pride and a haughty spirit ran up against destruction, and great was the fall thereof. yet i was proud of the way these white boys met their fate. they had been too confident, and had lost what is called the “psychological drop” on the enemy. the indians had them at the stake with a hot fire burning, for no one knows what a victory right there would have meant for the good old college far away among the hills. yet, face to face with fate, cruel, silent and relentless, those boys never faltered, but fought on. i liked them better in defeat than in their airy confidence before the game. when it was all over they got up out of the mud of defeat and gave their college war cry. there may have been a few cracked and corner-clipped notes in it, but it was fine spirit and good losing. nearby the indians waved their blankets and gave another college yell. and the 1,000 or more men with that burning drop of blood in their veins went home with shining faces and gleaming eyes, with better dreams for the future of their race. for they had made the white man’s burden of superiority a hard burden to carry.
my football days are over. no use for me to tell what great things i did 30 years ago. this age demands a “show me,” and i cannot give it. if i had my way i would introduce football, baseball, basketball, pushball and all other clean and organized games into every country town. i would organize leagues and contests and get country children to play. do you ever stop to think that work, long and continuous, for ourselves and our children, has not taught us how to organize or use our forces together as we should? it is true. organized play will do more to bring our children together for co-operative work than anything i can think of. it will give discipline, which is what we need. two of these green-clad boys stood an indian on his head and whirled him around like a top. it was part of the game. he got up good-naturedly and took his place in the line. imagine what his grandfather would have done! one white boy was running with the ball and two indians butted him, while another got him by the legs. the boy simply held on to the ball. it was discipline and training in self-control. step on a city man’s foot in a crowded car and he would want to fight. our country people need such discipline and spirit before they can compete with organized business. if i could have my way i would have our country children drilled in just such loyalty to the home town or district as these college boys displayed on the field. tell me, if you will, how it can be gained now in any way except through organized and loyal play for our children. you know very well what i mean. work is an essential of life, and it must be made the foundation of character. organized and clean play is another essential, as i see it now, and i think its development and firm direction is to be one of the greatest forces in building up life in the country.
