Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1895-01-02
AMERICAS CUP.
Lord Dunraven's Challenge and
What 1t Means.
VICTORS SHOULD BE DICTAT0RS
Challengers Should Not Say What Rules
Shall Govern the Contests-Saii
Under Existing Rules.
vICTORS SHOULD BE DICTAT0RS

My Lord Dunraven has challenged
us again for the Americas Cup. The
challenge is "a conditional one," and
requires the race or races to be sailed
next September instead of October, as
the ten months clause Of the deed Of
gift requires, and that furthermore all
furture races for the cup must be gov
erned by the rules that pertained to the
Vigilant- Valkyrie contests and not by
the conditions Of the original deed Of
gift to the New York Yacht Club. In
. ther words, the visitors in every inter-
national contest for this most valuable
of all nautical trophies must defer to
the defeated and allow him to die
tate terms, which will give him better
chance of wrestling the great prize from
us. sincerely hope that the members
Of the New York Yacht Club will have
patriotism enough to tell this pseudo
Briton that if he wants the cup he must
do as all Americans have to do when
they 60 to England to compete against
it's yachtsmen, accept the rules and con-
ditions they find existent.
What rules were changed to oblige
George Gould or the Vigilant last sum-
mer? What courtesy" was shown the
American owner or his boat in race?
Did the spirit Of fair play induce the
Prince of Wales to say to her skipper,
"You must not engage in any sea jockey
ing when racing with the Vigilant; l
want to determine which is the best
boat and not which is the best pilot
or sailing master.
Not much he didn't. The skipper of
the Brittalia used every trick Of sea-
manship that he knew to get ahead Of
the Vigilant. To oblige the English
we changed the cup course from New
York Bay. better course than any
land locked one in England, to the open
ocean. George Gould was cajoled into
racing over Clyde and So'ent courses
that were not half as good as the old
course in the Delaware from Point Airy
to Gloucester or Red Bank and return.
On one occasion the skipper of the Brit
tannia did his best to crowd the Vigil
ant into the rocks so that she could not
use her centreboard. OF course know
it is grand and Christian thug to re-
turn good for evil, but successful ma
tions have not got beyond Mosaic rules
yet, and if they would prosper and COM
mand respect they must exact two eyes
for one eye and two teeth for one tooth.
wonder how many of my readers
have ever seen the so-called America s
cup. I don't think one in a thousand.
For the benefit Of those who have not,
let me say that it is about as ugly a
specimen of mug prize as l ever saw.
1t was originally called the Queens
cup and it was offered for international
competitors in 1851, the year the first
Worlds Fair was opened in London.
The then stated value Of the cup was
one hundred guineas. Its intrinsic
value to-day is hardly above 5000 and
yet in the last forty years the English
have spent over $l,000,0 900 in futile
efforts to reoapture it and it has cost
Americans half million to keep it on
this side of the Atlantic. It is not a
mere sporting bauble, as many inno-
cent-minded people seem to imagine.
but it is the emblem of superiority in
naval architecture of the world. That
Is why the English are SO anxious to
regain it and that is why we Ameri-
cans should employ all honorable means
to retain it.
Philadelphia is especially interested
in this matter, for the Delaware is the
Clyde of America, and if the United
States ever regains the supremacy Of
the seas it possessed before the civil
war, the ships that will give it that
proud eminence will be built in Phila-
delphia and its vicinity. In the past
fifteen years millions of money have
been put into circulation in Philadel-
phia, Chester, Bethlehem and Pitts
burg by the government through the
building of warships for our new navy
and their equipment. The st. Louis
and st. Paul are, hope. but the pre-
cursors Of even larger, finer and fleeter
passenger steamers that will beat the
English greyhounds Of to-day as badly
as the old American Collins liners, the
Atlantic, the Arctic. the Baltic, the
Pacific, and the Adriatio used to beat
the old Cupard tubs, Asia, Africa and
Persia. in their day.
Before the war our ocean steamers
were not only faster and more palatial
in their equipments than the English
vessels, but better and more comfortable
seaboats as we'll. Our American clip
pers were the wonder of the world.
An American sailing clipper. the Red
Jacket, crossed the Atlantic from
Queenstown to Sandy Hook in little
over eleven days. Another Yankee
sailing ship. the Sovereign of the Seas,
sailed four hundred and forty nautical
miles in twenty-four hours. That was
over eighteen miles an hour. That per-