The record-union., 1898-10-08

lived up to at this time. 1t would be
like cruel father who turned his child
out of doors for some trivial offense
When the wise men of the League talk
about divercing the organization from
racing they propose to take away its
best talking feature If it was not for
racing the L. A w. would not get half
the publicity it gets to-day, and | make
this prediction right here: / honestly
believe that if the organization drops
racing, within year after it does so
the membership will drop down to %
OO0. The plan advocated by the "Trib-
une" for the control of racing seems to
be the best one yet suggested. Allow
each State to elect or appoint man
who will have charge of the racing in
tereSts for that district. Then let these
men get together and form a national
organization, within the League, yet
separated in every way from all other
League work. 1t might be called the
National Racing Association and
there need be no l.. A. w. attached to
it in any way. Racing properly con-
troIled in this way would have the re-
spect and confidence of the public, and
the sport, which has deteriorated this
year, can be brought back to public ia
Vor. The minute the League shows
that it intends to give up the sport Sun
day racing will spring up all along the
line, professional promoters will jump
into the sport and within a short time
1t will suck the lemon dry Then cy-
cling Will go the way of professional
foot racing and several other sports
which need not be mentioned here.
The League cannot afford to shirk it's
responsibility, and 1 don't believe that
the necessary two-thirds vote can be
secured at the assembly to drop the
sport"
New York Tribune: There is no out
door sport in the world that is so an
Gent and honorable in it's origin as
that known as track and field athletics.
There is no other sport to which the
human body adapts itself so naturally
ard quickly. And, take it all in all,
there is no other sport that claims as
general and widespread interest as DO
these graceful and enIivening contests.
Baseball, football, tennis, golf all ad-
mlrable and popular forms of sport,
are merely modern developments and
variations upon the struggles in fleet
ness Of limb, soundness of wind ard
qulckness Of eye that in the form of
foot racing, wrestling, throwing and
the like have engaged the youth of
the world for thousands of years.
Every one knows that the ancient
Greeks were physically the most per-
fectly developed people on the globe
and no one doubts that this perfec-
ton Of the human frame was due large
ly to the athletic contests that were
held throughout the Peloponnesus and
that eliminated in the splendid and
magnificent Olympic games History
records no national custom that formed
50 great a part of the life of the people
as these selfsame games in the beauri-
full village Of the Ellis, where every fifth
year were foregathered from all parts
of Greece the flower of her manhood
and strength for the supreme struggle
in skill and endurance. No spot for
the games could have been found so liz
spring as that sacred grove Of Olym-
pia, winding rivers ion this side and
and the deep blue of the Indian
Sea far away to the west. The earliest
recorded date Of sthe Olympic games is
the year SS4 B. c., and from that time
forward they waxed so great in ia
tional Importance that the Olympiad,
the period of four years that elapsed
between two successive celebrations Of
the games, became a mode Of reckoning
that endured for many centuries among
the Greeks.