THE SUNDAY OREGONIAN. PORTLAND, DECEMBER 10, 1923
A Survey of
the World
Championships
Now Held
by Boys and-
Girls Still
in Their Teens
BY J. C. KOFOED.
A BROMIDE Is oftentimes a truth
that is talked about so much that
it baa become trite.
"Youth must be served" is about as
bromidic a phrase as the writer can dig
out of his vocabulary, vet within the last
41 few years It has superseded all others in
the phraseology of sportdom. . ,
And the reason?
Because in the last few years bound
ing, surging youth has pressed more to
the fore than ever; not youth as we
looked on It a few years back the cham
pions of 25 and 26 but youngsters on
the glorious side of 21. .
They crowd up toward fame, blotting
out the deeds of the older masters by
flaming deeds that bring gasps of ad
miration. Every day these striplings are
breaking records that another generation
gazed upon with awe.
In the water, on the links, the dia
mond, the tennis court the track, the
prize ring they swarm everywhere.
Their name Is Legion, and their middle
name is Darn Good!
When It comeB to swimming there
never has been any one so fast as Johnny
Welsmuller. He has smashed nearly
every record that can be broken. It was
not so long ago that Duke Kahanamoku
was regarded as the acme of perfection -a
sort of human fiBh. Yet Weismuller
broke the Hawaiian's records one after
the other with consummate ease. And
Johnny is just 19 years old.
"He is the greatest swimmer that ever
"!lved," said the duke. "I have never
seen his equal, and I never expect to see
it. Polks used to think I was pretty
fast " and his swarthy face lit with a
smile "but I am an old, spavined ice
wagon horse compared with him."
Gertrude Ederle is the newest of the
women swimming sensations. She is the
Johnny Weismuller ot her sex and her
v 6peed is almo3t uncanny. And Young
Miss Gertrude has yet to see her 20th
Hummer. Then next in line comes Helen
Wainwright, champion fancy woman
diver. Yet Helen is "woman" by cous
tesy only, since she was barely 14 when
she went to Brussels to compete in the
Olympic games.
Fourteen, and an international star!
There Is youth with a vengeance. When
p.dolescence can step into the arena and
defeat maturity it is time to admit that
youth Is being served a larger portion
of success than it ever had.
Yet 14 is not the dead line for athletic
success. Georges Carpentier in his grimy
little coal-mining home at Lens was only
13 when he went forth with Francois
Deschamps to fight his first battles in
the- ring and become the greatest fighter
ever developed in the land of the Gauls.
Other great fistmen have started at
the tender years when most boys are in
high school. That caveman, Sam Lang
ford, was 16 when he won his first fame;
60 was little Johnny Coulon, one of the
ereatest bantamweights that ever lived.
And Ted (Kid) Lewis had just Teached
his 14th birthday when he sank his first
blows into an opponent's midriff. '
Switch to the tennis courts, and still
you find youth triumphant. There Vin
cent Richards, who, at 19 is one of the
highest ranking players in the land, is a
most interesting figure. At 15 he was a
rational champion. Still In his teens he
crowded that splendid veteran, Watson
"Washburn, off the Davis cup team, and
became an internationalist.
Paired in the doubles, with Bill Tllden,
against Fat O'Hara Wood and Gerald
Patterson, he showed to far greater ad
- vantage than the world's champion. His
volleying was only surpassed by Wood.
At the net he met the brunt of the Anzac
attack, getting his racquet on the ball at
times when It seemed utterly impossible.
Physically he looks to be anything but
the super-athlete. He is thin, almost
frail, a flaxen-haired youngster, rather
stooped in the shoulders, with an air ot
laziness that is absent when he is on the
court. He was 12 years old when he
took up tennis, 13 when he won his first
tournament. At 15 he was the national
junior champion, and at 19 a Davis cup
internationalist.
In France Henri Cochet, still on this
side ot 21, has been a star at the net for
some years, and is one ot the backbones
ot the French Davis cup team.
On the golf links in spite of the fact
that the braw and bonnie game has been
dubbed an old man's relaxation the pre
ponderance Is still more strongly in favor
of youth.
All three of our champions are still
kids in the eyes of the middle-aged. Win
some little Glenna Collett, with her pretty
race and dancing eyes and mannish driv
ing power, came to a championship
through a field that contained women
two and throe times her age women
who were veterans of tournaments played
before Glenna was born.
Opposed to her, among the others, were
Tlrs. Dorothy Campbell Hurd, Mrs. Ron
ald Barlow, seven times eastern chsm
"l plon; Mrs. Caleb Fox, dean of all women
pollers, who qualified in national tour
naments eight years before slender
Glenna saw the light of day a score of
other veterans far her senior in age and
experience.
Yet she won the highest honors in
woman's golf, just as Jesse Sweetser, at
20, captured the title cf amateur cham-
In Almost Every Line of . J' 1 - i.;,--- '"P Juvenile Columbuses
Endeavor the Verve and I . :f Jl "MiWM ' j ' Put 0ff From Shore' With
Dash of Youth Lift Their MfWC "SJ' Wi M Undashed by the
Possessor Over the Heads I J Bitter Experiences Mature
of Competitors and Send p" STOwt V V , A f tSff YerS KnW' nd Tkdr Vn
Him Under the Wire a Itu'-Wl tl PlV fM0jSf - ' '4 Ignorance of Perils Seems to
Flushed Victor V. : Wfllr "'M4-K jSSfl6S& 'A Insure Them A gainst Disaster
. '
pion of the United States. Sweetser is a
student at Yale, yet he achieved a feat
ct the Country club of Brookline that has
no equal In the annals of golf in this
country.
He defeated Bobby Jones in the semi
iinal and Chick Evans in the final round
of the tournament at Brookline, after
having worked his way through the field
by a magnificent display of golf.,
Jesse started playing when he was 11
7ears old, and at the age of 14 was shoot
ing consistently in the lew 70s around
the Normandie course. He was just12
when Chick Evans came to St. Louis, and
it was from that master of golfing style
that the new champion got his first les
son in mashie play.
"I copied him as much as I could, and
T haven't changed very much since then.
Later I learned a thing or two from
Bobby Jones." And it was on the pros
trate forms of Evans and Jones that
Jesse Sweetser stepped to the highest
honors in amateur golf.
Jones, himself, by the way, is only
20 and a freshman at Harvard, but he
conceded by every professional who has
ever seen him play to be the finest stylist
in the whole realm of the game. True,
he was beaten by Sweetser in the national
championship, tyit he is not a whit in
terior to that star.
Then add to the triumvirate of cham
pions the name of Gene Sarazen. Here
wo have" a cocky little youngster, as cour
ageous and able a "player as ever won
an open championship. He learned his
game as a caddy, not having the advan
tage of wealthy parents like Sweetser
and Miss Collett. His first strokes were
taken with home-made clubs. But he
studied and practiced continually, and
this year has been a continuous succes
sion of triumphs.
He won the open, the southern and pro
fessional golfers' championships. He de
feated Walter Hagen in a 72-hole match
for the championship of the world while
suffering from an attack of appendicitis.
Baseball, now. It seems that the vet
erans are the outstanding lights of the
game, but the most promising pitcher is
Benson Brillheart of Washington, a
pchool-boy ot IS, who is already matching
his strength and skill with that ot the
greatest players on the diamond.. And
ou might remember that Ty Cobb the
greatest ball player that ever lived was
only 16 years of age when he started on
his professional career, and was less than
19 when he entered the big leagues.
You may also recall that Waite Hoyt,
is IE . V -V . -1 I - I
uir..iaLu
hero ot the world series of 1921, came
to fast company when he was a shade un
der 17, and was hailed everywhere as the
schoolboy Wizard. As fast as an old
timer steps oft into the shade with his
battered old glove in his hand, some
fresh-faced youngster, bubbling with vi
tality and confidence, comes charging out
Into the sunlight to take his place.
What is it that makes those youngsters
champions at such tender years?
Weismuller and Sweetser are physically
powerful, but it Isn't strength. Glenna
Collett isn't nearly so big and strong as
some of the women she defeated, and
"Vinnie Richards is frail.
It Is rather a superabundance ot youth;
the terrific concentration of effort- of
sustained effort that youth alone is
capable of.
England presents an exception to the
rule of youth, probably because the moth
er of nations has slipped so woefully in
athletics. Wethered, the amateur golf
champion, is a young man, but some years
the senior of Sweetser. George Duncan,
the best of the younger professionals, Is
no child in years. Polo Is still carried
on by such veterans as Major Lockett, and
England cannot match a Hitchcock or a
Strawbridge or Sanford, such as we can
show among our very young poloists.
But youth in England will undoubtedly
take a hand very soon, as it has done in
other land3. The love of athletic sport Is
too deeply rooted there ' to stay perma
nently in the mire of defeat. And when
the renaissance comes thern look to see
it led and fostered by the "children," the
per-stars of 17, 18 and 20.
The dominance of youth has not been
confined exclusively to the realm Of
muscle. Literature has received a very
definite impetus from those seekers for
truth and beauty who are still on the
sunny side of 21.
The youngest of them is Hilda Conk
ling, who at 15 has gained a foothold on
the ladder of fame and publicity. Her
mother was a poetess of note, and Hilda
had the advantage of heredity and en
vironment to enable her to come so quick
ly to the fore. Her book of verse created
something of a lurore.
It was Hilda who inspired the comment
of that keen satirist, Dorothy Parker, that
"it won't be long before contributors Visit
the editorial offices on kiddie cars."
Perhaps so, and yet these youngsters,
are bringing into literature the same
nerve and spirit that the newer breed of
champions has given to sports.
The best known of the younger writers
Is F. Scott Fitzgerald, the historian of
the flapper and the equal of Booth Tark
iiigton in recording the soul stirrings and
conversations of the younger generation.
Fitzgerald, the debonair and self-confident
young graduate of Princeton, was
already becoming known to the public be
fore he left the Jersey university's classic
campus. He has shown a magnificent
sense of phrasing, a cleverness of plot, a
phonographic ability to record the talk
of those about him.
At an age when most young men are
Croping about to establish themselves,
Fitzgerald has already sipped deeply of
the cup of success. He Is famous,
wealthy, married to the girl of his heart.
What more could any man ask of the
gods?
Among the younger women writers
Dorothy Speare can be rated perhaps with
Scott Fitzgerald. She at least writes of
the same sort of people who intrigue
him. It is true that she lacks much of
Fitzgerald'3 vision and technique, but
she has earned her spurs at an age when
femininity's thoughts are usually cen
tered on frocks and dances and bonbons.
Then there Is the prodigy, Harry Her
vey, whose "Caravans of the Night" was
executed with such a sense of warm color
and enthusiasm and with such a deftness
at handling plot and counterplot that he
won a most cordial welcome from the
critics.
The list of youthful novelists Is tre
mendous, without going back into baby
hood to reach out for Daisy Ashford and
those other children who may or may not
have written the things credited to them.
In the field of criticism we can pick
out John V. A. Weaver, who when still in
his teens showed an excellent critical
judgment and a caustic pen. Weaver is
still a . boy in years, but he Is known
throughout the land, and his book, "In
American," at least aroused a mortal
combat between other critics.
Weaver married Peggy Wood, the 19-year-old
star of "Marjolaine," and thus
united the youthful renaissance of lit
erature and the stage. Of course, a
paucity of years has never been a handi
cap in the realm of footlight and grease
paint.
Peggy at 19 and John at 21 have each
achieved success in their chosen fields.
Their combined ages is Just 40, yet how
many men or women of those years have
done as much in their span as these two
youngsters have already accomplished?
Among the editors, John Farrar, of the
- Bookman, is perhaps best known of those
at the tender age. Farrar went into edi
torial work in his teens, and his good
judgment and writing ability have mada
his magazine a bigger power than it ever
was. He is just a touch more ;ta 24
now.
And then we must mention Stephen
Vincent Benet, for no story of the
achievements of the rebellious youth of
the period youth breaking the shackles
of age-old conventions can be told with
out mention ot him.
Now we come to the end of our story
This is the age of youth. It shows its
heels to maturity in every race. In every
phase of athletics, in literature, art, on
the stage, the boys and girls are pressing
forward.