2002-10-16 - 11:56 p.m.

One Hundred Years Ago

The main point of yesterday's chaos was to get paper copies of a bunch of chess columns from 1902, 1904 and 1905. Was it worth it?

Well, considering the added expenses, I'd have to say not. However I am planning on a return trip. Let's see if I can avoid the problems of this trip next Tuesday.

Hermann Helms was the chess columnist of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle for a very long time, from 1893 to 1955. Reading his columns, I have to admit I am daunted by the comprehensiveness of his coverage and his incredible attention to detail. Usually I can find all the information I could want on a game in his descriptions. In fact, the main item of information that is usually missing seems to be a peculiarity of the times: most players were known by their initials, not their first names. It's rare for a player to have his full name listed, but that seems to be true throughout the paper, and in other newspapers of the time I have looked at. I have to constantly remind myself that Helms kept track of everything without the use of computers. How did he do it?

Anyway, for those who care, a very nice bio of Helms is here.

The main pieces of information I was looking for in these columns: who were the New York State champions of 1902, 1904 and 1905? I have a complete list of champions, and 1904 and 1905 are blank. The winner of the 1902 tournament is listed as B. Lasker. Who the dickens is that?

I do know of a "B. Lasker" who was Berthold Lasker, the brother of Emanuel Lasker, the World Chess Champion from 1894 to 1921. However, as far as I knew, while Emanuel was a globe trotter and was frequently in New York, Berthold never left Germany. Well, as it turns out I was wrong. Berthold Lasker did visit New York for a couple of months in 1902 and was the clear winner of the New York State tournament, played on Washington's Birthday at the United Charities Building, in New York City. Well, live and learn.

However, sad to say, the answer for 1904 and 1905 is that there was no New York State Championship in those years at all. In 1904 everyone was too busy with the great Cambridge Springs international tournament, while in 1905 it was cancelled because of a massive telegraph match between New York and Chicago. While I'm sure that these might have seemed to be good reasons 100 years ago, I wish I could go back in time and give the persons responsible a kick in the pants.

All this chess talk is probably lulling all of you to sleep.

Anyway, while I was looking for chess columns, I did happen to notice other items in the paper. In fact, even though the chess column was in the sport pages I frequently had to scour other parts of the paper since there were articles about chess apart from the weekly columns. The Eagle's coverage of national and international chess events was quite enviable. It also gave me a lot of pleasure to see Helms' column taking up twice as many column-inches as the baseball column. Ha! Take that, World Series!

In fact, while going through the printouts I made, I discovered that I am still missing some columns because I mistook articles for them. Note to self: the columns have chess problems attached, articles don't.

Looking at all those sports sections it suddenly dawned on my why the chess column was there. The people of 1905 has quite a different view of sports than we do now. For them sports, and other amusements, were something you DID, not something you watched. A lot more space was devoted to activities that people commonly indulged in, rather than team sports played by athletes. For example, it may surprise you to know, that in terms of space the sport that seemed to be most popular in the Eagle was bowling! Columns and columns devoted to bowling league results, while baseball scores get a little mention off to one side.

All sorts of things that wouldn't be considered sports were lumped together including camping, hunting, fishing, horse racing and auto driving. Yes, auto driving was considered a sport because very few people had cars in 1905. There was also mention of a new sport called "Socker."

The news was a lot different in 1902. For instance, there was more of it. The pages were covered with the tiniest type you could imagine. For example, I am often hard pressed to fit one game in my chess column, but Helms sometimes has eight or more in his column.

Reporting also seemed to be a lot more anecdotal back then, with off-topic tales making their way into articles about various sports. Fact checking did not seem to be a big pastime back then either.

Back in 1904, Theodore Roosevelt was President, and he was frequently mentioned throughout the paper. In fact, there was a dispute about the U.S. Chess Championship that he was almost brought in to settle. I didn't know if T.R. actually played, but he seemed to take an interest in the game. I think he inaugurated one of the U.S.A.-England cable matches when he was governor of New York.

The big news story of 1905 was the Russo-Japanese war. To everyone's surprise, Japan kicked Russia's ass. Roosevelt helped broker a peace, and it won him the Nobel Peace Prize that year.

One article I saw was an obituary for the last veteran of the War of 1812, a Brooklyn resident. He died in 1905, aged 105 years, and from the picture of him in the paper, he looked like he'd spent most of those years sleeping under bridges.

Something else I noticed was frequent references to black people as "Negroes" and "Negresses," and most of the discussion sounded like black people weren't meant to hear it. However, I noticed an occasional "Afro-American Column," so maybe not. Still, I saw frequent references to the "Negro Question" which sounded chillingly like the Nazis' infamous "Jewish Question." Skimming these articles I couldn't really find a clear statement of what the Negro Question was, exactly. Maybe that's for the best.

One thing about 1904: if you were a man, you had a moustache. In the Eagle, there are group photos of men, and if the shot was of 20 guys, 17 of them would have moustaches, and 3 of them would have beards AND moustaches. Well, maybe that's a little exaggeration, but I've never seen a fashion statement accepted by such an overwhelming majority. Thankfully things are a little more diverse now.

Also back then kings and queens ruled much of the earth. One of the big stories of 1902 was the visit to New York by Prince Karl of Germany, and the coronation of Edward VII of England.

My general impression of life in Brooklyn 100 years ago is that it was, well, lively. Rough and brawling, these people seemed more interested in living than in actually paying attention to what they were doing, or what someone reading about them 100 years in the future might think. It makes me sort of wonder what people in 2102 will think of us. Well, we can't very well think about that, can we?

Here is a little treat for the chessplayers in the audience, a game that has been lost for 98 years. Here is Frank Marshall, a future U.S. Champion and one of the two strongest U.S. players in 1904, getting his head handed to him in a simul by a woman. Rose Jefferson was the Chess Editor of the newspaper the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Two Knights Defense

White: Miss Rose Jefferson

Black: Frank James Marshall

Simultaneous exhibition, Memphis, TN 1904

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d3 d5 5.exd5 Nxd5 6.Bxd5 Qxd5 7.h3 Nd4 8.Nxd4 exd4 9.0-0 Be6 10.Nd2 0-0-0 11.f4 Bc5 12.Nf3 Rhe8 13.a3 Qh5 14.b4 Bb6 15.a4 Bxh3? (Marshall probably didn't like the way the game was developing, so he risks everything on an unsound sacrificial attack. Marshall was famous for "swindling" wins in lost positions, but here his magic fails to materialize.) 16.gxh3 Qxh3 17.Kf2 Re3 18.a5 Rde8 19.Rh1 Qg4 20.Rg1 Qe6 21.Ne5 f6 22.Qg4 fxe5 23.Qxe6+ 1-0