2003-01-27 - 11:31 p.m.

Progress is Made

I'm still going through all those newspaper pages I copied on my trips down to Brooklyn late last year. I'm not working on it seriously, but the going is slow. When I copied them I made sure that all the pages were legible, but I'm finding that it's not the same thing as readable. I'm squinting at some of the games with the help of a powerful desk lamp and a huge magnifying glass, and I STILL can't tell the 2s from the 3s.

Reading these old articles is sometimes a quaint experience. The writing seems to be courtly and overly elaborate. Other times they seem colloquial and refreshingly direct. Sometimes I think that people haven't really changed much since 1900, sometimes the articles read like reports from another planet.

With that in mind, here's an article I ran across that had me shaking my head. The date on it is Wednesday, April 3, 1901:

LITTLE CAROLINA CADDIES REFUSE TO WORK ON RAINY DAYS.

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United North and South Golf Tourney at Asheville Is The Sufferer Thereby.

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(Special to the Eagle.)

Pinehurst, N.C., April 3 - The United North and South golf tourney, which is now in progress here, was almost broken up yesterday afternoon by a caddie strike on account of the weather conditions.

All the caddies, as is usual south of the Potomac, are negro children, for the most part half naked or clothed at best in the scantiest of rags. These pickaninnies, with nothing much to wet but their chocolate colored skins, would think no more of a spring shower, if they really wanted to brave it, than would a white man in rubber boots, rubber coat and a sou'wester. But carrying gold clubs is work, and carrying clubs in the rain would therefore be working in the rain, something that the innate shiftlessness of the ignorant will not stand for. Thus we read that the United North and South competitors had to press their friends into service, or, failing in this, carry their own clubs, with the alternative of defaulting. For not a little "nig" would move from his warm, dry spot in the barn for any "po' w'ite trash" on golfing bent. George Dutton, a Bostonian, was on the point of forfeiting his match, in the second round, when his wife persuaded him to play, herself carrying his clubs and being rewarded by his winning by 5 up and 4 to go. Dr. L.L. Harband, the All-Florida Champion; A.J. Wellington, Oakley County Club, and Merrill Waters of the Golf Club of Lakewood, were the three others who, in addition to Mr. Dutton, will play the semi-finals today.

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So. Here among all the reports of old cable chess matches and bowling league results is a little bit of Victorian horror. I can clearly imagine the rich golfers getting all red in the face because the poor, ragged little black children won�t carry their heavy bags in the rain. Oh, pity the poor golfers, forced to carry their own clubs. I also can't imagine that it's very warm in the rain on April 3, even in North Carolina when you are dressed in "the scantiest of rags."

Over and above the subject of the article itself is the sneering, racist tone of the piece. There is, I know, all sorts of sick garbage out there today, but at least stuff like this isn't being printed in the newspaper any more. Progress is being made, or at least the illusion of it.