Football Days Part 16

CHAPTER XI

JOHNNY POE'S OWN STORY

Johnny Poe was a member of the Black Watch, that famous Scotch Regiment whose battles had followed the English flag. On the graves of the Black Watch heroes the sun never sets. Johnny Poe's death came on September 25th, 1915, in the Battle of Loos. Nelson Poe has given me the following information regarding Johnny's death. It comes direct from Private W.

Faulkner, a comrade who was in the charge when Johnny fell.

In the morning during the attack we went out on a party carrying bombs.

Poe and myself were in this party. We had gone about half way across an open field when Poe was. .h.i.t in the stomach. He was then five yards in front of me and I saw him fall. As he fell he said, 'Never mind me. Go ahead with our boxes.' On our return for more bombs we found him lying dead. Shortly after he was buried at a place between the British and German lines. I have seen his grave which is about a hundred yards to the left of 'Lone Tree' on the left of Loos. 'Lone Tree' is the only landmark near. The grave is marked with his name and regiment.

Just what Johnny Poe's heroic finish on the battle field meant to us here at home is the common knowledge of all football men and indeed of all sportsmen. There is ample evidence, moreover, that it attracted the attention of the four corners of the earth. Life in London or Paris was not all roses to the Americans compelled to remain there at the height of the war.

Paul Mac Whelan, a Yale man and football writer, had occasion to be in London shortly after the news of Poe's death in battle was received there. Talking with Whelan after his return he impressed upon me the place that Poe had made for himself in the hearts of at least one of the fighting countries.

"You know," said he, "that at about that time Americans were not very popular. There seemed to be a feeling everywhere that we should have been on the firing line. This feeling developed the fas.h.i.+on of polite jeering to a point that made life abroad uncomfortable until Johnny Poe fell fighting in the ranks of the Black Watch on the plains of Flanders.

In the dull monotony of the casualty list his name at first slipped by with scant mention. It was the publication in the United States of the story of his fighting career which stimulated newspaper interest not merely in England, but throughout the British Empire. To Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa--into the farthest corners of the earth--went the tale of the death of a great American fighter.

"I met one man, a lawyer, on his way to do some peace work, and he told me that he thought Poe had no right to be in the ranks of a foreign army. Probably most of the pacifists would have returned the same verdict regardless of Poe's love for the cause of the Allies. Yet among the thousands of Americans in Europe in the month following Poe's death, there was complete unity of opinion that the old Princeton football star had done more for his country than all the pacifists put together.

"'A toast to the memory of Poe,' said one of the group of Americans in the Savoy, that famous gathering place of Yankees in London. 'His death has made living a lot easier for his countrymen who have to be in France and England during the war.'"

"There is not an army on the continent in which Americans have not died, but no death in action, not even that of Victor Chapman the famous American aviator in France, gave such timely proof of American valor as that of Poe. In London for a month after his death there was talk among Americans and in the university clubs about raising funds for some permanent memorial in London to Poe. There are many memorials to Englishmen in America and it would seem that there is a place and a real reason for erecting a memorial in London to a fighting American who gave his life for a cause to England."

I have always treasured, in my football collection, some anecdotes which Johnny Poe wrote several years ago while in Nevada. In fact, from reading his stories, after his death, I got the inspiration that prompted me to write this book.

"The following stories were picked up by me," says Johnny, "through the course of college years, and after. Some of the incidents I have actually witnessed, of others my brothers have told me, when we talked over Princeton victories and defeats with the reasons for both, and still others I have heard from the lips of Princeton men as they grew reminiscent sitting around the cozy fireplace in the Trophy room at the Varsity Club House, with the old footb.a.l.l.s, the scores of many a hard fought Princeton victory emblazoned upon them, and the banners with the names of the members of the winning teams thereon inscribed looking down from their places on the walls and ceilings."

How the undergraduates long to have their names enrolled on the victorious banner, knowing that they will be looked up to by future college generations of the sons of Old Na.s.sau!

These old banners have much the same effect upon Princeton teams as did the name of Horatius upon the young Romans'!

And still his name sounds strong unto the men of Rome, As a trumpet blast which calls to them to charge the Volsian home; And wives still pray to Juno for boys with hearts as bold As his who kept the bridge so well In the brave days of old.

Well do they know that Mother Princeton is not chary of her praise, when she knows that they have planted her banner on the loftiest tower of her enemies' stronghold.

The evenings spent in the Trophy room, the Grill Room of the Princeton Inn and in the hallways around a cheerful fire of the numerous Princeton clubs make me think of nights in the Mess room of crack British regiments, so graphically described by Kipling.

The general public cannot understand the seriousness with which college athletes take the loss of an important game. There is a Princeton football Captain who was so broken up over a defeat by Yale that, months after on the cattle range of New Mexico, as he lay out at night on his cow-boy bed and thought himself un.o.bserved, he fell to sobbing as if his heart would break.

A football victory to many men is as dearly longed for as any goal of ambition in life. How else would they strive so fiercely, one side to take the ball over, the other to prevent them doing so!

Very few of the public hear the exhortation and cursing as the ball slowly but irresistibly is rushed to the goal of the opponent.

"Billy, if you do that again I'll cut your heart out!"

"Yale, if you ever held, hold now!"

How the calls to victory come back!

As Hughes says in Tom Brown's School Days, a scrimmage in front of the goal posts, or the Consuls.h.i.+p of Plancus, is no child's play.

My earliest Princeton football hero was Alex Moffat '84. My brother Johnson was in his cla.s.s and played on the same team, and would often talk of him to my brothers and to me. He used to give us a sort of

"Listen my children and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, etc."

Though my brother is a small man, I thought all other Princeton players must be 9 cubits and a half, or as a reporter once said of Symmes '92, center rush in Princeton team of '90 and '91, "An animated whale, broad as the moral law and heavy as the hand of fate." I consider Alex Moffat the greatest goal kicker college football has produced. One football in the Princeton Trophy room has on it, "Princeton 26, Harvard 7." In that game Moffat kicked five goals from the field, three with his right and two with his left foot, besides the goals from the touchdowns.

A Harvard guard made the remark after the third goal, "We came here to play football, not to play against phenomenal kicking."

Princeton men cannot help feeling that Moffat should have been allowed a goal against Yale in his Post-graduate year of '84, which was called before the full halves had been played and decided a draw, Yale being ahead, 6 to 4. Princeton claimed it but the Referee said he didn't see it, which caused Moffat to exclaim--something.

An amusing story is told in connection with this decision. Quite a number of years after Jim Robinson who was trainer of the Princeton team in '84, went down to the dock to see his brother off for Europe. Looking up he beheld on the deck above, the man who had refereed the '84 game, and whom he had not seen since, "Smith," he said, "I have a brother on this boat, but I hope she sinks."

Tilly Lamar's name is highly honored at Princeton, not only because he won the '85 game against Yale by a run of about 90 yards, but because he died trying to save a girl from drowning. Only a few months later, in the summer of '91, Fred Brokaw '92, was drowned at Elberon while trying to save two girls from the ocean. Both Lamar and Brokaw's pictures adorn the walls of the Varsity Club House.

The first game I ever saw the Princeton Team play was with Harvard in '88, which the former won 18 to 6. I was in my brother's ('91) room about three hours and a half before the game, and Jere Black and Channing, the halfbacks, were there. As Channing left he remarked, "Something will have happened before I get back to this room again,"

referring to the game, which doubtless made him a bit nervous.

I believe he was no more nervous ten years after, when in the Rough Riders he waited for word to advance up that bullet swept hill before Santiago.

'81 was the year so many Divinity students played on the Varsity: Hector Cowan the great tackle, d.i.c.k Hodge the strategist, Sam Hodge, Bob Speer, and I think Irvine; men all, who as McCready Sykes said, "Feared G.o.d and no one else." Hector Cowan is considered one of the best tackles that ever wore the Orange and Black jersey. While rough, he was never a dirty player.

In a game with Wesleyan, his opponent cried out angrily, "Keep your hands for pounding on your Bible, don't be sticking them in my face."

One day in a game against the Scrub, Cowan had pa.s.sed everyone except the fullback and was bearing down on him like a tornado, when within a few feet of the fullback the latter jumped aside and said politely, "Pa.s.s on, sir, pa.s.s on." Cowan played on two winning teams, '85 and '89.

In '89 the eligibility rules at the college were not as strict as now, so as Princeton needed a tackle, Walter Cash who had played on Pennsylvania the year before, was sent for and came all the way from Wyoming. He came so hurriedly that his wardrobe consisted of two 6-shooters and a monte deck of cards, on account of which he was dubbed "Monte" Cash. Cash was not fond of attending lectures, and once the faculty had him up before them and told him what a disgrace it would be if he were dropped out of College. "It may be in the East, but we don't think much of a little thing like that out West," was his reply. Cash was in the Rough Riders and was wounded at San Juan.

Sport Donnelly was a great end that year. Heffelfinger the great Yale guard who is probably the best that ever played, said of Donnelly, that he was the only player he had ever seen who could slug and keep his eye on the ball at the same time. The following story is often told of how Donnelly got Rhodes of Yale ruled off in '89. Rhodes had hit Channing of Princeton in the eye, so that Donnelly was laying for him, and when Rhodes came through the line, Donnelly grabbed up two handsful of mud--it was a very muddy field--and rubbed them in his face and hollered, "Mr. Umpire," so that when Rhodes, in a burst of righteous indignation, hit him, the Umpire saw it and promptly ruled Rhodes from the field.

Snake Ames and House Janeway played that year, and as the latter was big--210 pounds stripped--and good natured, Ames thought that if he could only get Janeway angry he would play even better than usual, so, with Machiavellian craft, he said to him before the Harvard game, "House, the man you are going to play against to-morrow insulted your girl. I heard him do it, so you want to murder him." "All right," said House, ominously, and as Princeton won, 41 to 15, Janeway must certainly have helped a heap.

George played center for Princeton four years, and for three years "Pa"

Corbin and George played against each other, and, as cow-boys would say, "sure did chew each other's mane." I don't mean slugged.

My brother Edgar '91 was a great admirer of George. In '88 Edgar was playing in the scrub, and George broke through and was about to make a tackle when the former knocked one of his arms down as it was outstretched to catch it. George missed the tackle but said nothing. A second time almost identically the same thing occurred. This time he remarked grimly, "Good trick that, Poe." But when the same thing happened a third time on the same afternoon, he exclaimed, "Poe, if you weren't so small, I'd hit you."

In '89 Thomas '90, subst.i.tute guard, was highly indignant at the way some Boston newspaper described him. "The Princeton men were giants, one in particular was picturesque in his grotesqueness. He was 6 feet 5 and, when he ran, his arms and legs moved up and down like the piston rods of an engine."

In '90 Buck Irvine '88 brought an unknown team to Princeton, Franklin and Marshall, which he coached, and they scored 16 points against the Tigers. And though the latter won, 33 to 16, still that was the largest score ever made against Princeton up to that time. They did it, too, by rus.h.i.+ng, which was all the more to their credit.

Victor Harding, Harvard, and Yup Cook, Princeton '89, had played on Andover and Exeter, respectively, and had trouble then, so four years later when they met, one on Princeton and the other on Harvard, they had more trouble. Both were ruled off for rough work. Cook picked Harding up off the ground and slammed him down and then walked off the field. In a few minutes Harding, after trying to trip Ames, also was ruled off. That was the net result of the old Andover-Exeter feud.

In '91 Princeton was playing Rutgers. Those were the days of the old "V"

trick in starting a game. When the Orange and Black guards and centers tore up the Rutgers' V it was found that the Captain of the latter team had broken his leg in the crush. He showed great nerve, for while sitting on the ground waiting for a stretcher, he remarked in a nonchalant way, "Give me a cigarette. I could die for Old Rutgers," his tone being "Me first and then Nathan Hale." One version quite prevalent around Princeton has it that a Tiger player rushed up and exclaimed, "Die then." This is not true as I played in that game and know whereof I speak.

Fifteen years after that had happened, I met Phil Brett who had captained the Rutgers Team that day, and he told me that his life had been a burden to him at times, and like Job, he felt like cursing G.o.d and dying, because often upon coming into a cafe or even a hotel dining-room some half drunken acquaintance would yell out, "h.e.l.lo, Phil, old man, could you die for dear Old Rutgers?"

Several years ago while in the Kentucky Militia in connection with one of those feud cases, I was asked by a private if I were related to Edgar Allan Poe, "De mug what used to write poetry," and when I replied, "Yes, he was my grandmother's first cousin," he, evidently thinking I was too boastful, remarked, "Well, man, you've got a swell chance."