SOME time since OUTING entered into communication with the various gentlemen who are taking leading parts in the serious disruption which has shaken the athletic world of America to its very centre. For some reason best known to those addressed, the majority of these gentlemen have not seen fit to favor us with their views on the situation. We have, however, been placed in a position to give the public some extracts from what appears to us to be an impartial review of the facts, from the Union’s side of the question. We quote as follows:
“In 1879 the New York Athletic Club decided to give up the management of the Amateur Championship Meeting, so successfully established by it three years previously. This course was taken because it brought a great deal of additional work on the officers of the club, and although the games had been profitable to the organization, its officers no longer desired to be continually appealed to for decisions and rulings upon athletic matters. For these reasons the N. Y. A. C. was willing to relinquish the conduct of the championship games to properly organized associations of clubs.”
Thus it came about that in the spring of 1879 the National Association of Amateur Athletes of America was organized. In 1880 we find the list of clubs that were members numbered twenty-one. In 1885 we find that this number had sunk to twelve, and in 1887 it was still twelve, while the New York Athletic Club, “through some personal club trouble,” had resigned in 1885.
“With these facts before us it can readily be seen that although the Association may have been, and no doubt was, national some years ago, it failed to keep pace with many of the leading clubs during the past three or four years. Some of these, notably the New York and Staten Island Athletic clubs, made such rapid strides that not only were meetings given that were far superior to the championships, but also many championship of America events were given by them and at their expense, among them being the boxing, wrestling, swimming, general gymnastic, general athletic, etc.
“In 1887 the Athletic Club of the Schuylkill Navy started the Amateur Athletic Union of the U. S.” The why and wherefore of its inception is thus accounted for. “The first time the A. C. S. N. participated in any other athletic competition than those held under its own management was in February, 1886, when a number of entries were made in the championship boxing and wrestling tournament given under the auspices of the New York Athletic Club, at Tammany Hall, New York. Of the three representatives of the A. C. S. N. at this competition, one, Mr. Charles A. Clark, won the championship at feather-weight boxing, and another, Dr. J. K. Shell, was fortunate enough to meet Joe Ellingsworth in the middle-weight boxing class; the latter, it was learned just in time to enter a protest, was so tainted with professionalism as to render his presence at an amateur competition preposterous. The protest against Ellingsworth was made by Captain Huneker of the A. C. S. N. to the New York Athletic Club, by whom he was referred to the National Association of Amateur Athletes of America for a decision as to Ellingsworth’s standing. The latter association refused to take any action, claiming that they had no jurisdiction in the matter.
“The inconsistent part of the National Association’s action in this matter is the fact of its having refused to take any action in this instance and claiming that it had no jurisdiction, while many will undoubtedly remember that sufficient jurisdiction was claimed in the cases of the wrestlers who were disqualified about six months previous for competing at unapproved meetings.
“From the time of this occurrence dates the desire of the A. C. S. N. to see formed an association national in character, which would take cognizance of and exercise jurisdiction over all kinds and classes of athletic sports over which no recognized association already in existence, exercised special authority. This, together with the sincere wishes of the club to contribute by every means within their power to an effort to exclude from the amateur ranks the semi-professional, ‘tough’ and ‘shady’ element which has proved so great a detriment to the natural growth and popularity of all true amateur sport, dwarfed its possibilities and rendered competition in many of its classes obnoxious to gentlemen, are the reasons which mainly influenced the A. C. S. N. to request the New York Athletic Club, which organization was not a member of the National, to join in a call for a meeting of all the recognized amateur athletic organizations of the United States to consider the formation of a new association.
“The meeting of such a body and its outcome is a matter of athletic history. From this convention emanated the Amateur Athletic Union. From the inception of the Union the A. C. S. N. at once became prominent in its councils, one of its delegates, Mr. W. H. McMillan, being unanimously elected president of the new association.
“When the circular calling for a meeting of all the clubs to consider the formation of an association was received by the Staten Island A. C., a letter was at once sent to Mr. John F. Huneker, captain of the A. C. of the Schuykill Navy, inquiring what club was at the bottom of this move, and what were the ideas and reasons in forming such an organization. The reply, as received, was read to the Board of Directors, and, after satisfying themselves as to its honesty and advisability, a committee with power was appointed, consisting of President J. W. Edwards, Secretary W. C. Davis, Treasurer G. M. Mackellar, and Director F. W. Janssen.