Algonquin Round Table History,News Heywood Broun on Babe Ruth in 1922

Heywood Broun on Babe Ruth in 1922

With baseball season around the corner, let’s look at one of the many Algonquin Round Table links to the game. In the world of New York newspaper columnists in the Jazz Age, Heywood Broun stood out from the rest. His column “It Seems To Me” was beloved, and he could tackle any subject. Broun had gotten his start as a baseball writer, and continued his passion for ballpark trips even when he became a celebrity covering Broadway and news stories. Broun had seats in the press box to watch Babe Ruth in his amazing 1921 season with the New York Yankees. This column appeared in 1922.

Ruth Vs. Roth
By Heywood Broun

We picked up “Who’s Who in America” yesterday to get some vital statistics about Babe Ruth, and found to our surprise that he was not in the book. Even as George Herman Ruth there is no mention of him. The nearest name we could find was: “Roth, Filibert, forestry expert; b. Württemberg, Germany, April 20, 1858; s. Paul Raphael and Amalie (Volz) R., early edn. in Württemberg—”

There is in our heart not an atom of malice against Prof. Roth (since September, 1903, he has been “prof. forestry, U. Mich.”), and yet we question the justice of his admission to a list of national celebrities while Ruth stands without. We know, of course, that Prof. Roth is the author of “Forest Conditions in Wisconsin” and of “The Uses of Wood,” but we wonder whether he has been able to describe in words uses of wood more sensational and vital than those which Ruth has shown in deeds. Hereby we challenge the editor of “Who’s Who in America” to debate the affirmative side of the question: Resolved, That Prof. Roth’s volume called “Timber Physics” has exerted a more profound influence in the life of America than Babe Ruth’s 1921 home-run record.

Heywood Broun

Heywood Broun

The question is, of course, merely a continuation of the ancient controversy as to the relative importance of the theorist and the practitioner: should history prefer in honor the man who first developed the hypothesis that the world was round or the other who went out and circumnavigated it? What do we owe to Ben Franklin and what to the lightning? Shall we celebrate Newton or the apple?

Personally, our sympathies go out to the performer rather than the fellow in the study or the laboratory. Many scientists staked their reputations on the fact that the world was round before Magellan set sail on the Vittoria. He did not lack written assurances that there was no truth in the old tale of a flat earth with dragons and monsters lurking just beyond the edges.

But suppose, in spite of all this, Magellan had gone on sailing, sailing until his ship did topple over into the void of dragons and big snakes. The professors would have been abashed. Undoubtedly they would try to laugh the misfortune off, and they might even have been good enough sports to say, “That’s a fine joke on us.” But at worst they could lose nothing but their reputations, which can be made over again. Magellan would not live to profit by his experience. Being one of those foreigners, he had no sense of humor, and if the dragons bit him as he fell, it is ten to one he could not even manage a smile.

By this time we have rather traveled away from Roth’s “Timber Physics” and Ruth’s home-run record, but we hope that you get what we mean. Without knowing the exact nature of “Timber Physics,” we assume that the professor discusses the most efficient manner in which to bring about the greatest possible impact between any wooden substance and a given object. But mind you, he merely discusses it. If the professor chances to be wrong, even if he is wrong three times, nobody in the classroom is likely to shout, “You’re out!”

The professor remains at bat during good behavior. He is not subject to any such vicissitudes as Ruth. Moreover, timber physics is to Mr. Roth a matter of cool and calm deliberation. No adversary seeks to fool him with speed or spitballs. “Hit it out” never rings in his ears. And after all, just what difference does it make if Mr. Roth errs in his timber physics? It merely means that a certain number of students leave Michigan knowing a little less than they should—and nobody expects anything else from students.

On the other hand, a miscalculation by Ruth in the uses of wood affects much more important matters. A strike-out on his part may bring about complete tragedy and the direst misfortune. There have been occasions, and we fear that there will still be occasions, when Ruth’s bat will be the only thing which stands between us and the loss of the American League pennant. In times like these who cares about “Forest Conditions in Wisconsin”?

Coming to the final summing up for our side of the question at debate, we shall try to lift the whole affair above any mere Ruth versus Roth issue. It will be our endeavor to show that not only has Babe Ruth been a profound interest and influence in America, but that on the whole he has been a power for progress. Ruth has helped to make life a little more gallant. He has set before us an example of a man who tries each minute for all or nothing. When he is not knocking home runs he is generally striking out, and isn’t there more glory in fanning in an effort to put the ball over the fence than in prolonging a little life by playing safe?

***

Adapted from The Lost Algonquin Round Table: Humor, Fiction, Journalism, Criticism and Poetry From America’s Most Famous Literary Circle (Donald Books/iUniverse). Edited by Nat Benchley and Kevin C. Fitzpatrick. Available Here.

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Frank and Bertha Case

I Found Frank CaseI Found Frank Case

I found Frank Case. I wasn’t even looking for him. I was in Oakland Cemetery in Sag Harbor, Long Island, for the first time. I was actually looking for a Doughboy for our WWI Homecoming 21 project. As I was walking along the line of graves, since I didn’t know the location, I was peering at each one as quickly as possible. At the corner of the cemetery, in the corner of my eye, was a lone mausoleum. There are not that many in Oakland, just a few, it is not Woodlawn. As I stepped closer I saw the name across the top: CASE.

I was so happy to see this. Here was the general manager and owner of the Algonquin Hotel.

I had known for many years that Case (1871-1946) had a second home in Sag Harbor. He wrote about the home in his books, as did his only daughter, Margaret Case Harriman. While Case was the most famous hotelier in America at one time, I never knew where he ended up after his death in Manhattan. I assumed, wrongly, that he had gone home to Buffalo, New York, his hometown, and where his first wife, Carrie Case, was buried in 1908 after she tragically died in the Algonquin Hotel following the birth of their son, Carrol.

Frank and Bertha Case

Frank and Bertha Case

One thing I learned a long time ago was to never trust the Internet. When I was researching my book The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide (2015) I was on a mission to track down the final resting places of the Vicious Circle. I did locate almost all 30 of them, but there are a few that still escape me (where are you Jane Grant and Robert E. Sherwood?). But I found many inaccuracies and misinformation. I made a pass at looking for Case; one lead was he was buried in Woodlawn, which was wrong. Many obituaries list New Yorker’s would hold their memorials in Woodlawn, then the remains sent away to other towns for burial. What I suspect is after his death, which was just four months after his second wife, Bertha, his family brought Bertha and Frank to the receiving vaults of Woodlawn. Here they remained temporarily while the mausoleum was constructed in Sag Harbor. I guess if I had 10 hours of free time I could check the records of both cemeteries, so perhaps if someone reading this wants to hire me for a paid assignment I will do that.

I like finding this mausoleum and closing the circle on Frank Case, who was by all accounts beloved by friends and staff (but was anti-union). He was also, like me, a member of The Lambs (the clubhouse was 2 minutes away west on Forty-fourth Street, and many of the actors who were members also lived at the hotel, such as John Drew and nephew John Barrymore).

One story told in the obituary of Bertha Case is about Sag Harbor. Bertha was a housekeeper at the Algonquin, which is how she met Frank. During WWI she volunteered and went to France with the YMCA as a volunteer, and was friends with superstar Elsie Janis (also an Algonquin regular). She and Frank were married for 30 years. What Bertha did was use the flower gardens at the Sag Harbor house to provide floral arrangements for the hotel–which she oversaw. Sag Harbor is also where the Case family entertained friends, such as Robert Benchley.

If you are in Sag Harbor and the South Fork of Long Island, pay a visit to Frank and Bertha Case.

F.P.A. Diary Entries For His BirthdayF.P.A. Diary Entries For His Birthday

FPA

Franklin P. Adams and his second wife, Esther Root, on their honeymoon, 1925.

Franklin P. Adams wrote his diary from 1911-1941; by his estimate more than two million words. It began June 11, 1911, in the New York Evening Mail. The column was called Always in Good Humor. On January 1, 1914, F.P.A. joined the New York Tribune staff and changed the name to The Conning Tower. He remained there until December 31, 1921, when he joined The World. When The World folded, he moved to the New York Herald Tribune on March 2, 1931. His column appeared there until 1937. His column ended in the New York Post in 1941, by which time F.P.A. was a radio star on Information Please.

Editor’s note: These entries are taken directly from the collection The Diary of Our Own Samuel Pepys, published by Simon and Schuster in 1935. All of F.P.A.’s idiosyncratic spelling and grammar usage is left intact. Editorial notes in [brackets] are from the editor and in some cases F.P.A. himself. None of the entries have been altered.

Adams was born in Chicago on November 15, 1881, and died on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on March 23, 1960.

* * *
Sunday, November 16, 1919
All day in the country, and had a pleasant day, playing croquet. Home, when I find E. Ferber [Edna Ferber] and Janet Grant and Miss Rosalind Fuller [an English actress and singer]; and A. Woollcott [Alexander Woollcott], very grand in a silk hat, and H. Ross [Harold Rosss]; and we had a frugal supper, and all left before eleven. Read [William] Congreve’s poems, indifferent stuff.

* * *
Thursday, November 15, 1923
Up and to the office early away and met Mistress Beatrice Gunsaulus Merriman [spouse of Rev. Robert Noel Merriman], who has come from Bethlehem to have a birthday party with me to-day and to-morrow. So we to Dottie Parker’s, where was a great crowd gathered to honour me, and a great shower of presents, tyes, and kerchiefs and a neck-scarf. So now home with Beatrice [Kaufman] and thence to a great and gay gathering at Mistress Ruth Fleischmann’s [Quincy, IL, native, spouse of baking heir Raoul], where I had the merriest birthday party anyone ever gave me, but they told me it was H. Miller’s [Henry Wise Miller, banker, spouse of Alice Duer Miller] and G. Kaufman’s [George S. Kaufman] and A. Krock’s [Arthur Krock, newspaperman, won Pulitzer 1935] and Beatrice’s, and that Ruth and Raoul had been married this day three years, yet by 10 o’clock I was certain the party was entirely in my honor and was not disinclined to think that the universe had been constructed for the same delightful purpose. So home, despite all in the car counseling to drive with more caution, and we had to walk up the stairs, and Beatrice lost an earring, which distressed her, but I told her we should find it in the morning.

* * *
Sunday, November 15, 1925
For a walk in the warm sunshine, and to luncheon at L. Dodd’s [Lee Wilson Dodd, playwright, novelist, poet, died 1933], and my wife told a tayle of some children who, being warned not to express astonishment when the ice cream was borne upon the table, did carol forth, “We have it all the time! We have it all the time!” So by steam-train to the city, and thence to the office, and so to R. Fleischmann’s, to a great party, and met Miss Fay Compton the play-actress, as fair and sweetly spoke a lady as ever I saw.

* * *
Monday, November 15, 1926
This day my birthday, and my wife give me a fine golden knife and H. Miller give me some kerchiefs and A. Samuels [Arthur Samuels, composer, publicist, editor] some tyes, all of which I was very glad to get, not so much for the sentiment behind them as for the value and beauty of the gifts. This day Frank Sullivan back to work, and he come to see me, looking very handsome with his long rest. All day at my office, and so home and did some scrivening before dinner, and my wife telling me that I had misspelled our handmaiden’s name, calling her Dougherty instead of Doherty, so I asked her whether she were a relative of the great lawn tennis players, but she said she never had heard of them. But she is as skilful in her field as they were in theirs, and I would suggest that she would play in the final of any cooking tournament. So to the theatre in Florence Hammond’s [spouse of Herald-Tribune drama critic Percy Hammond] petrol-wagon, and saw Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” and enjoyed it all mightily, in especiall Miss Lynn Fontanne’s and Mr. Henry Travers’s acting. And I did make some vows, on this my birthday, such as to waste no more time in frivolity, and to be more kind to my fellows. Yet last night there was a discussion about murder, and some that they were incapable of killing anybody, and they thought I would be, too; but I thought there was none in that company that might not have murder in his heart at some time; and as for myself, I know many persons I would like to kill, if there were no penalty attached to the act. Lord! if I could murder those I pleased to kill, it would almost be impossible to get a taxicab in this city. So home, and read E. Pearson’s [Edmund Lester Pearson] “Murder at Smutty Nose,” a thrilling compilation, with things in it about the Parkman case, and Dr. Crippen [Hawley Harvey Crippen, the first criminal to be captured with the aid wireless], and others.

* * *
Saturday, November 15, 1930
Early up, it being my birthday, and my wife give me a crimson sweater to wear next summer, and I got letters from my sisters Amy and Evelyn, and so did my work in the morning, and in the afternoon to H. Miller’s to listen to how badly the Yales would beat the Princetons, but they scarcely beat them at all, and so we to Manhasset, to a giant birthday celebration given for me at R. Fleischmann’s, very merry and gay, and I had a pleasant time with Mrs. Delehanty [née Margaret E. Rowland, spouse of John Bradley Delehanty, noted architect], who tells me she is a girl from Phillips, Wis., and she very gifted, shewing me how she can stand on her head, and I had a talk with A. Barach [Dr. Alvan L. Barach, founder of pulmonary rehabilitation and inventor of the oxygen tent] the physician, of clairvoyancy and fortune-telling and palm-reading, we telling each other of the great success we had at these charlatanries, what with the subjects telling us all that we wanted to know, and then being astonished at our magickall powers. But it is a dangerous thing to do, forasmuch as I never shall forget the trouble that I got into by telling a girl that she did not have confidence enough in herself, which is a thing that everybody believes about himself, especially those that have more confidence than they should have. It is also safe to tell people that they are too generous and too tender-hearted. So late to bed, and waked my wife, albeit I was quiet as a million mice.

* * *
Sunday, November 15, 1931
Lay mighty late, and so up and wondering what would be happening on November 15, 1981, I then being 100 years of age, but I fear that this will be the last time that there will be a legal holiday on my birthday, and so read the newspapers with great misgivings about what is going on in Manchuria, and would forecast that a year from now matters will be more troubled and unpeaceful than they are now, and so talked with A. Krock and R. Fleischmann about history and its teachings, and Krock said that he was proficient in its study when he was a boy forasmuch as it was taught with a stress upon dates of wars and deaths of kings and history made so little impression upon me that I forget how it was taught. But I feel that it ought to be taught backwards; that is, that the study should begin with the front page of today’s newspaper and go on from there to last year, and that it might then seem important and personal to the student to read about the Spanish Armada and Eric the Red and the Battle of Stirling and Ticonderoga and General P. T. G. Beauregard and Bannockburn and Themistocles and Hadrian and Ypres and Rutherford B. Hayes and Aguinaldo and the Guelphs and the Franco-Prussian War. So in the afternoon my wife and I beat H. Miller and R. Fleischmann two deuce sets, and in the evening had a very merry birthday party, almost everybody having been born a few years ago today, yesterday, and tomorrow; and so A. Woollcott drove me to the city in a cab, and told me many fascinating things, he being no less laconic than ever, and about how Herbert Wells, the author, had come to see him, and of many other things.

Laurence Stallings

A Look at Laurence Stallings, WriterA Look at Laurence Stallings, Writer

Laurence Stallings

Laurence Stallings

Laurence Tucker Stallings is mentioned about three times a year by the pop culture world. Usually it has to do with his screenwriting hits The Big Parade or She Wore A Yellow Ribbon appearing on television. There has only been one book about him, a not very good academic tome (by Joan T. Brittain, Laurence Stallings, Twain, 1975). When I was working on the book, I did reach a person who was connected to his late children. The man was so unhelpful, and unpleasant, that I am still incredulous at his lack of wanting to perpetuate the life story of Stallings. Today is the anniversary of his birth, in 1894, which is a good reason to present some of my information about him.

I’ve always liked the Stallings story. He served as a U.S. Marine in World War I, and was grievously wounded. Stallings joined the staff of the New York World in 1922 to write book reviews and editorials. The war veteran was passionately liberal; when he referred to a black man as “Mr.” in print, he angered readers in his Georgia hometown.

Stallings and Maxwell Anderson were both working at the World when they decided to collaborate on a play. Stallings, who’d lost a leg in combat as a Marine, knew he wanted to write an antiwar drama. The pair co-wrote What Price Glory? for producer-director Arthur Hopkins, and it exploded at the Plymouth Theatre on September 5, 1924. It was the first play to use the profanity-laced speech of soldiers, and its grim view of war was riveting. The story of First Sergeant Quirt (William Boyd) and Captain Flagg (Louis Wolheim) in the trenches of France, the script used Stallings’ experiences in World War I. It ran for 433 performances and got the playwrights contracts in Hollywood.

Not much is ever written about him, and a lot is not accurate or focuses just on his movies. Here is a little more on an overlooked American writer.

The Algonquin Round Table considered Laurence Stallings a hero because of his sacrifices as a WWI combat veteran; many members had also served in the A.E.F. His combat experience would provide him the inspiration to write passionately about war in a bestselling book, a gritty Broadway drama, magazine stories and fiction, and a smash hit silent film.

Laurence Tucker Stallings, Jr., was born November 25, 1894, in Macon, Georgia. He graduated from Wake Forest with a B.A. in 1915. His first job was a reporter on the Atlanta Constitution in 1915.

In 1917 Stallings enlisted in the Marines and was sent to France, where he participated in some of the bloodiest campaigns of the war. He received a battlefield commission, and took over command of a Marine outfit. At the Battle of Belleau Wood near the Marne River, Stalling was wounded in June 1918. Awarded the Purple Heart and the Croix de Guerre, Stallings spent eight months recovering in France before being shipped home after the Armistice was signed.

Once home, he married his college sweetheart. Helen Poteat was the daughter of the Wake Forest president, William Louis Poteat. The wedding was on March 6, 1919, at the campus in Winston-Salem. After the wedding, the couple moved to Washington, D.C., where Stallings joined The Washington Times as a reporter and earned his M.A. from Georgetown. His writing career was taking off, however, Stallings never fully recovered from his combat injuries, and in 1922 had to have his right leg amputated.

Laurence Stallings

Laurence Stallings

After recuperating Stallings and his wife moved to New York, where he joined the World. A tall, dark-haired, good-looking Southerner, Stallings sometimes came to the Algonquin Hotel wearing his artificial leg, other times he’d walk in on a crutch. His newspaper co-workers Heywood Broun and Deems Taylor introduced him to the Vicious Circle after it was an established institution.

In 1924 Stallings was writing book reviews three days a week for the World. He was tapped by executive editor Herbert Bayard Swope to be on the “Op. Ed” page with Franklin P. Adams, Heywood Broun, Frank Sullivan, and Alexander Woollcott. He shared an office with Maxwell Anderson, at the time a fellow editorial writer. They collaborated on their first play, What Price Glory? for the powerful Broadway producer Arthur Hopkins, who’d also staged Don Marquis’ hit play The Old Soak. With What Price Glory? Stallings was able to share his real-life experiences about the trauma and heartbreak of soldiers in combat. It was a hit at the Plymouth Theater, 236 West 45th Street, and ran for more than a year.

But he was not finished with the Great War. His novel, Plumes, was a contender for the 1925 Pulitzer Prize, but it was edged out by another Algonquin regular, Edna Ferber, for her novel So Big. Broun weighed in on the subject in his column:

“I have heard that Plumes, by Laurence Stallings, was the second choice of the committee, but this is not official, as the body does not announce any honorable mentions. At any rate, Plumes should be high up on the list. There are things in Plumes which seem to me better than any portion of So Big, but it is a less evenly developed book and is justly placed below Miss Ferber’s novel. If there were such a thing as a pentathlon, or all around prize, Laurence Stallings could not be shut out from victory, since he wrote a novel which proved a contender and collaborated with Maxwell Anderson on a play which ranked near the top.”

His novel was adapted for the silent movie epic The Big Parade that same year, and was among the first blockbusters in the pre-talking pictures era. Directed by maverick filmmaker King Vidor, The Big Parade played to sell-out crowds across the nation. A railroad car was used to transport the orchestra, lighting, and personnel from town to town. The film, made just seven years after the conflict, was the first to show the gritty side of the war on the big screen. The central character, played by John Gilbert, like Stallings, also loses a leg in battle.

Stallings and his wife had two children together during their rocky 17-year marriage. In December 1936 Stalling’s wife sued him for divorce in Reno, Nevada, charging him with cruelty. In a private trial a judge granted the divorce and the 17-year union was over. He walked away from his family and gracious estate in North Carolina, and never saw them again. Stalling was free to marry a girlfriend, Louisa St. Leger Vance, a 25-year-old writer. On March 18, 1937, the couple was married in Manhattan at her parents’ home, 410 East 57th Street. They had two children. Stallings moved to Hollywood, where he remained for the rest of his life.

In the 1930s Stallings had a tumultuous decade. He couldn’t choose between literature or motion pictures. He was close to Robert Benchley and could be spotted at “21” together; both men had the same issues of working for art or commerce. In 1934 Stallings became an editor of Fox Movietone News (offices 460 West 54th Street), and resided at 50 East 77th Street. In 1935 Fox sent him to Ethiopia for what turned out to be a two-year assignment. He was looking for the start of the next war with four cameramen and 50,000 feet of film as they waited for Mussolini to invade. Stallings filed stories for the New York Times on the conflict, and then returned home to America. He abandoned his first wife and two small daughters after his 1937 remarriage. When the U.S. entered World War II, Stallings went back on active duty with the Marines in 1942. He served as an intelligence officer in the Pentagon, and attained the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Laurence T. Stallings gravesite. Photo: Nigel Quinney.

Laurence T. Stallings gravesite. Photo: Nigel Quinney.

Stallings returned to California to write screenplays, magazine articles, and books. He lived in Pacific Palisades and his health deteriorated. Doctors had to remove his other leg in 1963, the same year he published a stirring account of World War I, The Doughboys. Stallings died on February 28, 1968, at his home. He received a military burial with a Marine Corps honor guard. Stallings is interred outside San Diego in Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery.

Adapted from The Algonquin Round Table New York, A Historical Guide (Globe Pequot Press). Order the book here.