8. COURSE

Take into consideration the following: degree of difficulty, certified, sanctioned, quality of road or trail surface, adequate mileage and directional markers, aid stations, medical coverage, race communications, accessibility to course for friends and family, typical weather, and so on.

[Possible points: 400 NFIM score: 363]

9. RACE AMENITIES

This category includes race T-shirt, finisher’s medal, finisher’s certificate, adequate and efficient finish area, ease of sweatbag retrieval, showers, postrace refreshments, awards ceremony, raffles, results postcard, results book, and so on.

[Possible points: 250 NFIM score: 223]

10. VOLUNTEERS Are the volunteers experienced and adequate in number? [Possible points: 100 NFIM score: 97]

TOTAL SCORE FOR NIAGARA FALLS INTERNATIONAL MARATHON i 907 points out of 1,000 points

You can find the scores for ALL the races in Marathon & Beyond’s

marathon profile series on our Web site at www.marathonandbeyond.com.

SPECIAL BOOK BONUS

There is a Whole Country to Run, and the First to New York City Wins the American Dream. Part 1.

Chapter 1 LOS ANGELES

Hugh McPhail dropped his trousers, stuffed them into his knapsack and started to run.

As his feet settled into a rhythm he saw ahead of him the train clicking away into the distance, its smoke whorling black behind it. The old Superchief had carried him halfway across America. It had been the first time he’d ever ridden boxcar, carrying a ticket free of fear, and it had given him a sense of security. Just before leaving the train he had tossed his ticket to the old man who sat unseeing in the corner for the whole thousand-mile journey. “Save yourself a beating, old timer,” he had said. Then he had jumped.

Above him the road sign read: Los ANGELES SIX MILES. That meant forty minutes. McPhail ran easily, on his heels, with low frugal strides, his feet hardly leaving the ground. He wore a knapsack with thick padded straps to protect his shoulders, and a flat plaid cap. His upper body was not that of a runner, for he was heavily muscled, particularly in the shoulders and back, but months of distance training had scoured his body of every scrap of fat. As he ran, trickles of sweat started to roll like tears down his brown cheeks and joined with others to form streams on his back and chest. The salt sweat seeped into his eyes and made them smart. He brushed it away with the back of his hand and looked up at the sun. Midday: a bad time for running.

For a mile there was nothing but the soft dirt road, spun out before him across the brown plain, like a ribbon casually cast off by a child. The surface was pockmarked with holes, destroying his rhythm but nevertheless keeping his mind in focus.

This was rich country, its earth quite unlike that of the sour, bleak land from which he had come: in the north, moor and heather, in the center, coal and shipbuilding, in the south, moor again. But here everything had hot, vital life, and the

land seethed with movement. It was strange, but generous too, and McPhail felt no fear of the many miles he would soon have to trek across its surface.

His eyes took in the cultivated groves on either side. After a moment’s thought he grinned. He had never thought of oranges actually growing: they were simply something which arrived at the grocery store at the end of the street, and he had never considered what their source might be. But here they were, planted in row after neat row, stretching all about him far into the heat-haze. The plant life and the heat gave the air a taste, and McPhail drank in its perfume through his lungs, while his ears absorbed the steady purr and buzz of insects.

Old men in blue dungarees rested on their hoes as he ran past, chewing on straws, their eyes unblinking in brown, lined faces. They showed no emotion, as if it were for them a daily occurrence to see a man in plaid shorts striding past their homes. Perhaps McPhail was not the first; perhaps they had already seen a steady stream of runners from “C. C. Flanagan’s Great Trans-America Race,” men striding in from all over the world, soon to become part of a two-thousand-man surge across the state of California.

McPhail, fed by the glossy dreams of Glasgow’s Electric Picture Palace, had thought that all Americans lived in ease and luxury. These people inhabited mean wooden shacks, fronted by small fenced-in vegetable patches. No ease or luxury here. But somehow their poverty was softened by the heat and the richness of the land. True, the children ran barefoot, but they ran on warm ground, their bodies massaged by sun, not on the frozen lunar landscapes of a winter Glasgow.

As he ran through the shanty town mongrel dogs snapped for a moment at his heels before being shouted off by the men seated on the sidewalks. They were replaced by children who accompanied him, prancing with knees kept high in a grotesque parody of his running action. The men of the town looked on benignly, smiling as the children surrounded McPhail. “Hup! Two-three-four!” they screamed.

McPhail looked around him and again he grinned. These children were no different from those he had encountered six thousand miles away. Somehow the lone runner always had to be a figure of fun. He was an intruder, a man whose lonely and inexorable rhythms destroyed the daily patterns of those around him, whether they were those of the street life of Glasgow tenements or of a shanty town in Southern California. The runner must always be challenged—challenged and harried. It was harmless fun, but McPhail always felt behind it a note of menace. Every runner, whatever his abilities, was making a personal statement every time he ran. Here J am, he was saying. This is what I do. I run. This is what makes me different.

He was beginning to flow now as muscles, stiff from days on the hard floor of the swaying train, began to drink in the oxygen from the rich blood flowing through them. The sun was a welcome lubricant, although McPhail knew that in

the long run it was also his enemy. However, there were no dangers in a short stint of six miles, and he relished the loose, fluid feeling which the heat lent to his limbs.

At the crossroads he was suddenly joined by another runner, coming in sharply from the south. He was a small brown man, running fully clothed and with a bulging cardboard suitcase strapped to his back. He made a sharp left turn and joined McPhail without speaking, running on his left side. The little man was wearing white flannel trousers which stopped abruptly about six inches from the ground, and heavy black leather boots, but no socks. His upper body was covered by a formal black pin-striped jacket, while on his head he wore a military-style cap. McPhail noticed that he had a thin black moustache below his nose, and could only be in his late teens.

There were only three miles to Los Angeles. McPhail moved the pace up slightly to test the little man, who showed no sign of recognizing the increase in speed, and stayed pinned to his left shoulder. McPhail injected more speed and moved up to six-minute-mile pace, but his companion did not flag, moving in a high-trotting-pony style in complete contrast to McPhail’s low, economic scuttle. With a mile to go the Scot pressed again, but still he could feel his companion on his left side, still hear his light unhurried breathing. They ran for another halfmile, locked in silent struggle.

The little man looked over his right shoulder at McPhail. “Martinez,” he said, lifting his cap. “Juan Martinez, Mexico.”

The he spurted. McPhail was shocked by the suddenness of the acceleration. The little Mexican pranced off down the dusty road and was soon over twenty yards away, dust spurting behind him. McPhail let him go. He had come to America to race, but not just yet. Soon all he could see was Martinez’s little cap bobbing in the distance.

A Model T Ford chugged toward him, spluttering and groaning. He remembered that he should always run on the left, facing the traffic, and switched to the other side of the road. The driver stopped and looked out of his window. It was a young farmer. “Buddy,” he said, grinning. “You’re losing real bad. Saw a little feller, legs going like a fiddler’s elbow, way up that-a-way.”

McPhail smiled and nodded. The road had changed from a thin dirt track to two lanes of hard road, and cars threw up clouds of dust as they passed. He was coming into the outskirts of Los Angeles and now the houses too were of a different character: white adobe walls, palms, close-cropped lawns, gardeners. To McPhail, the houses of Los Angeles looked more Spanish than American.

About a hundred yards ahead was a banner straddling the road: Los ANGELES WELCOMES THE TRANS-AMERICA RUNNERS. Just beyond it on the left side of the road was a small booth. TAKE Coca-CoLa Across AMERICA, said the notice above it.

McPhail pulled up and fumbled in his knapsack.

“Have a Coca-Cola, buddy?” asked the white-coated attendant.

“Free?” the Scotsman asked.

“Tf you’re in the Trans-America.”

Without thinking, McPhail pushed the lip of the bottle to his lips and gulped it down. The drink was cold and sweet. He had forgotten that, in America, warm drinks did not exist. He coughed, wiped the tears and sweat from his eyes and sipped the rest.

“Must be a thousand men here already,” said the attendant. “From all over. Japs, Turks, Injuns. Even saw a feller in a skirt.” He eyed McPhail’s plaid shorts with interest. “If some of them guys are runners then I’m Alice Craig McAllister.”

The evangelist’s name meant nothing to McPhail. He sipped the last of his drink, then placed the empty bottle back on the stand. “Thanks. Where do we report?”

“Five hotels close by: the Grand, the Imperial, the Ambassador, the Gateway and the Eldorado. C. C. Flanagan has sure done you fellers proud.”

McPhail trotted on into central Los Angeles, the drink slopping around in his stomach as he ran. The town was indeed packed. Runners of all nationalities strode the sidewalks in small groups, chatting and gesticulating ferociously. Some jogged in packs in the broad main street, and were narrowly missed by honking cars. Others sat in deck chairs, outside cafés, while their bodies were pummeled and massaged by their managers. The town fairly seethed with runners.

Hugh had felt a stranger in America for three thousand miles by rail, and even during the six miles into town, but no longer: this was a runner’s town. For the moment Los Angeles was the Trans-America, the Trans-America Los Angeles. Even the streetcars, clanging and clacketing along the streets, stopped to allow the passage of the runners who pattered between them. Beefy policemen ignored traffic signals to allow athletes to run unchecked. Runners stood signing autographs for children or elderly matrons before trotting off to continue their solitary preparations.

He felt a familiar sick feeling at the pit of his stomach. Did he really have a place here, in Los Angeles, now swarming with the greatest long-distance runners in the world? Perhaps in a handful of miles he would be revealed for what he was, a gambler, with little enough chance of even finishing the race, let alone winning it. He thought back to the little Mexican in his white flannel trousers, scurrying on ahead of him.

What he experienced now was the same feeling that he had felt each winter before the beginning of an athletic season—a lack of belief in his body, in its powers of development, in its ability to return each summer not only as good as before, but even better. It was the uncertainty of a farmer who has planted his seed, and stood before it, unsure of the harvest. It was the doubt he had always faced, and, so far at least, always beaten.

True, they were the greatest runners in the world, but no one in history had run three thousand miles, fifty miles a day, day in, day out. There was no means of knowing what that daily pounding would do even to a well-trained body. The Trans-America was a lottery.

He decided to make for the Grand, a white pillar-fronted hotel which had seen better days. Outside on the road was a row of wooden trestle tables, behind which were women taking details from lines of men in front of them.

“Your name, mister?” asked an attractive blond girl, looking up at him from a table with a sign saying “Miss Dixie Williams.” She looked in her late teens, and had a skin of a stretched, full quality that was the bounty of the sun. Her hair was in the classic curled Mary Pickford style, her full lips sharply etched in bright lipstick.

She sensed his attention.

“Your name?” she said again.

“Hugh McPhail.”

“Country?”

“Scotland.”

Miss Williams glanced at his plaid shorts and his strong, lean legs.

“You’ve sure come a long way.”

“Yes. Six thousand miles.”

She smiled. “Is it cold in Scotland?”

“Freezing.”

The pressure of the men behind him in the line was building up.

The girl handed him a number on a white card. “Well, here’s your racing number and your room number.” She handed him two cloth patches and eight safety pins. “You have to be numbered back and front at all times during the race. Mr. Flanagan will explain all the rules at six o’clock this evening here at the Grand. Meantime, report to the dining room for lunch. Here’s your lunch ticket. And good luck.”

McPhail walked slowly up the steps into the hotel lobby. It was chock full with runners and their trainers. On his left was a row of telephones, into which journalists were babbling in myriad tongues.

“Yes, Doc Cole’s here,” said one. “Just try keeping him away. Yes, in great shape, giving a press conference in a couple of days. The Germans? Just arrived. What the Sam Hill are Nazis? Sure, that’s what they call themselves, Nazis…” McPhail stopped still, intrigued. “Lord who? Oh, Thurleigh. If he’s here it’Il make a great story. Good pictures, too. How the hell do I know if he wears a monocle? No, no word yet of a Mexican. M-A-r-T-I-N-E-z. Okay, I’ll check it out. Yes, I’ll get a quote from Flanagan—never any problem there . . .” The journalist stopped to scribble something in his notebook before setting off again.

“Morgan? Mike Morgan. Involved in some union trouble in Pennsylvania? Yep, there’s a Mike Morgan entered. Don’t know if it’s the same man, but again I’ll check it out. No news of Paavo Nurmi. But Hugo Quist, his manager, he’s out here. Calls himself a ‘technical adviser,’ but no sign of Nurmi himself. Make a great story if he comes!”

McPhail felt he had heard enough and sauntered idly on. To his right was the hotel reception desk where an elderly and bespectacled female receptionist was being besieged by athletes. Straight ahead was the restaurant. He was just deciding to go in when the decision was taken out of his hands by a rush of runners who swept him up and into the room.

Inside was Babel. Not far from the entrance was a group dressed in immaculate blue-silk track suits with stars-and-stripes badges. This was the first time McPhail had ever seen a track suit, and at first he thought they were pajamas. On the back of each suit was emblazoned the words ‘Williams’ All-Americans.” At the end of the table stood their team leader, a burly bronzed man with a crew cut, who had both hands on the table and was bellowing. In one corner of the room a man was running in place on a table. In another a sunburned old man appeared to be selling a patent medicine, babbling as he did so. Yet another table featured a man who was displaying his brown leathery feet to an admiring audience. But everywhere, above all things, men were eating. Most devoured rather than ate their food, shoveling it in with mouths close to their plates, pausing only to gulp down great mugfuls of coffee.

Perspiring waitresses in black uniforms shuttled endlessly back and forth, slamming down the food in front of the runners, who dug in immediately, some consuming helping after helping. Hugh sat down eagerly, and in a moment found a full plate in front of him. It was better than anything that he had eaten for months—great fat hamburgers and beans, followed by a wedge of apple pie and as much coffee as he could drink. Hugh had taken a liking to hamburgers. The Scottish equivalent was mince, but he had never eaten it in the form of hamburgers till his arrival in America. He ate slowly, his pulse throbbing from the effects of the run, sweat still trickling down his cheeks and neck. What a place!

There were at least two hundred athletes in the dining room, and just two basic activities, talking and eating. Most did one or the other, but some, mouths bulging, attempted both, spraying hamburger and apple pie in every direction. McPhail glanced over at the little bald man in the corner, who was holding aloft a bottle of what appeared to be medicine, declaiming all the while to an audience of about a dozen, most of whom were Chinese. McPhail could not hear what he was saying, but the word “Chickamauga” recurred. The little man seemed undeterred by the lack of response from his audience. He ranted on, his gestures becoming progressively wilder and wilder. He ended by pouring the medicine down his throat and standing on his hands. The Chinese applauded politely.

His apple pie had arrived. So had his coffee. McPhail was reassured by the familiar food, for he still did not feel totally at home. Looking up he noted Martinez, his Mexican rival, leaving the room, his jacket pockets bulging with rolls and apples. It was not long before he himself felt uncomfortably full, and he squeezed his way through the crowds toward the stairs.

There were two beds in Room 262. On one lay little Martinez, fully clothed, his hands folded across his stomach, surrounded by rolls and apples. His eyes were shut and he was snoring loudly. Hugh put down his knapsack, stood at the washbasin and watched it fill with yellow, tepid water.

He washed himself down, dried himself and lay on his bed for some time, hands behind his neck, staring at the ceiling. If this was a taste of Flanagan’s Trans-America race, then so far so good. He lay back, his head cupped in his hands, and closed his eyes.

Chapter 2 FLANAGAN MEETS THE PRESS

Three telephones rang at once. Charles C. Flanagan picked up the one nearest him and jammed it to his ear. “Ham on rye!” he shouted. “I said two ham on rye!” He slammed the phone back on its rest and flopped back into his armchair.

The bedroom was a wilderness of telephones, press clippings, ticker tapes, half-eaten sandwiches and cold cups of coffee. Flanagan stood in his flowery blue-silk dressing gown, his long, knobbly hands on his hips, his great thin toes poking out of open slippers. He was in his mid-forties, with lank hair, already prematurely gray, that constantly sprayed across his forehead; yet it was his teeth, great broad tombstones, white and shining, that dominated his face.

He picked up another phone on its first ring. “Willard!” he roared, turning toward the bathroom. “Willard! No, not you, ma’am,” he cooed back into the telephone.

There was the flutter of a female voice in the earpiece. Flanagan’s voice continued in low key. “Yes, ma’am. Milwaukee Ladies Home Journal? Yes, we have”—he thumbed through a hash of papers on the floor—“at the last count, one hundred and twenty-one ladies in the Trans-America race . .. Chaperones?” He put his hand over the phone and whirled around on Willard Clay, a small, plump, bespectacled man who had just emerged from the toilet in red-striped pajamas, and who was brushing his face with shaving soap.

“She’s asking for chaperones for the girls,” hissed Flanagan.

He removed his hand and again spoke into the phone, his great white teeth flashing.

“Of course, Miss … Miss McGregor.” He grimaced at Willard, who was now unconcernedly scraping his chin with an open razor. “Three ladies from the San

Francisco Ladies Seminary have kindly donated their services as chaperones. Yes, San Francisco Ladies Seminary.”

He slowly spelled the title out, nodding the while and smiling into the telephone. “Yes, I can guarantee that strictly nondenominational services will be held every Sunday. Thank you kindly, ma’am.”

He put down the phone and glared at his assistant. “Why didn’t you think of chaperones?” he snapped.

Willard began to scrape soap from beneath his chin, rinsed the razor in his shaving mug and shook his head, soap dripping to the floor. “We didn’t even know some of them were women till they started to arrive a couple of days back,” said Willard plaintively. “Anyhow, they sure as hell won’t last long.”

Flanagan threw himself back onto an armchair swathed in ticker tape, a pile of which he immediately hurled on to the carpet. “How do you know? Could be there’s some female Nurmi lurking out there among all those fat broads.”

“Sure make a good story if there were,” chuckled Willard, turning back into the bathroom to lay down his shaving bowl, at the same time announcing over his shoulder, “Miss America—she challenges the greatest footracers in the world.”

Flanagan stroked his unshaven chin. “Willard, baby, you are one hundred percent right.” He lifted both hands to frame an imaginary headline. “Miss America in the Trans-America. We could dress her up in the Stars and Stripes, tour her across the whole country after the race.” He sat back, pondering, his eyes distant.

Two phones rang. Flanagan pulled himself away from his reverie and picked up the one balanced precariously on the edge of his armchair. “Charles C. Flanagan,” he said cautiously, then, on hearing who his caller was, exclaimed, “Paramount Pictures!” He sat bolt upright and beckoned the half-shaven Willard close to the telephone. He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and listened for several minutes. “Paramount,” he whispered. “They want us to move the start of the race into the Coliseum Stadium.”

His voice dropped an octave as he resumed his conversation. “You must realize the difficulties, Mr. Schenck. We have two thousand runners here, the largest field in the history of professional sport. A quarter-mile running track is hardly an appropriate starting place for a race of such magnitude.”

Some of Willard’s shaving soap had smeared the mouthpiece of the telephone. Flanagan brushed it off and scowled at Willard.

“What sort of financial compensation?” he asked, his eyes lighting up. Willard, undeterred, again pressed close.

“Ten thousand dollars? Absolutely impossible. Fifteen? No, there is no way in which I could possibly compromise the start of the Trans-America . . .” his voice trailed off, and he again covered the mouthpiece as Willard pulled at his sleeve.

“Take it, boss,” whispered Willard. “For Christ’s sake, take it.”

Flanagan returned to the phone, his face impassive. “Yes, I know we have an agreement, but not, sir, to start the race from the Coliseum. Twenty-five thousand? Make it thirty and I think we may have ourselves a deal.” Willard could hear the raised tones of the voice at the other end of the line. Flanagan paused dramatically.

“Thirty thousand? Have it in writing in a contract here by noon at the Plaza Hotel and it’s a deal. Yes, indeed, a pleasure and privilege to do business with you, Mr. Schenck.”

He put down the phone and leaned back in his chair, his hands linked across his stomach.

“Willard,” he said, “I truly think we’re sitting on a pot of gold.”

“But the Coliseum, boss? Two thousand men on a quarter-mile track?”

“No real problem,” said Flanagan. “We can start some from outside the stadium, have them all run a couple of laps inside the Coliseum, then off they go into the boondocks toward Pomona. Look at it this way. It’s better than starting out on the road. We can charge admission. And think of the catering concessions—hot dogs, Coke, popcorn… Why didn’t I think of that before? And Willard, why didn’t you?”

Willard shrugged and waddled off into the bathroom.

The phone rang again. “City police?” Flanagan’s face dropped. He listened intently for a few moments, then said, “Let me get this quite clear, Commissioner Flaherty. Are you seriously telling me that my Chinese runners are urinating in your streets? Any particular streets? Oh, I see. Any street. Commissioner, I promise you that I will speak strongly to them. Confidentially, I think it may be some kind of religious observance, so I must be careful not to offend. While you are with me, I would consider it a great honor if you and your good wife would be with us at the opening ceremony. I might mention that Miss Mary Pickford and Mr. Douglas Fairbanks have made a particular request to meet you both. Delighted you can make it, sir.”

He put down the phone. “Like hell they have,” he said as Willard shambled through the ticker tape, patting after-shave on his smooth round face. “That mick had fifty of our boys in the can in the first week for infesting the public highways. Took me a hundred dollars to sweeten him.”

Flanagan looked around him wearily, picked up a pile of ticker tape and held it out in front of him. “Willard, must we live in this squalor? Mother of Mary, we’re paying fifty dollars a day.” He grabbed the phone. “Room service? For God’s sake send someone to clean up this place. Pronto!”

Another phone rang. This time Willard picked it up. He listened for a few minutes, then put the phone down with a dazed expression.

“Boss,” he said. “A Mr. Seidlitz said to tell you, the midgets are booked. A hundred midgets. What are we doing with a hundred midgets?”

Flanagan looked at his assistant with scorn. “Didn’t I tell you? We finish the race indoors in Madison Square Garden on June 16. Before the runners arrive we have a little floor show. You know, some acrobats, a strong man. I’ve got a Turk who can lift an elephant. Not much of an elephant, but hell, an elephant’s an elephant. The big finale, before the runners arrive, is midgets racing around the track on ponies. It’s never been done before. First time in the history of sport.”

Before the speech could develop further there was a knock on the door and a bellboy’s head appeared.

“Mr. Flanagan, sir. Your press conference in the Coolidge Room—in an hour.”

Flanagan waved over his shoulder. “I’ll be ready. Willard,” he said. “Let me have another look at the press list before you set it all up. In an hour we meet the gentlemen of the world’s press.”

Flanagan scanned the list Willard gave him and scowled. One hundred and eighty journalists from all over the world, many of whom had been at every Olympics since Athens, every World Series since the beginning of the century. From the moment in 1930 when he had first proposed the Trans-America the press had ranged through the whole gamut of opinion, from incredulity to derision. There would, of course, be those dear, innocent souls who took the Trans-America at face value, seeing it as a means of padding out expense accounts for three months or more; those he would take in his stride. But there would be others, case-hardened journalists who were not sports reporters at all, who would see the race as simply another junk sport of the thirties, in the same class as Bronx bullfighting or underwater baseball. Such men would require careful handling.

The press were essential to the Trans-America. They must be used, they must be amused, all the way from Los Angeles to New York. He crumpled the press list into a ball, aimed it at the wastepaper basket and flipped it across the room. It hit the outside of the basket and bounced off into a corner.

At two-thirty precisely Charles C. Flanagan adjusted his pearl tie pin, straightened the handkerchief in the jacket pocket of his immaculate gray doublebreasted suit and looked at the journalists buzzing and scribbling below him. The Calvin Coolidge Room was a veritable League of Nations of the world of sports journalism. For the Trans-America had brought together reporters from all over the world, men who rarely met between Olympics. Now they jostled and hailed each other, scribbled and chattered, all waiting for the moment when the TransAmerica would spring into life. The room itself had a sober, imposing quality: chairs topped with brown leather, the oak-lined walls hung with the oil portraits of past Presidents. On the wall behind the platform on which he stood hung a portrait of Calvin Coolidge himself, poring over a massive tome which, on closer inspection, revealed itself to be a telephone directory.

On Flanagan’s left sat Willard and the pretty young blonde, Dixie Williams, poised with pencil and pad. On his right was a tanned bald man in a pin-striped suit.

Flanagan knew many of these journalists well, and they knew him. He placed both hands in a splayed tripod on the table in front of him, then stood back and stretched himself to his full height. Flashbulbs exploded and cameras whirred around him. “This way, Mr. Flanagan,” shouted a group of photographers, and Flanagan turned to the right and flashed his white teeth in a frozen grin. In response to a request from the left he turned and, for variety, lifted his arms to the side, palms up—Flanagan the human cornucopia, the source of all good things.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” he said, beckoning away the photographers and sitting down. “We must proceed with the business of the day.” He banged a heavy wooden gavel on the table in front of him, but it was fully a minute before the babble was stilled. “Could I have the first question, please?”

“How far is the race?” shouted a journalist toward the front of the room.

“Three thousand, one hundred and forty-six miles, two hundred and twenty yards,” replied Flanagan smoothly.

“You dead sure about those yards?” shouted a man whom Flanagan recognized as Frank Pollard of the St. Louis Star, a veteran of American sports journalism.

“Not dead certain, Frank. But we’ll get our consultant surveyor to check it out, every yard of it if you have any doubts, first thing in the morning.” Through the laughter Flanagan pointed to another questioner in the middle of the room.

“Charles Rae, Washington Post. What’s the money for first prize?”

“One hundred and fifty thousand golden dollars, guaranteed by the TransAmerica Bank,” said Flanagan.

“And the other prizes?” asked Rae, staying on his feet.

“Fifty thousand dollars for second, going down to two hundred dollars for hundredth place. The total is three hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Fancy pickings.”

There was an immediate babble of discussion as the prize money was translated into pounds, marks and francs by the foreign press.

Flanagan again hammered on the table for silence.

“Can we say that this is the richest footrace of all time?” pursued Rae.

“You sure as hell can,” said Flanagan, grinning. “Indeed, I insist on it.”

“What’s the entry fee?” asked Pollard.

“Two hundred dollars per man.”

Pollard poked his pencil at Flanagan. “Isn’t that a little high in the present economic conditions?”

Flanagan put both hands flat on the table. “These are hard times, gentlemen. You must realize that we provide three square meals a day for nearly three months. Boys, you’ll soon find out it’s worth coming just for the food!”

He raised his hand to silence the hubbub.

“Seriously, gentlemen, I had to have some evidence of good faith on the part of each competitor, most of whom are sponsored by states or nations, and the two-hundred-dollar entry fee provided the best evidence of that. Next question, please.”

He pointed into the forest of raised hands.

“How many miles will they cover each day?” shouted an unidentified voice from the back of the hall.

“An average of fifty, usually divided into two stages. The minimum is thirty, the maximum sixty-one. May I ask you to identify yourselves, gentlemen? Let’s keep it formal.”

“James Ferris, The Times of London. Has any man ever covered such distances daily?”

Flanagan had been expecting the question, and promptly stood up. “I think that there’s a man sitting beside me who is better qualified than I am to answer that. Doc Cole, the father of American distance running, is with us on the platform. All of you who have followed track over the years will know Doc. He ran marathon for Uncle Sam in the Olympics of 1904 and 1908 and has run pro ever since. Could you deal with that question, Doc?”

“Doc” Cole slowly got to his feet. The arc lights reflected on his bald brown head. In his neat pin-striped suit he looked more like a clerk than an athlete. “Could you repeat the question?” he asked in a light midwestern voice.

“Has anyone ever covered fifty miles a day, Doc?”

“Not for long,” said Doc. There was a ripple of laughter. “My pap told me of a fellow, a Yankee called Edmund Payson Weston, round about 1880. He could walk five miles an hour from here till Judgment Day. Couldn’t walk any faster, mind. He walked about three thousand miles across America once, about forty miles a day, back about 1885. Then there were the old six-day walkers when I was a boy. The best of them walked about a hundred miles a day, indoors in armories back east for six days at a time.”

“A hundred miles a day?” asked a reporter, scribbling furiously.

“Yep. They called the six-day races ‘wobbles,’ on account of most of the boys spent a lot of the time wobbling around the track.”

“But would it be true to say that no one has ever raced fifty miles a day across America?” the journalist persisted.

“Not to my knowledge or recollection,” replied Doc.

There was a babble of discussion and a rustling of paper as the journalists compared notes.

“Thank you, Doc,” said Flanagan, taking advantage of the pause in the questioning. “May I say at this point that Doc, because of his unique knowledge of distance running, will hold his own press conference tomorrow. Next question, please.”

“Forrest, Chicago Tribune.” The man who had asked the earlier, unidentified question stood up at the back of the crowded room. “What medical provision will there be for the runners?”

“Ten fully qualified doctors headed by Dr. Maurice Falconer of Los Angeles City Hospital, plus twenty masseurs. You must also remember, gentlemen, that many competitors will have their own doctors and masseurs with them.”

“What happens if someone drops out? How does he make it home?” pursued Forrest.

“The best way he can,” said Flanagan. “Gentlemen, this is the land of opportunity. There are no hand-outs in the Trans-America. These athletes have come from sixty-one nations, from all over the world, to get here. Some are unemployed, some have sold their houses, some have left wives and sweethearts to compete in this race. These are men, gentlemen. They know it’s a gamble, because no man in history has covered three thousand miles across these here United States of America. These men are athletes—they are also gamblers. They’re gambling that their bodies can hold out for three months at fifty miles a day.”

“But are you gambling, Flanagan?” asked a voice from the middle of the room.

“I’m gambling, yes—that there’ll be at least someone still on his feet at the end!”

“Campbell, Glasgow Herald. We have considerable knowledge of professional running in my country and our experience is that it is usually corrupt. How do you prevent cheating?”

Flanagan pursed his lips. “A dozen officials will follow each stage of the race. Anyone caught hopping on trucks or cars will be immediately disqualified.”

“Clare Marsh, Woman’s Home Journal. How many women are in the race, Mr. Flanagan?”

“One hundred and twenty-one.”

“Are there any separate prizes for women?”

“No,” said Flanagan. “I reckon women are always trying to prove they’re man’s equal. Here’s their chance to prove it.”

“What is the longest distance a woman has ever covered, Mr. Flanagan?”

Flanagan looked down at his notes. “The longest Olympic distance is eight hundred meters. About half a mile.”

“And weren’t there protests after the Amsterdam Olympics about the dreadful finishing condition of the female competitors in the eight hundred meters?”

Flanagan looked nonplussed and whispered for a moment with Willard. Then he said, “It is our view that the ladies in the race will have prepared themselves thoroughly for the Trans-America. Only time will tell if their preparations have been thorough enough. Next question.”

“Are the ladies being provided with chaperones?” asked Miss Marsh.

“Five ladies from a well-known seminary are acting as chaperones, led by Miss Dixie Williams.” He nodded to his left to the girl whom Hugh McPhail had earlier met at the reception area.

“Who’s chaperoning her, Flanagan?” asked a voice.

“T will treat that question with the contempt it deserves, Mr. Grose,” said Flanagan with a smile, scanning the room for further questions.

“Howard, Chicago Star.” The top baseball reporter of the Eastern Seaboard stood up at the front of the hall, sucking his pencil. “I have reviewed the route, Mr. Flanagan. There seems to me to be no rhyme or reason to much of it. Why have you failed to choose a direct route across the continent?”

“Two reasons, sir. One is that I wished competitors to see every aspect of our beautiful nation. The second is that several cities have expressed a particular desire to host the runners of the Trans-America.”

“Isn’t there another reason, Flanagan?” asked Howard. “Isn’t it true that each major town on the route has to pay what you call an ‘assessment’?”

Flanagan flushed. “If you mean that certain cities are paying sums to have the Trans-America pass through, then that’s perfectly true. Their mayors believe that the Trans-America will be good for business, and I have given them the complete franchise on race programs. That has meant that the race is sometimes less than direct, but it puts more money into the pot for stage prizes.”

“Tell us a little more about the stage prizes, Flanagan,” said Howard.

Flanagan visibly relaxed. For the moment he was off the hook. “Stage prizes of between three hundred dollars and one thousand dollars have been offered at several points along the route. For instance, Coca-Cola is offering a threehundred-dollar stage prize in the Mojave and General Motors a prize of one thousand dollars for the King of the Mountains, in the Rockies. But remember, gentlemen, that the Trans-America winner will be the man—or woman—with the lowest aggregate time over the full distance, like your Tour de France bike race.”

Carl Liebnitz, of the New York Times, rose to his feet. Liebnitz, lean, tanned and white-haired, had earned his reputation as the seeker out of all that was false or phony. He was not, strictly speaking, a sports reporter, enjoying the rare freedom to comment on what he pleased in his weekly column of national and international gossip. “Is it true you’re also featuring a circus, involving”—he picked up a press release—‘Madame La Zonga, the Samoan snake woman, Fritz the talking donkey, and the mummified head of the Mexican bandit, Emiliano Zapata?”

“Correct,” said Flanagan. “And you might also note the Jungle Dodgers, the first baseball-playing chimpanzees.”

Liebnitz could not completely mask a grimace. “May I respectfully ask you what in the name of tarnation a troupe of freaks has got to do with a serious footrace?”

“What we are taking from here to New York is entertainment,” said Flanagan. “Everywhere we go, every minute of the way, I aim to put on a show. When the runners are tired, then it’s up to Madame La Zonga to do her stuff. This isn’t college track and field, gentlemen; this is the world of entertainment.”

Liebnitz resumed his seat, shaking his head.

Albert Kowalski, of the Philadelphia Globe, burly and crew-cut, stood up. “Sir, in a year Los Angeles will host the 1932 Olympic Games, which is an amateur meet. Won’t your professional Trans-America race therefore deprive the United States of possible Olympic gold medals?”

Flanagan placed the knuckles of both hands on the table and the cameras exploded. “A good question,” he said evenly, flashing his great teeth. “First, it’s a free world. Olympic medals pay no rent, and if an American boy chooses to take a chance on setting himself up for life by running in the Trans-America rather than going for an Olympic gold medal, then surely that is up to him. Second, when did America last win gold in a marathon Olympic event?”

There was no answer.

“T’ll tell you: 1908 when Johnny Hayes beat Dorando in the London Olympics. That’s one helluva long time to wait, gentlemen. Let’s face it. Here in the USA we’re sprinters and jumpers and throwers, not marathon runners. I don’t see a three-thousand-mile race losing us any goddamn sprinters or shot putters. Do you?”

There was silence; Flanagan had made his point.

Liebnitz was on his feet again. “Carl Liebnitz. I see you have a nineteen-yearold Mexican, Juan Martinez, entered. We have no athletic record for Mr. Martinez. Have you any background on him?”

Flanagan leaned to his right to whisper to Willard.

“T’m afraid I can’t help you there, Carl. We know that he is the only Mexican entered and that he has been sponsored by his village, Quanto.”

“Pollard here. I can help you there, Flanagan, though”—he turned to face the reporters behind him—‘T ain’t certain I should be helping my learned colleagues. Quanto is right in the middle of a famine area. I’ve talked with young Martinez. My information is that he is running in the Trans-America to save his village from starvation.”

Flanagan glanced quickly around the room. “There’s your story, gentlemen,” he smiled.

“Kowalski again. What are the living facilities for the athletes like?”

“For the next couple of days they’re living high on the hog in hotels. En route they live in twenty specially constructed tents, a hundred bunks to a tent.”

“And press facilities?” queried Kowalski.

“Six thirty-seater press buses are being provided, courtesy of Ford Motors. I know that you fellas are making your own accommodation arrangements at each

town.” He sensed that questions were slowing up, and a few reporters were drifting toward the back of the packed hall as deadlines approached.

“Rae. What provision is being made for food for the competitors?”

Flanagan riffled through a file of papers and selected one. “The culinary arrangements are in the hands of international chefs specially brought over from Europe,” he said. “Dr. Maurice Falconer, our medical director, one of America’s leading nutritionists, is also acting as our nutritional adviser.”

“What about drinks?” asked Liebnitz.

“No question that adequate supplies of fluids will be essential, particularly in the desert areas,” said Flanagan. “Maxwell House is supplying all the hot drinks and will follow us all the way to New York in a specially constructed refreshment trailer, the Maxwell House Coffee Pot. Cold drinks will be supplied by Sport Ade, the sensational new sports drink.”

“Do you have any knowledge of the Williams’ All-Americans?”

Flanagan held up a sheet of paper and read from it. “The All-Americans are one of fifteen teams, most of which are company or state teams. For instance, Oklahoma and Arizona both have strong teams entered.”

“What’s the point of teams, Mr. Flanagan? You’ve got no team competition,” Ferris, The Times reporter, asked belligerently.

“That is correct,” replied Flanagan. “The object of the teams is to gain prestige for the organizations which sponsor them. Each man earns a wage, with bonuses if they finish in leading positions.”

“What do you know about the German team?” It was Liebnitz again.

One further time Flanagan filed through his pile of notes.

“The team is a young one,” he said finally. “From a group which calls itself the Hitler Youth Movement. It’s a five-man team of boys aged nineteen to twenty-one, headed by a team manager, Herr von Moltke, and a team doctor, Eric Nett.”

“Have they any track record?” asked Ferris.

“Only the one-hundred-kilometer trial—that’s about sixty-two miles—they held to choose the team.”

“Can this be called a German national team, Flanagan?”

“Strictly speaking, no. Herr Hitler is an aspiring politician. His Youth Movement is part of his political push.”

“Rae again. How many Olympic medalists do you have entered?”

Flanagan made a show of shuffling his papers.

“At the last count, twenty.”

“Fair enough, but how many can you guarantee will start?” asked Howard from the back of the room.

“As many as are willing to take a chance,” said Flanagan, leaning forward.

For a moment his mask of geniality dropped. “Let’s face it. This amateur setup is a can of worms. The reason why some of these so-called amateurs are afraid

to run in the Trans-America is because they can pick up two or three thousand bucks a year, steady money, no tax, year in, year out, as amateurs. They get that not for winning but just, for God’s sake, for appearing! With me, they’ll have to run hard for every buck they earn. No play, no pay.”

“Munuar, Paris Match. Is there any truth in the rumor that Paavo Nurmi, the Flying Finn, will run in the Trans-America?”

Flanagan pursed his lips. “Fellas, all I can say is that Mr. Nurmi is at present in San Francisco with his manager, Mr. Quist, considering the possibility of entering. He has just finished an exhausting American tour and is also embarking on his preparation for the 1932 Olympics. All that can be said for the moment is that he’s giving the matter considerable thought.”

“Are you saying, Flanagan, that as an amateur Nurmi might not be able to afford to enter the Trans-America?” shouted a reporter.

Flanagan grinned. “No comment.”

“Kevin Maguire, /rish Times.” A thick-set, tweed-suited man stood up. The strong Irish brogue made many of the departing journalists turn around to listen. “Mr. Flanagan, is it true that Lord Peter Thurleigh, the British Olympic athlete, has entered the Trans-America?”’

There was a hush in the room. Flanagan took his time, teasing out every moment.

“Yesterday,” he said, “it was my pleasure to meet for the first time Lord Peter Thurleigh, British Olympian in 1924 and 1928. Lord Peter has been given special dispensation to stay with the British Consul, rather than being exposed to the publicity which he would have to endure at our final training camp.”

Liebnitz stood up. “Flanagan, can you give us any good reason why an English aristocrat should lose his amateur status and spend three months plodding across America with a couple of thousand tramps and a freak show?”

Flanagan paused. “It is my understanding,” he said, putting on what he imagined to be an English accent, “that Lord Peter has wagered a hundred thousand pounds with a group of English aristocrats that he will finish in the first six places.”

“A hundred thousand pounds? What’s that in U.S. dollars?” asked Kowalski.

“At yesterday’s rate of exchange, I reckon about four hundred thousand dollars,” answered Flanagan. “The biggest wager in the history of footracing.”

The reporters at last had their lead story. There was a general rush for the lobby telephones, leaving a trail of upturned chairs in their wake. The conference was at an end.

Flanagan bit off the end of his cigar and spat it toward the wastebasket. This time it landed in the basket, plumb center. He leaned forward, surveyed the chaos of upturned chairs and discarded papers, and beamed. The first hurdle had been cleared and cleared in some style.

Carl Liebnitz sat on his bed, propped against his pillows. He wore red-silk polka-dot pajamas and sat, legs crossed, his Trans-America report on a clipboard on his knees. He was sucking the tip of his pencil.

Liebnitz had been with Clarence Darrow at the Scopes “monkey” trial, with Lindbergh in Paris, and in Washington when Douglas MacArthur had scattered the Hooverville rioters. His assignment from his editor was to treat the TransAmerica for the carnival that it was, and that meant three hundred words, crisp and sharp, twice weekly. Flanagan he couldn’t yet place. That the Irishman was a flimflam man he had little doubt; what the chances were of getting his ragged crew across America Liebnitz did not know, but the odds were against it. And that was exactly what he was going to tell the American public. He adjusted his pillow, bent his knees, and slowly started to write.

americana dateline march 19, 1931 los angeles

Your columnist has known of Charles C. Flanagan for some time, but his qualifications for running an enterprise of the complexity of the Trans-America footrace are unknown to him. Flanagan isa forty-five-year-old Irish-American whose father, for thirty years, pounded the beat on New York’s East Side. Mr. Flanagan first came to our attention in 1919, at the time of the Black Sox scandal, when he tried, as he put it at the time, “to bring some dignity back to baseball” by starting a women’s baseball team, the Tallahassee Tigerbelles. Alas, many of the Tigerbelles showed more talent for maternity than for the baseball diamond and the team folded in 1921, with Mr. Flanagan saddled with at least two paternity suits.

Mr. Flanagan surfaced again in New Orleans in 1923, with a team of midget mud-wrestlers, which he eventually sold to a circus. For a time he managed a boxer rejoicing in the name of the “Young John L. Sullivan,” but not, alas, also rejoicing in Sullivan’s talents. The “Young John L.” went down to the first firm blow which he received from a Milwaukee bank clerk and was last heard of in the chorus of a male burlesque show called “Swain Lake.”

Mr. Flanagan’s fortunes took aturn for the better in 1927 when he briefly managed the delightful tennis player, Miss Suzanne Lamarr, but plummeted again when he attempted to import the European game of soccer to the American continent. Soccer, indeed! Undaunted by the disasters of the past, Charles C. Flanagan has now bobbed up again, with his Trans-America footrace, in which two thousand runners will attempt to cover on foot the distance between Los Angeles and New

York for prize money of $360,000.

He has certainly gathered about him a motley crew. His band of two thousand athletes does, it is true, contain some of the finest long-distance runners in the world. It also contains one hundred twenty-one women, a Hindu fakir, sixteen blind men, three men without arms, twenty grandfathers, sixty-one vegetarians, and a spiritualist who claims to be advised by the long-dead Indian runner, Deerfoot. And this is to say nothing of Madame La Zonga, Fritz the talking mule and a baseball team composed, we are told, entirely of chimpanzees, all of whom are to accompany the runners on their trek to New York.

It would therefore be true to say that nothing of its like has been seen since Peter the Hermit and his Children’s Crusade. Let us hope that Mr. Flanagan proves

to be better qualified than his illustrious predecessor. —Carl C. Liebnitz —

Flanagan’s Run will continue in our next issue.