Official Bulletin and Scrap Book of the League of American Wheelmen, Vol 17, No 5
Articles in this issue
- Abbot Bassett's lead editorial scrap-book column opens with May-Day extracts from Pepys' Diary and runs through assorted notes: National Bicycle Week (May 3-10) and its $10,000 U.C.T.D. advertising campaign, a Milwaukee race meet (May 10) and the Century Road Club of America's Hudson County Boulevard handicap (May 11), a girls' bicycle club at Holyoke, Mass., and obituary squibs for Dr. Robert William Southwell of Somerville and Fletcherism originator Dr. Horace Fletcher.
- Debates whether the F. A. M. should survive, citing poor turnout at the Mass. Div. meeting at Norumbega Park, the unpopular dues increase to $2 and Trade takeover; Treasurer Irwin D. Allen urges riders to declare whether they want a governing body or see the charter surrendered.
- Reports the bicycle fad rejuvenating among ladies in Fort Wayne, Ind., where a dealer says sales of women's bicycles this year far exceed men's and forced a rush reorder.
- Wm. H. Cameron and F. J. Wenz of St. Joseph, Mo., marked the 25th anniversary of an 1893 St. Joseph Cycle Club century run by riding their old highwheels through the streets, drawing a policeman's threat to impound them.
- A letter from chemist George Lang, Jr. praising the Bulletin for keeping war out of its columns and recounting his 27th year of daily cycling (3983 miles), including riding through a St. Louis hurricane with the St. Louis Cycling Club at 17 below zero, with a plea for riders to take greater interest in the L. A. W.; it follows a letter from Gen. John J. Pershing thanking Boston Globe correspondent Frank P. Sibley for his Twenty-sixth Division war reporting.
- Joseph W. Swan encloses payment for his 31st L. A. W. membership ticket (joined Nov. 29, 1889) and reminisces about buying a sweater at Holmes' on Kingston Street, his first League suit, and trading an old solid-tire wheel via Kirk Corey toward a $150 pneumatic Columbia Century at Pope's place; an editor's note recalls the four riding Swan brothers.
- E. J. Lonn shares old L. A. W. membership cards (first number H-16728 for 1887) and a Laporte Wheelmen program, recalling an October 1889 race meet where he started against Arthur Lumsden, G. M. Hendee and the Banker brothers, with Lumsden winning both the one- and two-mile handicaps from scratch.
- An Irish Cyclist piece observing that Americans sleep far less than Britons, illustrated by a late-night shipboard exchange with a genial American eating an apple on deck.
- Recalls the 1895 agitation over pseudo-amateurs whose expenses were paid by makers, noting American racing men were professionalized while in England even pneumatic-tire inventor J. B. Dunlop was made a professional rider though he had never ridden, whereas Col. Pope was not.