Sport Suffers Under Dictatorship

Southland Times, Issue 23954, 21 October 1939, Page 16

Sport Suffers Under Dictatorship

An unusual point of view in relation to the impact of politicial theories on the national attitude towards sport is expressed by Mr Allison Danzig, lawn tennis editor of The New York Times, in a biography of J. Donald Budge, which he contributes to Budge’s recent book on lawn tennis. The comparison which he makes between the outlook of the democracies and the totalitarian Powers is of singular interest in view of the outbreak of war before the comment was written.

“The fate of von Cramm and the treatment of Daniel Prenn, his predecessor as Germany’s ranking lawn tennis player,” Mr Danzig writes, “serve to emphasize why athletics flourish so much more in the democracies than elsewhere. Today, in a world nervously on edge over the conflict of ideologies, it is in those comparatively happy lands where republican government guards against encroachment upon civil rights in the healthy give-and-take, of Right and Left that is found the fullest outlet of the individual urge for physical recreation. Freedom of expression translates itself not only in speech, but also in action upon the field of play. “Where there is no free speech or free Press, there the inclination for the lighter diversions languishes until the cry of ‘kill the umpire’ is no longer heard in the land and the mortality in grandmothers takes a substantial drop. Man comes to think of his body only as a means to the ends of the State. And so, no Mercuries arise with winged heels when the spirit is in fetters and target practice is conducted on those who rebel against the mould into which all thought must jell. “One never hears any more of Rus-

sia as a participant in international sports competitions. The Rome-Berlin-Tokio Axis values athletics only so far as they contribute towards the inculcation of strong nationalistic feeling and the development of man-pov/er to carry guns, and to the dissemination of propaganda.

“Germany, which exploited the Olympic Games in 1936 to sell Nazism to the world, crippled her Davis Cup team last year by imprisoning her leading player who had not been an enthusiasitc salesman for Hitler on his travels, and refused permission to the team to take part in the United States championships after it had been badly beaten by Australia at Boston. The world remembers, too, the curtain of silence that fell upon Max Schmeling and the suddenness with which Government officials froze up on him in Berlin after his knock-out by Joe Louis in the first round.

“Japan, whose athletes had made remarkable strides and distinguished themselves in the 1932 Olympic Games at Los Angeles, turned her thoughts away from sports when the army gained the controlling hand in the government, and'followed up the conquest of Manchuria with the big gamble in China proper. The result was that Nippon gave up the Olympic Games awarded to Tokib for 1940.

“In Great Britain, France and the United States games continue to be played for the game’s sake, regardless of the sick feeling with which the world gets up each morning. Neither the spectre of war not the internal ills of economic dislocation and political upheaval have served to dull the public appetite for contests of physical prowess and skill. On the contrary, in these games democracy finds escape from the anxieties and problems of the front page, created in large part by the Powers to whom sport for sport’s sake is extravagant nonsense, and child’s play is ‘Squads, right!’ and ‘Present arms!’”