Excerpt from Weekly Articles Volume 5 The Hoover Years, 1931-1933:

GOODBYE OLYMPICS

Well all I know is just what I read in the papers or what I see as I prowl about. Well the Olympics are all over, everybody has run as fast as they can, jumped as high as they can, swam as fast as they could, and now they have gone home to start practicing to start the whole thing over again. It was the most wonderful two weeks of thrills and excitement. It kept you looking nine ways to try and see half of it. It was a great job well done, by everybody connected with it.

There was many a laugh, many that dident get into the papers. There one day Ireland would like to have run off with the whole stadium. Some doctor from away down in the south of Ireland just had one more throw with the hammer, (I don't know why they call it a hammer, it's round) I would hate to have to drive a nail with it, well he just took his last heave and like to knocked down one end of the Stadium.

Then on the same day an old Long boy named Tisdall won the I think it was 400 meters hurdles, he and a Lord Burghley and by the way he was the most popular man at the games was -this very titled Englishman named Lord Burghley. He owns a place in England that has ten towns located on it, that's quite a few towns, in fact that's the first time I ever heard of a man just going in for raising towns. That may be the salvation of the farmer is to raise towns, in one of his Castles, (you heard me, one of his Castles). He has more Rembrahdts than any man alive, and his hobby is footracing. He runs the hurdles or the flat, any kind of a race that England needed anyone to run why the Lord would get in it. Everybody liked the Lord, he was a real Democrat. And I hope he stays and votes in November, we are going to need all we can get.

But I must get back to my "Gag." Well this Tisdall won the race, and I forget where the Lord finished, but it was either third or fourth. Well sir he and this Irishman went into the most wonderful and spontanious embrace you ever saw. Think of it an Irishman embracing an English Lord. If that got back to Ireland why they wouldent let him land with his medals. Ireland had a great representation, some good boxers, too.

Brazil was playing Germany water polo, and they had a Hungarian referee and he kept calling fouls on Brazil. In fact he called 35 during the course of the game. Well after it was over Brazil made for him and he started to hollering for a cop, but it was in his own language, and our cops couldent tell if he was hollering or cheering, and Brazil got to him, and how. They hit for every foul, then another Foreigner tried to rush over and the cops thought naturally he wanted to get in the fight, so they took care of him. Well he was the head of the whole Swimming Federation in Europe, and was trying to tell 'em who he was. Poor Brazil they had come up here on a Coffee Boat, and after they had been out a couple of weeks why their Government changed hands, and the new Government was trying to find out where the boat was. The Athletes dident know what Government or country they were really representing.

Then of course there is lots of jealousy down in South America among the different countries. Well when the Argentine won the Marathon why the other Republics wanted to know why their men hadent won it? They thought there was enough Marathons to go round. Why here we was having the whole thing right in our own alley, and we couldent get near the Marathon with our three men, so what was poor Boliviar, or Peru to do. I saw that Kid that won that in his quarters at the village the next day. He is only nineteen and he weighed only 123 when he went in and lost eight pounds in the race. He come out weighing 115. He is a skinny slender kid. That was a remarkable thing. Those long races are generally won by old fellows, the same as the hard long races with horses are won by old horses. It's nothing for a horse 14 or 15 years old to win the Grand National Steeplechase in England, but these other South American athletes are afraid to go home now.

Met and got acquainted with a lot of our boys. There was one old Kid competing and I mean really competing, from right about twenty miles from Oolagah, my old home town called called Skiatook. He was a distance runner. What a place for an Olympic runner to come from, I can't imagine what he was running around there for. His name was Dawson. And say an "Injun" would like to have won the Decatholon, that's the thing where a man is supposed to do everything. This kid was named Buster Charles who used to go to Haskell Institute. He was ahead almost up to the last two events. Those big guys in that event some of 'em weighing well over 200 pounds, pole vaulted over 13 feet. That's a long way for a big guy to drop.

And say if Mr. Hoover had come out here and opened those games like he should have done he would have not been in Washington during that mess they had, in fact they wouldent have had it. I saw some movies of that away back couple of weeks ago, and what made it look so bad was the army going in with tanks and full war equipment. I was just thinking of the effect of that being shown all over the world. We can never go around preaching "Dissarmament' and "Brotherly Love" any more. It does look like there could have been some more sensible way out than that. I am a believer when you are at outs with a man or a Group, is not to send somebody (they always bungle it). Go out and talk it over with 'em, and lay your side right on the line and say, "Here there is no money in the Treasury to pay it, we don't owe it to you till it's due, don't you think you have made a mistake coming here." Or whatever it was he had to say. But it's all over and they are big men and are supposed to know the right thing to do in-big cases. Sometimes it makes you think we don't need a different man as bad as we need different advisers for the same man.