Rube Foster

Jackie Robinson is considered by many to be the most famous Black baseball player. This opinion is understandable, for Robinson broke the color line and is well known in circles far removed from baseball. But perhaps the person with the greatest impact upon Black baseball is Andrew “Rube” Foster.2 Not only was Foster one of the best pitchers and managers of the early twentieth century but he also was the architect of the Negro National League. Despite facing immense racial prejudice, Foster carried out three distinctive baseball positions during his lifetime and is often known as the “Father of Negro Baseball.”

What was Foster like personally? He carried his religious heritage into adulthood. And he never indulged in intoxicants. He did tolerate drinking among his players, though if a player showed up to the ballpark hungover, Foster would tell him to go back to the hotel if he could not play.3 Foster was respected by his players. Jelly Gardner, who played for Foster in the early 1920s, said “[Foster] was a nice manager, an even-tempered man. His dictums were not unreasonable, but if you broke one he’d clamp on you.”4 It is also known Foster was a hard worker. His son remembered that Foster would work from 8:30 at morning until nearly midnight during the time he was running both the American Giants and the Negro National League.5

Andrew Bishop Foster was born the son of Andrew and Evaline Foster on September 17, 1879, in Southeast Texas.6 Foster’s parents were born slaves and became sharecroppers. Most importantly for Foster’s upbringing was his father’s service as a Methodist preacher. Part of the first free Black generation, Foster grew up as the hope of Reconstruction gave way to the horror of Jim Crow. Although Foster was born the fourth of sixth children, only he and two of his siblings, Christiana (born 1877) and Johnson (born 1884), survived until adulthood. (A younger half-brother, William “Bill” Foster, followed in Rube’s footsteps and was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.) The lives of Foster’s other siblings were taken by tuberculosis, a disease that undoubtedly affected young Andrew’s interest in baseball. Foster himself said that “if it hadn’t been for playing ball and living outdoors, I don’t suppose I’d (be) here today.”7

In 1897, one year after the US Supreme Court upheld the legality of “separate but equal” policies, Foster joined the Austin Reds of Tillotson College. The team was affiliated with a church where Foster’s father was the presiding elder. In 1898 Foster joined the Waco Yellow Jackets. As he performed well, stories of his feats spread. For example, one tale had Foster pitching scoreless games every day for 11 days straight.8

In 1902, Frank Leland, a manager of the Chicago Unions, found Foster in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Foster worked in a local restaurant, and, it was said, spent his spare time pitching to Connie Mack’s catchers. Leland persuaded Foster to join the Unions. Foster struggled with the Union Giants and opted to join an interracial semipro team in Otsego, Michigan.

When Otsego’s season ended, Foster joined the Cuban X-Giants, one of the premier Black teams on the East Coast. According to the New York Evening World, owner E.B. Lamar said Foster was the greatest twirler he had ever seen. Not many box scores exist from Foster’s 1903 campaign with the X-Giants, but he did throw a 3-0, five-hit shutout on July 16.9 In September the X-Giants played the Philadelphia Giants. In the showdown, Foster starred, throwing four complete games as he helped the X-Giants to the title.

Around the time when the 5-foot-9, 230-pound Foster burst onto the baseball scene, a well-known legend first surfaced. Foster’s success allegedly attracted the attention of John McGraw. As the story goes, feeling his talented young pitcher Christy Mathewson needed a teacher, McGraw allegedly asked Foster to tutor Mathewson. As such, Foster is credited by some with teaching Mathewson his famous fadeaway.

Lured by an increased salary, Foster jumped to the Philadelphia Giants in 1904. In the opening game of the Black season, Foster doubled as the starting left fielder for the Giants. Not only a pitcher, Foster was also a two-way player, spending time at first base, second base, catcher, and all the outfield positions.10 The Philadelphia Giants played Foster’s former employer, the Cuban X-Giants, in a best-of-three series for the city championship. Foster started the first game and won 8-4 with 18 strikeouts. The X-Giants won the second game, allowing Foster to pitch the third game. Foster won the city championship for his new team by allowing only three hits a 4-2 victory.

The Giants won 18 of 20 games to start 1905 behind Bill Monroe’s .440 batting average and Grant “Home Run” Johnson’s .405 average.11 Hitting was contagious for the Giants in 1905, as Foster himself hit .289 with 114 hits and 3 home runs.12 During the season the Philadelphia Telegraph lauded Foster as a pitcher, writing: “If Andrew Foster had not been born with a dark skin, the great pitcher would wear an American or National League uniform. … Foster has never been equaled in a pitcher’s box.13

In an interview a couple of years later, Foster said 1905 was when he became “Rube” Foster: “In 1905, I won 51 out of 55 games I pitched for that season. … It was when we beat the Athletics, with Rube Waddell pitching, that they gave me the name of the colored Rube Waddell.”14 Modern research has cast doubt on this legend, with experts placing the date anywhere between 1902 and 1905.

The Philadelphia Giants finished the 1905 season playing a three-game series against the Brooklyn Royal Giants. Philadelphia swept the series, with Foster winning the second game. Foster played with the Philadelphia Giants again in 1906. In a September series against the Cuban X-Giants, Foster scattered 10 hits and struck out nine in a 3-2 win.15 Around the same time, Foster wrote an essay for Sol White’s book History of Colored Base Ball titled “How to Pitch.” In closing his essay, Foster summarized his approach to pitching:

“The three great principles of pitching are good control, when to pitch certain balls, and where to pitch them. The longer you are in the game, the more you should gain by experience. Where inexperience will lose many games, nerve and experience will bring you out victor.”16

As for his pitching repertoire, Foster threw a fastball, curveball, and screwball. Reflecting upon how Foster’s stuff played, Dave Malarcher said:

“[Foster] had one of the most baffling curve balls I ever looked at. And he had a real good fast ball – real good fast ball – and he threw a curve ball that was more what people would call a fadeaway. It looked like that fast ball and it would get there and just flutter, like that, away from you.”17

Seeking a bigger salary, Foster and several teammates left the Philadelphia Giants for the Leland Giants in Chicago. Foster was named player-manager. The 1907 Leland Giants posted a 110-10 record playing in the Chicago city circuit and in games against several top teams.18 At the end of the season, the Leland Giants faced off against a major-league all-star team led by Mike Donlin. Foster started and won two of the three games. In recapping the series, the Indianapolis Freeman praised Foster’s performance, writing: “Rube Foster is the pitcher of the Leland Giants, and he has all the speed of a Rusie, the tricks of a Radbourne, and the heady coolness and deliberation of a Cy Young. What does that make him? Why, the greatest baseball pitcher in the country: That is what the best ball players of white persuasion that have gone up against him say.19

Foster remained a top pitcher in 1908. A couple of superb games highlight his continued dominance. For instance, on July 20 Foster came into a game in the seventh inning, having started the game in right field. Foster went nine innings, giving up only two hits with eight strikeouts and one walk. The Leland Giants won in 15 innings.20 And on August 3, as part of a six-game series between the Philadelphia Giants and Leland Giants, Foster tossed a complete-game five-hitter as his Leland Giants won 11-1.

In 1909 Foster broke his leg in July after getting off to a strong start with 11 straight wins and four shutouts. He returned to pitch the second game of a three-game October series against the Chicago Cubs. Starting against a Cubs lineup that included future Hall of Fame shortstop Joe Tinker, Foster pitched eight strong innings, allowing only two runs. Leading 5-2 going into the ninth, Foster and the Leland Giants blew the game, allowing the Cubs to rally for four runs in the ninth and win 6-5.

To start 1910, Foster planned a barnstorming tour for the Leland Giants through several Southern states. In Palm Beach, Florida, they played the Brooklyn Royal Giants, who won the 1909 Eastern championship. Foster pitched two games against the Royal Giants. He threw a three-hitter in one and lost the other 1-0 even though he allowed only two hits.21 During the regular season, Foster continued to pitch at a top level. On May 23, he matched up against José Méndez and emerged victorious, allowing only five hits and striking out four. And on September 9, Foster shut out the Oklahoma Giants. Featuring star players such as John Henry Lloyd, Pete Hill, and Home Run Johnson, the Leland Giants dominated their competition, winning 123 out of 129 games.

During the 1910 season, the White Sox moved to Comiskey Park and vacated South Side Park. Foster, seeing an opportunity, contacted John Schorling, White Sox owner Charles Comiskey’s son-in-law, about the Leland Giants using South Side Park. Schorling and Foster became business partners. Foster gave Schorling half-ownership of the team; in exchange, Schorling constructed new bleacher seating fitting around 9,000 fans. With a new ballpark for his team, Foster rebranded his team as the Chicago American Giants.

The Chicago American Giants became Black baseball’s preeminent squad and dominated their opposition. In 1911 the American Giants went 78-27 and claimed the first of four consecutive Western crowns. In 1912 the American Giants went 112-30. Though records are incomplete, the box scores that survive suggest that Foster remained a top-end pitcher, referred to by the Chicago Defender as the Marquard of Black baseball.22 Foster called his team “the undisputed colored champions of the world” and brought his club to play in the California winter league.23

As the 1913 season commenced, the Chicago Defender lauded Foster for the success of the American Giants out west, saying that “much credit belongs to the greatest ball player and manager in the business, and one of the greatest and headiest men in the business, white or black.”24 In August 1913 Foster’s team played a best-of-12 series against the Lincoln Giants, managed by John Henry Lloyd. The Lincoln Giants won the series. Still, it was another splendid campaign for the American Giants, as they played over 200 games.

The 1914 Chicago American Giants added Smokey Joe Williams and John Henry Lloyd to their team. The Defender suggested that Foster’s squad was as good as several major-league teams and better than many others.25 The American Giants amassed a 126-16 record in 1914. Foster continued pitching occasionally. Against the Cuban Stars on May 26, he relieved Horace Jenkins in the eighth with two out and runners on second and third. Foster attempted to pick off the runner at second, but nobody was covering the bag. The ball sailed into center and allowed the Cubans to tie the game. In the bottom of the 10th, Foster gave up two runs and took the loss. But he bounced back in his next game against the Cuban Stars, facing only 28 batters in a one-hit shutout. In early September, Foster’s squad played the Brooklyn Royal Giants for the “Colored World Series.” Foster’s team swept the four-game set behind the strong pitching of Frank Wickware, Lee Wade, and Horace Jenkins.

In White Organized Baseball, 1914 saw the Federal League challenge the National and American Leagues. At the outset of the season, Foster expressed optimism that the creation of the new league would force the baseball magnates to integrate their leagues. “[W]hen they let the black men in, just watch how many present-day stars lose their positions,” he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.26 The Federal League’s challenge to Organized Baseball did not result in integration. Nor did Chicago’s Federal League entry, the Whales, agree to a series against the American Giants, despite pleas from Foster.27

The American Giants started the 1915 season on a Western tour and went 20-6.28 On March 27, 1915, the American Giants beat up on future Hall of Famer Stanley Coveleski and the Portland Beavers, 7-1. Foster continued to make occasional appearances as a player. On June 23 he held the Indianapolis ABCs to three hits in an 8-1 game.29 But on July 5, Foster struggled, giving up three runs in the top of the eighth.30

In mid-July, the American Giants played the ABCs in what the Chicago Defender called “the battle royal of the season.” On July 18 a massive fight broke out between the teams. As described by the Chicago Defender, after a discussion at home plate, “[b]oth teams grabbed bats, the umpire and Pete Hill had an argument and the umpire jerks out a gun and hits ‘Pete’ over the nose.”31 The umpire ordered a forfeit for the ABCs. The Defender complained about the incident, saying the fight threatened the future of Black baseball.32 On August 7, 1915, Foster wrote an explanation to the baseball public in the Indianapolis Freeman seeking to apologize for the incident, calling it “the complete humiliation of a life’s effort to advance and promote baseball among our people.”33 He also gave a candid glimpse into the racist invective he dealt with daily: “On Monday, July 18, I received the most complete humiliation. … I started out to the coaches box and a police sergeant came upon the field and called me back, calling me the dirtiest names I had ever had said to me, first asking me who were it that started the argument at Sunday’s game. I said I did not know, and he said to me: ‘You black son-of-a-b … if you open your mouth, I will blow your brains out.”34

ABCs manager C.I. Taylor was unsatisfied and entered into a back-and-forth with Foster in Black papers that marred the rest of the season. On a more positive front for Foster, it was announced on August 27 that John Henry Lloyd and Judy Gans were rejoining the American Giants. At the end of the season, Foster again challenged Joe Tinker’s Chicago Whales to a postseason series. But Tinker, in the words of the Defender, was scared to accept the challenge.35

What was it about Foster’s American Giants that scared White teams? Perhaps it was the style of play. They played a style of baseball termed inside baseball. As described by Willie Foster, inside baseball centered on bunting and stealing. According to Larry Lester, Foster introduced the hit-and-run play, bunt-and-run, drag batting, doubles, and the squeeze play to the national pastime.36 A century before major-league teams shifted for every batter, Foster did so, routinely moving his infielders around the diamond.37 Lester said Foster’s style mirrored in the St. Louis Cardinals Gas House Gang of the 1930s, the Go-Go Chicago White Sox of the 1950s, and the Los Angeles Dodgers of the early 1960s.38

During the 1915-16 offseason, Foster scheduled games for the American Giants in Seattle, California, Havana, and Omaha. With Organized Baseball pursuing an antitrust lawsuit against the Federal League, Foster sought to purchase several Federal League ballparks; the Indianapolis Freeman said such a move would allow Blacks to “have a good sized major league [of] their own.”39

At the start of the 1916 season, the Chicago Defender wrote that the American Giants “would make the White Sox look like a bunch of bush leaguers.”40 In August the American Giants defeated the New York Lincoln Giants in a best-of-seven series to win the “colored world championship.” Later in October, the American Giants played the Indianapolis ABCs in another series designed to determine a black champion. Indianapolis won five of the games, but not without a forfeit by Chicago. The forfeit happened in the third game. In the middle of the game, Foster, while coaching at first base, put on a glove. The umpire asked Foster to take the glove off. In response, Foster asked what baseball rule he was violating by wearing the glove. The umpire said he did not know, and Foster refused to remove the glove. Eventually the umpire told Foster to either remove the glove or leave the field. Foster sent his players to the bench and the umpire declared it a forfeit in favor of the ABCs. The 1916 series prompted another back-and-forth in the Black papers between Taylor and Foster.

In 1917 the American Giants reigned supreme among Black baseball teams. Led by Leroy Grant, John Henry Lloyd, Pete Hill, and Cannonball Dick Redding, Foster’s team easily took the season series from the ABCs. C.I. Taylor even wrote a letter to the Indianapolis Freeman in which he proclaimed, “Rube Foster has the greatest Colored aggregation in the business, and every true sport ought to give him the praise. … Foster’s club is truly the World’s Colored Champion for 1917. … All honor to him and his magnificent ball club.”41

After the United States entered World War I, Foster lost several key players to the war effort.42 But his team still excelled when it played, posting a record of 77 wins and 27 losses.43 The Chicago Defender credited Foster for his team’s success, writing: “The Giants were fortunate to have Foster, as he is without doubt one of the greatest leaders in baseball, and if he had twenty-five men, as the big leagues, all trained with experience before they come to him, there is no league pennant he would not have a monopoly on.”44

With the war over, Foster anticipated a big 1919 season. He worked with John Schorling to add seating capacity to Schorling Park. Unfortunately for Foster, the American Giants spent most of the 1919 season on the road, as racial unrest occurred in Chicago. The turmoil started after a 17-year-old Black youth was killed after drifting into a White swimming area at a segregated beach.

After the 1919 season, Foster wrote a five-part series in the Chicago Defender titled the “Pitfalls of Baseball.” Commenting on the challenges facing Black baseball and the need for an organized league, he wrote: “This will be the last time I will ever try and interest Colored club owners to get together on some working basis.”45

On February 13, 1920, Foster organized a meeting at the Paseo YMCA in Kansas City. His agenda was simple: create a Negro baseball league that resembled the White-only major leagues. The owners of seven other Black baseball teams attended along with a few sportswriters and an attorney. Foster had long dreamed about creating a Black league and may have found the final impetus in the Chicago race riot of 1919. Over several days, eight teams – the Chicago American Giants, Detroit Stars, Cuban Stars, Kansas City Monarchs, St. Louis Giants, Indianapolis ABCs, Chicago Giants, and Dayton Marcos – agreed to a league constitution and bylaws, and appointed Foster president.46 The league’s motto was “We are the ship. All else is the sea.”47

Foster believed in competitive balance. In his “Pitfalls of Baseball” series, he wrote that promoters did not realize that [having] the best ball club in the world and no one able to compete with it will lose more money on the season than those that are evenly matched.”48 To achieve that goal, he relinquished some of his top players, including allowing Oscar Charleston to re-sign with the ABCs. But even without the Hoosier Comet, Foster guided the 1920 Chicago American Giants to the first NNL pennant.

After the 1920 season, representatives of the National Association of Colored Professional Base Ball Clubs (who operated the Negro National League) re-elected Foster as league president and secretary.

As 1921 dawned, Foster added Jimmie Lyons to his outfield. His American Giants began the season in Palm Beach representing the Royal Poinciana Hotel.49 During the NNL’s second season, there was more competitive integrity. Behind Cristobal Torriente’s impressive season, the American Giants still led the league, with a 44-22-2 record, but they were closely followed by the St. Louis Giants and the Kansas City Monarchs. It was a trying year for Foster personally. His 12-year-old daughter, Sarah, died. And Foster was accused of stealing from certain ballplayers. As he traveled through Atlanta in November, he was arrested and charged with stealing. Foster was released on bond and professed his innocence.50

The 1922 season was another strong season for the American Giants. Boosted by adding John Beckwith and the continued strong play of Cristobal Torriente, the Giants won their third straight NNL championship. But after the season, a newspaper column by Henry Brown criticized Foster’s management of the league. Comparing Foster to a tyrant, Brown said, “Foster has dictated without a single reckoning and has backed up his ‘take it or leave it’ with a mailed fist.”51 Such criticism of Foster popped up sporadically during the 1920s. Foster responded in his state-of-the-league address, pointing out the increase in the number of teams and player salaries: “In the past three years branching out, creating an interest among the people introduced many new stars and raised the amount paid players from $50,000 yearly…[to] $500,000 the past three years.”52

The 1923 American Giants did not repeat as champions, finishing in second place behind Kansas City. Foster, as the league’s president, congratulated Kansas City: “It is a pleasure to me to see the Kansas City Monarchs win the pennant in our league this year, despite the fact that my club finished behind; this in itself proves the sterling quality and ability of the team from the west.”53 Again in 1924, the American Giants finished behind Kansas City. During the 1924 season, more criticism of Foster surfaced. The Kansas City Call blasted Foster, saying he should not head the league because he “was for the American Giants, first, last, and always.”54 But contrary to the criticism, Foster pulled for the Kansas City Monarchs as they battled Hilldale in the first Colored World Series, supposedly signaling pitches to Monarchs pitcher José Méndez throughout the decisive game.55 Foster oversaw the planning of the first Colored World Series in his capacity as president of the league. “He was very proud to have the responsibility and privilege and the honor … to be planning the big series. This really put him in the category of Ban Johnson and Judge Landis. He was very proud of the place he occupied,” said Dave Malarcher years later.56

In early June of 1925, while in Indianapolis, Foster’s players found him unconscious and lying against a gas heater at the Eubanks Boarding House, where he was staying. He had accidentally inhaled fumes from a leaking gas pipe. The inhalation caused Foster’s mental health to deteriorate. In 1926 his erratic behavior spiraled to the point that he needed to be committed. Many stories about his antics during this time emerged. His wife, Sarah, said Foster heard voices telling him he was going to be called on to pitch in the World Series. American Giants pitcher Wee Willie Powell said Foster ran up and down the street in front of his house, while shortstop Bobby Williams spoke of how Foster bolted himself into his office and refused to leave until someone entered through the window and drew him out.57 On September 8, 1926, the Associated Negro Press reported that Foster had been declared mentally irresponsible and was confined to an Illinois state institution.58 Foster spent four years there before dying on December 9, 1930, at the age of 51. One of baseball’s greatest-ever minds died in an insane asylum.

Without his leadership, the Negro National League Foster founded struggled to survive. Although it stayed intact until after his death, it was never really the same without Foster. With the impact of the Great Depression, the first Negro National League folded in 1931. However, the Negro Leagues would revive in the mid-1930s and continue through till 1960, and they were the first professional league for major-league greats such as Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, and Henry Aaron. Foster’s vision of a sporting landscape that fostered and allowed Blacks to make a living was nevertheless achieved, as he raised the profile of baseball for his race throughout the nation. The Veterans Committee recognized Foster for his contributions to the game by electing him to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.

Notes

1 Robert Peterson, Only the Ball Was White (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), 103.

2 Another “Rube” Foster, born George Foster, pitched for the Boston Red Sox from 1913 to 1917, winning 58 games and two World Series championships with Boston.

3 Robert Charles Cottrell, The Best Pitcher in Baseball (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 125.

4 Cottrell, 125.

5 Robert Peterson, “Rube Foster: Player, Manager, Administrator,” Dayton Daily News, June 17, 1970.

6 Some sources list Foster’s birthplace as La Grange, Texas, while others list Calvert, Texas. Foster himself named La Grange as his birthplace in The Negro in Chicago: A Study in Race Relations and a Race Riot (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1922), 178. But his death certificate, along with Cottrell’s biography, lists Calvert as his birthplace. For more information, see Gary Ashwill, “Where Was Rube Foster Really Born?”, available at https://agatetype.typepad.com/agate_type/2008/08/where-was-rube.html#:~:text=Foster%20apparently%20named%20La%20Grange,perfectly%20reasonable%20alternative%20to%20Calvert.

7 Phil Dixon, Andrew “Rube” Foster, A Harvest on Freedom’s Fields (Bloomington, Indiana: Xlibris, 2010), 55, quote attributed to Foster.

8 Cottrell, 9.

9 Cottrell, 11.

10 Cottrell, 15.

11 Larry Lester, Rube Foster in His Time: On the Field and in the Papers with Black Baseball’s Greatest Visionary (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2012), 21.

12 Lester, 21.

13 Lester, 24.

14 Indianapolis Freeman, September 14, 1907.

15 Lester, 25.

16 Andrew Foster, “How to Pitch,” in Solomon White, ed., History of Colored Base Ball (Philadelphia: 1907). Republished as Sol White’s History of Colored Baseball with Other Documents on the Early Black Game, 1886-1936 (Lincoln, Nebraska: Bison Books, 1996), 100.

17 Cottrell, 86.

18 Cottrell, 35.

19 Cottrell, 37.

20 Cottrell, 43.

21 Cottrell, 54-55.

22 In 1912 Rube Marquard won 19 consecutive decisions en route to leading the National League with 26 wins.

23 Cottrell, 70.

24 Cottrell, 75

25 Cottrell, 78.

26 Cottrell, 79.

27 Handy Andy, “Foster Anxious to Tackle Tinx; American Giants’ Manager Issues Challenge to Chicago Feds; Points to 1914 Record,” Chicago Tribune, September 19, 1914.

28 Cottrell, 88.

29 Cottrell, 90.

30 Cottrell, 90.

31 “Fight Ends A.B.C. Game,” Chicago Defender, July 31, 1915: 7.

32 Cottrell, 92.

33 “Rube Foster’s Explanation to the Base Ball Public of the United States,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 7, 1915.

34 Rube Foster’s Explanation to the Base Ball Public of the United States.”

35 “Rube Foster Challenges Tinker’s Feds,” Chicago Defender, October 9, 1915.

36 Lester, 103.

37 Lester, 104.

38 Lester, 105.

39 Cottrell, 100.

40 Cottrell, 102.

41 Cottrell, 110.

42 Cottrell, 114-115.

43 Lester, 106.

44 Cottrell, 119.

45 “Pitfalls of Baseball, Part V,” Chicago Defender, December 27, 1919: 9.

46 Cottrell, 149-151.

47 Cottrell, 153.

48 “Pitfalls of Baseball, Part II,” Chicago Defender, December 13, 1919: 11.

49 Cottrell, 158.

50 Cottrell, 160. It is unclear how the proceedings ended.

51 Henry Brown, “Foster and the League,” Chicago Whip, October 28, 1922: 7.

52 “Negro National League Meets December 7 at Appomattox Club,” Chicago Whip, November 18, 1922: 7.

53 Cottrell, 166.

54 Cottrell, 167.

55 Cottrell, 167.

56 Cottrell, 167.

57 Cottrell, 71.

58 Associated Negro Press, “‘Rube’ Foster Insane; In Chicago Hospital,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 4, 1926: 1.