The Remise
Item
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Title
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The Remise
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Date
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December 1941
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volume
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6
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issue
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5
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pages
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4, 15-16
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content
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en
The Remise
In the last issue we printed an article entitled "Ethics on the Fencing Strip" in which we collaborated with Mr. Guzman Rolando. This was not easy, for Mr. Rolando wrote his article in France in 1812. We did nothing more than modernize the article by converting his objections to apply to actual competitive conditions of the current day. It must be realized that when Rolando wrote his essay there were no actual fencing competitions as we know them today. There were exhibition bouts before spectators but no touches were called. Nevertheless, his analysis of some of the ungentlemanly actions of 1812 was so reminiscent of many of today's faults that it could not be overlooked. It just goes to show that fencing is a very human sport and that the faults of the human race do not change very much over the centuries.
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While sitting over our typewriter and trying to weave Mr. Rolando's thoughts into modern English we were reminded of many of our contemporaries and sometimes we were plagued with a feeling of uneasiness as Mr. Rolando's barbs struck directly home to this otherwise quite angelic writer. We nevertheless made it quite clear that we thought it primarily a New York City problem and only hoped that we were not giving other parts of the country any bad ideas. A week or two after publication we received a note from one of our friends in California praising the article and saying that it had described some of their fencers out there just short of naming them. Since I thought of us New Yorkers and he thought of Californians it is very probable that every reader had a local treat of head-nodding. I may have to exempt St. Louis readers from this for everyone who has been out there has always commented most favorably upon their sportsmanship. Otherwise, I regret to say that the article was more representative than I would like to think.
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The unusual source of the article was written up briefly for the October issue but much of The Remise for that issue was crowded out by the space demands of the national championships. We mention this fact now for we feel that we must give Mr. Rolando posthumous credit for a most interesting analysis of the baser nature of man that stands out so clearly when sword is in hand.
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As we approach the end of the calendar year and look back upon the twelve months that have skipped along in amazing speed we see a blur of swords and hear a symphonic combination of stomps, eh-las and parries. We have tried to present a record of the results of most of these. This is pure reporting of fencing results. There were other more serious happenings within our fencing family, for death must strike among any family as large as ours in much the same proportions as it strikes elsewhere. The cruelest blow of all was suffered by one of our leading fencers, Nickolas Muray, in the sudden death of his daughter, Arija, in September, from pneumonia. This 19-year-old girl had already shown considerable promise herself as a fencer in her first year of competition. It struck us all as a needless, unexplainable and cruel blow which left the fencers quiet wherever they gathered.
Stephen Vanderwal of Galveston was killed with his wife in an automobile accident over the Labor Day week-end. Mr. Vanderwal competed in the 1941 national championships in epee, foil and sabre and reached the semi-finals in the epee on June 11.
Dr. Scott D. Breckinridge, brother of Colonel Henry Breckinridge, died in Lexington, Kentucky, on July 31. He was National Foil Champion in 1906 and again in 1914 and was a member of the National Championship Foil Team in 1914 and 1915. He was a member of the American Olympic Fencing Team in 1912. He began fencing as a cadet at the United State Military Academy at West Point, N. Y., where he won the Intercollegiate Individual Foil Championship after an undefeated season in dual college meets. After serving as a Colonel in the first World War he later retired from the Army and associated himself with the University of Kentucky at Lexington, Kentucky, where his continued interest in fencing caused him to give his spare time toward teaching the sport as an amateur. He had spent the past several years in preparing a book of instruction to be used as a guide for fencers at colleges throughout the United States who do not have the benefit of professional instruction. It is hoped that his book is sufficiently complete to permit of posthumous publication.
Valentino Argento, fencing master of the Sword Club of Philadelphia and former foil champion of Italy, died in Philadelphia on September 8, at the age of 40. He had won forty-five tournaments in nineteen years of competition and held the world's professional championship in 1930. He had taught at the Fencers Club in New York, the Baldwin School of Bryn Mawr, at Moravian College, and at Lehigh University. He had been engaged to instruct fencing this year at St. Timothy’s College in Baltimore.
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The fencing season is scheduled to start each year on September 1st. Actually the season never starts so much as it eases in. Just as the robin is the actual harbinger of Spring so is the magazine cover the actual harbinger of the fencing season. We can now feel assured that the fencing season is here for the November 25th issue of "Pic" had a fencing girl on its cover. She is a comely blonde with large red hearts on each white cuff and another redundantly placed over the heart itself. Although probably a professional model and nice to look at we were pleased to realize that many of our girl fencers need not take a back seat to her in appearance. Her name was given as Mikey Maloy, a strange enough name to indicate that she may really be a fencer.
Ethics on the Fencing Strip
