Science: Harriman’s Goal

There were about 20,000 people in the quiet stands; a cold rain dripped from the smutty sky and early autumn mist closed in around Meadow Brook. Airplanes rose suddenly from invisible fields and flew low across the enormous billiard table of turf; a Scoreboard said “Argentine—6; U. S.—6.” The gong sounded for the eighth chukker and two polo teams cantered in from the northeast corner of the field.

They stood motionless for a moment at the toss-in; then the eight ponies twisted and straightened their necks and the last period started. Two minutes later, number one on the U. S. four, William Averell Harriman, carried the ball up from midfield and scored through a tangle at the goal. Five and a half minutes later the people in the stands stood cheering in the rain because the U. S., after trailing at 2-5, had won, by a score of 7-6, the first game in the series intended to decide the “Championship of the Americas.”

Thus, although he had played erratic polo through the first periods (unlike Tommy Hitchcock, Winston Guest, Malcolm Stevenson) William Averill Harriman became the hero of the exciting encounter. He had been placed upon the team late in the season, in the series of revisions which made the Argentines, who reached their peak the week before the matches, the favorites. If the U. S. four had failed to win, their forward would certainly have received the blame; just as certainly their victory was due to his abruptly brilliant play in the last period.

Harriman, 41, has only recently become a name in polo. The father of William Averell Harriman made millions of dollars in the railroad business and died before his eldest son went to Yale. With the $10,000,000 which he received with his majority, William Averell Harriman proceeded to have a good time in the shipping industry. This, he asserted to be “. . . the most important matter connected with the growth and well-being of the United States. . . .” Besides shipping, his financial attachments include railroads, banking, the American Railway Express Co., Wright Aeronautical Corporation, the American Russian Chamber of Commerce. All of these he regards seriously though he speaks of them less frequently and less pompously than of his boating. In fact, William Averell Harriman is serious about almost everything he does. He is vigilant over a great boys’ club in Manhattan slums; his farm in Arden, N. Y., is run upon an efficient, not a sporting, plan and it produces each year one million quarts of milk. He plays polo gravely and accurately, without undue brilliance. His chief competitor for place on the U. S. four was Stephen (“Laddie”) Sanford, 30, who also inherited a vast fortune (carpets) but who has consistently avoided office work.

As a polo player Harriman is the complete opposite of Lewis Lacey, the Argentine back, now one of the three active ten goal men in the world and perhaps as great a player as famed, retired Devereaux Milburn.