Jim Thorpe: Native American, Olympic Champion, baseball star, football star…football.
One thing is for certain: Jim Thorpe doesn’t care. The great Native American athlete whose sports legacy was as sterling as his life was tragic died in 1953, recognized by the country he honored with his record-breaking performance in the 1912 Olympics, but like so many of his race, mistreated and exploited by it as well. Since his death, however, a bizarre battle over his body has raged, and it is a perfect example of the Roshomon-like nature of ethics in some situations. What is the right thing, the fair thing, the ethical thing? The answer sometimes depends on whose viewpoint is applied, and objectivity, the ideal viewpoint we strive for, doesn’t even exist. In an ethical conflict, moreover, there are good ethical principles on both sides of a dispute.
In Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, the ethical verdict of what occurred in a Pennsylvania court last month is clear: the town has been double-crossed. A federal judge ruled that Thorpe’s remains, which lie in a mausoleum built by the town, can be moved to Oklahoma by his family, to be buried on lands belonging to his tribe. In 1953, however, two Pennsylvania towns signed a contract with Thorpe’s widow, committing them to consolidate and rename themselves after the Olympic, football and baseball legend, in return for being able to house Thorpe’s body and reap the tourism benefits of doing so. The contract was valid, if venal in inspiration: Mrs. Thorpe wanted and received cash in return. But a bargain is a bargain, and Thorpe’s presence and name has defined the town for over half a century. Losing Thorpe means losing the town’s identity and signature feature, which is a calamity.
Too bad, sayeth the judge. In a 32-page ruling, U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo ruled that the federal Native American Graves and Repatriation Act mandated that the body be returned. Such a ruling “may seem at odds with our common notions of commercial or contract law,” Caputo acknowledged, but he concluded that Congress passed the law “against a history of exploitation of Native American artifacts and remains for commercial purposes.” The analogy is legally defensible, but it seems a stretch to call Jim Thorpe’s body a Native American artifact when the deal with his widow was agreed to. Thorpe was an American who had died in poverty, and his wife was simultaneously trying to ensure some immortality for her husband’s name as well as some financial support for herself. The town, by all accounts, has kept its promises, and doesn’t deserve to be literally wiped off the map—without Jim Thorpe, there will be no Jim Thorpe, PA—because so many other American officials broke theirs to Thorpe’s ancestors.
Thorpe’s surviving family has a very different perspective, however, and rightfully so. Patsy Thorpe was Jim’s third wife, and his children from the other marriages were in the process of burying him in a tribal ceremony when she interrupted the funeral, bringing the police, a court order and a hearse with her, and took the body. As the family fought in the courts to get Thorpe back to Oklahoma, Patsy looked for the best deal she could find, and found it 1,340 miles away in the Poconos of Pennsylvania in the tiny towns of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk, now Jim Thorpe, Pa. The family’s legal battle to get its patriarch’s remains back to where they feel they belong has continued ever since. To them, Judge Caputo’s decision is fair and wise.
So does the decision right the wrongs committed by a villain, Patsy Thorpe, against her husband’s heritage and his children? Patsy didn’t think they were wrongs: she rightly knew that her husband wouldn’t have wanted her to be destitute. Burial in a town named in his honor was a better bet to keep interest in Jim Thorpe life alive than a resting place on Fox tribal lands, and her deal with the two Chunks helped rescued those town and their residents from their own financial crisis. Even after his death, Jim Thorpe did some good.
No matter how this controversy is settled, there will be undeserved losers, and legitimate feelings of injustice. Attendees at my ethic seminars often complain that my ethics problems often lack a definitive answer, and the saga of Jim Thorpe’s body demonstrates why. Sometimes, reaching a decision that looks ethical from all perspectives is impossible. All you can hope for is to reach the decision ethically, and take consolation in that.
____________________________
Sources: Washington Post 1, 2
Ethics Alarms 
What a mess. What a terrible case for a judge to have to decide. The wishes of a third wife and the surviving children is bad enough. Then add fact that he is such a famous figure and comes from such a small tribe (less than 4000), and weigh it against a well-meaning town in Pennsylvania and it is enough to forgive the judge if he suddenly came down sick. The sovereignty of the Sac and Fox may make this issue more akin to a state contract vs. international treaty than state contract vs. federal law. You have a wife who signs a contract to turn over the body to a group in Pennsylvania despite the fact that the body belongs to a nation that doesn’t recognize such a contract by their laws. This was probably the deciding factor in the ruling, but how terrible.
There is more to the story, however. It was not merely about money. Jim Thorpe’s widow was furious because the Oklahoma Governor vetoed a bill to fund a memorial for her husband. She looked to the NFL and elsewhere for someone who would honor him. The only ones who agreed were this group of squabbling towns in Pennsylvania. They have provided a memorial and done a good job honoring his name, as attested to by the Sac and Fox. It would be nice if the town could talk to the Governor of the Sac and Fox and work out some sort of agreement that would allow them to house a Jim Thorpe museum, have family artifacts on loan, participate in triblal events at the site, something. No one else in this country was willing to step up to honor this great American, and they stepped up. You may say they did it for the money, but if there was so much money in it, why wasn’t anyone else willing to do it?
I think the PA town should keep its name, and tell its story in relation to Jim Thorpe just like it has occurred, converting the mausoleum to a memorial.
But no: It’s too important to forget history, like it’s always been done.
My thoughts exactly. I suspect the news stories will actually bring more tourism to the town. I didn’t know about it, and it’s now on my list of awesome places to visit.
I don’t think there should be ‘take backs’ ten of fifty years later when a monument is seen as valuable. Repatriation shouldn’t be an infinite reason to move the location of a respected memorial. It wouldn’t be any more extreme if someone else who’s famous and has native blood gets take to native lands, despite their own or immediate heirs wishes. Would it be right to move Elvis’ body if he has native blood? At some point we are native to the nation and our accomplishments.
But you are talking about different nations and not all nations have the same ideas about personal property that the average American has. What if I buy some artifacts and leave the country with them with a bill of sale? If I pay the guy whose property I found the items on, are they mine even if the law in his country says that he doesn’t have the right to sell them?
Based on reading the Washington Post article, I don’t see how it is that much of a conundrum.
Seems the right answer is the judge’s ruling.
By analogy, if a thief stole something from someone down the street and then sold it to someone across town. When the crime solved, the criminal is punished and ideally the victim’s property is returned. What of the third person who purchased the stolen property? Ideally they get their money back, but they certainly don’t get to keep the stolen property because, hey, they didn’t know.
Jim Thorpe, PA is just that third person.
Another Question
A quote from the Washington Post Article I have a question about:
“It is, to them and the Sac and Fox Nation, a fundamental human right for Native Americans to bury their people where they wish them to be buried.”
Does that mean to say:
“It is, to them and the Sac and Fox Nation, a fundamental human right for Native Americans to bury their people where Native Americans as a tribal organization wish them to be buried.”
OR
“It is, to them and the Sac and Fox Nation, a fundamental human right for Native Americans to bury their people where the people being buried wish them to be buried.”
This is the reason it was before the court. According to state law, the widow has the right to decide where he was to be buried. According to a federal law passed in 1990 and the tribe, the tribe can determine it. Hence, the need for a court decision. The town and the widow did nothing illegal at the time (the tribe didn’t have the authority to press their claims in Pennsylvania). She had the right to determine his burial place and she did so for a variety of reasons (if not in the nicest way possible). Thirty seven years later, a law was passed that seemed to have changed the situation, allowing the tribe to decide his burial place.
The Washington Post article states that Jim Thorpe’s wishes were to be buried in the family plot in Oklahoma. Even if the law says she gets to the make decision on his burial location, in terms of right or wrong, Patsy Thorpe seems to be in the wrong in not fulfilling his wishes.
Additionally, I don’t take into consideration the Indian laws in terms of ethics. I don’t think it can reasonably be said that laws governing the relationship between an individual modern Indian and me (with my all of 1/16 or 1/32 Choctaw genetics) make a lot of ethical sense either, since they are based on the uncivil interactions between his maybe some of his ancestors and maybe some of mine.
So neither of the laws ‘protecting’ Patsy’s ‘right’ as a widow to pick her husband’s place or modern Indian’s ‘rights’ as a tribe matter to me to decide which choice is the ethical one. The ethical choice is the one which rests Jim Thorpe where Jim Thorpe reasonably wanted to be buried…Oklahoma.
Losing Jim Thorpe’s remains won’t kill this town. They have built a nice little tourist business around white water rafting and other activities.
I first heard of him when I lived at the Army War College, and until recently thought he was buried there.