BOOK ONE

1 THE DRAMA OF SPORT

I am a sports romanticist. For me, the annals of the ring are unparalleled in their appeal. The saga of what has been called the “Sour Science” achieves peaks of interest and excitement that are found in no other recreation or entertainment.

That boxing has this unmatched position is not to be wondered at. A contact sport in its simplest form, it is an individual battle which tests the courage, skill and stamina of two men.

Each era has its own heroes. Boxing styles keep changing. The demands of the public change as the years roll along. New faces gain popular acclaim and heighten popular controversy, and the interest in the sport gains new momentum as these colorful characters make the headlines.

Since controversy is the life blood of the sport, it is easy to see why stories about boxing and the non-combatants closely associated with its promotion, management, matchmaking, and supervision, offer a special appeal to the reader.

There is romance in boxing. There is a spectacular glamor to the fight parade as it rolls along through the years: the explosive violence that was Jack Dempsey winning the heavyweight championship by a knockout over the behemoth, Jess Willard; Dempsey punched out of the ring and coming back to stop Luis Firpo in the wildest four minutes ever seen in boxing’s violent history; Joe Louis getting his quick, lethal revenge on Max Schmeling; Ezzard Charles achieving a once-in-a-lifetime peak to go fifteen close rounds with slugging Rocky Marciano—these moments brighten the pages of boxing history.

Not all the thrills are to be found in the padded ring. The side show often furnishes the laughs, pathos, color, and the drama that make boxing what it is; but the anecdotes that have the greatest appeal are those of the champions.

The intimate side of the ring’s title holders, the behind the scenes tales of the wizards of the roped square, the hair-raising experiences, both in and out of the ring—these are the human interest stories that make boxing a world sport.

Five decades of sports writing furnish the backbone of this book, material I’ve gathered from my diary of more than half a century of reporting and collecting.

During my many years of association with sports, I’ve studied the likes and dislikes of champions; their eccentricities and fighting qualities, as they compare with those great fighters of another era. It is part, I suppose, of the capacity for hero worship that is more or less inherent in us all.

I’ve found champions in boxing a different breed from the average person who engages in sports as a recreation. When I asked a newly crowned champion how he felt when he finally reached the heights, “No different,” was usually the answer I would get. Anticipation always exceeds realization.

I recall an interview with Freddy Welsh after he had won the world lightweight crown; “Somehow, now that I’ve won the championship, it doesn’t look so big,” he told me.

I was present at a dinner at which Gene Tunney, retired undefeated heavyweight king, and I were the guest speakers, and when I asked Gene the same question, he answered:

“In human endeavor, the most important thing is not so much the realization of the goal; the effort of the chase is worth more to the hunter than the actual capture. I cherish the crown. But my greatest thrills came not in winning it but in my climb to the top. Now that the goal has been reached, it is just another incident in my boxing career.”

There is no rosy road to success. But once it has been obtained, the hero worship begins. In boxing there are those whose names typify crashing power; others whose cleverness and defensive skill place them in the category of great ringmen. Still others are remembered for their intriguing personalities, their humor, wisecracks, and color.

In these pages you will find the human side of these vivid personalities; first hand information on fights and fighters that is authoritative; the elements in boxing that made ring history; the never-to-be-forgotten incidents that make boxing the fascinating sport it is.

My work as a journalist has brought me in contact with sportsmen the world over. I have interviewed presidents and kings, promoters, managers, and fistic celebrities from the four corners of the globe. I have received La Medaile d’honneur d’or de education physique et des sports from France; the Constantine Ordine Militare de San Georgie di Antioche and the Commandatore della Stella al Merito Sportivo from Italy; and the Order of the White Elephant from King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand for my work on behalf of international boxing.

I have been on intimate terms with every heavyweight champion since James J. Corbett. When Corbett died, I wrote thirty articles on his career for the King Features Syndicate. To my headquarters, facing the main entrance of Madison Square Garden, have often come Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Jack Sharkey, Joe Louis, Jimmy Braddock, and many other great names of the past and present. Their photographs look down on me from the walls of my office and jog up my memory as the fleeting scenes of the days that have gone into the record books press for my attention.

Although there aren’t as many great fighters around today as in the past, they are the best we can now muster and we must be content with them. As a class, the boxers today are more wholesome, more eager for the good things of life than those of the old days who often spent their substance and their genius with the prodigal hand of the waster.

I have seen almost every heavyweight championship bout in the past half century, and most of those in other divisions—bouts that reach across a stretch of many exciting years—years of prosperity, war, depression, and change in boxing technique. They are years that saw the legalization of boxing throughout the world, the promotional extravaganzas of the great Tex Rickard and the million dollar gates, the reign of two of the greatest heavyweights of all time, Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis, and the rise and fall of Mike Jacob’s empire.

I entered the field of journalism as a sports writer during the transition period of boxing—the repeal of the Horton Law abolishing the sport, the beginning of the club membership era, and the subsequent adoption of legalized boxing throughout the world. It is satisfying to be a part of the new era, but a nostalgic treat to be able to look back on the old.

2 MY BOYHOOD YEARS

I became interested in boxing the day I learned how to make a fist.

I began to show interest in journalism when I contributed to the monthly magazine at Public School No. 15 in Lower Manhattan. Later I became its editor.

As a youngster, I loved athletics of all kinds. I played baseball, basketball, rode a bike with sufficient skill to do tricks on it, boxed and wrestled. And right here I want to pay tribute to the Boys’ Club, the Brace Memorial School, and Christodora House, which all through the years have done so much for the youngsters of the East Side of New York where I was born, November 3, 1887.

At the Brace Memorial School and the Boys’ Club, I learned to appreciate the value of organized, supervised athletics. It was one thing to exercise in the streets and yet another to become involved in the closely regulated activities of a club.

The Public Schools Athletic League provided another fine influence on boys like myself. For years, school sport in New York was run on a haphazard, catch-as-catch-can basis. Then came the P.S.A.L., in which General George W. Wingate and Dr. Luther Halsey Gulick were the moving spirits, and school sports became organized, supervised, regulated.

The P.S.A.L.’s first big track meet was held in Madison Square Garden, and there I competed in my first important race and won the 220-yard dash. It was there, too, that I first heard the roar of the crowd. I have been listening to it ever since.

My parents came to America in 1868. They brought a large family into the world. Among nine who survived, five of us have passed our seventieth birthday. Grandfather died at the age of 102 and grandmother, 101, and dad was close to 80 when he passed away. So you see the Fleischer family comes from hardy stock.

Brother Mark and I were the family athletes. I was thirteen when I entered Townsend Harris Hall, the preparatory school for City College. There, and at college, I continued my interest in sports and won many prizes.

My experiences during adolescence paved the way for my future career. In 1899, for example, I saw my first professional fight, a contest in which Terry McGovern was pitted against Pedlar Palmer, British champion. I’ve lived that fight over and over again. For me, that was the thrill of thrills: to be twelve years old and present at one of the most talked-about bouts in American pugilism!

My home was but a few doors away from the Brace Memorial School for newsboys, an organization opposite St. Bridget’s Church on the corner of Avenue A and Eighth Street. I did chores after school hours for Superintendent Walter Grosvenor and Grove Dale, athletic director. The walls of Dale’s room were decorated with photographs of famous athletes, and McGovern was among his favorites.

I had completed dusting when Dale, pointing to McGovern, remarked: “There’s a great little fighter. I’m going to see him box for the championship tomorrow. Mr. Grosvenor was to accompany me, but he can’t make it. If you can get permission from your ma, I’ll take you along.”

I was delighted at the invitation, but needless to say, I didn’t ask my mother, knowing her answer would be “no.” Instead I rushed out of the building, waited a while, then returned to tell Dale that permission had been granted.

The impression that fight left with me patterned my future. Henceforth, I became a collector of the fight pictures distributed by various cigarette companies, and to this day, I have more than 5,000 in my attic. They cover almost every fighter of note among the greats of the past.

A fortnight later, I joined a boxing class organized by Dale, and in a short time I was the captain and star of his outfit, as well as president of the Oregon Athletic Club, which he sponsored. We not only boxed, but had an excellent baseball and basketball team. I was catcher and first baseman of the ball club and participated in the club’s other activities.

As a boxer, I scaled only 122 pounds, but was fairly clever and could hit well. Leach Cross, later one of the toughest lightweights in the professional field, was my age. He was one of the neighborhood’s best scrappers, a lad who would put up his fists at the least provocation, and on many occasions we crossed each other’s path and settled matters without the aid of gloves.

I remember a baseball game in which Leach and I were on opposite sides and he resented the manner in which I tagged him out at the plate, preventing his team from tieing the score. He rushed at me and in a jiffy we were rolling all over the grass. Mr. Dale separated us and suggested that we settle our differences with the gloves. We agreed and what a shellacking I took! In later years when I became a reporter, I took keen delight in watching Leach do to others what he had done to me.

As captain of the Oregon Athletic Club, I accepted a request of Mrs. Oliver Harriman and Mrs. Jay Gould, sponsors of the Boys’ Club, to have our team meet the Boys’ Club members as part of the inaugural program arranged for the opening night of their new gymnasium. The second bout on the program was between Joe Gordon and me. Gordon scaled ten pounds more than I did, and I refused to go on until I was told that the rounds would be cut to two minutes each, and we would box only two rounds.

I walked into the ring with chest out, proud as a peacock as I received the plaudits of the gathering. However, the show ended within a few minutes. We sparred, and in seconds, the lights went out for me. I was knocked cold. I recall, as I regained consciousness, seeing Mrs. Harriman rubbing my forehead and Mrs. Gould patting my hand, yet I didn’t know what was wrong. I couldn’t understand what the fuss was about, until I learned from Leach Cross that my opponent, Gordon, was a ringer, a “pro” fighting under an assumed name. The incident almost caused a ban on boxing at the club.

Though I was only five feet two inches tall, I was a good sprinter and broad jumper at City College. In a meet with Rutgers, I cleared 19 feet 8 inches for a winning leap, and in a triangular meet with Pratt Institute and New York University, I did two inches better.

In 1904 I had become a City College correspondent for the Morning and Sunday World and the New York Press and two years later I was accepted by the Press as a cub reporter on part time service, doing general reporting and copyreading under the supervision of both the sports and city editors.

When I graduated from college in 1908 with a Bachelor of Science degree, I was assigned to work under James R. Price in the sports department. He was one of the best teachers I could have wished for. He primed me for the sports editor’s post which I later held on several New York dailies for a quarter of a century. I also had the fine guidance of three experts: Ernie Lanigan in baseball, George B. Underwood in track and field and general sports, and Charles F. Mathison in boxing. A year later we were joined by another baseball expert, Frederick G. Lieb.

Although I liked my work, I had a strong hankering for commercial chemistry and matriculated in a postgraduate course at New York University. My hours on The Press were long. I seldom reached home before one in the morning, yet for three months I spent my mornings at the University, bending over Bunsen burners, retorts and vials. One morning, exhausted, after a long tour at the paper, I mixed several chemicals that caused an explosion that blew me out of N.Y.U. I was asked to pack up and quit. So ended my budding career as a chemist.

I still was undecided about continuing as a reporter, and since I had passed an examination to teach in the New York schools, I accepted an assignment as an instructor in a sixth grade class of girls in Public School No. 7 on the lower East Side of Manhattan. I worked there until school closed at three, then reported to The Press, where I seldom left before eleven in the evening. It was a gruelling grind I had mapped out for myself, and two months before summer vacation I handed in my resignation to Dr. Kottman, the school principal.

I also held a license to teach during the summer in the playgrounds, and for two summers I was a supervisor of athletics in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, a tough neighborhood where my boxing knowledge came in handy. During that time I organized the first Fourth of July schoolboy track and field meet under the supervision of the Public Schools Athletic League. This later became an annual event for many years under the direction of the Park Playgrounds’ Board.

I have passed through three depressions and have a vivid recollection of each. Though I was only six years old when the nation’s businessmen went into mourning during the crash in President Grover Cleveland’s administration, I recall how my brothers and I sold newspapers to make both ends meet. However, despite hard times, six of us graduated from college.

3 MY WORK AS A REPORTER

April 14, 1912.

That’s a date I shall always remember.

It was the day on which I received my baptism of fire as a big time reporter. It was the day of the sinking of the Titanic, then the world’s largest ship. The mishap to that gigantic craft which was hit by an iceberg and went down in mid-ocean with many world celebrities aboard was largely responsible for my promotion to the executive post of sports editor.

Ever hear of the “dog-watch?” If you have any friends in the newspaper field, they’ll tell you that it is a term used to designate the desk men who remain on the job after the early edition goes to press. They must handle any startling news that might arise, news of sufficient importance to necessitate revamping the front page and setting new material for the late editions, or in cases of extreme emergency, to get out a special extra. To the “dog-watch” I owe much.

On that April night I took over the sports desk of the New York Press, filling in for Jim Price, the editor. I was there alone. My desk was full of proofs and I was busily engaged in reading them when Alexander Stoddard, who filled in as night editor, interrupted me.

Mr. Stoddard that evening was in charge of the news department and he, like me, was sitting in on the “dog-watch” when the biggest news item of the year broke through the Associated Press. The news was carried in envelopes to the city editor every twenty minutes by an Associated Press messenger. It was the last delivered envelope that stirred things around the “Press” building to a pitch of excitement that I’ve never since seen duplicated in my newspaper career.

The message carried in that delivery read: “Flash—Titanic Strikes Iceberg in North Atlantic—Report All Safe!”

That flash brought about action in our newspaper office that set an all time record. Alex Stoddard, James Scott, chief of the composing room, and I immediately got everything in motion for what was probably the quickest edition ever put out in New York.

Our first edition was closed. The paper was about to go to press. The New York World, the New York Herald, and the New York Tribune all had a half hour earlier edition than The Press so when that flash came through, these papers were already on the street while The Press alone still had a chance to make the news in its first edition. We had the jump on everybody, and Alex Stoddard made the best of it with the speed and cooperation that only experienced newspaper hands can give. The morgue was next to the sports department. Stoddard ordered me to locate a copy of the passenger list of the maiden voyage of the gigantic and magnificent Titanic, a list that had been furnished by the Associated Press before sailing time. He called the composing room to acquaint Scott with the big news and Scott, at Stoddard’s command, had page one ripped apart as the paper was about to be put “to sleep.”

The superintendent of the press room was told to clear the presses for a quick extra, and all hands were alerted.

The Circulation Manager was apprised of the news and he in turn called in all available men in the delivery room, had his wagons lined up for the emergency, collected newsboys from Park Row, then the journalistic center of the city, and the stage was set, so far as the mechanical departments were concerned, for the biggest scoop of the era.

While this was going on, another Associated Press envelope was delivered which read:

“Cape Race, Newfoundland—Sunday night April 14—at 10:25 tonight the White Star Titanic called ‘C.Q.D.’ to the Marconi Wireless Station here and reported having struck an iceberg. Immediate assistance was requested. So far no report on condition of passengers.”

With that as a lead and the names of the passengers, I helped to get out a front page story of one of the greatest disasters of our time.

I didn’t think human hands could work so rapidly! Within half an hour our papers were in circulation along lower Broadway and around the Brooklyn Bridge. Newsboys ran pell-mell along the thoroughfares shouting their wares. The Press delivery wagons were speeding up Broadway to Herald Square and Times Square, the two busiest sections of the city for early morning life, and there our extra was out a good twenty minutes before any other paper could publish the news of the disaster in a make-over edition.

For days after that feat, the New York Press was the talk of the newspaper world. Of course, we were fortunate in going to press a little later than the other papers, but the big thing in our scoop was the fact that the “dog-watch” was on the alert.

When the Titanic sailed on her maiden voyage, the largest ship afloat at the time, she carried a notable list of passengers. Among the 1,517 passengers who went down were Nathan Strauss and his wife; Captain Archibald Butt, aide to President Theodore Roosevelt; John Jacob Astor; William Stead of the Review of Reviews, a London magazine editor who wrote the sensational book, If Christ Came to Chicago, and Charles Frohman, America’s greatest theatrical producer.

When the Carpathia, which had rescued most of the 690 survivors, arrived in New York, the commotion about the dock was much like that occasioned on the arrival of a hospital ship during the First World War. Thousands flocked to the Carpathia pier, but only newspapermen and officials were permitted inside the police lines, I among them.

Lady Duff Gordon of London, was among those saved. As she was good copy, most of the reporters were assigned to interview her in her suite at the Murray Hill Hotel.

The room was crowded with newspapermen when she recounted her story of thrilling rescues, episodes of heroism among passengers and crew; pathetic scenes in a sea strewn with dead, maimed, and shrieking men, women, and children.

I have had many memorable moments in my newspaper career but the assignment from John Hennessey, the Managing Editor, to work with the veteran members of our staff on the sinking of the Titanic gave me my greatest reportorial thrill.

I had a guarantee of only $10 per week as my take home pay when I started my journalist career, but following the Titanic disaster, my minimum was raised to $45 per week plus whatever I could make at space rates above that sum. In those days many of us were paid in that manner. During my first two years as a cub reporter, I often sat around for ten hours with little to do other than a few rewrite stories and frequently finished a week with $15 or less in my pay envelope.

The raise I received elated me. It was the biggest money I had earned as a reporter. It wasn’t long, however, before I became Sunday editor of the Automobile section and Scholastic sports editor in addition to writing feature articles and covering general sports events.

When The Press was merged with the Morning Sun and Jim Price resigned as sports editor, Frank A. Munsey, the new owner, appointed Joe Millard to take charge, with me as his assistant. Millard had been covering racing and was a heavy drinker, and he didn’t last long. I took his place within a few months after the merger. I served under Mr. Munsey on every paper which he purchased in New York. I was his sports editor on the Sun Press, The Morning Herald, The Morning Sun, The Mail-Telegram and The Evening Telegram.

As Sports Editor I gathered around me a staff of experts that made The Telegram outstanding for its sports coverage. In addition to Underwood, Mathison, and Lieb, I had Dan Daniel, Francis Albertanti, Peter Bernaugh, Hughey Mulhare, Harry King, Nan O’Reilly, Howard Valentine, Al Copeland, and James K. McGuinness—experts every one of them, each capable of reporting any branch of sports.

For thirteen years I was Frank A. Munsey’s top man in the sports department. Every time he junked a newspaper by amalgamating it with another, he placed me in charge. The break came in 1929 when the Scripps-Howard interests bought the New York Telegram. I had been in Europe on a two-month feature assignment on the reconstruction era in Central Europe following the war and knew nothing of the loss of my position, until I was informed by ship news reporters at Sandy Hook upon my arrival home. Roy Howard ousted me to make way for Joe Williams, a Cleveland sports writer from the Scripps-Howard organization.

I pondered for several weeks over my future and finally decided that I would devote all my time to The Ring Magazine which I had organized in 1922. I also continued as American correspondent for several British and French newspapers, posts I still retain.

4 AN INTERVIEW WITH ROOSEVELT

“Like father, like son,” is an adage as old as the hills, but it is very often true. I was in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1932 to referee a fight and paid a visit to the Governor, Theodore Roosevelt, son of the great “Teddy.” Years ago, when I was a reporter, I made the acquaintance of the grand old warrior of the Roosevelt family, and meeting his son in San Juan, I was deeply impressed by the resemblance of the offspring to the sire.

Teddy Jr. was a chip off the old block. The smile, the handshake, and the energy put into his work as Governor were not the only reminders of his illustrious dad. His love for sports was another. Teddy Jr., like his father, was an expert at squash tennis and racquets and a boxing enthusiast.

A few days after young Governor Roosevelt was inaugurated at San Juan, I watched him box Frank O’Ben, the Island’s leading instructor, at the latter’s well-equipped gymnasium.

His father, President Theodore Roosevelt was a remarkable man: politician, ranchman, soldier, hunter, and all-around athlete. The Roosevelt boys were brought up on an athletic diet and each was taught the art of self-defense at school. Boxing was always one of Teddy’s favorite hobbies.

I recall the day in 1908 that the American Olympic team returned triumphantly from London, where little Johnny Hayes, our marathon runner, gained international fame in his race with Dorando Pietri, the Italian who collapsed at the finish. I met the homecoming team at Sandy Hook and accompanied the victorious brigade back to New York City.

The hero, of course, was Hayes. When the ship reached quarantine, we received word that President Roosevelt had invited the entire Olympic contingent to spend the following day at his Oyster Bay Estate where he would officially welcome each of the members.

Out to Oyster Bay the little army traveled, and when we reached President Roosevelt’s estate, we were met by the Roosevelt family, government officials, and a large delegation of home town folk. It was heart warming.

I learned much about Theodore Roosevelt, the athlete that day. Beaming with delight, he shook the hand of every member of the returning team. Then he told us how he had become so interested in athletics. In his youth he was referred to as a chicken-livered kid because his delicate health did not permit him to play in vigorous games with other lads. He didn’t like being kept in the background, however, and had no scruples about letting his parents know it.

“I made my health what it is today,” he said. “When I found that physically I was not the equal of other boys, I was determined to make myself fit.”

Here he was, receiving America’s foremost athletes, the young men upon whom the youth of the land looked with envy and admiration, and he immediately realized the opportunity to bring home a point to hundreds of thousands of American children.

“When a boy,” he continued, “I was sent to Moosehead Lake to rid myself of asthma. I was brought up by a maiden aunt who decided that the change of air would help my ailment and also help to build me up. While en route, I became acquainted with three lads who took a keen delight in teasing me. They called me ‘Sissy’ and other names I didn’t like, and my pride was hurt. I made up my mind that I would learn how to defend myself against such attacks, and that’s how I came to take up boxing.

“On my return home, I told father what had happened. He laughed it off but consented to have Tom Long, a former fighter, teach me the manly art. When I was in the third year at school, I became the lightweight champion. Then I took up wrestling, another sport I liked, and by the time I matriculated in college, I was pretty good at both.”

He told of the day he stopped by the Harvard gymnasium for some recreation and exercise, and one of the members of the Harvard boxing team invited him to spar. Roosevelt admitted he was quick to oblige. They donned the gloves, stepped to the center of the ring, and as Roosevelt put forth his right hand for the customary boxing handshake, he received a powerful blow to the jaw. The punch staggered him, and according to the President, he was flabbergasted at the unsportsmanlike display.

“The students were quick to note the discourteous act,” he said, “and cries of ‘shame’ and ‘foul’ filled the air. Much to the discomfiture of my opponent, I held my hand out until he complied with the courtesy of the ring, and then I proceeded to hand him a business-like shellacking.

“I taught that fellow something,” continued the President. “I taught him that boxing was a sport for sportsmen in which the rules of fair play must be observed, and he and I were the greatest of pals throughout the remainder of our college days.”

Roosevelt, when Police Commissioner of New York, followed boxing with a keen interest. When the police attempted raids in the old club membership days, he urged them to be lenient. Often he had them stand at the ringside to guard the contestants until the fight was over before he would permit them to interfere and make the arrest.

Back in 1916, when I was sports editor of the New York Press, I went out to Oyster Bay to get an interview with the retired United States President. At the time, the boxing game was being threatened by certain disgruntled politicians and blue law agitators, and things looked black for the sport. The flame against boxing had become so widespread that it seemed as if nothing could extinguish it, and I thought that a talk with Roosevelt would be timely.

I remembered my interview with him years before, and I recalled how ardent a fight enthusiast he was. So I figured that a story from him on the good points about boxing would help our cause. Here is his statement as I published it:

“When I became a member of the New York State Legislature, there was considerable commotion up at Albany by a faction that was opposed to boxing. I took up the issue with them. Like my father, who believed that a fair, stand-up fight would do a boy a lot of good, I arose to defend boxing. I surprised, even shocked, many mothers when I said that ‘the boy that won’t fight is not worth his salt. He is either a coward or constitutionally weak. I have taught my boys to take their own part and fight their way whenever they must. Cowardice is not in their make-up. I do not know for which I should punish my boys quicker—for cruelty or flinching. Both are abominable.’

“I have never been able to sympathize with the outcry against boxing. The only objection I have to prize fighting, is when there is talk of fake or crookedness, and such talk is common. Where there is smoke, there is fire and I figure that such gossip is never entirely unfounded.

“Outside of that, I regard boxing, professional and amateur, as a vigorous, healthful sport that develops courage, keenness of mind, quickness of eye, and a spirit of combativeness that fits every boy who engages in it for the daily tasks that confront him.

“It is not half so brutalizing or demoralizing as many forms of big business, and certain legal work that is often carried on to help such business.

“I have often thought that if we had more boys’ clubs where the manly art was taught, we would have fewer youthful criminals, the street corner type of hoodlum, and would breed a better class of young American citizens—the future voters. Boxing develops elements of character that are difficult to obtain in other sports—fairness, the spirit of give-and-take, courage, and alertness.

“It is only the bully who always wants to give and to avoid the taking. If boxing were taught in every public and secondary school and in college, this nation would soon find itself rid of the bullies and would develop in our youth a spirit of manhood, a spirit that teaches fairness to our fellow men. We would be rid of street corner rowdies and cowards, and make our boys a better, sturdier, healthier lot.”

In Washington, President Roosevelt frequently boxed with Professor Mike Donovan of the New York Gymnasium and Steve O’Donnell, another former fighter. When, after a long lapse, Harvard, of which Roosevelt was an alumnus, decided to restore boxing as an inter-collegiate sport, Roosevelt was instrumental in obtaining for his friend O’Donnell the post of boxing instructor. After the appointment, O’Donnell received a letter from Roosevelt which he permitted me to publish in the Morning Sun. Here is the letter which is now in my museum:

“Dear Steve:

You know of my interest in boxing since I often put on the gloves with Mike Donovan, Jack Cooper, and you. I had to abandon the sport after an eye injury, sustained in a sparring match with a young Captain of Artillery who cross-countered me on the eye, and blinded me. Fortunately it was the left eye but had it been the right, I never would have been able to go shooting—my hobby.

When I was in the legislature and was working very hard with little chance to get outdoors, all the exercises I had were in boxing and wrestling. I was extremely fond of both and still am.

Naturally through my enjoyment of boxing I grew to know a good many fighters and to most of those, I grew genuinely attached. I have as a result never been able to sympathize with the outcry against the sport. I have always regarded it and still do, as a fine, healthy, manly form of entertainment and have never thought of it as brutalizing. Of course matches can be conducted under conditions that will make them brutalizing, but this is just as true of football and other highly strenuous contact sports.

Bob Fitzsimmons was a good friend of mine. I admired him as a pugilist. For a long time I enjoyed his friendship and that of John L. Sullivan. There never was a better prize fighter than the “Boston Strong Boy.” When he was in his prime, no finer fighter ever stepped into a ring.

When I went to Africa to hunt wild game, Sullivan presented me with a gold mounted rabbit’s foot. I carried it through my African hunting trip and it certainly brought me plenty of luck. I believe that boxing should form a major part of the athletic recreation of our Army and Navy and should be included in the physical education program of every college.

I congratulate Harvard on its acceptance of boxing as an inter-collegiate sport and you on your appointment as Harvard’s boxing coach.”

Theodore Roosevelt

5 I FIGHT TO BE A SOLDIER

Back in 1914, when the Mexicans were raiding the Texas Border and it looked as if Uncle Sam would have to take a firm hand in subduing Pancho Villa and his gang of marauders, Major General Leonard Wood, commanding the Second Army Corps at Governors’ Island in New York Harbor, at the suggestion of several New York newspapermen, decided to drill members of the Fourth Estate in soldiering. The reporters who had organized a Newspapermen’s Military Corps, with the object of mastering the Manual of Arms, received permission from the State Armory Board to use the drill floor of the Seventy-First Regiment Armory, where twice a week they assembled for instruction.

On Monday evenings, from five to six o’clock, they were taught how to drill by regular army officers, while on Thursdays they attended lectures on maneuvers and the use of arms. I was among the organizers, our aim being to get the jump on others in the event war was declared, so that we could be mustered into service as junior officers. For a time it was a novelty for the people in the vicinity of the armory to see the scribblers, tall and small, lean and fat, shouldering muskets and drilling through the busy business thoroughfare of midtown New York.

Then came General Pershing’s campaign against Villa, and that, with the outbreak of war in Europe, intensified the uneasiness of our country. There followed an order for the New York regiments to leave for the Mexican border and many of the members of the Newspapermen’s Military Corps accompanied the boys, better fitted to serve in the campaign, than they ordinarily would have been.

Those who didn’t go continued their drills in New York with Major General Leonard Wood in charge, and Major Brown and Captain Hall, both of Governors’ Island, as our instructors. And when the United States joined the Allies in 1917, it was the Newspapermen’s Military Corps that became the nucleus of the famous Plattsburg Citizens’ Training Camp. Among the first graduates were the writers who for two years had been drilling under General Wood and his aides while working as reporters or desk men on New York papers.

I was the smallest member of the original group, only 5 feet, 3 inches at the time, and when I filed my application for Plattsburg, though I had had considerable military training and was a good drill master, I was turned down because of my height. I protested vigorously and even went so far as to place my complaint before General Wood and Captain Hall, but was informed that nothing could be done for me.

Then came the draft. Time for enlistment was short. I was thirty-one years old. I was eager to serve because I was not a raw novice, and I realized that men of experience were now needed. I tried to enlist in the Regular Army but I was turned down here too. I then offered my services to the Marine Corps, but the same old remarks greeted me—“Sorry, you’re under-sized.” The Navy likewise turned me down. I decided that there must be something radically wrong when a government will turn thumbs down on men it could use in an emergency but whom the officials deemed too short.

Even the draft boards were instructed not to accept anyone who was not at least 5 feet 4 inches tall, and it was then that I got busy. I went to see my Congressman and my United States Senator. I told each of my military training and my experiences with the officials in our military service.

I suggested that the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps could make good use of almost anyone, regardless of size, and that those who were unfit physically to shoulder a gun could be utilized in general camp work, thus relieving other servicemen for the tougher task of fighting. My suggestion was seconded by my boss, Keats Speed, Editor of The Sun. I was called before a military board in Washington to state my case and within a week, I received a notice directing the military authorities to lessen the minimum height for enlistments to 5 feet, 3 inches.

Within two months, when further enlistments were halted and the draft went into effect full force, the order called for a minimum of 5 feet 2 inches, and still later, in order to give the service the fullest man power possible, every physically fit man, regardless of his size, was ordered accepted for service.

Thus I felt I played an important part in bringing down barriers that were keeping from the Army men who were eager and willing to serve. I have in my collection the editorial in The Sun based on my argument in Washington.

I served through the war as an instructor at the School for Sergeants at Camp Greenleaf, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and when I was mustered out of service I reported back for duty as sports editor of the Morning Sun.

At home “a big surprise” awaited me. Wherever I’ve traveled, I’ve browsed about in search of boxing books, photographs of famous fighters, old watches—particularly those that belonged to famous fighters or sportsmen—stamps, and cigarette pictures of baseball players and boxers. My boxing library contains more than 1500 books, many of them rare volumes on fistiana and wrestling, some dating back 300 years. When I left for camp in 1918, I filled my room with my collection. I also packed away many old trophies: gloves worn by John L. Sullivan, spiked shoes worn by Sullivan and Corbett in their battle at New Orleans, John L’s diamond studded cane, the colors of Jack McAuliffe, Jack Dempsey and George Dixon, among many other relics I treasured.

When I returned home, honorably discharged by the Army, my sister, with whom I lived following the death of my mother, smilingly greeted me.

“I’m happy you’re home again,” she said. “I have a big surprise for you. Look in your room.”

I did, and what a shock I received! It was almost empty. She had gotten rid of all my publications and many of the relics, including a valuable set of Pierce Egan’s Boxiana in the original boards.

“I knew you’d like a clean room. I called in a junkman and let him have what Mother so often called ‘your junk!’”

That “junk” meant a fortune to me, but there was nothing I could do but try to redeem some of the property. Fortunately the books had been sold to a second hand dealer and I salvaged them, but at an exceedingly high price.

6 OLD NEW YORK

Unlike us poor mortals, cities die and are reborn. Who of you whose locks are graying around the temples, visiting the place of your birth, would recognize it as the city of your boyhood days? Only here and there have the world’s largest cities retained their ancient sameness.

I knew New York when it was far different from the town it is today, and in it I passed the happiest days of my life. We old-timers realize this more poignantly as we grow older and look back.

Thinking of the high cost of living today, I recall Dolan’s restaurant, the most noted among the many coffee and cake places spread in that busy downtown section of New York. Dolan’s was in the old Potter Building on Park Row, the gathering place for the humble and the big shots in the field of journalism. Ham and beans was the most delicious dish. The most called-for item on the menu, it could be obtained for only ten cents with an additional five cents for a cup of java. One could have his choice of ham or corned beef, and with it went bread and butter on the side.

And the sinker! For ten cents one could have his coffee and biscuits soaked in warm butter. We called this the sinker dish, much like the coffee and doughnuts we get today. Within minutes after a paper was put to press—usually about eleven o’clock at night—a rush was made for Dolan’s. Office boys, compositors, printers’ devils, editors, and reporters—they all made a bee-line for the beanery. The place was known as a newspaperman’s institution. Scarcely an editor in Park Row’s newspaper environ wasn’t a habitué of this famous eating place.

And then there was Perry’s “drug store” where one could get drinks at all times of the day or night. That was situated in the old World Building and was an exceedingly popular drinking emporium. The literary geniuses of Park Row were its patrons.

This old New York has long passed. Its heart is still beating, the same streets remain, many of its old buildings are still standing, scores of persons whose acquaintance I made when I was a cub reporter, continue to enjoy its pleasures—but it is not the same city in which I grew up.

The Old Madison Square Garden, the very heart of New York, is gone, and figuratively speaking, that was New York to us. You could ask a New Yorker how to get to the Museum of Natural History, the Aquarium, City Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, and other noted buildings, and he would hesitate, but he could direct you to Madison Square Garden on 26th Street and Madison Avenue without difficulty. After telling you the easiest way to reach it, he’d probably wind up by asking you, “What’s going on there tonight?”

The Old Garden is gone, but in its place is a new one, the building I call home during business hours, and like the one which Stanford White designed, it is the rendezvous of both fans and athletes from all over the world.

Whatever was of New York, or for New York, was staged in the old Garden just as now it is staged in the “House that Tex Built” on Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets. I could write the story of our times with the Garden as my only backdrop, for so much of New York’s business, political, social, and sporting history was made between its walls. There the world’s greatest statesmen have addressed huge audiences and the rafters reverberated with the soaring, ringing phrases of orator and demagogue. The world’s greatest song birds were heard in the arena.

During the First World War, it was the stamping ground of thousands of patriotic Americans who flocked there to listen to war talks and to aid in charity for the war wounded. Many noted French, Belgian, and British war heroes gathered under its roof from the hectic period of 1917 to the signing of the armistice.

The Garden was one of the triumphs of its architect, Stanford White. Originally built to house the horse show, it soon became a show place for every conceivable kind of event, but particularly sports. The Arion Ball and the French Ball were fixtures there—annual festive affairs of a Bohemia that is no longer seen in New York.

But the shows were the big thing in the old Garden: horse, cat, chicken, automobile, motor boat, airship and sporting goods shows; wild west rodeos; boxing and wrestling matches; walking, running and cycling races (especially the six-day bike races); and biggest of all annually—the circus. Every winter saw expositions that drew thousands to the Garden. Its history was truly the history of New York over half a century.

Madison Square Garden and its neighborhood will always have a special place in American literature, for in its environs, in a park across the street, O. Henry sat and listened as the “Voice of the City” gave up its tales to him.

With the old Garden gone, the memories that live the longest and most vividly are those of its great sporting events—affairs I frequently reported.

It was there that William A. Brady, who managed Jim Corbett and Jim Jeffries, and later became one of the world’s leading theatrical producers, staged many thrilling events. Smiling Bill Kennedy, the rotund Pat Powers, debonair and handsome Harry Pollock, dapper and energetic Jimmy Johnston, astute Billy Gibson, and colorful Tex Rickard and his partner, John Ringling—each had a hand in making the Garden the show place of New York.

The great John L. Sullivan leads the array of fistic talent that paraded before the public in the old Madison Square Garden arena. Other celebrated ringmen of the past who made history within its walls included James J. Corbett, Charley Mitchell, Mike Donovan, Tom Sharkey, Peter Maher, Kid McCoy, Bob Fitzsimmons, Joe Gans, George Dixon, Sam Langford, Billy Plimmer, Kid McPartland, Battling Nelson, Joe Jeannette, Willie Lewis, Freddie Welsh, Willie Ritchie, Leach Cross, Jack Dempsey, Benny Leonard, Johnny Dundee, Midget Smith, Bill Brennan, Frank Moran, Bombardier Billy Wells, Al Palzer, Jim Coffey, Joe Lynch, Pete Herman, Johnny Buff, Gene Tunney, Battling Siki, Paul Berlenbach, Richie Mitchell, Young Jack Sharkey, Harry Greb and Tiger Flowers. Since the old bare-knuckle days, there was scarcely a ring idol who didn’t at some time in his career take part in a Garden fight. The same was true of the wrestlers. The only ones I failed to see were those who fought before my time.

And amid a whirr of whirling wheels, there were little Bobby Michaels, the Welsh Rarebit; Major Taylor, Harry Elks, Cannonball Eddie Bald, Plugger Bill Martin, Al Shock, Tom Butler, Fred Titus, Teddy Hale and a host of others of the go-it-alone years, when the cyclists rode six days and nights, made their marks in the bike-riding world. I spent many hours watching them circle the Garden track. Later these stars gave way to Walter Rutt, Bobby Walthour, Joe Fogler, Jackie Clarke, Menus and Johnny Bedell, Floyd McFarland, Eddie Root, Al Goulett, Al Grenda, and Brocco—among others.

As the Garden was the temple of cycling when New York was wrapped in the throes of the cycle craze, so it was earlier when the six day go-as-you-please pedestrian races were all the rage. Those who starred in that field were Dan O’Leary, Jim Alberts, Gus Guerrero, Pete Hegelman, Littlewood, Roswell, and Weston. Such races would be wasted on half empty arenas today, but they played to full houses when I reported them.

In the field of marathoners, as an old-timer, I recall the running of Tom Longboat, Alf Shrubb, Johnny Hayes, Paul Akoose, Fred Meadows, St. Yves, Gusta Ljungstrom, Sammy Mellor, and Dorando Pietri.

Remember Dorando, the man who lost the marathon to Hayes in London in the summer of 1908, when he collapsed at the finish line? Well Dorando made a pot of gold by that fall. He came to America and later, after piling up a little fortune, established himself as a baker and confectioner in Italy. I recall the wild scenes in the Italian quarters of New York when Tex Rickard paraded him as a publicity stunt.

The Garden was the scene of many other foot races besides marathons, and I was on the scene for most of them.

Will we of the old school ever forget the memorable match race between Lon Myers and the great Englishman, W. G. George? Who of us who reported the race, will ever forget the great ‘600’ between John B. Taylor, the famous Negro athlete of the University of Pennsylvania (and forerunner of the corps of Negro athletes who now dominate middle distance running in this country), and Harry Hillman, later coach of Dartmouth College.

The stirring finishes of Mel Sheppard, Abel Kiviat, George Bonhag, Harvey Cohn, John Paul Jones, Ted Meredith, Arthur Duffy, John Drew, John Daly, Paul Pilgrim, Howard Valentine and John Joyce still set an oldtimer’s heart to pulsing faster.

And the discus throwing of Martin Sheridan and Bob Edgren; the hammer throwing of Pat McDonald, Bill Coe, Ralph Rose, Bob Edgren, and Matt McGrath—And so many, yes, hundreds of other limber-legged, winged-footed, mighty sons of track and field who made the old Garden famous!

For forty-four years the old Garden catered to all classes and all types, millionaire and stevedore, banker and clerk. But time in its march has covered many leagues. New York outgrew the old Garden and then a bigger, more modern, up-to-date structure took its place as a monument to Tex Rickard, who, in the last days of the old building, made the lovely statue of Lady Diana atop the Stanford White Tower proud of her surroundings.

Before Tex Rickard took the helm, the old Garden was a haven for the crooks. Pickpockets flourished there, and the safety of the patrons at a bicycle race or a fight was entirely a matter of luck. Rickard changed all that by ousting the objectionable characters and making the Garden what it is today—an arena where men, women, and children may go without fear of being molested.

I recall a six-day bicycle race in 1909. It was bitter cold and the rowdies, gangsters, and hoodlums of New York flocked to the arena to keep warm. They could then obtain a gallery seat for fifty cents and remain from the time the show opened until it closed—if they could last that long.

Complaints were pouring into Police Headquarters as pickpockets plied their trade with impunity. Several overcoats were stolen, and certain patrons of the arena were waylaid and robbed in the basement. I was assigned to Police Headquarters for the evening and learned that Martin Sheridan, the best all-round athlete the police force ever had, would conduct a raiding party on the nimble-fingered gentry at the Garden starting at eleven o’clock. Sheridan was at the head of a Broadway pickpocket squad at the time, and he was to take with him six of the best detectives on the force.

At seven that evening, Sheridan asked me out to dinner. We dined with two of his squad and my colleague, George B. Underwood, of the New York Press, and at ten o’clock we started for the Garden. Into Harry Stevens’ bar we went, that being the rendezvous for the police who were to do the raiding, and while waiting for the late comers, Sheridan invited us all to a drink.

It was pay day at Police Headquarters and pay day on our paper, and when all hands were served, I asked for the bill. Martin would have none of that. He not only insisted on footing it but ordered another round of beer and then came the pay-off.

It was time to get going. The raid would soon be in order, and Officer Sheridan was anxious to get his men stationed. He asked for the account, placed his hand in his pocket to pay it, and then he let loose!

“Holly Gee, they picked my pocket! They took my pay envelope!”

Officer Sheridan was the only one who didn’t enjoy the joke. He pleaded with me not to make mention of the theft in my story, and then he got busy. He made up for his lost bank roll by making every gangster in that arena pay a share of the loss. A battered, bleeding, frightful looking lot of pickpockets, hold-up guys, and confidence men were taken down in the basement, and to the tune of a rubber hose or black jack, they were given unmerciful beatings. There were no more coats stolen or pockets picked at the bike races that week.

It was on the occasion of the last go-as-you-please fun in the Garden, a year later, that less than a hundred persons braved the howling wind to see the opening race. The big arena looked like a deserted barn. Almost all those present came on Annie Oakleys, as we called free passes in those days. The half frozen newspapermen covering the race were seated at a long table near the entrance and were busy grinding out their copy and trying to dispel the gloom that hung over the place. Suddenly Tim Hurst, who managed the Garden, was observed beckoning wildly from the other end of the hall.

“Come here,” roared Tim, “Quick! Quick! Come here!”

Thinking a murder had been committed, we scrambled from our chairs and rushed down to where Tim was standing.

“Look! Look!” he excitedly said, pointing to the box office. “See that sucker and his gal buying a ticket!”

We all laughed, but that sucker gave us a good story a few minutes later. Sitting in a box above the track, he placed his heavy, fur-lined coat on a chair behind him, while his girl placed her squirrel coat over the rail. The pair looked like aristocratic kids out on a slumming tour. Within ten minutes after entering their box, the man’s coat was stolen right under his nose. He demanded action from Tim Hurst, a fighter of the old school—but Tim paid no attention.

“Who told you to come here?” shouted Tim in his well-known way. “Why didn’t you stay where you belong? You got just what was coming to you for going out slumming.”

The “sucker” hauled off and caught Tim with a beautiful right on the whiskers and down went the Garden promoter right into the lap of Big Jim Mitchell, the hammer thrower, who was then writing for the Morning Sun. The offended patron happened to be Arthur Pelkey, the man who two years later caused the accidental death of Luther McCarty in a “white hope” match in Calgary, Canada. He had never met Tim Hurst and Tim had never laid eyes on Arthur, but after the blow was struck, some of the scribes recognized the fighter and a handshake ended further arguments. Pelkey recovered his coat a few hours later when the culprit who stole it was found sleeping on it in the basement.

Johnny Broderick, successor to Sheridan as head detective in the old Garden, told me many times that before Tex Rickard’s regime, probably half of the rogues gallery could be located between dusk and dawn at a six-day race. Overcoat stealing was so common as to pass without comment. During those races, members of the homicide squad were assigned to patrol the Garden in pairs, and many fugitives from justice were picked up.

Of course, as I fondly recollect the early Garden days, not all my interesting sports experiences as a reporter in the big city took place there. For example, I was very much involved in the development of distance swimming in the New York area.

Sitting around in the office of the New York Press one night, after the first edition had gone to press, the conversation turned to the diving exploits of the shapely Australian, Annette Kellerman, who at the time was hitting the headlines with her wonderful performances.

From diving we passed on to swimming, and then to distance swimming. We spoke of the great Capt. Matthew Webb, the Englishman who was the first to swim the Channel. Webb had tried to swim from the Battery in New York to Sandy Hook, a distance comparable to the Channel crossing, and had failed. I decided that night that I was going to find an American who could make that Sandy Hook swim.

The first candidate for the job was Louis Durborrow, a Philadelphia bank clerk who had earned himself a formidable distance swimming reputation in the Delaware River. Louis quickly accepted the suggestion that he attempt the New York Harbor crossing.

I organized the effort, and at dawn on a warm, sunny, Sunday morning, Louis jumped off the dock at the Battery and headed for the Hook with Dan Daniel and myself following in a hired fishing boat.

The treacherous currents proved to be too much for Durborrow, however, and he was forced to quit. Some weeks later, he failed again. Then he tried to swim from the Hook to the Battery, but this, too, ended in failure for the bank clerk. On each occasion, Daniel and I were the only reporters who accompanied the swimmer.

After Durborrow, I shifted to other swimmers. In addition to promoting Sandy Hook attempts, I organized swims from East 23rd Street to Coney Island, as well as Hudson River marathon feats. It was fun to get up at dawn and go out in a small boat for the day. But it was no fun to return to the newspaper office after dark, with the desk heaving with the waves and the typewriter doing all sorts of tricks.

Here’s the odd feature of the Hook effort. The New York Tribune picked up my idea and promoted an open swim. I believe twenty-six started and as many as three made the distance. Fighting against the tide, without any rivals, Durborrow and others had failed. But with many swimmers involved in a race against each other, the feat was accomplished.

Many of my biggest assignments were covered with Dan Daniel, whose friendship I have always cherished. He was working for the Herald at that time, but in later years, when I was sports editor of the New York Telegram, I persuaded him to quit and join my staff. He is now baseball editor of that paper.

Late in September, 1913, I called him on the ’phone.

“Dan, Rose Pitinoff of Boston and a woman companion are going to make an attempt tomorrow morning to swim from the Bellevue Hospital pier at 26th Street and East River through the Narrows to Coney Island. I’m going to accompany them in a motorboat. See if you can get the assignment from your paper and come along,” I said.

Miss Pitinoff had already made two fruitless attempts to swim from the Battery to Coney Island, but now she hoped to make it over another route. Dan and I had accompanied her on her previous swims and I soon received a message from him that we would be together again on this one.

The next morning at dawn all hands appeared, but to our surprise, there was no place where Rose and her friend could undress and prepare themselves for the trip. We tried to gain access to the Nurses Home of the hospital, but without success. Then we went to that section used as a morgue, and there, without asking permission, the girls quickly put on bathing suits. However, on all such long distance swims—this one was 26 miles—the body had to be well protected with a heavy coat of vaseline to keep out the cold.

It was a cold night and Dan and I were none too comfortable as we stored hot coffee and sandwiches on the motorboat and waited for the girls to start on their journey. Soon word came to us that the swimmers required help. They had tried to enlist two nurses to rub the petroleum over their bodies but were turned down. Since we had to leave with the tide going out, I decided on the next step. I went into the building, removed my coat, rolled my shirt sleeves and began plastering Miss Pitinoff’s body with the jelly while Dan did the same for her friend.

To this day I don’t know how the police got word of this, but before our job had been completed, two cops appeared out of nowhere and threatened to arrest all for “indecent exposure” and “unlawful trespassing.”

We had a tough time explaining our mission and proving to the police that the girls were out to engage in an athletic feat, and that Dan and I were assigned to report the stunt. However, we finally managed to convince them, and a few minutes after five in the morning, the swim got underway. Although the attempt was unsuccessful, Miss Pitinoff came within a half mile of reaching her goal, a considerable improvement over her previous showings on the shorter Battery route.

In my young days as a reporter, I often walked home after hours from the New York Press building on Spruce and Nassau Streets to Harlem, a distance of five miles. My pal, Daniel, always accompanied me on these jaunts, weather permitting. We’d meet almost nightly after the first edition went to press and walk from the Press down to the Battery and then up Broadway to 110th Street.

It was during these after-hours walks that we frequently encountered situations that made the front pages of our papers. Fires, burglaries, raids on gambling joints, and even murders, figured in our stories. I vividly recall several that almost cost my life.

It was on one of those late evening excursions that we heard the shrill blasts of police whistles—not an unusual occurrence—as we reached Lenox Avenue and 114th Street. We had been walking for about two hours, and it was close to three of a warm August night in 1911.

“Let’s go, Dan,” I shouted, scenting a good story, and down the street I ran towards the sound of action. A little more cautious than I, Dan hesitated while I entered a building into which the cops had raced. It was pitch dark except for a flashlight carried by Officer Jerry O’Connor, a friendly patrolman who covered the beat. He and Officer Egon Erickson, high jump champion of the Mott Haven Athletic Club, were chasing an armed hold-up thug. The police went after their man with drawn guns and with me at their heels.

I ran up the stairs as fast as I could. As I reached the upper story of the building, I heard the door of the roof slam, indicating that the police were trying to locate their man there. I was about to follow when I was nearly hurled over the balustrade by the thief himself, who had avoided the cops by hiding behind the door.

“There he is,” I yelled, grasping the rail to regain my equilibrium as the gunman started down the stairs. Seconds later, I found myself in the grasp of Officer O’Connor, who had his gun pointed toward me.

“Not me, O’Connor,” I shouted. “I’m Nat, the reporter. He’s running to the street,” I added, pointing downward.

The officer flashed his light on me and down we went with Erickson following.

The culprit, accused of armed robbery, was caught and handcuffed. Then both cops admonished me in no uncertain terms for the chances I had taken in following them into the unlit building.

“You could have been killed,” said Erickson. “Don’t ever do that again. Let us tackle these gangsters.”

There was Dan, standing on the corner of Lenox Avenue and 114th Street, laughing and waiting for me to have some coffee with him.

“One of these days, you’re going to get it,” he said. “When are you going to quit chasing burglars and following cops up dark alleys?”

About a fortnight later, we were on another of our long walks, but this time we changed our course and headed up Broadway into Sixth Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street, close by the Hotel Normandie. Many Greeks lived in that vicinity, and on the corner was a social club, more correctly referred to by the police as a gambling joint.

A shrill cry from a woman put us on the alert. She ran from the building followed by a man brandishing a knife. He tripped as he ran across the street but quickly recovered and raced back into the saloon from which he had emerged.

I followed him and saw a murder committed. Unable to catch the woman, he put the knife into the heart of the man with whom she had been drinking.

I quickly stepped out of the confusion that followed, but was sufficiently close to hear him say, “She’ll never have him. He’s through.”

The murderer was arrested almost immediately, and the police insisted on my accompanying them to the precinct house on Twenty-eighth Street as a witness. When the trial was held, I was subpoenaed by the District Attorney and for four days I reported. But the District Attorney decided not to call me to the stand.

Things were going bad for Walter Zyhariat, the murderer, when I decided to talk up. I approached the District Attorney and demanded to be placed on the stand.

“We don’t need your testimony,” he said. “It will hurt instead of help our case.”

Someone reported that conversation to the lawyer for the defense, who, when the trial was resumed for his summation, requested that the court permit him to reopen the case on the grounds that he had some new evidence.

“Permission granted,” said Judge Foster. “Swear in the witness.”

I was called to the stand. I was first asked if I had been subpoenaed by the prosecution.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you know of any reason why you were not called to the stand?” was the next question.

I repeated what the District Attorney had said to me, and the lawyer for the defense then took up the questioning. I told what I had seen after which the lawyer asked:

“When he ran out of the saloon and went after his wife, was there anything you observed that would help the court determine his condition?”

“He was dishevelled,” I replied. “His eyes were popping out of his head. To me he looked like one who had suddenly gone mad, and so I reported in my story.”

“I object,” shouted the District Attorney. “He is unqualified to determine the condition of this person. I request that his remarks be stricken from the record.”

I looked at Judge Foster. He seemed impressed with what I had said.

“As a newspaper reporter, the witness is a man of keen observation. His testimony should be heard,” he said.

When the case was given to the jury, Judge Foster harped for some length on my testimony and a verdict of manslaughter, carrying a twenty years’ sentence, instead of “murder in the first degree,” saved the defendant from the electric chair.

In those days I could both sprint and run distances without tiring too easily, and this athletic ability came in handy on nights when I had to report track meets and get my copy in early. In the days of which I write, telegraph service wasn’t used with any frequency. As I worked on a morning newspaper, my story had to be in the office before eleven o’clock. Press time was midnight.

One night, both Dan and I were covering the Military Athletic League track and field championships at the Seventh Regiment Armory. After George Bonhag, of the New York A.C., had romped home a winner in the two-mile, Daniel and I decided it was time to head for our respective papers.

The Third Avenue Elevated station was only two blocks to the east of the Armory and five to the south, and as there wasn’t a taxi in sight, we decided to run to the station in an effort to make our deadlines. I led the way, and undoubtedly must have been feeling fine for we ran and ran at a lively clip until Dan suddenly halted and breathlessly shouted after me:

“What’s wrong, Nat? Where’s the durned El?”

We got our bearings and discovered that instead of traveling east and then south, we were racing down Park Avenue and had reached Seventy-ninth Street, far off our course, and more than a mile from the armory. We set off again, this time in the right direction, and just made the second editions of the Press and Herald, respectively. But on our way to the newspaper offices, we wondered why we hadn’t competed in the two-mile run that evening. We might have beaten Bonhag.

7 THE UNDERWORLD IN BOXING

Prohibition failed to keep the average citizen from having a drink when he wanted one, and no attempt by the authorities proved successful in keeping the average New York fan away from boxing entertainment. But the demise of the Horton Law in 1900 deprived the game of its legal standing so far as shows catering to the general public were concerned.

Even as the speakeasy provided a welcome substitute for the vanished saloon through the hectic period that preceded Repeal, so a haven of refuge was furnished the patrons of padded fist slugfests by the adoption of what was known as the club membership plan.

The fight game was a racket then and truly could be referred to as the sport of rogues. Although there were some honest promoters in New York when I covered the sports beat in those days, boxing as a whole was ruled by ruffians, gangsters, and politicians. The many fixed fights that soured the public on the sport were engineered by politicians with headquarters in Tammany Hall, which then, as in the days of John Morrissey and Bill Poole, had tremendous influence over the game. They told the police what to do and how to do it. They made the odds, brought about the fixes, and collected their bets.

Hoodlums used to keep pugilists in line. We still have plenty of that today but the damage is done differently. Whereas in the “good old days” it was an up-and-above board game with the unsavory element, today it is all done through undercover agencies.

Politicians and police turned their eyes to avoid “seeing” what was going on years ago, but in this era, city, state, and Federal investigations keep hounding the criminal element in an effort to keep boxing clean.

When the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed, that didn’t end the tie between the mobsters and the fight racket. To this day racketeers continue to infest the sport. Frankie Carbo furnishes an example of the continuing influence of underworld figures in boxing.

They not only muscled in on boxers in the old days, but on the prosperous clubs as well. It was a case of take it or leave it with them. There was no middle channel. They often stole fighters outright, and it was worth one’s life to defy them. Practically every big city’s fight clubs had bootlegger’s dough financing the operation. The Dutch Schultz and Owney Madden gangs held sway in New York, the Boo Boo Hoff mobsters in Pennsylvania and the Al Capone gunmen in Illinois.

I knew them all. As a reporter it was my business to associate with all classes, and I often found myself in the company of these criminals. I dined and wined with them. I often traveled to fights with them.

I recall the bout down in Miami between young Stribling and Jack Sharkey, following the death of Tex Rickard. The late Steve Hannigan, one of our nation’s leading purveyors of publicity, and I handled the fight for the Madison Square Garden Corporation.

About a week before the affair, Damon Runyon told me that Al Capone, then living in a “palace” on Hibiscus Island, had extended an invitation through Runyon for the New York sports writers to visit his home and enjoy a buffet dinner. I was asked to furnish the names of all who would accept and to make arrangements with one of Capone’s henchmen.

We had more than 450 newspapermen down for that fight and of the group, I selected 62 to join in what promised to be an adventurous evening. And so it turned out.

When our cars reached the entrance to Capone’s gate, Al’s bodyguards directed us to drive to a designated field, where each car was searched. The occupants were given the once over, too. Some of us were even frisked. There was exceedingly careful screening of each guest; after all, Capone had a price on his head.

Then we were all escorted by bodyguards to the main room of the spacious home and each was introduced to the famous gangster. Though these were prohibition times, bottles of champagne popped. The finest bottled beer was piled on the tables, all from Capone’s private stock, safely hidden on the premises and guarded by “specials.”

Capone asked some of the writers, among them Sid Mercer, Murray Lewin, Westbrook Pegler, Paul Gallico, Francis Albertanti, Runyon and myself, to inspect his special cache of liquor in an underground room. We left the women in our party engaged in conversation in the living room, though some donned bathing suits for a swim in the outdoor pool, which, like other parts of the Capone estate, was closely guarded from behind the shrubbery. No one was permitted to go out of bounds—that is, near the shrubbery where guards, well armed, patrolled the area, so fearful was Capone of an attack by his enemies.

When we returned to the dining room for refreshments, one of the women who had gulped down too much of Capone’s vintage champagne, collapsed, and in falling from the couch, dislodged one of the cushions. Immediately there was a dive for the couch by two of Capone’s henchmen, not to help the woman, whose name I won’t mention, but to cover two sawed-off shot guns and several loaded weapons which had been hidden under the huge cushion.

We were seeing things! Capone’s brother, who found the situation embarrassing, explained that the weapons were there merely for safe keeping. They were souvenirs, he said. Of what? Probably the Moran massacre in Chicago.

The unfortunate girl was carried to the upper floor powder room, where she was placed in the care of one of the maids.

During the commotion, someone had stolen a diamond ring from Mrs. Capone’s boudoir and the story of that theft, through a slip of the tongue by Capone, became the newspapermen’s property shortly before we left.

Westbrook Pegler, then writing for the Chicago Tribune syndicate, had gotten wind of the loss and rushed off to file a story. Joe Williams, of the Scripps Howard Syndicate, and Paul Gallico, writing for the New York Daily News, did the same.

Capone was furious. He pointed the finger of guilt at us, intimating that someone in our party had entered his wife’s bedroom and stolen the ring. When he learned that several newspapermen had left to write the story about the theft, his tone grew threatening.

In his story the next day, Pegler described the party and remarked, “While Capone was entertaining the scribes, one of his henchmen was busy robbing his master’s home.”

Capone then came forth with an emphatic denial that a theft of any kind had taken place. He tried to cover it up with a statement that the ring had been found in the powder room where it had been all the time, but a day before the fight, he confided to Runyon and me that it had not been recovered. Al told us that he was certain one of the guests had taken it.

It was a party I shall never forget. There were gunmen to the right and gunmen to the left, most of them veterans of the many Chicago massacres which Capone had engineered during prohibition days.

It was during the Frawley Law period that I exposed gangsterism in boxing, and it almost cost me my job on the New York Press. The famous Rosenthal murder case had broken. Police Lieutenant Charles Becker and the four gunmen—Dago Frank, Whitey Lewis, Gyp the Blood, and Lefty Louis—were all awaiting trial for the crime.

The murderers were East Side gangsters allied with the big gambling interests. They needed considerable money to obtain proper legal talent. They had to have ready cash, and the usual extortion methods practiced by criminals were put into use. East Side boxers and fight promoters were assigned to canvass the district for a collection. Small merchants within a designated area were each to be asked for a contribution of one hundred dollars and the more thrifty ones were to be taxed a flat one hundred and fifty. Secrecy was necessary.

I was assigned to cover a fight at the Roman Athletic Club where Frankie Madden, a popular lightweight, was one of the principals in the main event. The house was packed. Many of New York’s most notorious gamblers and criminals were among those present, including Spanish John. As I entered the club, I was accosted by Kid Twist, a well known East Side gangster, who asked me for a contribution. It was then that I got an inkling of what was going on.

The story of the “hold-up” appealed to me far more than the fight that night, and I decided to dig in for material. I was fortunate in meeting Izzy Einstein, who, during the prohibition era, was the team mate of Moe Smith, Uncle Sam’s star snooper and raider of illicit liquor joints. From him I learned that at a special meeting attended by friends of the Rosenthal gunmen, it was decided to obtain a fund of fifty thousand dollars for legal fees through “donations,” voluntary or otherwise.

Three days later I went to the Dry Dock Club where I gathered sufficient evidence to enable me to publish my story. It created a sensation. The headline read: “Gangsters In Extortion Plot. East Side Criminals Force Merchants to Contribute For Defense of Rosenthal Gunmen.”

In the story I used the name of a prominent sports figure, and the day following its publication he brought suit for libel against the paper. I was called into the office of the managing editor, John Hennessey, who asked if I had sufficient facts to back up my story. He told me that unless I could stop the suit, I would lose my job.

The person I named as the leader didn’t have too enviable a record and it was my job to get the goods on him. So I went out gunning. I had learned that a few of the merchants who already had paid into the fund had received a card to prevent them from being molested. If I could obtain such a card, that evidence would be all I needed, and that’s what I went after.

I had been told of a hoodlum who had done the collecting, and who, upon reading the story, had left the city for a safer place. He’d selected Kingston, New York, as his hideaway. I went after him, and with the aid of a bribe, I got my evidence.

With that card in my possession, I returned to New York and handed the ticket over to Mr. Hennessey. Now well fortified, he called in our legal department, and within a few days, the suit was dropped, and my job was saved. The ticket bore the signature of the person who had filed the libel suit.

Thus I exposed a link between crime and boxing. One of the clubs, used as headquarters for the collection of the fund, went out of business a few weeks after my story broke, and the high-powered legal talent that the gangsters had hoped to hire with the extortion fund, had to be dismissed. But there was enough money collected to enable the mob to hire Judge Otto Wahle to act as chief counsel for the quartet. Yet even with this excellent jurist in their corner, the murderers of Rosenthal were convicted and executed in Sing Sing.

The case was by far the most prominent of that era in which gamblers and thugs were so deeply involved in New York’s boxing affairs; but in perspective, it was just another story in the long history of crime, politics, and the fight game.