The Growing Refinement of Prize Fighting

How the Ring Is Rapidly Becoming a Veritable Elysian Field of Superior Artistic Expression in Decorative Modes

RUBE GOLDBERG

I HAVE noticed, from time to time, that the Editor of Vanity Fair shifts his attention from The Well Dressed Man to the unclothed gentleman who earns his livelihood in the prize-ring by remodeling the features of his fellows in artistic and versatile patterns.

In a recent issue I saw an aesthetic photograph of Jack Dempsey posed in all the plastic symmetry of Rodin's Thinker. And, in this very issue, we are treated to a view of Carpentier, in a boudoir suit, photographed by Baron de Meyer. These are the chief reasons why I am prompted to sit down and dash off a friendly word of advice to the intelligentsia who peruse this refined family organ, before they find themselves too deeply steeped in a mass of cauliflower ears and meandering noses.

When once the brand of the Marquis of Queensberry is upon your brow, it is too late to turn back.

I hate to see a lot of nice, refined gentlemen with brains that can fathom the deepest intricacies of a problem in bridge, and tongues that can unravel the names of the great Serbian painters, Hungarian playwrights, and Russian composers, step blindly into the realm of pugilism, in the belief that they are only wandering into another Elysian field of high artistic expression.

Boxing, we were told by many idealists during the war, should become one of the greatest factors in the life of the American youth. The boxing glove was the symbol of manliness, vigor, clean living, character. Abraham Lincoln missed being great by not being born with a pair of boxing gloves in his hands. No man had the requisites of real honcst-to-goodness citizenship unless he had broken his neighbor's nose in at least four places.

No doubt many doting mothers looked with longing eyes upon the beautifully modeled physique of Dempsey in the above mentioned photograph and murmured softly, "1 hope my boy Alec grows up to be like that. I don't want him to take after his dad, who is in the unromantic fish business and has legs like the last two strands of a dish of spaghetti."

New York has a state boxing commission and so has New Jersey, and other states, and maybe Luxor, Egypt, too. The duty of the men on these commissions is to reduce the slam-bang profession to the delicate social ethics of afternoon teas and expensive surgical operations. The idea is to put boxing in a class with violin recitals, debating societies, nut sundaes, Mineralava, embroidery andMah Jongg. The poisonous fumes of the breath of scandal must never be allowed to ooze into the roped arena,and the exponents of the game must be able to tie a full-dress cravat with the skill of a magazine society editor.

When something happens in the fight game to ruffle the placid calm into which the Puritans would have all amusements and sports drift, there is a great wave of protest from all sides, and out of the righteous rumbling comes the same sanctimonious voice, exclaiming, "Something must be done!"

I am one of the greatest fight fans in captivity. I have had more white shirts soiled by spattered blood in my ring-side seat than many a beef-juggler in the Chicago stockyards. And yet, whenever I hear that some public-spirited individual has come forward with the cry that boxing must be "cleaned up", I am stricken with a feeling of acute nausea.

Fighting is fundamentally a lowbrow game. It is based on the hypothesis that one man must arrange matters with his fists so that another man can't stand up any more. The fight fans are unhappiest when there is no blood. The black eye is the symbol of action, the crowd jeers when nobody gets hurt.

Fighters are good, bad or worse. Some are honest and some are not so particular. These are mere details. What the fight fan wants is the spectacle of two rough boys punching each other's head off. If the gambler loses a bet on a boxing transaction that has a fromage complexion, that is merely the luck of the game. It is best, of course, to have things "on the up-and-up", as they say on the rialto. But that is not nearly so important as keeping the fighting game lowbrow. So many things have already become high and righteous and mighty and properly organized that restaurant proprietors will soon have to furnish a table of contents with every plate of hash served in their establishments.

The following is an incident that brought one of the time-honored howls from the official street-cleaners of reform.

Not long ago I saw a battle in Madison Square Garden between two noble gladiators named Flarry Greb and Gene Tunney, for the light heavyweight championship of the world. I had never seen Greb before, but had associated his name with all the beautiful ideals of the ring. He was the Champion. He was the porcupine's quill. And then I saw him.

In this battle he showed as much knowledge of boxing as a horse does of pinochle. He came at Tunney like a newly married caveman coming home to meet his bride. His embraces savored of love and strangulation. Never once did he land a blow. With his arms around his adversary's neck, he would bend low, as if to lay his head against the other's breast and weep with joy, and then suddenly rise like an elevator in the Woolworth building only to bump his head against the bottom of Tunney's chin.

While Greb at least gave a very realistic imitation of a dish of scrambled eggs, Tunney did nothing. It was Greb's fight by a mile, according to the rules invented by Houdini and the man who created the lover's knot.

But the referee and the judges promptly gave the decision to Tunney and with it the championship. There was a storm of protest from all sides, but the incident was practically forgotten the next day. It gave the fight fans a chance to howl. And that's what they wanted. It was part of the game.

I have seen boxing carried on under dozens of different regimes in New York •State, and not one of them has been able to do much better than the others in keeping the game free from untoward incidents. They were all human—right or wrong. And the boxing game is rough but human, too.

Though it may seem a bit indelicate, I might mention, in passing, that Greb, when in his corner, drank copious draughts from the same water that was used for sponging him off. What would you do with a fellow like that in the drawingroom?

Benny Leonardrecently engaged inabout, in Chicago, withPinkie Mitchell that ended in a riot. Every crowd is entitled to an occasional riot. It is a great relief to the feelings that have been pent-up for so long a time by the cramped "don'ts" in the lexicon of the successful reformer.

Jack Dempsey is signed up for bouts that will bring him something like a million dollars. The boys with the black gloves and long chins exclaim that it is a crime against humanity that a man of such uncouth habits should be paid all that money while hundreds of vers librc poets are starving to death right on our front doorstep. And then they secretly rush around to the ticket speculator and order a couple of ring-side seats.

So, lay off the fight game, you highbrows. Don't let the boy with the cauliflower ear know he is a great artist with a message to deliver to humanity. Don't let him know he is a half-brother to Apollo. He is one of the few natural products we have left and it is our sacred duty to keep him from knowing that there is such a word as "psychology".

But what am I getting excited about? I have followed the game for twenty-five years, and it hasn't been harmed a bit by the many changes for the better. It is just as bad as ever.

And thank heaven for that!