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.
BOOK
TWO
[Illustration]
[Illustration: 8]
AN AMAZING AMATEUR
When United States Senator W. Warren Barbour of New Jersey died at his
Washington home a few years ago at the age of fifty-five, an outstanding
figure in the Senate and the political life of his State passed away.
He was a unique personality among Congressmen because here was a man
who, had he belonged in a humble social station, might possibly have
fought for, and won, the blue ribbon of the professional prize ring—the
heavyweight crown.
The Horatio Alger fiction tradition always had its hero starting from the
ranks of the Submerged Tenth, overcoming all obstacles, winning golden
spurs in commerce by dint of courage, pious living, and determination.
Never, of course, by the boxing route.
When Alger was writing his all-American-brave-youth-yarns, prize
fighting was an illegal game, and its principals were entirely beyond
the pale of politeness. Later we had the Frank Merriwell stories, also
with an “up-from-the-depths” motif, but permitting heroes to win fame
and dollars as stars of baseball, football, and other athletic pastimes.
That meant that the literary bars were being let down a trifle; and in
the due course of time, magazine editors began featuring the exploits of
two-fisted lads successfully wooing Dame Fortune with the aid of padded
gloves.
Today it’s a far different sport atmosphere from the time when W. Warren
Barbour, one of the cleverest, hardest-hitting amateurs that ever
answered the sound of a gong, was being importuned by fight promoters to
turn professional and meet the great Negro boxer, Jack Johnson, for the
world heavyweight championship. Barbour might have done so had he not
been born the son of Colonel William Barbour, wealthy New York thread
merchant.
In 1910 I saw Barbour win the amateur heavyweight crown in Boston.
Boxing, while it had attained semi-legal status, was still not a career
likely to be followed by the son of a multimillionaire of high social
standing. Had Warren been poor in this world’s goods, he would have
been a sure-fire pickup for some astute manager hoping to steer him
to the professional championship goal. And that was exactly what the
young athlete would have liked. It was also what several of America’s
leading promoters were eager to see, because of Barbour’s popularity and
knowledge of ring science.
However, the Alger-Merriwell build-up didn’t apply in his case. There was
no social climbing needed, no struggle necessary to score success in a
quest for the almighty dollar; he was already sitting on top of the world.
Yet he told me in an interview at a Princeton football game that, if he
had been left to himself, nothing would have pleased him more than to
have entered the professional ring. I heard Warren Barbour repeat that
during a fistic gabfest with Phocian Howard, publisher of racing sheets,
while en route to the Dempsey-Willard battle at Toledo on July 4, 1919.
Tex Rickard had selected the ex-amateur heavyweight champ to act as
official timekeeper for that historic event.
That was the only time he associated himself with the professional
game. Parental opposition was the real cause for his refusal to listen
to the siren songs of the fight promoters who wanted to capitalize on
his scientific skill and punching power. Perhaps it was just as well,
for Jack Johnson was then in his prime, and no matter how good an
amateur may be, it is always a considerable risk to pit him against an
experienced pro, even one of second rate standing. And Johnson was not
only a first-rater, but stood head-and-shoulders over all his pugilistic
contemporaries.
Only twice in boxing history was an amateur champ given a shot at a title
in his first professional engagement. That was in 1892 when Jack Skelly,
of Brooklyn, head of the amateur featherweight class, took on George
Dixon, acknowledged the world’s king of professional feathers; and when
Peter Rademacher, U.S. Olympic champion, in his first pro bout, tackled
Floyd Patterson in a battle for the heavyweight crown. In each case the
amateur was knocked out.
The handicap was far too much for Skelly, good clever kid though he was,
and Dixon kayoed him in the eighth round. Rademacher was stopped in the
sixth.
However, it will always remain a pleasing possibility that Warren Barbour
might have fared better than Jack Skelly or Peter in an invasion of the
pro ring, for he possessed every asset of an excellent professional. When
he won the amateur heavyweight title in Boston on April 12, 1910, by a
clean knockout, Barbour was a trim athlete, over six feet and one-half
inches tall; he scaled 204 pounds in fighting togs and could jab, block,
counter, and duck blows far better than most of our top professionals
today. He was far superior to Rademacher as an all-round pugilist.
Such men as referee Charley White and Jim Corbett, former world
heavyweight champion, believed him good enough to fight Johnson, and were
not alone among experts in thinking so. In my book, he was the greatest
amateur boxer I had ever seen, even better than Floyd Patterson or Billy
Rodenbach of New York, whose rating was extremely high in A.A.U. boxing
circles.
While Barbour was training in Jack Cooper’s New York gymnasium, he asked
to have some big men about his own heft brought along to spar with him.
Cooper complied by sending for his friend Jim Corbett. I was sitting with
Cooper watching some workouts, when Barbour made the request. Corbett
was admiring Warren’s style when our talk was interrupted by Cooper. Jim
stripped for a turn with the gloves and was happy to get such a sparmate.
But having heard that the aspiring youngster was somewhat of a walloper,
Corbett was cautious at the start. Then he let himself out, and after
a couple of rounds Corbett said frankly that Barbour was a wonderful
heavyweight prospect both as a puncher and a scientist.
“Your future as a professional is bright if you’ll go for it,” Corbett
told Barbour. Then turning to me, Jim added, “I’d like to manage him.”
Young Barbour’s reputation spread far beyond the walls of Cooper’s gym,
where he continued to take daily workouts with pros and amateurs. A few
weeks after the Corbett session, another former world’s heavyweight
champion, Jim Jeffries, who was at the time training in the gym, tried
him out there. Cooper, who often sparred with President Theodore
Roosevelt in Washington, knew Barbour’s father well. He broached the
subject of professionalism to him several times, but Warren’s dad
wouldn’t think of such a move. He was purely an amateur at heart, a big
financial supporter of amateur athletics.
Jeffries, just back from a European trip, was soon to meet Johnson at
Reno in the fateful battle which resulted so disastrously for the white
man’s comeback stunt. Jeffries put in a week at Cooper’s place in New
York City, loosening up a bit before starting a theatrical tour prior to
going into regular training for Johnson.
The Californian sparred several times with Barbour and was so impressed
by the latter’s skill that Jeffries asked him to join his training camp
on the Pacific Coast. The youth did not accept the invitation, but Jeff’s
candid endorsement of Warren’s prowess naturally boomed his pugilistic
stock higher than ever, and resulted in Charley White, “Old Eagle Eye,”
dropping into the gym to look him over.
Nationally famous as a referee and second, White was recognized
universally as a keen, unerring judge of fistic material. When Charley
first watched Barbour spar, he found it difficult to believe that the
young fellow was not boxing for a living. His finished style, footwork,
and ability to take a hard punch and deliver one, struck the veteran as
being professional.
It was on Cooper’s advice that Barbour decided to enter the amateur
tournament in Boston. Jack got Charley White to handle the big chap as
chief second. The newspapers there already had printed several stories
about the New York lad. My friend “Doc” Almy of _The Boston Post_ dubbed
him the “Millionaire Kid” and the moniker stuck. I represented my
newspaper and spent four days with Barbour in the Hub.
Mechanics Building was packed to capacity on the opening night of the
tournament, with some seven thousand ardent fans anxious to see the much
publicized New Yorker in action. On that occasion Barbour and Emory
Payne drew byes. Kendall Salisbury of Massachusetts whipped the Canadian
champion, and Joe Burke, of the same state, stopped Mullins of New York.
On the second night, Burke and Payne came together. This was a fast
slugging match which terminated in the second frame, when Burke, a
bull-rushing Celt, hung a terrific right on his opponent’s jaw. Then
Barbour ducked under the ropes to face New England’s champ, Kendall
Salisbury.
Somehow a sobriquet such as “Millionaire Kid” doesn’t make for popularity
with a fight mob. Barbour hadn’t desired any ring alias of the kind, and
wasn’t feeling any too grateful to Almy, who had conferred it on him.
The crowd expected Salisbury to score an easy victory, and indulged in
many rough jests and catcalls touching on the Manhattan boy’s possible
ancestry and financial status. However, Warren kept his temper and only
grinned. He wasn’t the type that’s easily flustered, anyway.
“Keep this chap at long range and box him, don’t slug,” White told him.
Barbour did just what he was told. His long left was perpetually in
Salisbury’s face, which was badly cut up before the second round was
over. Barbour jabbed his opponent to a near-standstill without sustaining
any damage himself and was awarded the decision.
But the big test for Barbour was yet to come. After fifteen minutes rest,
he stepped into the ring with Burke, the wild Irishman of established
kayo fame in the A.A.U.
“Box this bird just like you did Salisbury till I tell you to cut loose,”
said White. “When he tears in, sidestep and make him miss.”
Again Barbour followed instructions to the letter. He stepped nimbly to
the left as Burke rushed, swinging a futile right. His left counters kept
Burke’s head bobbing back incessantly, and try as he might, the Celt
could not get to close quarters with his elusive antagonist.
But in the second round, Barbour failed to evade a buzzing right that
nailed him flush on the chin and dropped him. In falling he caught Burke
around the waist and pulled him down with him. Burke was up first, and
Warren’s father and brother, watching from front row seats, must have
felt more than a trifle anxious.
Their misgivings were short-lived. Barbour, in response to a signal from
White, had merely rested on one knee for a few seconds until his head
cleared. It is at a time like this that a boxer shows if he has the real
fighting instinct—the ability to keep cool under fire. That is every bit
as essential to ring success as the ability to give and take it. There
was nothing lacking in Barbour’s fighting make-up.
When he regained his feet, Burke tore in madly. He was met by a jab that
set him back to the ropes. Then the bell rang, just as a stinging left
hook to the jaw made the Irishman’s knees buckle. Back in the corner
White gave Barbour this advice in exultant tones:
“You’ve got him loaded on your little red wagon now, boy. Go in an’ take
him with both mitts!”
The gong sent Barbour leaping forward like a springing leopard. Burke,
always game, met him half-way, and they went into a furious mixup. Right
and left the gloves whizzed, but the Celt was continually being beaten to
the punch. Barbour’s left crashed on his chin and down went Burke.
Up he staggered and ran into a short right that dropped him again. He
arose weak and groggy. Barbour stabbed him off with a straight left,
measured his man, and tagged a terrific right uppercut flush on the chin.
Burke keeled over and fell face downward on the canvas. He was through
for the night, nor did he regain consciousness for nearly ten minutes.
The “Millionaire Kid” made good. The jeers that marked his first entry
into the ring had changed to a storm of frantic applause which shook the
building.
The echoes of those wild cheers had not died away before Colonel William
Barbour leaped through the ropes to congratulate his son. Later that
night the proud father threw a party for the visiting New Yorkers at the
Hotel Touraine, where there was much feasting and merriment, with Charley
White, sage old fox of the squared circle, as master of ceremonies.
The “Old Fox” tried hard enough to get Pa Barbour to let his son turn
pro, but no amount of persuasion could turn the trick.
[Illustration: 9]
THE MICHIGAN ASSASSIN
One of the greatest fighters of my time was the middleweight Stanley
Ketchel.
Talk to the veterans who followed the career of this fighting man during
the height of his glory and they’ll tell you that Stanley Ketchel was the
finest in his division. Unfortunately, I didn’t see him when he fought
his memorable battles with Billy Papke and Joe Thomas, but I did cover
most of his thrilling Eastern contests, and from what I saw in the two
years in which he made the East his headquarters, I rate Ketchel the
greatest middleweight of all time.
Stanley was an unusual individual, wild and untamed one second, lovable
the next; treacherous at times, and most amiable on other occasions. His
frank, open eyes were soft, yet the moment he climbed through the ropes
in pursuit of his prey, those eyes became the eyes of a killer. He
always breathed through his nostrils and fought with his mouth tightly
shut, a slight grin of contempt on his lips.
Ketchel scorned the word retreat. Yet once his mission was over, and he
either flattened his opponent or won the verdict, he was just one of
the mob—a man full of fun and mischief. The memory of this spectacular
ring gladiator has never faded. Those who saw him flash across the
pugilistic firmament spoke of him with unwavering loyalty and admiration.
The greatest praise that can be lavished upon a promising middleweight
contender today by a sports critic is to rate him as another Stanley
Ketchel.
Few among the thousands of fistic heroes I’ve seen were more colorful
than Ketchel. A demon of the roped square, he made his opponents think
that all the furies in Hades had been turned loose on them. He got his
punches away from all angles. If he missed an opponent with one hand, he
would nail him with the other. He was as game as a bulldog and as tough
as a bronco.
His most prominent traits, I would say, were his generosity outside the
ring and his utter relentlessness inside of it, his egotism and eternal
confidence and faith in himself, his fearlessness and superb courage.
Outside the ring he was the soul of generosity. He was a mark for the
panhandlers, much like Jack Dempsey in that respect. However, he was also
a jokester whose greatest joy was playing pranks on unsuspecting camp
visitors who came to idolize him.
When he was in New York, he would do his training in Woodlawn, not far
from the entrance to the Woodlawn Cemetery. The adjoining territory at
that time was wild, with tall grass, huge trees, and few houses within a
radius of several miles. It was one of the undeveloped portions of the
city, an ideal location for training.
It was there that Ketchel took delight in luring sparring mates and
other camp hangers-on for his well known snipe hunts. Usually, he would
first make certain that he had the confidence of those he intended to
lure into the woods by joking, story-telling, and card playing. Then,
when he spotted his man, invariably the most talkative of the lot, he
would nod and wink to the boys and politely ask them to accompany him to
the training table where arrangements for the hunt were made.
“How would you like to join me in a snipe hunt, tomorrow?” the champ
would ask. “Snipe are game birds, exciting to catch.”