Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 189, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1910 — GOTCH TO FIGHT JACK JOHNSON? NEVER! [ARTICLE]

GOTCH TO FIGHT JACK JOHNSON? NEVER!

Report That Champion Wrestler Will Turn Pugilist and Become the “White Man’s Hope,” Is Only an Advertising Scheme —Trouble Again Threatened in the National League.

By KNOCKOUT.

Do you remember reading in this pa- 1 per along about the time the JeffriesJohnson match was made that there was a plan to have Frank Gotch, the world’s champion wrestler, turn pugilist and fight Jack Johnson, if the big boilermaker failed to win? . Well, it was printed w hether you read it or not, and now the scheme has been sprung. Let me say right at the start off that Frank Gotch never will be seen in the ring with Jack Johnson. Gotch is too smart. In fact he’s about the smartest athlete in the country, if not the world. Gotch is strong, Gotch is game and as a wrestler has no peer. But there’s all the difference in the world between wrestling and fighting, and a different set of muscles entirely is developed in the two games. . Jim Corbett, acording to report, was going to give several months of his valuable time to teaching Gotch the fine points of the fighting game to make of the wrestler “the white man’s hope,” a position Jeffries held until July 4. Corbett is in the show business. Gotch has been on the stags and probably will be again next winter. That’s the answer, dear reader. Both kpow the value of getting their names in print in connection with such a story. No, Frank Gotch never will fight Johnson and if he does he’s too smart to have any old has beens teaching him the business. It would be Gotch for Tommy Ryan or Billy Delaney. Corbett wouldn’t do. As I predicted last week. Tommy Ryan has come out with the declaration that he intends to prime his protege, Con O’Kelly, to fight Johnson. Foxy Tommy says he can make O’Ktelly into a scrapper In a year, and will then challenge Johnson for the championship. Aboqt all the Harp has now is size, but he’ll know how to fight when Ryan gets through with him.. They all do. But wtti he be able to whip Johnson? It’s a safe guess the odds would be five to one on Johnson should the pair be matched at the end of a year. Fighters are not made that quickly. They must have plenty of hard knocks and they don’t get them in a gymnasium. It is probable that at -the end of a year there’ll be no place in the United States where a championship fight can be pulled off anyway. It’s remarkable how this agitation against the showing of the moving pictures of the Reno battle has grown. Maj. Dick Sylvester, superintendent of police in Washington, started it the day after the battle. When, because of a riot between blacks and whites in the national capital, he said he would not permit the pictures to be shown because of the anti-negro feeling engendered there. Other cities picked it up and the movement grew into such proportions that the men who bought the right to show the pictures and exhibit them grew alarmed and decided not to show them just yet. It Is understood that Jeffries received Johnson $50,000 and Rickard $50,000 or $60,000 for their share in the pictures, which, in addition to the expense of taking and staging them, probably meant an outlay of $200,000. No wonder the promoters were alarmed by the movement started in Washington. They expected to clean up a million dollars. With many big cities closed against

them, they’ll do well to get their money back. Which means the prize fight game in this counfry Is on its last legs. The Johnson-Little quarrel and counter charges of faking between them has added another blow, and it’s safe to bet that Johnson will have: to go to England or Australia if he wants to fight again. About the time the baseball sekson closes you’ll hear more talk about troubles in the National league. From all accounts the official life of Thomas J. Lynch, the president of the organ* ization, is by no means a bed of roses. There’s dissatisfiaction among the magnates and it is probable that Mr. Lynch will not be re-elected without a fight. The faction that wanted to make John M. Ward president last winter is said to be still in favor of putting him at the head of the league. Mr. Lynch didn’t add to his popularity when he stopped the newspaper protographers taking pictures of the players while the game is going on.