Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 308, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1912 — FORMER CHAMPION FIGHTER NOW FARMER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FORMER CHAMPION FIGHTER NOW FARMER

Happy and contented, John L. Sullivan, former champion of the prize ring and the most popular fighter who ever lived, leads the peaceful life of a farmer on the outskirts of Abington, Mass. The old gladiator has a 70acre plot on which he has just harvested a fine crop and he is exceedingly proud of his success as a tiller of the soil. John L. is now fifty-four, but he does not look within ten years of this age. His cheeks are as ruddy, his eyes as clear and his step as springy as in the days when he was the idol of the masses. Tfye Sullivan of today is an entirely different man from the Sullivan of the old days. When he was the champion of the prize ring John L. was known as tjhe greatest spender of his time. He made big money, as he was the greatest attraction from the pugilistic standpoint that has appeared in public and he spent it as fast as it came. He is credited with having squandered a million dollars in the heyday of his fame. But all of that Is past and forgotten. John L. has ridden on the front seat of the water wagon for several years past and today can draw his check for something like SIOO,OOO. “Nothing would ever Induce me to return to city life,” said Sullivan on his farm in Abington recently. It is two years since Sullivan went to the farm, after marrying a charim ing woman whom he credits with having made a man of him. The first year he just wandered over his 70 acres and wondered if there was in him the stuff that makes good farmers. “A year ago I decided that there was,” he said not long ago. “And, the results have proved that I had the right hunch.” Sullivan has grown potatoes enough almost to keep the town of Abington

supplied for the winter. He has hens which he says are real hens, be cause they lay and turn themselves into the finest food in the land, and he has about every variety of vege table that can be raised in the New England climate. “I have the best crop 'of potatoes there Is around here and I have it because I worked hard,” said the former champion. “The only way to get anything is to work hard for it. The great trouble with the young men in the ebuntry today, especially those who have come to town from the city laden down with ideas obtained from the newspapers and magazines, is that they think all they have to do Is to put a seed into the ground and watch it grow. That is bad dope. “Some of the wise ones told me after I had got started that I could not raise watermelons. What happened? Well, I raised some that even the critics admitted were the best they ever tasted. We read and hear a lot about going to the great west and to Canada and taking up farms. Right here in New England there are abandoned farms, hundreds of them, that will yield as good a living, if properly worked, as anything there Is in the west or Canada. “Any man who will devote the energy he- does to a job in the city to one of them will get a better living and be independent. He won’t get rich, perhaps, but he will be healthy, his wife and children will be healthy and happy and they will all live longer. Back to Mother Earth is my advice to the thousands who are only existing in the cities. The quicker they follow this advice the better it will* be for themselves and the social conditions of the country. My only regret is that I did not get wise to it earlier in my life.”

John L. Sullivan.