by Graeme Kent
Next, Jeffries sailed for Carlsberg in Germany, to be examined by doctors at this weight-reducing haven and begin his self-imposed regime. He stayed there for three months and lost 2 stone in weight. He also encountered King Edward VII of Great Britain, who was taking the waters. The monarch was interested in boxing to the extent that when Tommy Burns had been evading the challenges of Jack Johnson he had scornfully referred to the champion as ‘a Yankee bluffer’, forgetting that Burns was a Canadian. The king and the prizefighter met in the streets of Carlsberg, where Edward hailed the huge American with a hearty, ‘Hello there, Jim Jeffries! Going to fight the black fellow, eh? Jolly good!’
The British magazine Boxing noted with approval the efforts of the former champion to regain fighting fitness and seemed to be in no doubt as to the eventual success of his comeback. ‘James Jackson Jeffries, ex-boilermaker, retired champion heavyweight and now wealthy farmer, has come out of the quietude to regain for the white section of Americans the world’s premier honours, and is taking the baths at Carlsberg.’
Towards the end of the year, Jeffries sailed back for the United States and announced that he was prepared to challenge Johnson for the latter’s crown. In the meantime, Sam Berger had been engaging in a series of secret meetings with George Little and Sig Hart, Jack Johnson’s co-managers, hammering out the details of the fight. They announced to promoters that those wishing to bid for the contest should submit sealed bids, to be opened on 1 December 1909. In order to avoid time-wasters, and as a sign of solvency, the fighters announced that each bid should be accompanied by a cheque for $5,000.
This led to a frantic competition to put on the bout. Soon Tex Rickard emerged as one of the promoters jostling to stage the tournament. A hard-hearted, crafty but fair man, who was renowned for always paying his debts, Rickard had worked as a lawman, saloon-keeper, gambler and general entrepreneur. In order to bring visitors to his saloon at Goldfield, Nevada, he had already promoted a fight for the world lightweight championship between Joe Gans and Battling Nelson. To add a touch of drama to the occasion, Rickard had put the entire $30,000 purse in gold eagles in the window of a local bank.
Ever restless, Rickard had moved on to another Nevada frontier mining town, Rawhide. Here, in order to publicise his gambling saloon, he had persuaded the best-selling novelist Elinor Glynn to visit the town. In order to impress the author and encourage her to write about Rawhide, Rickard had simulated a gambling session, an attempt to put out a fire and even a gunfight with blank ammunition and the plentiful use of ketchup on the ‘dead’ miner. Glynn believed everything she had seen and returned East to write of Rickard and his cronies in the New York American, describing them as ‘brave fellows fighting nature to obtain from her legitimate wealth’.
Although in 1908 he subsequently lost all his money in a fire which had destroyed his saloon in Rawhide, Rickard did not allow this to depress him for long. His reputation for probity was such that he could always raise money.
In this instance he borrowed it from a millionaire business associate, Thomas F. Cole. Armed with his friend’s cash Rickard then went to work. Several days before the closing date for bids, he went to Pittsburgh, where Jack Johnson was appearing in vaudeville.
First the Texan visited Etta Duryea at the boarding house she was sharing with the fighter. The champion usually introduced her as his wife, but in fact they were not married until 1911. Getting straight to the point, Rickard asked her what she desired most in the world. Etta Duryea replied that she would like a fur coat. Rickard promised her one if she would use her influence to persuade Johnson to accept the bid for the fight he was about to submit.
Next Rickard visited Jack Johnson backstage at the theatre. Etta had made it clear that the high-spending champion was short of money. From his wallet Rickard produced $2,500 in highdenomination notes and pressed them upon the champion. In response Johnson told him that he had heard that the highest of the credible bids that were about to be made would be $100,000.
That was all that Rickard wanted to know. He suspected that with his generous ways he had already half-won the champion over. In order to maintain his advantage, he travelled to New York in the same train as Johnson and Etta for the opening of the bids. Stopping only to buy Etta her fur coat, Rickard then took the ferry across the Hudson River to Meyer’s Hotel in Hoboken, where the bids were to be scrutinised.
At once Rickard embarked upon a frenzy of negotiating behind the scenes. He found Jeffries and his new manager Sam Berger cold and unwelcoming, but Berger did condescend to hint that the fight had been as good as wrapped up in advance by a friend of his, actor and playwright Jack Gleason, representing the Californian promoter Sunny Jim Coffroth.
Rickard hunted down Gleason and told him that he had secured the allegiance of Johnson. If Gleason would betray Coffroth and could persuade Jeffries, through Berger, to look favourably on the Texan’s bid, Rickard would give Gleason half the profits ensuing from the mooted tournament. Rickard was never afraid to spend a dollar in order to make two.
Gleason knew when he was on to a good thing and agreed without hesitation, although he warned Rickard that Berger would also have to be taken care of financially. Rickard hurried back to the hotel room, which was crowded with would-be promoters of the bout, while many more had submitted their bids through the post and by messenger.
One by one the bids were opened in the crowded, smoke-filled room. Jack Johnson was present but Jeffries did not arrive, leaving Berger to represent his interests. In the event, some of the major players submitted disappointingly small offers. The great Hugh D. McIntosh tendered only $75,000 for the bout to be held at Rushcutters Bay in Sydney, while the august members of London’s National Sporting Club came up with a paltry $50,000.
On the other hand, there were several wildcats bandying about enormous sums. A St Louis promoter proposed an astronomical $150,000, while a New Orleans syndicate was prepared to go to $110,000. These, however, were regarded as bids of dubious provenance, with the promoters unlikely to be able to come up with the full sum when the chips were down.
All the established favourites among the promoters, as Johnson had divulged in Pittsburgh, offered sums of $100,000 or a little under. Then Rickard’s bid was opened. It was for $101,000, plus a percentage of film and vaudeville rights. That was not all. In addition to the obligatory cheque for $5,000, his envelope also contained fifteen $1,000 bills. Promoters present said that Johnson’s eyes widened at the sight of the banknotes tumbling invitingly onto the table before him.
It was all over bar the shouting. Johnson accepted his new patron’s offer with alacrity; Berger was scarcely less forthcoming. Tex Rickard had secured the rights to stage what was soon being called the ‘Fight of the Century’.
In the meantime, promoter James J.Coffroth had been waiting in another hotel for news of his bid for the bout. Years later he told a reporter of the experience. ‘I waited and waited,’ he recounted ruefully. ‘Gleason was to have telephoned me the outcome of the deal. There was no telephoning. I tried to contact Gleason. He wasn’t to be found. Finally it dawned on me that perhaps Jack Gleason had made what he figured was a more advantageous deal for himself. That turned out to be the case . . . I was out in the cold!’
At first Rickard planned to stage the championship in San Francisco, the leading fight town on the West Coast. However, he had reckoned without the spite of Sunny Jim Coffroth, who was far from cordial as a result of losing in the bidding to stage the bout. Coffroth used all his local influence to get the bout cancelled. In this he was aided, sometimes but not always unwittingly, by a parcel of inept and often corrupt local politicians.
Even the hard-boiled Rickard was amazed by the degree of public larceny on display in California. Consignments of wood intended for the construction of a new stadium were stolen in broad daylight while bribed policemen looked the other way. City councillors demanded handouts or wads of free tickets. Delegations from women’s organisations crowded into the Governor’s
office, pleading that the forthcoming fight be cancelled on the grounds of its potential brutality.
The most damaging canard, however, and one that Rickard suspected owed its origins to Coffroth, was that the fight would not be worth seeing, as its result had been determined in advance. Johnson, it was rumoured, had agreed for a consideration to lie down to Jeffries, knowing that if he won the white boxer would then retire again, leaving Johnson free to mop up the remaining white contenders and regain his title with ease.
Before long, the Governor of California, James N. Gillett, was as fed up with the disputes surrounding the bout as Rickard was. There was an ever-increasing antipathy to the thought of a black versus white contest and all the trouble that it might cause. In the end Gillett vetoed the bout, saying in exasperation, ‘We’ve had enough of prize fights and prize fight promoters. They’ve been breaking the law long enough and we’ll have no more of it!’ Rickard was almost as relieved, although he declared having already spent a quarter of a million dollars in trying to bring the championship to California.
Several cities offered to take the place of San Francisco, and Rickard settled on Reno in Nevada, mainly because of its good railway connections. He set up his headquarters in a substantial house in the city, from which tickets were sold and information about the fight was issued. Tom Corbett, brother of the former heavyweight champion James J. Corbett, established his betting parlour in the same building. It was to be almost the last throw of gambling in the city. Up until 1910 it had been legal in the area, but by the end of the year a citizens’ group known as the Progressives managed to get it banned.
The fight seemed to be off when James J. Jeffries suddenly refused to box in Nevada. Patiently Rickard investigated the situation and discovered that the former champion had reneged on a $25,000 gambling debt he had incurred while playing the tables at Reno five years earlier, thinking that he would never have to return to the city.
Rickard took the setback in his stride. He approached the casino involved and negotiated a repayment of fifty cents in the dollar on the debt, to be taken from Jeffries’s earnings from the fight. As the former champion eventually emerged with the sum of $192,000 as his share of the takings, he cannot be said to have done too badly from the deal. Nevertheless, when the startled Jeffries was greeted upon his arrival by a huge crowd at the railway station in Reno, he fled. Later he justified his action by claiming that he was scared of crowds, but it is more likely that he feared one or two armed and disgruntled creditors might be lurking among the mob.
Almost at once, Rickard started fanning the flames of publicity, an area in which he excelled. From the start he had decided to emulate promoter Hugh D. McIntosh at Rushcutters Bay and referee the championship contest himself. However, he told reporters that he had drawn up a shortlist for the post, which included the President of the United States, former champion John L. Sullivan, and the creator of Sherlock Holmes, British author Arthur Conan Doyle. The conservative and low-key President Taft refused to be drawn into the matter, but Sullivan and Doyle, both more gullible, were immensely flattered.
Behind the scenes Rickard managed to dissuade the disappointed ex-champion, but the author seriously considered the matter, especially after he had received a letter from the editor of the New York Morning Telegraph, which said, ‘It would indeed rejoice the hearts of men in this country if you were at the ringside when the great Negro fighter meets the white man Jeffries for the world’s championship . . .’ After much thought, the 50-year-old Doyle, the author of several classics of the prize ring, including Rodney Stone, declined to be considered, saying, ‘My friends pictured me as winding up a revolver at one ear and a razor at the other.’
By this time, both contestants had started serious training. Jeffries’s camp was sited at Moana Springs, two miles south of Reno, selected because it had the latest in electric wiring, while Johnson trained at Rick’s Resort. Jeffries arrived from California on 23 June in a specially chartered Pullman car. He was being assisted by a gallery of former stars of the ring who were anxious to see the black fighter beaten.
His chief trainer was the tetchy former heavyweight champion James J. Corbett, who had twice lost to Jeffries. Long before that, when he was just starting out, Jeffries had served as Corbett’s sparring partner, but had proved so clumsy that he had been relegated to the task of helping rub Corbett down after his sparring sessions. Proudly, the new senior trainer told reporters that the past was of no account. ‘I volunteered my services to Jeff to help him in his heroic one-man crusade.’
Also in the entourage was Joe Choynski, the greatest heavyweight of his era never to win the title, a victor over Johnson when the black fighter was just starting out. He had also fought a draw with Jeffries; so he could be forgiven for feeling a little resentful at being little more than a glorified sparring partner when the two principals in the fight were sharing more than $200,000, and this attitude carried over into his work about the camp.
Choynski had always had a shrewd eye for a dollar. The dropout son of a Yale-educated newspaper editor, he had been the first fighter to refuse to fight for the customary 80–20 per cent split for winner and loser. To be on the safe side, he always asked for a 50–50 division. He was a fine fighter; Jeffries and Johnson both conceded that he was the hardest hitter they had encountered. Corbett had beaten Choynski but also had a healthy respect for him, even if he did refer to him now and again as ‘a little runt’.
Making up the rest of Jeffries’s training team were the pompous William Muldoon, Civil War veteran and former heavyweight wrestling champion of the world; a notable black fighter called Bob Armstrong; and another one-time wrestling champion, Martin ‘Farmer’ Burns.
With Jeffries in a highly nervous state and surrounded by such a collection of luminaries, it was only to be expected that there would be disputes. Jeffries was always sullen before a fight and his enormous weight-reduction programme had shredded his nerves.
The first conflict occurred when Jeffries would not obey Corbett’s order to rise at five o’clock in the morning to start his road work. The fighter had refused, snarling, ‘Don’t tell me what to do; I’ve got to do the fighting.’ And as time passed, Jeffries was pushed almost to breaking point by William Muldoon’s constant reminders – ‘Remember, Jim, you must win for the white race.’ To make matters worse, in a public sparring session with the 42-year-old Choynski, Jeffries could hardly land a punch on his elusive opponent. The Baltimore Express said, ‘the aged Choyniski [sic], lean and fit and hard as nails, appeared in white tights as the first victim. Choyniski has been working long enough to show some real speed and wind and he went after the big bear with a succession of left hooks and chops at the head . . .’
After this opening debacle Jeffries had to be talked out of abandoning the whole project. Corbett persuaded him to stay by promising that the former champion would not be asked to do so much sparring. This attracted the opprobrium of many of the former fighters visiting the camp. Indeed, the straight-talking Stanley Ketchel was banned from the site for commenting loudly on Jeffries’s lack of serious ring work.
The middleweight was not the only one to be denied access to the training camp. Even the great John L. Sullivan was turned away by his former conqueror, Corbett, who had taken exception to a remark in Sullivan’s ghosted column in the New York Times in which he referred to his belief that Jeffries could only win if the fix was in. Corbett and Sullivan had a heated argument at the door of the cottage Jeffries occupied on the site, before the older man turned and stalked off in a huff. Tex Rickard and Muldoon had to work quickly to effect a reconciliation between the two old champions the next day. Even so, the San Francisco Chronicle got wind of the situation and celebrated it with a banner headline: ‘Corbett in Hot Words, Bars Sullivan from Jeffries’ Camp’. Corbett, disgusted by all the controversy and by Jeffries’s stubborn refusal to spar more, told a friend dismally, ‘He’s worrying. This isn’t the Jeff I used to know.’
All sorts of
people were turning up at the camp flourishing press credentials and representing themselves as fight experts. The novelist Jack London, back on a temporary winning streak after the publication of his celebrated boxing short story A Piece of Steak in the Saturday Evening Post, arrived fresh from being mostly on the losing side in a couple of saloon brawls in Reno. He had been doing Rickard’s job for him by vigorously beating the drum in the New York Herald for the ‘Fight of the Century’, declaiming, ‘And so I say again to all you men who love the game, have the price and are within striking distance, come. It is the fight of fights, the crowning fight of the whole ring, and perhaps the last great fight that will ever be held.’
Ignoring Johnson’s roster of victories over white opponents, many refused to believe that the black fighter was capable of defeating such a paragon as Jeffries. In the Chicago Tribune, Alfred Henry Lewis was curtly and cruelly dismissive of the whole race: ‘As essentially African, Johnson feels no deeper than the moment, sees no farther than his nose, and is incapable of anticipation. That same cheerful indifference to coming events has marked others of his race even while they were standing in the very shadow of the gallows.’
At the training camp, missing all the obvious signs, London reported that Jeffries was ‘kittenish and frisky in a huge way, full of “joshes” and bubbling with grim laughter’. Best-selling novelist Rex Beach, basking in the success of his Alaskan gold-rush novel The Spoilers, was at hand to make the confusing statement, anatomically speaking, that he considered Jeffries unbeatable because his rib cage was so pronounced that no fighter could penetrate it to strike at the white fighter’s vital organs.
However, Jeffries’s entourage were soon quarrelling fiercely and openly among themselves and with anyone who dared to criticise their training methods. When former middleweight champion Billy Papke foolishly told Farmer Burns that Jeffries was not looking good, the dispute developed into an open slanging match. Papke did not back off, although it might have been better for the middleweight if he had. Instead he took a couple of swings at the 47-year-old Burns. The old grappler smashed the other man to the ground in a wrestling hold and made him concede defeat in front of more than 400 spectators at the training session.