Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Monday 28 December 1908, page 5


JACK LONDON ON THE FIGHT.

FAMOUS NOVELIST'S ACCOUNT.

GRAPHIC PICTURE: CHARACTERISTIC REFLECTIONS.

WRITTEN BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT, AND TELEGRAPHED FROM

SYDNEY.

(ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Jack London, author of "The Call of the Wild," "The Sea Wolf," and "The Game," recently reached Sydney, and was present at the Johnson-Burns fight. This is his description of it:—

Full credit for the big fight must be given to Mr McIntosh, who has done the unprecedented, and had the nerve to carry it through. But equal credit must be given to Australia, for without her splendid sport-loving men not a hundred McIntoshes could have pulled off the great contest of Satur-day.

The stadium is a magnificent arena and so was the crowd magnificent. It was man-aged by that happy aptitude which the English have for handling big crowds. The spirit of the stadium crowd inside and out with its fair-minded and sporting square-ness was a joy to behold. It was hard to realise that those fifty or sixty thousand men were descended from the generations that attended the old bare-knuckles fights in England, where partisan crowds swarmed the ringside, slugging each other, smashing the top hats of the gentlemen promoters and backers, and swattting away with clubs at the heads of the poor devils of fighters whenever they came near to the ropes.

Never in my life have I seen a finer, fairer, and more orderly ringside crowd, and in this connection it must be remem-bered that the majority were in favour of the man who was losing. That many thou-sands of men could sit quietly for forty minutes and watch their chosen champion hopelessly and remorselessly beaten down and not make the slightest demonstration is a remarkable display of inhibition. There is no use minimising Johnson's victory in order to soothe Burns's feelings. It is part of the game to take punishment in the ring, and it is just as much part of the game to take unbiassed criticism afterward in the columns of the press. Personally, I was with Burns all the way. He is a white man, and so am I. Naturally I wanted to see the white man win. Put the case to Johnson. Ask him if he were spectator to a fight between a white man and a black man which he would like to see win, and Johnson's black skin will dictate a desire parallel to the one dictated by my white

skin.

But now, to come back to the point. There is no foolish sentimental need to gloss over Burns's defeat. Because a white man wishes the white man to win should not prevent him from giving absolute credit to the best man who did win, even when that best man was black .

"ALL HAIL TO JOHNSON."

All hail to Johnson!' His victory was unqualified. It was his fight all through. in spite of published accounts to the con-trary, one of which, out of the first six rounds gives two rounds to Burns, two to Johnson, and two with honours evenly divided. In spite of such mistaken parti-sanship it must be acknowledged by every man at the ringside that there was never a round that was Burns's, and never a round with even honours.

Burns was a little man against a big man, a clever man against a cleverer man, a quick man against a quicker man, and a gritty, gamey man all the way through. But all men are not born equal and neither are pugilists. If grit and gameness should win by the decree of natural law then Burns, I dare to say, would have won on Saturday and in a thousand additional fights with Johnson he would win. But unfortunately for Burns, what did win on Saturday was bigness, coolness, quickness, cleverness, and vast physical superiority.

From any standpoint the fight between Cripps and Griffith last Wednesday night was a far better contest. The men were evenly matched and the result was in doubt from round to round and from mo-ment to moment. And this delicate balance was due to their being equally matched. Each man had opportunity to show the best that was in him. That opportunity was denied Burns.

Bear with me a moment. I often put on the gloves myself, and take my word for it, I am really delightfully clever when my opponent is a couple of stone lighter than I am, half a foot or so shorter than I am, and about half as strong. On such an occasion I can show what I've got in me, and I can smile all the time, scintillate with brilliant repartee and dazzling persi-flage, and in the clinches talk over the political situation and the Broken Hill trouble with the audience. But, Heavens! Suppose I were to don the gloves with Burns, I could no more show what I had in me than Burns showed against Johnson.

That is the whole fight in a nutshell. The men were so unevenly matched that Burns was barred from showing anything he had in him — with the exception of pluck. John-son was too big, too strong, too clever. Burns never had a show. He was hope-lessly outclassed, I am confident that, had a man from Mars been present at the ringside witnessing his first tight he would have demanded to know why Burns was even in the ring at all.

It's hard talk Tommy, but it is no harder than those wallops you received on Satur-day. And it is just as true. It is no dis-honour to be beaten in a fair fight. You did your topmost best, and here's my hand on it, and on all vour pluck and grit and endurance. And Jack Johnson, here's my hand, too. I wanted to see tho other fellow win, but you were the best man. Shake.

FIGHT WAS A GOLDEN SMILE.

The fight. The word is a misnomer. There was no fight. No Armenian massacre would compare with the hopeless slaughter that took place in the Stadium. It was not a case of too much Johnson, but of all Johnson. A golden smile tells the story, and the golden smile was Johnson's. The fight, if fight it can be called, was like unto that between a colossus and a toy automa-ton; it had all the seeming of a playful ethiopian at loggerheads with a small and futile white man, of a grown man cuffing a naughty child; of a monologue by one Johnson, who made a noise with his fists like a lullaby, tucking one Burns into his little crib in sleepy hollow; of a funeral, with Burns for the late deceased and Johnson for the undertaker, grave-digger,

and sexton.

Twenty thousand men were at the ring side, and twice twenty thousand lingered outside. Johnson, first at the ring, showed in magnificent condition. When he smiled a dazzling flash of gold filled the wide aper-

ture between his open lips. And he smiled all the time. He had not a trouble in the world. When asked what he was going to do after the light, he said he was going lo the races. It was a happy prophecy. He was immediately followed into the ring by Bums, who had no smile whatever. He looked pale and sallow, as if he had not slept all night, or as if he had just pulled through a bout with fever. He received a heartier greeting than Johnson, and was the

favourite with the crowd.

It promised to be a bitter fight. There was no chivalry nor goodwill in it, and Johnson despite his care-free pose, had an eye to the instant need of things. He sent his seconds insistently into Burns's corner to watch the putting on of the gloves, for fear a casual horseshoe might stray in. He examined personally Burns's belt, and an-nounced flatly that he would not fight if Burns did not remove the tape from his

skinned elbows.

"Nothin' doin' till he takes 'em off,"

quoth Johnson. The crowd hooted, but Johnson smiled his happy golden smilee, and dreamed with Ethiopian stolidity in his corner. Burns took of the offending tapes,

and was applauded uproariously. Johnson stood up and was hooted. He merely smiled. That is the fight epitomised -Johnson's smile.

The gong sounded, and the fight and the monologue began. "All right, Tahmy," said

Johnson, with exaggerated English accent,

and thereafter he talked throughout the fight when lie was not smiling. Scarcely had they mixed, when he caught his an-tagonist with a fierce upper-cut, turning him completely over in the air, and landing him on his back

There is no use giving details. There was no doubt from the moment of the opening of the first round-the affair was too one-sided. There was never so one-sided a world's championship fight in the history of the ring. It was not a case of a man being put out by a clever or luckv punch in the first or second round. It was a case of a plucky, determined fighter, who had no chance for a look in at any single instant of the fight

There was no fraction of a second in all the fourteen rounds that could be called Burns's-so far as damage is concerned. Burns never landed a blow. He never dazed the black man. lt was not Burns's fault, however. He tried every moment through-out the fight, except when he was groggy. It was hopeless, preposterous, heroic. He was a glutton for punishment, and he bored in all the time

MUCH "MOUTH-FIGHTING "

But a dewdrop in Sheol hid more chance than did he with the giant Ethiopian. In all justice, it must be urged that Burns had no opportunity to show what he had in him. Johnson was too big, too able, too clever, too superb. He was impregnable. His long arms, his height, his cool seeing eyes, his timing and distancing, his foot-work, his blocking and locking, and his splendid out-sparring, and equally splendid infighting kept Burns in trouble all the time. At no stage of the fight was either

man ever extended.

Johnson was just as inaccessible as Mont Blanc, and against such a mountain what possible chance had Burns to extend him-self? He was smothered all the time. As for Johnson, he did not have to extend. He cuffed and smiled; and smiled and cuffed. And in the clinches he whirled his opponent around so as to be able to assume beatific and angelic facial expressions for the bene-fit of the cinematograph machines.

Burns never struck a body blow that would compare with Johnson's, nor a cross, nor a straight, nor an uppercut; while, as for kidney blows Johnson's most frivolous and pensive taps were like thunderbolts as measured against Burns's butterfly flutter-ings in that painful locality

Johnson frivolled with Burns throughout the fight. He refused to take Burns seriously, and, with creditable histrionic ability he played the part of a gentle schoolmaster administering benevolent chas-tisement to a rude and fractious urchin.

The mouth fighting on the put of both men must have seemed bizarre to the Aus-tralian audience. Nevertheless mouth fighting as a ring tactic has won more than one battle. But Saturday it neither won nor lost anything. Burns's remarks failed to ruffle his opponent's complacence in the

slightest: while there was no need for John-son's airy verbal irritations, for Burns was as angry as could be from the stroke of the gong. And though Johnson proved a past master in the art of mouth fighting, even his pre-eminent abtlitv in that direction failed to make Burns angrier by one jot or tittle.

There was, however, one result from the word-sparring - an unfortunate result to Burns. He was fighting desperately, and his last hope lay in making the big negro lose his head. Instead he nearly lost his own by having it punched of. Not that he irritated lohnson in the least by what he said. Far from it. Johnson never ceased smiling when the uncomplimentary remarks were addressed to him. Nor did he cease smiling as he proceeded to wallop the naughty boy for his impertinence.

But wallop him he did, in so smiling and summary a fashion as to take the steam out of Burns's verbal punches. In fact, after two distinct adventures of this sort, Burns concluded that the tactic was too disastrous, and abandoned it

JOHNSON PLAY-ACTED.

Not Burns, but Johnson, did the in-fight-ing. In fact, the major portion of the punishment he delivered was in the clinches. At times he would hold up his arms to show that he was no party to the clinch. Again, he would deliberately, and by ap-parently no exertion of strength, thrust Burns away and clear of him. And yet again he would thrust Bums partially ciear with one hand and upper-cut him on the face with the other. And when Burns in-stantly fell forward into another clinch, thrust him partially clear and repeat the upper cut

Once he did this five times in succession, as fast as a man could count, each upper-cut connecting and connecting savagely. But principally in the clinches Johnson rested, and smiled, and dreamed. This dreaming expression was fascinating. It seemed almost a trance. It was certainly decep-tive, for suddenly the lines of the face would harden, the eyes glint viciously, and Burns would be frightfully hooked, swung, and upper-cut for a bad half-minute. Then the smile and the dreamy trance would return as Burns effected another clinch

At times, too, when both men were set, Johnson would deliberately assume the fierce, vicious, intent expression, only, ap-parently, for the purpose of suddenly re-laxing, and letting his teeth flash forth like the rise of a harvest moon, while his face beamed with all the happy care-free inno-cence of a little child

Johnson play-acted all the time. His part was the clown, and he played with Burns from the gong of the opening round to the finish of the fight. Bums was a toy in his hands. For Johnson it was a kinder-

garten romp. "Hit here, Tahmy," he would say, exposing the right side of his unprotected stomach. And when Bums struck, Johnson would neither wince nor cover up. Instead, he would receive the blow with a happy, careless smile, directed at the audience, turn the left side of his unprotected stomach, and say, "Now here, Tahmy," and while Burns hit as directed Johnson would continue to grin and chuckle, and smile his golden smile.

One criticism. and only one, can be passed upon Johnson. In the thirteenth round he made the mistake of his life. He should have put Burns out. He could have put him out. It would have been child's play. Instead of which he smiled, and deliberately let Burns live until the gong

sounded.

And in the opening of the fourteenth round the police stopped the fight, and Johnson lost the credit of a knock-out.

But one thing remains. Jeffries must emerge from his alfalfa farm and remove that smile from Johnson's face. Jeff, it's up to you. And, Mclntosh, it's up to you to get the fight for Australia. Both you and Australia certainly deserve it.

(For a full account of the fight by our special re-porter see page 7 )