LOUIS THE FIGHTER

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19098, 20 August 1936, Page 7

LOUIS THE FIGHTER

GRAPHIC PEN PICTURE i “MEAN AND TRULY SAVAGE’’ SOME ANIMAL TRAITS Before 1 met Joe Louis, the negro Heavyweight prize-tighter sensation, I had heard that he was good to his mother, that he read the Bible, that lie was a very moan, cold-blooded man hi the prize ring, but that outside l be ropes he was quiet, good nalurod, and a perfect gentleman, and that you would never take turn for a pri/.e-tigluor, wrote Paul Gallieoin in Vanity Fair some lime ago with reference to the Detroit boxer who at New York on Tuesday outclassed tile Boston heavyweight, Sharkey, and took a knock-out decision in the third round. QUIET AND POLITE When I finally met Joe Louis at l’ompton Lakes, I found him all that was described, quiet, polite and retiring. But somehow, as the afternoon progressed, and I watched him, 1 fglt myself strongly ridden by the impression that here was a mean man, a truly savage person, a man on whom civilisation rested no more securely than a shawl thrown over one’s shoulders; that, in short, here was perhaps lor the first time in many generations the perfect prize-fighter. I had the feeling that 1 was in the room with a wild ailimal and that his managers, Johnny Roxborough and Julian Black, in their brown riding boots, riding pants, and polo shirts, were his trainers. Their ever-watchful eyes never left him, and something seemed to bo missing from their costumes and their attitudes: they weren’t carrying whips and pistols loaded with blank cartridges.

Mind you, I am only quoting an impression. When they tell me that Joe Louis is good to his mother and reads a chapter out of the Bible every day, 1 believe them. After all, he did buy his mother a ten thousand-dollar hpuse in Detroit, and they will show you the Bible. But he walks like an animal, and lie never looks you in the eye. When he sits in a chair his eyes are cast on the floor. The expression on his face is sulky and sullen. True, he was by no means at his ease when i saw him. He was confronting a room full of reporters who themselves were not in a particularly brilliant mood, and that is no easy task for anyone, much less a twenty-one-year-old boy. Also, it was no more than live days before his fight, and he was getting on edge, SI STM 11 S’ AFFECTION We were gathered waiting for him in the rear room of Dr. Bier’s old colonial farmhouse. The front rooyi, separated from it only by a wide archway, contained a pool table. His three sisters came in. They had driven all the way from Detroit. They were all cafe-au-iaifc coloured, and dashingly named Vunies, Eulalia, and Eminarell. Joe had been sleeping upstairs. When; lie came in the three sisters crowded around and threw their arms around ins neck. lie looked at them coldly, brushed some arms down, untwined others, pushed them away, glided across the room, and slouched into a chair, his pudgy face expressionless. It seemed a natural filing to do, but there were two ways of looking at it. It might have been a brother extricating himself from a, mass of sisters. And it might have been tho action of a man with very little warmth of affection in him. He has another purely animal characteristic. The two things that he cannot seem to get enough of are food and sleep, especially, sleep. lie answered all of our questions politely, and to the best of his ability, and even laughed and smiled occasionally, showing line, white teeth. After which he would relapse into those moody, sullen silences, silences that to

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me had even a quality of truculence. Looking at him .1 had the strong, definite impression: “This mans gorge lies very close t-o the surface. It hasn.t far to go to rise. This is a dangerous man. If you have read I his far, you will have found traces of rather a contused mind, it is just this. To date, the boy’s behaviour has been above reproach. lint 1 simply cannot bring myself to believe that any man, who in the ring is capable of showing the absolutely cold, cruel, relentless, destructive, calculated ferocity that Louis shows can, by the simple process of pulling oil' a pair of stuffed leather mittens, backing through the strands of rope and climbing down three wooden steps from the ring to the floor, suddenly become a sweet and gentle character. HARD ON PARTNERS If you saw Louis in the process ol dismembering the two hundred and sixty pounds of i'nmo Camera, and in the space of 18 minutes transforming a powerful, brawny, courageous man into a babbling, dithering, goggle-eyed jelly, you have a part of tile picture. For the rest of it, you should see, or have seen Louis operating upon his sparring partners. Even Dempsey who, up to this time, set the standard for cruelty to human punching bags, bad a pat on tlie bead or the back for a man he knocked out or injured in a practice session. I watched Louis batter three men ol liis own race brutally in rehearsal for bis light with Camera, and never once when it was over show a kindly gleam on Ins sullen countenance, or oiler a single human touch of the hand. There is not so much as a glimmer oi pity or mercy in this boy. The miracle is that he can be stopped and returned to his corner by the ringing of a bell. And yet it is not .so much of a miracle at that. Even the supposedly untamable tiger returns' to his stool for Clyde Beattv. METEORIC CAREER

Juo Louis, who is 6t't. 3in. ill height and scales over 14-stone lighting weight, was born on May 13, 1914, at Montgomery, Alabama. His success and rise to fame in the boxing ring have been meteoric, and until lie was knocked oat by the German, Max Schmeling, at New York on June 19 of this year, lie had a remarkable succession of victories. A little over two years ago he was a State amateur heavyweight champion. He started his professional career by knocking out Joe Kraekon in the first round of a bout in Chicago on July 4, 1934, On June 25, 1935, he defeated Priino Camera, former world’s champion, on a technical knock-out. In October of 1935 he scored a first round technical knockout against “King" Levinsky, the man who stopped Dempsey when the latter tried to recover his lost position.

Louis’ victory over (lie ex-champion, Max Baer, at New York in September, 1935, made him fancied as a challenger to James J. Braddock, the present holder of the world’s heavyweight cnampionship. His defeat by Selmieling, who scored a knock-out in the twelfth round of their encounter in June, put him out of the immediate running as a challenger for tho title, but the ease with which he disposed of Sharkey on Tuesday will regain for .Louis much of his lost prestige.