Pieces of Hate; And Other Enthusiasms

by Heywood Broun

There had been awe in the tones of the conductor from the beginning. "Jack's going to have roast lamb for dinner to-night," he announced in an awful hush. Even as we went out he could not resist lowering his voice a little as he said, "This is the hat rack. This is where the champion puts his hat." We had gone only fifty yards away from the house when a big brown limousine drew up. "That," said the press agent, and this time we feared he was going to die, "is Jack Dempsey himself."

The preparation had been so similar to the first act of "Enter Madame" that we expected temperament and gesture from the star. He put us wholly at ease by being much more frightened than any one in the visiting party. As somebody has said somewhere, "Any mouse can make this elephant squeal." Jack Dempsey is decidedly a timid man and we found later that he was a gentle one. He answered, "Yes, sir," and "No, sir," at first. If we had his back and shoulders we'd have a civil word for no man. By and by he grew a little more at ease and somebody asked him what he read. He was not particularly strong on the names of books and he always forgot the author, which detracts somewhat from this article as a guide for readers. There were almost three hundred books at his disposal, since his training quarters had once been an aviation camp. These were the books of the fliers. Practically all the popular novelists and short story writers were represented. We remember seeing several titles by Mary Roberts Rinehart, Irvin Cobb, Zane Grey, Rupert Hughes, and Rex Beach. Older books were scarce. The only one we noticed was "A Tale of Two Cities." This Dempsey had not read. Perhaps Jack Kearns advised against it on account of the possible disturbing psychological effects of the chapter with all the counting.

Dempsey said he had devoted most of his time to Western novels. When questioned he admitted that he did not altogether surrender himself to them. "I was a cowboy once for a while," he said. "There's a lot of hokum in those books." But when pressed as to what he really liked his face did light up and he even remembered the name of the book. "There was one book I've been reading," he burst out; "it's a fine book. It's called 'The Czar's Spy.'"

"Perhaps," suggested Ruth Hale of the visiting party, "a grand duke would say there was a lot of hokum in that."

Dempsey was not to be deterred by any such higher criticism. Never having been a grand duke, he did not worry about the accuracy of the story. It was in a field far apart from life. That we gathered was his idea of the proper field for fiction. In life Dempsey is a stern realist. It is only in reading that he is romantic. A more impressionable man would have been disturbed by the air of secrecy which surrounded the camp of Carpentier. That never worried Dempsey. He prepared himself and never thought up contingencies. He did not even like to talk fight. None of us drew him out much about boxing. Somebody told him that Jim Corbett had reported that when he first met Carpentier he had been vastly tempted to make a feint at the Frenchman to see whether or not he would fall into a proper attitude of defense.

"Yes," giggled Dempsey, "and it would have been funny if Carp had busted him one on the chin." This seemed to him an extraordinary humorous conceit and he kept chuckling over it every now and then. While he was in this good humor somebody sounded him out as to what he would do if he lost; or rather the comment was made that an old time fighter, once a champion, was now coming back to the ring and had declared that he was as good as he ever was.

"Why shouldn't he?" said Dempsey just a little sharply. "Nobody wants to see a man that says he isn't as good as he used to be."

"Would you say that?" he was asked.

"Well," said Dempsey, and this time he reflected a little, "it would all depend on how I was fixed. If I needed the money I would. I'd use all the old alibis."

We liked that frankness and we liked Dempsey again when somebody wanted to know how he could possibly say anything in the ring during the fight to "get the goat of Carpentier." "We ain't nearly well enough acquainted for that," said Dempsey and we gathered that he was of the opinion that you must know a man pretty well before you can insult him. The champion is not a man to whom one would look for telling rejoinders, though he has needed them often enough in the last year and a half. Criticism has hurt him, for he is not insensitive. He is merely inarticulate. This must have been the reason which prompted some sporting writers to feel that he would come into the ring whipped and down from the fact that he had been able to make no reply to all the charges brought against him. It did not work out that way. Dempsey did have a means of expression and he used it. There is no logic in force and yet a man can exclaim "Is that so!" with his fists. Dempsey said it. If we may be allowed to stretch a point it might even be hazarded that the champion's motto is "Say it with cauliflowers."