James J. Corbett, whose dominant ambition was to make his conduct and appearance consonant with his sobriquet “Gentleman Jim,” has written as much of his life as he thinks the public should know and he calls it The Roar of the Crowd. Mr. Corbett learned the ninth letter of the alphabet first and after he had mastered it he convinced himself there was small need to bother with the others, and besides he had no time. He must go into training. He must develop his ego; he must make it go centripetally and centrifugally with equal facility and he must develop his muscles and increase his weight so that he might become “Champion of the World.” These things are not taught in school so he was expelled and took to fighting in a boxstall of his father’s livery stable. “I instinctively used my head even at that age.” That is the burden of Mr. Corbett’s story. He always used his head before, during and after the fight. Before, to put the fear of Corbett into his opponent; during, to knock him out and gain his respect, and after, to win his friendship. After he got his ego, his muscles and his weight behaving satisfactorily, he cogitated, “I mustn’t be modest; all successful prize fighters are arrogant, self-satisfied and noisy. I shall be arrogant and self-satisfied, but never noisy.” After he had fought several successful battles in livery stables, he knocked out Joe Choinyski in what Billy Delomey, “the most famous of all seconds,” said, was the fiercest battle he ever saw. And Corbett whipped him with one hand! He not only admits it but asserts it. “It is a remarkable feature of this fight that I fought this whole battle with my left hand.” Having done this, it was easy to convince himself he could whip Jake Kilrain with two hands, though his backer, Bud Renaud, who ran a gambling house in New Orleans and was “a splendid character” could scarcely be persuaded of the probability of it. But not so Gentleman Jim. He telegraphed his father, “Will whip Kilrain sure.” He did it, and then telegraphed, “Won with hands down.” Having gone on so well with his head, aided by one hand up, and both hands down, he determined to take on Peter Jackson, the great negro fighter from Australia, “a very clever man,” said Corbett to a friend, “but no cleverer than I am.” First he must make the negro angry, then get his goat, then whip him. That would lead the way to John L. Sullivan. Needless to say he did all these with decency and despatch. Then he “called” Sullivan. The latter was wont to restrict his challenge to those whose mothers had cuckolded their fathers. Naturally there were few takers. One evening when John and Jim were making a round of the saloons of Chicago, the latter tiring of the other’s boastfulness said, looking him right in the eye, “Mr. Sullivan, you are the champion of the world, and everybody is supposed to think that you can whip any —— in the world.... I don’t want you to make that remark in my presence again.” And from what transpired in the next few seconds, Jim knew he had “got” his man. So it was comparatively an easy matter to go to Florida and give him the coup de grâce. Every one knows that he did. But he soon had a change of heart. It saddened him that those thousands who came to cheer the vanquished remained to fawn on the victor, and he said, “I will be immodest no longer, I will be magnanimous and just, I really did not whip Sullivan alone, J. Barleycorn and I did it together,” and then he went to the Southern Athletic, where he took a glass of milk. “This incident was wired all over the world and was published in many newspapers.” The Christian Science Monitor and the Dearborn Independent took no notice of the event. They might well have done so without involuting their obvious rôles, for here was the birth of virtue. John L. reformed soon after and James J. figures that “this moderation helped me to what success I have had.”
J. J. CORBETT
Reprinted from “The Roar of the Crowd”
By permission of G. P. Putnam’s Sons
Soon Mr. Corbett met Mr. Fitzsimmons, but the less said about that the better. It facilitated his way to the stage which is where he really belonged. He deserted it now and then to take on a fighter and finally met Jeffries, who stopped him plentifully and permanently. That permitted him to devote himself to his café and to his lines.
The most amazing chapter of this biographical narrative is entitled “My Actor Friends.” Here Mr. Corbett poses as a diagnostician in the field of psychiatry. “Come to think of it, I have had the misfortune to be present when six famous stars have lost their reason.” Men lose their reason as they do their purses or their umbrellas. They drop through holes in the pocket or they are left in street cars. Dr. Corbett’s procedure was original, but I find it difficult to believe he used his head as much in diagnosticating as in fighting. “What’s all this talk about your going crazy?” said he to a great comedian already advanced in general paresis who instantly countered with protestation of complete sanity. The slang comedian with whom he played pool at the Lambs during his last rational hour “laughed and kidded” in his familiar way, but Mr. Corbett distinguished the psychic output from that of irrationality.
A friend and admirer of Mr. Corbett, a journalist, author and literary promoter says, in a foreword to the book, that the ex-champion did the book himself. Few will ask Mr. Anderson to prove it. “Jim said he wanted it as it is, faults and all.” Jim is the man who got what he wanted. Did he want a biography, that is the question?
XIV
FICTIONAL BIOGRAPHY
Ariel, by André Maurois.
The Divine Lady, by E. Barrington.
The Nightingale; A Life of Chopin, by Marjorie Strachey.