Give the man room

by Robert J. Casey; Mary Montgomery Borglum

It turned out that there was a lot of business about the boxing reform movement that Gutzon had not suspected. In September 1919 there came into being The International Sporting Club, Inc., of New York, an organization that was to show the National Sporting Club of London how sports really should be conducted. According to the plan ably outlined by Mr. Gavin, there would be 2,250 members. Each member, to get the great movement started, was to buy a gold-debenture bond for $500 as a sort of initiation fee. The bond was to pay six per cent annually. After that the dues would be $100 a year.

Land was bought and plans were drawn for a magnificent clubhouse at Lexington Avenue and Forty-ninth Street. Excavators came with suitable tools and began to dig a hole for this great temple of sport. Members rushed in to buy their gold debentures. The hole deepened and presently was surrounded by a high fence to keep New York’s enthusiasts from falling into it.

By the end of 1920 Gavin was beginning to be one of the most talked-about men in New York. He, of course, was managing director of the club. He was mentioned in press reports as the man in control of “organization and development,” which seem to have been his chief concern.

Major A. J. Drexel Biddle was first president of the organization. Gutzon Borglum, still eager for the return of boxing, suddenly found himself treasurer. The Army and Navy were well represented in the membership by people who had been active in the First World War—admirals and generals, and commanders and colonels. And there were so many more figures from financial and social eminences that the roster was a sort of Who’s Who. There was quite a sensation when this list of magnificent members moved into the struggle to get boxing back again.

Whatever may be said about Gavin’s effort to raise the level of the boxing industry, it is certain that the club presently began to make some headway. Senator James J. Walker, presently to be known as New York’s playboy mayor, led the fight at Albany and presently won it when the Walker Bill (Chapter 714, Laws of 1921, N. Y.) was passed. But he had a lot of amateur assistance. Biddle made an impassioned plea to Governor Alfred Smith and later broke through Tammany obstructions to lay the matter before Boss Murphy and demand his support.

When the bill was passed, as nearly everybody thought it would be, a testimonial dinner was given to Gavin. Jimmy Walker declared that the legalization of boxing in New York was due to Gavin’s skill in organization and to his tireless energy. He read a letter to the banqueters that Borglum, still full of crusading zeal, had written to him:

You have recounted some of the obstacles Gavin surmounted in the passage of the bill. They were great, no doubt, but they were small compared with those he has encountered in the founding of the International Sporting Club. And these are small compared with the obstacles that stood in the way of convincing the governors of twenty commonwealths of the wisdom and necessity of forming a national body. It seems that boxing, which has become the black sheep of the family of sports, and of which Maeterlinck says, “It is not a coincidence that the nations who love boxing do not know the knife,” is at last destined to come into its own.

Gavin went on. While the eager members were still peering through the fence at the empty hole at Lexington Avenue and Forty-ninth Street, he began a series of gorgeous entertainments for celebrities. At one of them, entitled “Ladies’ Night at the Commodore Hotel,” the women leaders of New York’s society looked at a prize fight for the first time in their lives. Gavin was a good promoter. The homeless club staged, in all, three bouts—Fulton vs. Wills, Carpentier vs. Levinsky, Herman vs. Lynch.

Georges Carpentier, the French championship contender, was the chief attraction and got considerably more publicity than he deserved. Champion Jack Dempsey, who, a few months later, was to knock out M. Carpentier, was present at the Sporting Club bout and was applauded with dignified acclaim. With all this enthusiasm roaring through New York, Gavin got some new ideas for his building. He arranged with Gutzon to carve marble panels for the main room and to produce a large piece of sculpture for the entrance. Borglum started to make models of the specimens required ... but it is hard to find any record of what became of them.

The third prize fight sponsored by Gavin was between Pete Herman and Joe Lynch at Ebbets Field, and it was not much of a success. It ended in a riot that caused the club to lose its license to promote private bouts and something like $40,377.32 in cash. Major A. J. Drexel Biddle walked out and trouble began to pile up.