But boxing and street fighting by no means always go together on the Middle West Side. The real professional boxers of the neighborhood dissociate them in practice as well as in theory; they take their profession for what it is—a game to be played in a sportsmanlike manner—and they are usually good-natured. One of the best known prize fighters of the city, who lives on the Middle West Side, states that it is years since he was mixed up in a fight of any kind. “I box because I like the game,” he said, “but I’ve no use for fighting.”
Prize Fighters in Training
Craps with Money at Stake
Another man, an exceedingly clever lightweight boxer, who has appeared several times in the ring in New York City clubs, was boxing one night with a rather crude amateur. The bout was really for the instruction of the amateur, and both boxers were going very easily by agreement. Suddenly the amateur landed an unintentionally hard blow upon the eye of his opponent, just as the latter was stepping forward. The eye became fearfully discolored and the whole side of the boxer’s face swelled. But in spite of his evident feeling that the amateur had taken an unfair advantage in striking so hard when his opponent was off his guard, the lightweight fighter laughed and submitted to treatment for the eye without losing his temper in the least, and freely accepted the apologies of the other.
This is boxing at its best, but unfortunately its tendencies are more usually toward unfairness and brutality than otherwise. Boys are taught to box early in this district. It is not uncommon to see a bout between youngsters of seven or eight being watched by a crowd of young men, who encourage the combatants by cheering every successful blow, but pay no attention to palpable fouls or obvious attempts to take a dishonest advantage. Even some of the best of the prize fighters frankly say that once in the ring the extent to which they foul is only a question of how much they can deceive the referee. And when this questionable code of ethics is passed on by these heroes and leaders of sentiment to the boys who have no referee and no thought beyond that of winning by disabling an opponent as much as possible, the sport degenerates into an unfair and tricky test of endurance. Striking with the open hand, kicking, tripping, hitting in a clinch, all these unfair practices are considered a great advantage if one can “get away with it.” The West Side youngster sees very little of the real professional boxers who, from the very nature of their somewhat strenuous employment, must keep in good condition, as a rule retire early, drink little, and do a great deal of hard gymnastic work. But of their brutalized hangers-on, the “bruisers,” who frequent the saloons and street corners and pose as real fighters, he sees a great deal; consequently, as a whole, prize fighting must be classed as one of the worst influences of the neighborhood. It is too closely allied with street fighting, and too easily turned to criminal purposes. The bully who learns to box will use his acquired knowledge as a means of enforcing his superiority on the street, and if he is beaten will have recourse to weapons or any other means of maintaining his prestige.
Baseball and boxing bring to a close the list of common outdoor games played by boys on the Middle West Side,—just ordinary games, modified by a particular environment and played in a shifting and spasmodic way which is characteristic of it. It remains to emphasize the lesson taught by their effects on boy life as they are practiced in this neighborhood.
The philosophy of the West Side youngster is practical and not speculative. Otherwise he could not fail to notice very early in his career that the world in general, from the mother who bundles him out of an overcrowded tenement in the morning, to the grown-ups in the street playground where most of his time is spent, seem to think him very much in the way. All day long this fact is borne in upon him. If a wagon nearly runs over him the driver lashes him with the whip as he passes to teach him to “watch out.” If he plays around a store door the proprietor gives him a cuff or a kick to get rid of him. If he runs into someone he is pushed into the gutter to teach him better. And if he is complained of as a nuisance the policeman whacks him with hand or club to notify him that he must play somewhere else. Moreover, everything that he does seems to be against the law. If he plays ball he is endangering property by “playing with a hard ball in a public place.” If he plays marbles or pitches pennies he is “obstructing the sidewalk,” and craps, quite apart from the fact that it is gambling, constitutes the same offense. Street fighting individually or collectively is “assault,” and a boy guilty of none of these things may perforce be “loitering.” In other words he finds that property or its representatives are the great obstacles between him and his pleasure in the streets. And in considering our problem neither the principal cause of this situation nor its results must be lost sight of.
The great drawback to normal life on the Middle West Side is that it is a dual neighborhood. Tenements and industrial establishments are so inextricably mixed that the demands of the family and the needs of industry and commerce are eternally in conflict. The same streets must be used for all purposes; and one of the chief sufferers is the boy. More obvious, however, than this cause of a complex situation are the results of it, two of which are especially noticeable. The first is the inevitableness with which the boy accepts—and must accept—illegal and immoral amusements as a matter of course. The spirit of youth is forced to become a criminal tendency, and sport and the rights of property are forced into antagonism. And in the second place, partly because of this, partly because their association with the toughs of the street predisposes them to imitate vice and rowdyism, the boys come to take a positive pleasure in such activities as retaliation by theft and destruction of property. Stores and basements in this district are sometimes completely abandoned owing to the stone throwing and persecution of a youthful gang which has found their occupants too strenuously hostile or defensive. Undoubtedly the street is the most inadequate of playgrounds and throws many difficulties of prevention and interruption in the path of sport. But these obstacles are from their nature provocative of contest, and sport flourishes with a Hydra-like vitality. Nothing short of impossibility will keep the boy and his game apart.