John the Great

PRIZEFIGHTERS may come and prizefighters may go, but the name of “John L.” goes on forever. John P. Marquand, who has written a pert introduction to the biography of Boston’s Strong Boy, John L. Sullivan, seems perplexed as to the reasons of his popularity. And yet there is no real mystery here. John L. was a great man with his fists; he knocked down all and sundry. In his early days, so sure was he of knocking the other man down that he made it his custom to offer fifty dollars to any man in a theater audience who could stand up to him a mere four rounds. This was in a day when it was nothing out of the ordinary for fights to last as many as seventy-five rounds. He shone in melodrama too, and he had no need of a loud-speaker: “his sigh was a hullabaloo, his whisper a horrible yell.” He made a million dollars, very little of it by fighting. Easy come, easy go; in the end he had little to show for it. He was as generous with his money as with his fists; if you were in trouble (or not in trouble) all you had to do was to ask for it. Of course, he was popular. His meeting with the then Prince of Wales (Edward VII to be) proved a great sensation; he was friends with Teddy Roosevelt, whom he used to vist at the White House. After young James Corbett had danced round him and worn him down, bringing the great man to his knees, men wept and refused to talk or shake hands with the winner. John L. in some measure reflected his times; hence this book is even more absorbing as a social history than as a biography. J. C.