The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-04-11
Tommy White Faces the Hard
est Battle of His Life
In His Coming Bout With Terry
McGOvern.
GIVEN EIGHT POUNDS
More Than 100 Fistic Contests
Credited to the Chicagoan.
Whites Fights Have Been Ex-
ceptiOnally Long.

Chicago. April 11.-After eleven years
Of fstic work in the ring, Tommy White,
the local 125-pound boxer is slated April
II to meet the hardest man OF his class
the world has ever seen, Terry Meow
ern, the wonderful Brooklyn feather
weight McGovern will go out of his class
for the first time to meet White. He has
agreed to allow the Chicagoan to get into
the ring at 100 pounds, which IS fully
eight pounds more than the champion has
ever granted any fighter. It goes to show
mat McGoVern IS getting tired of the
Ieather- weight class and is signing for
some OF the bigger men to whip.
White has had a wonderful career in
the ring He Is three months older than
20 years, and was born in Fox Lake, III.
MS parents moved 10 Chicago when Tom
my was but four years old and the boy
was given his schooling at the Fourteenth
street and Foster schools. When sixteen
years old he started to make his own
living and found employment with a
board of trade firm, with which he re-
manned until he took up fighting profess
sionally.
Boston Tom Chandler was running a
gymnasium in the Imperial building in
those days and White was attracted to
the place because Of his natural love of
athletic sports. Being a lively young fell
low ne soon got to be pretty clever with
the gloves and was advised to follow the
game and go out after some of the medals
that were then being offered by the ath-
leue clubs of the city for competition.
White became well known locally
among the amateurs and in 1889 won the
medal emblematic of the state Champion
snip of the 1l5-pound class, beating Billy
Manning. once a pupil of George Siler,
the referee The contest was a hot af-
fair decided in the armory then in Jack
son street. He won a number of other
contests before and after and became so
wei known that when Tommy Morgan,
8 hardy fighter from the stock yards dis
tr1ct found trouble in finding matches,
Whites friends matched them.
1t was Tommys first professional bat
tie. II was at Hammond Ind, with
skin-tight gloves. and White won after a
Datrle lasting nftV-fOl1T rounds. the sheriff
breaking up the bout. White then started
as a full-hedged pugiIist and some of his
earlier fights became fistic history. He
fought Dan DAILY, one of the notorious
st. Louis family of that name draw of
ninety-one rounds, the longest feather
weight fight on record.
White afterward defeated DAILY at the
Triangle club of Chicago in a six-round
Whites earlier fights were exceptionally
long and in his record are to be found
Iorty-niAe rounds with Billy Brennan, a
Brooklyn lightweight, who was afterward
fatally hurt by a fall in the ring; battles
of fOrty-One and forty-nine rounds with
kid" Siddons and of thirty-three rounds
with Australian" Murphy on the Pacific
coast.
In his entire career White can figure
up l0I regular fights, exclusive of exhibit
lions and bouts in which he undertook to
mghts FOOT up q total OF 10 rounds.
w hite has received but half a dozen de-
1eats IN MS eleven years OF nghtIng. Ihe
men successful over MIN were Billy
Brennan, George Siddons, George Dixon,
Ben Jordan Of England and Young Ma
honey
White seldom has been knocked down
and claims that he was never knocked out
in regular fight. although it is on record
local theater one night when the local
man went on for an exhibition bout.
White never has been credited with be-
Ing a Furnishing hitter. He is so clever,
however, that he has been able to win
from and get draws with some of the high
est class fighters Of his weight and some
In the class above him. He has to his
credit two long draws with George Dixon
and other with Ike Weir. Critic, Art
Simms, Spike" Sullivan, when the lat
ter was fighting in the feather-weight
class and SOlly Smith. He never has re-
fused a fight. on the score OF weight, when
his prospective opponent was some
where near the right figure. Most of
the good judges Of the ring accredit him
with being by far the ganest man in the
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