Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1909-11-13
HOW JEFFRIES
VIEWS FOOTBALL
More Brutal Than Boxing, De-
cIares the PugiIist.
DISCUSSES FATE OF BYRNE.
Only One Man to Fight In the Ring;
on the Gridiron It's Eleven, He Says.
Would Ask Referee to Stop Bout Be-
fore He'd Smash Man Nearly Out.

Jim Jeffries, the pugiIist. who is
matched to meet Jack Johnson for the
heavyweight championship of the
j world. has a few warm words to say
about college football. He commented
! on the fate of Cadet Eugene A. Byrne.
who died from injuries received in the
Harvard and West Point game. AS
usual, it was necessary to corkscrew
! few answers out of him before his
/ tongue began to work freely.
Hold on!' said he quickly. I'm a
fighter. Maybe I ought not to have
any opinions about football. 1t isn't
my game. I'm not supposed to know
anything about it. Well, yes. I've
been reading the papers. Tell me, on
the level, have they killed seven boys
already this year? That's serious. No
joke about that kind Of a game,
guess. Now, then.
"You can say that Pm against any
game that kills seven boys while it's
only warming up, you might say. That
sort of game isn't worth while. No
game that kills men as a regular thing
is worth while.
Women Abhor Prizefghters.
There have always been lot of
men in this country who stand up on
their hind legs and roar about the bru-
tality Of the boxing game. Their wom-
en- will pull their skirts away from
prizefghter as If he was some sort of
an animal, yet these same people go
out to football game and yell them
selves black in the face at an exhibit
ton that's too rough for men who fight
for a living The women too! Yes
SIR. I've seen 'em, and know.
Football is all right, Ell? It's a
fashionable game. Society stands for
it, yet in the old bare knuckle days
when men picked their hands in brine
for weeks before a fight there was
never anything to compare with the
roughness and the brutality of this
nice, social game.
"This will make lot of people sore,
but I'll tell why / think football is
more brutal than boxing-yes, you can
call it prizefighting If you want to.
When a man goes into the ring he
knows he has only got to whip one
man-only got to fight one man. The
odds are fair In this football bust
ness you've got eleven men against
you.
Went Down For the Count.
81 saw in the paper this afternoon
that just before this poor cadet was
hurt he had been in a smashup and
went down for the count. He was
game. and he got up again and went
to his place. What did they do!
They directed the attack against the
weak place. the paper says. In other
words, all those big, husky fellows
smashed into this boy, who was still
groggy, and they got him.
They can send all the kilograms Of
coincidence they want to, but that
doesn't bring him back. They piled
the whole line on him, and they did it
when they knew he was weak and
not in shape. They did it because he
was weak. Why. I'd be ashamed to
smash man as hard as / could when
| knew he was nearly out. I'd ask the
referee TO stop the fight before I'd
do that.
Here's another reason why football
Is n bad business: In fight If man
gets clip on the jaw and goes down
and can't get up again in ten seconds
he's done He doesn't have to take
any more punishment. In a football
game they give man two minutes to
come back. If they had had some
such rule as we have in the ring this
cadet would never have been killed.
He would have been aat of the game
when he was stunned the first time.
Risk Everything For Nothing.
Here's another thing that strikes
me. Most of the boys who play foot
bah are only kids. They haven't their
growth or their full strength. They
go in there and get slammed around,
and they cannot STAND it. They don't
get thing out of it If they win. DO
you suppose all the rah-rah business
in the world could make up the loss
of one boy-to his folk? They risk
everything for nothing
Let 'em boiler about fighting being
brutal. I'll tell you something-if
prizefighting should kill fifteen men
in one year every legislature in the
country would put the game out OF
business. And that isn't all they'd do
They'd hang few of the winners.
This talk about boxing being brutal
and football being fine game makes
me sick. Ii | had a son I'd send him
into the ring to fight one man at a
time before I'd let him get into one
Of those harnesses and take his
chances with eleven fellows. Yes, and
he'd lose a decision to me the first
time he began to talk football"
There seems TO be no question about
the way Jim Jeffries stands on the
question of college football
Subways For Chicago.