The San Francisco call., 1910-07-01
JOHNSON AT WORK
SUGGESTS MACHINE
Colored Champion Shows Utter Lack of
Personality In Last Workout
BY FRED R. BECHDOLT
Continued From Page o. Column 5


Those who were present and many who
read accounts of the battle will still
remember the days terrific heat None
remember it better than Root. Asked
whether it stood a chance of making
much difference, he said:
ROOT WAS wILTED
'It will, indeed. If the day is hot
those men will suffer. My experience
kept for more than an hour in our
dressing rooms underneath that board
platform. More than an hour, and
sitting? 1t was terrible. When We
came out to fight we were all in. L
was wilted-as bad off as though had
already been through a long. hard
fight. I never wished for anything in
my life as hard as / did for the end of
that battle. 1 wished the thing were
done before we had shaken hands.
There is" continued Root, another
thing worth taking into account when
you're considering Nevada air. know
it from experience. 1t is different mere
than at sea level. The difference may
not show in training, but you wait for
the first stomach punch. If that is a
hard one goodby to the man that gets
it. He'll never catch his wind until it
is too late. 1t won't be like getting
back breath close to salt water. The
advantage to be gained by administer
ing such a blow will be tremendous"
1 saw johnson when he boxed this
afternoon. AS he stood there by the
ropes with a dark bathrobe slipping
from his smooth, silken, black skin, he
looked champion among fighters. The
bathrobe dropped from him; he began
to box. He made me think OF a huge
black Frankenstein.
Uncanny in the splendor of his mech
L -
ality-a great machine, swift working,
delicately adjusted, enormously strong.
The thing was made of flesh and bones
and nerves and blood, the mechanism
which l saw. The face was like an arm
or a section of the beautiful shoulder,
a face unmarked by lines, uncharacter-
lied by expression. 1t sometimes wore
a smile.
SMILE AN INDICATOR
That smile was to me like a part of
the machine. like an indicator. When
the machine was still the smile was
gone When the machine worked the
smile grew. Twice, thrice, the ma
chine slipped cog; failed just bit.
The smile went away. 1t vanished sud-
denly, utterly.
The face had another popularity on
which men who know this business of
fighting from A to have commented
action, when the machine was tugging
and heaving in what they call clinch.
the features lapsed into lack of all
expression. The eyes gazed far away.
into the blue sky or at the distanUsa ge-
brush :. But the eyes worked also at
close range. When movement was de-
manded they shifted and even as they
were /. shifting, so swiftly that it
seemed to be before they moved, the
-oG
through the long arm to the hand, and
the gioved fist leaped home.
1t was as though the nerves of
sense flashed their message TO the
brain and only that. 1 mean, as though
the brain were not a way station
wkere thought had to come. but part
of the road along which the MESA gs
passed. telling the hand to strike.
Johnson the man., may have even
dreamed. But Johnson. the machine.
johnson. the mysterious mechanism Of
flesh and blood, was working per-
fectly.
A Frankenstein, that is the best
word 1 can call to mind. The story
OF the man who made that machine
that did, anu talked and saw and
heard. and all that sort of thing, Is
an uncanny tale. You remember the
end where the machine got beyond
control 1t was terrible.
LIKE SLIP OF COG
Twice it seemed to me that Johnson
Slipped a<cog. Once was when he was
boxing Kid Cotton in the afternoon
They came into. a clinch. They had
clinched3 much during that round. and
Johnson was wonderful to watch as
he handled that other big man as
though the other were a baby, as
though he, Johnson, were a negro
tno n0tnT66lV. "hRTa.
be still"
Handlins the big. young negro that
wav. Johnson smiled. The indicator
was showing full power on, and all
running smoothly under that silky
black skin The lineless face smiled,
the white teeth dazzled between the
hits of gold. Then Cotton held on,
while Johnson strove to heave him
away. OF course it was only make be-
lieve fighting, but Cotton held the very
heat way he was able. Johnson had to
work for a second. Just a second; per-
hans less. There was nothing to bother
him. But for the instant he failed
to heave Cotton forth. The resistance
was terrific during that instant. The
machine did not move so smoothly, un-
hindered The smile vanished In it's
place came, for that bare instant,
ferocfty. Too much ferocity for the
occasion. 1t was not the ferocity Of
a. grim, lighting man. as l saw it. II
was rather ferocity run amuck, un-
restrained.
LOOK of WORRYs
Again in the morning the indicator
showed trouble. / don't know whether
Johnson can drive. but 1 fancy not.
When they were doing the light work
with the moving picture machines. get
ting the preliminary stuff, they had
Johnson in a sulky driving a fine black