The Cairo bulletin., 1910-08-08
NEXT BIC BOUT
STILL IN DOUBT
JACK JOHNSON ACCUSED. OF
DoDGiNG SAM LANGFoRD,
= or BOSTON.
LATTER ALONE WILLING
Burns May Get Match With New Nc
gro Champion in England or
Observation-Disclosures
i is Silent.

San Francisco, Aug. 7.--They arc
still talking about the heavyweight
fuss in the sagebrushs country and
from present appearances there will
be nothing 70 supplant 1t as pugi-
listic theme for some time to come.
With Jefries engaged In piscatoral
pursuits and preserving silence that
Is as absolutely golden as Jack John
sons famous gilded giggle, the cham
pion is the man that gossips have to
do with
1t is interesting 10 note the range
Of the opinions expressed in regard to
Johnson's fighting talent. Some of
the best iudges-cr at any rate, men
who by experience in the ring and out
of 1t should be the best equipped to
judge such things--wll have it that
Jack is an accident.
One past champion has said that
Johnson don't know how to lead, and
that he wouldn't have had as much
chance as bubble in a stoke hole il
he had happened along during former
championship disputes.
Vain talk this. In this connection
the writer would say in reply to the
question, would Johnson have beat
en- So-and-So when So-and-So was at
his BEST" That there Is no means OF
telling 1t is very foolish to pursue
any line of argument that cannot be
settled by bet. II person were
could be determined whether the
present Jack Johnson could have
licked John L. Sullivan of 1885, he
might in all safety regard the funds
in hand as his own personal prop
erty.
Best of His Time.
You can't bridge the years in that
way. You can't compare fighters of
different generations and arrive at a
sane conclusion, and the best you can
say for Johnson or any other cham
pion is that he is the best of his
era.
Another thing. The supremacy of
the races in the pugilistic line was
not definitely determined at Reno.
The result was only temporary
triumph for the negro. If a. black
horse wins the Futurity this year,
it doesn't mean that black yearlfngs
will be the safest investment of the
next big SALE bay or a gray may
be the champion three-year-old Of the
following season.
AS to Johnson's fighting. He may
not be able to lead, as some of the
savants claim, and he may not com
pare, point to point, with other world
heaters that have strutted for time
as champions, but he is pugilstic
wonder Just the same He is nat
ural fighter If there ever was one.
Just think of all the professors of
fistcuffs who were coaching Jeffries
as to how to dodge ten famous right
uppercut. Yet the right scarcely figu-
ured in the result 1t was a left up
percut that Johnson worried and
weakened and wore down Jeffries
with.
The Next Big sout.
And how about the prophecy that
If Jeffries ever got close enough TO
the tantalizing negro, there would be
short shift for the hope of the black
race? Why, 1t was Johnson who
courted close milling, and it was
Johnson who scored 80 per cent of
the credits while battling breast to
breast.
VIII there be another big match,
and If SO, when?
That is hard one.
There may be Jack Johnson
Tommy Burns contest in England or
Australia, or there may be Johnson
Langford fight at some point in this
country where the bars are still
down.
Johnson, by the way, is in no hurry
for the test witt Langford, something
which is passing strange.
SO far LanglOrd mas not SHOWN any
thing which suggests that he has 1t
in him to tame Johnsons stubborn
pride, yet 1t is as pain as the nose
on your face that Johnson is lodging
the other negro
is johnson Afraid?
If 1t Is not SO. why Is he always
willing to back some other fighter
against Langford? Why does he keep
insisting on high stakes in the belief
that Langford will not ne able to com.
mand the sinews OF war?
In every match that Johnson has
engaged In UP to the present there
was no mistaking his earnestness Of
purpose. He never threw stumbling
Concluded pp Fifth Page