Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-10-23

to catch the drift of the talk around me
That's how l noticed that most people
have got into the habit Of yawning ant
looking bored to the verge of extinction
when the merry-merry bunch made it!
appearance. Musical pieces can be done :
whole lot better without them. The,
have become excess and enormously ex
pensive baggage. I doubt II. within twt
years, there will be a chorus left-ant
yet there will be musical pieces to burn
and yet again some of 'em will be burned
by the critics, With the chorus done
away with. producers of musical piece:
will be better able to afford to obtair
higher-grade, more competent principals
for their productions. instead of disburs
ing the greater part of their change t
pay for large, unwieldy and tiresom'
gangs of chorus people"
I did not ask Mr.. Cohan what. in hfs
opinion. would become of the JOhnnie'
after the dissolution of the choruses.
haven't asked any authoritative person
that question. 1t is too saddening a query
to frame into words.
A LREADY there has been lot of
4 \ senseless moralizing. and there will
be more. about Stanley Ketchel. the pu-
gilist, who met his tragic death the other
day. In all cases the nub Of this futile
moralizing appears to be that the young
man met A logical sort of death after
going the pace" | am quite unable
to understand how a mans manner OF
life has or could have anything to do
with his meeting a sudden death from
the bullet of an assassin
i happen to know, however. that all of
these going-the-pace" stories with re-
gard to Ketchel are absolutely wrong.
The matter would not be worth writing
about had Stanley Ketchel belonged to
the ordinary breed of pugiists. The
going -the-pace" thing is expected of
the average pug, nor does one of the
ordinary sort In the least mind having
his .dissipations exploited in the news
papers.
ketchel. however. decidedly did not be-
long to the general run of prize fight
ers. The yarns that began to be printed
on: in California more than a year ago,
ana that were quickly seized upon and
reprinted in the east, as to his alleged
fool designations, cut the youth keenly.
He was a mere boy, but an entirely
unusual boy, and. l say it with the great
est deioeration, boy possessed not only
OF personality, but of actual charm.
known, was a Pole by descent, and he
had all of the animation, dash and imag-
ination OF the Pole. Nature provided
him with a fine. keen mind, as we'll as
WIN superb physique. He would have
reminded you of lieutenant of hus-
sars often saw him fight. and
am by no means alone In believing that
had he been given a little larger frame
and about twenty-five pounds more of
weight he could have beaten any man
in the world. Fftzsimmons, an authority
told ne that Ketchel struck a harder blow
with either hand than he himself had
ever struck; and the cognoscenti among
fight followers will easily appraise what
this statement meant He was perfectly
dauntless in or out of the ring. and yet
he never raised his voice, never showed
temper or ugliness, had an absolute OBJ
session for little children, who loved
him, and In general was as tender-heart-
ed as weman.
ketchel hated the fighting game, which
he took up more or less by accident
when he was but sixteen years old. and
he never meant to follow it. 1t was
not dissipation that drove him to the
Missouri ranch where he came to his
death. IL was simply his desire to re-
move himself utterly from the ring at
mOsphere, to hold himself aloof from
the monetary temptation to engage in
further prize fights. The moralisers have
IT that ketchel was a wreck when he left
New York the last time. Nothing could