The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-06-01
Barons Win Pretty Pitchers Battle

Ministerial objection to the Jess Will lard-Jack Dempsey fight has come to naught And that is no more than could be expected in this rather en- frightened age.
 A certain band of persons in Toledo decided that staging the fight in that city would have a bad effect upon the municipality They made all possible efforts to drive the contest out Of To- ledo-but they have failed.
 It seems strange that in this ad- vanced age there are still scattering of persons who look upon the boxing game as a sport degrading and de- brutalizing. They are in the class of Peter Pan-never have grown up. They have not watched the developm ent of the boxing game from it's earliest days to it's present point. If they had, they would have made no objection to the staging of a championship contest in their city.
 It is true-beyond a question of dis pute-that pugilism, far back in the bare knuckle days when men soaked their hands in salt brine to tougher them and battled along to a finish, was a brutal exhibition rather than a sport. But since the introduction of the Mar quis of Queensbury rules years ago, a
 radical change-practically revolu-
 tion-has come in the entire conduct
 of the sport. The game was lifted
 from one where brute strength alone
 prevailed to a contest where speed, brain work, quickness of the eye, of
 the hand and of the feet are vital as-
 sets.
 Boxing has become a scientific con- test-even more so than is baseball and
 all the other sports. And it is a game, too, that develops character even while
 it builds up the physical powers. If
 boxing wasn't an ideal sport, do you
 suppose that army officers would have introduced it into camp training? The very best tipoff that boxing of today is a clean and a wholesome one is the fact that clergymen of all de- nominations are frequently seen among boxing audiences in every land where the sport flourishes. Those are red blooded clericals, men with broad- ened up- to- the minute vision. It IS only those c1ergymen who perhaps never have seen boxing match ana ] know about pugilism only from the stories of it's early days, who oDJect to it.
 Whenever a football contest is to be staged or baseball game, or even a wrestling match. no cry ever goes up against it. Yet believe statistics will show that more accidents come about in baseball and more fatalities in foot ball than in boxing contests. It is my recollection that as a result of tens or thousands of pugilistic clashes in the l last year or two only two deaths have resulted And both are traceable to 1 lack of condition, rather than to beat I ing in the ring.
 | Pugilism is not like football-it is l whole lot milder and less dangerous. | in boxing, a man has but one opponent 1 to watch. But in football there are | 21 men in the game beside himself and l each and every one is liable to do him <, injury. The Ii men opposite him cer- l tainly are out to get him if they can, l and in every scrimmage there IS al ways a possibility of accident or death. 1 q would rather fight zoo battles in the ring than play for 10 minutes in one football game" is what John L. | Sullivan once told Big BilP' Edwards /, of Princeton, after witnessing Har- vard- Princeton clash in Boston. "I've got some chance in fight" Those same ministers who have op- posed the Dempsey Willard match i which is to be a scientific boxing clash between two perfectly trained athletes not only have failed to object to foot | ball, but undoub tedly have approved the sport by witnessing countless I games themselves.
 Mayor Schreiber of Toledo, a roa
 two-fisted citizen. certainly showed the
 true democratic American, spirit when