The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-01-21
JESSE JAMES WAS REAL
 TO YOUNG TEX RICHARD
Wild Life On Plains Knew No Dishonesty Says Famous Promoter In Writing Of Youth Spent
 In Wild West

tCopyright. 1923 in United States and Great Britain. Cuba. Japan and South America by North American Newspaper Alliance for Ire Age e-Herald. All Rights Reserved.D
 By TEX RICHARD
 Though the promotion of big boxing matches has brought me considerable fortune, 1t always has seemed to me more like a plaything than a business. just as much thrill out of pulling off a successful fight as the glofer does in making his best score.
 When I tell you that the amount of money invested, earned or lost has never given me much concern, I am likely to be accused of exaggeration. I assure you, though, that such is the fact. Money itself never meant any thing more to me than one of the fac tors to be moved in a game-like a pawn in chess. have had plenty of money at times and have been broke occasionally, but in either event never had much thrill or much distress. I have seen frequent references to what writers call my nerve or game money to land a fight. They have ex- pressed wonder at the chances I took.
 How do you know" one man writes, that the men you deal with will be honest? How do you figure them as being on the square?"
 That reference to nerve always gives me laugh. To offer big money for a fight is not a matter of gameness: I fail to see where any nerve is required | in paying out money that you feel pretty sure of getting back, with a profit besides. As I say, the money itself means nothing to me. It is sim ply a thing to be used in playing a game. If I haven't any money, then I can't play, that's all.
  ] people, I always have done that. Real people are nearly always honest. If I judge man to be a rat, I don't deal with him. With fighters, for instance, I have never had the slightest argument | over money Or agreements. A few of the little two-by-four managers have shown rat tendencies, but it didn't take long to find them out.
 Met First Crook At 40 | The big city man may be surprised when I say that I never knew very | much about people being dishonest un- til I was nearly 40 years old. There were no dishonest men in the early Klondike days. There were not any among the cowboys with whom I worked and associated on the plains. Petty thieves couldn't live in that at- mosphere. They didn't fit.
 Real gameness, to my way of think ing, has nothing to do with money It is a personal quality.
 The gamest man I ever knew, for instance, was Cooper Wright, sheriff in Texas. I was a young fellow about the town of Henrietta then, just feel ing my oats. I had been on two or three of the long cattle drives and had seen enough to know real man when I saw him.
 A man by the name of Henry Stegal had committed some crime. forget just what at the moment, and was in the town calaboose. The cattlemen and other citizens were much incensed al Stegall.V
 One day the cowboys all rode in town and began "lickering up' at the many pine-boarded saloons. In time nearly 200 of them got together and marched on the calaboose to take Stegall out and hang him. They couldn't wait or the law.
 The jailer was helpless. The mol simply walked up to the jail, kicked open the door and yanked Stegall out They dragged him to a telegraph pole nearby and strung him up.
 With two other young fellows, watched this from the roof of a she'd
 Just as Stegall's body dangled and the cowboys shot their guns off ir the air, Cooper Wright, the sheriff came on the run. He was all alone