The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1924-09-11


Back Of Wills will be the memory
Of Joe Cans and Joe Jeanette and
Joe Wolcott. Back of Wills Is the
tradition of Sam Langford and Jack
Johnson and Peter jackson. Fight.
ing men, all of them-men Of rour.
age and muscle and sinew who car
ried into the ring great hearts that
beat sturdily beneath a skin that
was black
It's an interesting study, this his.
tory that governs fighters ana poets
and statesmen alike. And it's par.
ticularly interesting in the case Of
these two men who do tattle
tonight-men entirely opposite and
yet strangely alike.
Through the veins of Wills there
flows the blood Of race born to
fight and struggle. Since time be.
gan they have been the underdogs
OF a changing civilization-toiling,
struggling, battling. A thousand
years ago the ancestors Of the man
that is Wills were fighters battling
pestilence of disease and super.
perils Of a primitive existence.
A hundred years ago they were
still fighting, striving to throw
off the yoke of inferiOrity which
had been placed about their necks
by a stronger white race. q bit
more arrogant.
And they have their traditions
traditions just as strong, lust as
potent as those which govern the
English or the Irish or any Of the
more favored races that found their
civilization earlier and their cUl.
ture with greater ease. Those are
the traditions OF Cans and John.
son and jackson and those others
the same traditions that Will go
! into the ring with Harry Wills
tonight when he faces his big oppor-
tunity.
And what of Firpo, paradox of
racial inheritance? He is Italian
| and that's Dante and Mcclellan
cello and Garibaldi. That's art and
culture and romance and adven-
| ture. He's Spanish, too, and
Spanish Is the blood Of the adven.
turer and the despot.
But more than that Firpo is In
diana throwback to the primitive
jungles and a strange, uncovered
| civilization that sprang from the
silences of the wilderness and the
necessity of protective union. And
that is the blood Of the killer
cruel. dominant. overbearing, Sc
cretive.
1t is the Indian that is dominant
in Firpo-the blood of the Incas
with their strange ideals, their
practices OF cruelty and battle.
Tempered bit by the romance
that is Italy, subdued by the rollick-
in desire for adventure, which is
Spain, it is that Indian spirit of ST.
lent fortitude and merciless con-
quest which dominates the gorilla
like, stern-faced man who is Firpo.
And tonight those two meet
two men of fighting blood and
fighting antecedents. But one
is the iOvial, optimistic negro in
whom the fighting spirit has been
developed and forced. The other
Is the stOlid, scOwling FirpO in
whom the killing spirit Is born
through long generations.
On the one hand Wills, fighter,
by circumstances--Wills, whose race
is given to mimicry and who,
through blood, has learned to copy
| and ape and take for his own all
that is best in boxing style and
boxing technique.
On the other hand. Firpo. child
of another age with only the in.
born fighting instinct, and barred
by inheritance from the adoption of
any style other than the one which
came to him from those Incas who
were his forefathers.
1t will be an interesting fight
indeed
But, when it's over and finished.
will the result still prove the truth
of the old adage that blood will
tell?"