The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-02-17
sy TEX RICHARD


 Britain. Cuba. Japan and South America by North AI'r,ssn rss,. N.w.p:Sss Alliance :'' The AsH''a
 The presence of Carpenter in Amer lea and his gentlemanly bearing, be lieve, fully confirm my theory that tho public likes to regard a; fighter as real sportsman--not as bitter enemy who,s in bulldog fashion. intends 10 vent his wrath in the ring.
 In the old days managers made . point of showing the two fighters to have a grudge, to be bitter enemies; Much was made of what they would do once they. entered the ring, This was supposed to make the public go eager to see the spiiling of blood n what they were told would be 2 gridges fight. As a matter of fact there never were any grudge' fights. to my knowledge. The boxers, as g rule, were business .men merely soaking each other in the. nose as means or livelihood. I never. did believe that building up 2 grudge notion ever heiped the attendance. am still of that opinion.
 Like Gentlemen -=ss ss,.s
 According to my way of thinking the public likes to regard the two boxers as gentlemen and sportsmen. You all remember how Jim Corbetts popularity was increased when they called him Gentleman Jim. have never staged what I tried to make q srudge fight. The sportsman idea un- doubtedly pays better. At, least that has been my experience. fH. Carpenter was induced to attend social parties on Long Island. HIS natural French .politeness, his inborn ular, sort of fistic idol. As rule all Frenchmen have polished manners. I don't. know if Carpenter was an ex- ception to the rule. I do know, though, that, the people around New York regarded him an exception to the ord helped a lot. He was immensely popular.
 They Go Golflng Together Dempsey, being a native with none of these unusual mahners, was some what in the shadow. Jack Dempsey is very nice fellow and Is fully capable of handling himself in any kind of a gathering. He has considerable per sonal magnetism. But he was handi. capped by benig just plain American
 I saw to 1t that these fighters were acquainted and presumably regarded each other as sportsmen. That un- doubtedly helped. I even went SO far as to have them play golf together.
 
 never once assumed the attitude of bully and a braggart. From the start he maintained that to lick Carpenter would be no easy job.
 Must Have Goods
 Any man that has won all the fights he has," Dempsey said to me, must have something. A fellow must have something even to knock out dub. know he can sock" se fnII tnId af hof cinch their champion had. He was im- mediately made favorite in the bet ting. But Dempsey never, said any of those things. At heart, think he had a real admiration for Carpentier.
 He was not even influenced, by the favoritism in the betting.
 John L. Sullivan was a big favor ite over Corbett, wasn't he?'' he re- minded his friends Willard was a favorite over me at Toledo. wasn't he? Jeffries was a favorite, wasn't her" Jack Dempsey is nobody's fool. He around talking about his supposed scinch he simply settled down to hard work. ,,.r.tsN 4 ~c .5 Frenchmen Was. 4 Good Sport ....
 When Carpenter first came to America. there was some doubt as to his ability as a fighter. To offset this against Battling : Levinsky. The Frenchman won: in four rounds and thus became the logical runner-up. There was a question in the minds of some experts as Carpenters weight being enough to offset Demp- sey's. but after that Levinsky. affair nobody doubted that. the Frenchman knew how to fight. f'~ f-i
 During the early stages of the prep aration for the great battle all sorts of rumors were spread around. There was one to the effect that Desoamps would refuse to let his man go on un- less the ring was made larger. This was largely tommy rot. The French man co-operated. winth us in every; de- tail. He and. Carpenter were real sportsmen. Too Much On Training
 Then much was made of the train- ling methods of the two fighters. Dempsey, opening up quarters at At lantic City, charged, 50 cents admis- sion to see him in action. There were plenty of bugs willing to pay this. Immediately, though, there was an at- tempt to berate Dempsey for what was called his mercernary attitude. As 9 matter of fact I don't think Dempsey or Kearns took the matter seriously,
 At the same time Carpentier leased an old country residence at Manhas- sett and practically went into seclu- sion. He permitted but few people to see him train and to those no charge was made.
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