The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1928-04-09
BY HENRY l.. FARRELL

Amerlca, the Lana OF Emporium
itv.' has been discovered SO many
times in real life, plotted SO often
in fiction and moralized SO much
from the pulpit and the teachers
desk that the barefoot kid in the
sticks and the h.rd-bo;led little egg
ON the sidewalks of New YORK
thnl, it is lot Of junk.
Their fathers read in HOratio
Ayers romantic stories of the
urchin who started out with tin
cup and a one-stringed fiddle and
played his way into the masters
room of marble palace near the
Plaza. Their fathers believed it.,
maybe, until they found that every
time they got a salary kick at the
shop the landlord and the grocer
raised his ante and the kids ate
more than ever and took up more
room.
Now and then the papers in this
later generation would dispel some
Of the cynicism with the romantic
tale of the penniless painter who
came through Ellis Island from Po-
land and who in comparatively
few years bought the Vanderbilt,
the .Astor, the Ryan and the Frick
show places on Fifth avenue and
replaced them wit. million-dollar
apartments.
From time to time the papers
hold up to the kids the life stories
Of John u. Rockefeller, Henry Ford
and the founders of million and bill
lion-dollar fortunes.
The kids in this day of high
geared speed and quick action don't
want to starve living in a garnet,
they don't want to wear the older
brothers clothes and stick every
dime in the corner bank. The early
hardships Of Rockefeller and Ford
were their own faults, the kids will
tell you, but give them the story of
Babe Ruth or Jack Dempsey and
they'll eat it up.
The Heroes of Today
Much Of the real romance of sue
cess today, to the kids notion, is
wrapped around the rise of Babe
Ruth from an orphanage, the climb
Of Jack Dempsey from the rods un-
der box car, and the graduation Of
Earl Sande from half-mile tracks in
the pasture country where the roof
of every barn leaked. And to the
fathers of these hero-loving little
hard-boiled eggs, the stories Of
these romances have almost as
much appeal.
We always have them in front Of
us, it seems. OLE stories being done
over and new ONES popping up al
most daily. Not so long ago it was
Luis Firpo who crawled out Of steer
age on boat from South America
with rubber collar in the pocket Of
soiled and ill-fitting suit and just
few years later returned like a
national hero to his native Argen-
tine with one million dollars.
1t seemed then there couldn't be
any more extremities in romance,
but another story, parallel almost
to the punctuation, popped up few
days ago when Tex Richard an
nounced that Tom Heeney, q black
smith from New Zealand, had been
selected as the opponent for Gene
Tunney in the next fight for the
heavyweight championship Of the
world.
Heeney's Purse Not Known
Richard didn't announce what the
challenger would get in purse money
for fighting the champion, but the
sport IAN knows what the challene-
er's share means in any heavy
weight championship fight. Tom
Heeney, careful with his money,
need never work again after getting
the cut Of that fight and imaRina-
ton doesn't have to be stretched 20
picture him as . possible new cham
pi0n and q million . year.
Heeney's story is not only 70.