The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1928-07-13
WORLD CHAMP
PREPARES FOR
JULY 26 B0U 7
Gene Is Anxious to Meet
Heeney, But He Doesn't Like
to Talk About 1t
GIBSON ERE, TOO
runney Planning Trip
Through Scotland and Ire.
land After Big Scrap
BY HENRY l.. FARRELL
NEA Service Writer

Spectator, N. Y, July 13.-Pene-
trating sixty miles from the nearest
railroad stop into this garden spot
Of the Adirondacks. the reporter
sent here to get story about Gene
Tunney, the fighter, is at once up
against it.
AS it was on two previous occa-
sions when the young self-con-
structed aristocrat of the prize
fighting business was training for a
part in a worlds heavyweight cham
pionship contest, the personality of
Tunney, the man, and not Tunney,
the fighter, is the dominating influ-
ence of the camp again this year.
Personality Engulfs Champ
Even more than when he was
training for his two we'll remem-
bereG fights with Jack Dempsey,
the fight atmosphere of the camp
is engulfed completely by the per-
sonality of the strange champion
who. is preparing at odd moments
for the defense Of his title against
Tom Heeney n New. York on the
night of July 26.
For, since what his critics and
his bantering friends refer to as the
night of the long count last Sep
TENDER, he has done even stranger
things for a prize fighter than he
did before the public became aware
Of the other and more dominating
side of his personality.
Lectures on Shakespeare
One of the strange acts that has
made of him almost an object of
curiosity instead of the idol Of
young roughnccks took him to Yale
not long ago to lecture the young
college boys on Shakespeare and
as a result the curious casuals from
the nearby mountain summer re-
sorts come here expecting to see
him emerge from his cottage with a
satchel of books and mount a stump
for a lecture on something that has
nothing to do with the profession he
follows.
More than a quarter Of a mile
from the cottage which he shares
at times with the champion novelist
of the year, a millionaire depart
ment store owner, a rich newspaper
publisher and society man and the
hardest boiled sport columnist in
the country is the tent-covered ring
which seems to be stopped in apol-
ogy for its presence in such gentle
surroundings.
Gene Is Modest
Much farther, though, than that
ring where Tunney uses the weap-
ons of his trade are any other be-
traying signs of his trade. Even
thoughts of what he calls "sordid
dirty business" seem to be miles and
miles from his interest unless he is
backed against the wall by an ag-
gressive interviewer and worked
around with great care to a position
where he has to speak Of it in self
defense-never in pride.
Tunney has many other interests.
He will volunteer mention of the
business so close in hand only to
tell you that after 1T" he will hike
through Ireland and Scotland with
Thornton Wilder, the Pulitzer prize
novelist, and will be tempted back
home only by the duty Of voting for
AL Smith.
Boxing Not Important
He will engage you in a pleasant
and far from dumb-discussio
about anything that has nothing to
do with prize fighting. His sub
jects are many and varied and they
are all rather high-browed. He will
even give you a debate that Will
Rogers is not creative and that he
never has done anything construc-
tive toward the intellectual advance
ment Of the people.
But, purely as incidentals and
sometimes as points to illustrate his
contention along another line, he
will mention something to do with
his business and as a result of one
Of these slips he let it be known that
he positively has no intention to re-
tire after the Heeney fight and that
he hasn't the faintest idea that his
career could be set behind him by
anything that might happen to him
in the coming fight.