The Wilmington morning star., 1947-02-24
As PeglerSees 1t
By WESTBROOK PEGLER

Copyright, 1947, By King Features Syndicate,
Inc.).
Diligent to push the frontier of fact into
the wilderness of myth, I have made inquiries
concerning a phase of the interesting, if not
always praiseWorthy, career Of George Raft,
the synthetic tough-guy of the Hollywood and
Broadway underworld. Mr.. Raft is an intimate
Of Leo Durocher, the manager of the Brook
lyn ball club, and the person who set off the
seasons coruscation of scandal in sport. He
did this by trimming a sucker in a crap
game in Durocher's apartment in March.
1914, a matter that came alive again last
fall when slightly querulous remarks appear
ed in our press concerning Durocher's inhos-
pitality to baseball reporters at the Brook
Ign clubhouse and his contrasting cordially to
personalities described as Hollywood jerks, in
Guiding Raft. Raft is an associate Of Buggy
Siegal and other notorious entries in the
who's who of the law and, by order of Branch
Hickey, the executive head Of the Brooklyn
baseball firm, has been barred from its prem
Uses.
Our public resistance to fallacy is low.
Raft had but to intimate that he was a tough
guy to be accepted as such, even though he
employs a bodyguard. To sustain the pose he
took to the air last October in company with
the body guard, known as killer Mack Gray,
who is not a killer and whose original name
was Max Greenberg. The formidable title of
killer seems to derive from the unhappy fact
that Greenberg once suffered a hernia which,
in Yiddish, is called a keilah.
On this broadcast, entitled We, The Peo-
pie, offered as a public service no doubt, Raft
and killer Gray discourSed an interplay OF
ripping repartee in which they related that
when Raft was II he attended a fight show
in New York and was impressed by the club
manager to fight in place of a gladiator who
had not shown up. Two hours later Killer
Gray, until then a stranger to him, assuaged
his hurts, told him he had won and called him
a game fellow. Thereafter, he had four fights,
winning three by knockouts. His career ended
when his final opponent knocked him cold.
The Walker Law which governs pugilism
in New York was adopted shortly after the
first World War and would have been in force
at that time. Under this law, such impromptu
is forbidden. All contestants must be licensed,
they must be examined by official physicians
on the day of each contest and inspectors are
assigned to all shows to enforce the law and
the regulations.
James A. Farley was a member Of the
State Athletic Commission from 1923 to 1888,
being chairman a part of that time. He is re-
noWned for his memory OF names, faces and
persons and of incidents concerning them. He
would be likely to recall a pugilist operating
under his old jurisdiction who had risen to
Rats notorious state. Mr.. Farley does not
remember that Raft ever had a license or re-
call him as a professional boxer at all.
OOI. EQOle taSdH, tne present chairman.
reports that the records from 1885 down to date
reveal no license issued to Raft. Most data
prior to that time were destroyed by a court
order, but a card index may exist containing
skeletonized information. AS of now, however.
there is no known official record to sustain
Rats statements and the legal requirements
and the customs of the enforcing authority
argue against his version.
Herman Levin, who is employed by the
Twentieth Century Sporting club, at Madison
Square Garden, and formerly was a boxer and
has been closely associated with the profes-
sion for many years, upon inquiry replied that
he knows Raft well and knows that Raft never
did box professionally.
Raft was, by his own statement, a tap
dancer in night clubs which, in those days,
were speakeaSies, most of them run by gangs
ters. The social preference has continued
through his years in the underworld and in
cludeS association with a notorious Chicago
police character, who has enjoyed a rise to
distinction in the arts and society of Holly
wood as an arbiter of taste, morals and amuse-
-ment for the peoples of the United States and
other countries. Of him, more later in the slow
{ development of the alliance of the movies.
the radio and the night clubs as they have
supplanted the theatre in American culture.
This alliance now is courted and effectively
employed in the left wing of our politics.
Frequent reference to Raft as an ex-fight-
er in Hollywood publicity, presented as veri
fled intelligence, recalled a fight scene ir
which he cooked his right behind him and
threw it in a swing, meanwhile advancing his
right foot.
On this, I consulted Captain Gene Tunney,
late of the Navy, one of the greatest right
handlers in all pugilism and a critic of re.
noWn.
Tunney replied that a swing such as that
would be suicidal.
1.-THE first thing a boxer learns is never
tn lead with hjc riCht nuop If ho 1noro~ 70 hill
an inside straight right-hand blow he writes.
To make a roundhouse right lead is to invite
a counter right for which you have absolutely
no defense, particularly if you have the ignor-
ance to advance your right foot with the
swing. That, of course, is the technique OF
the kindergarten boy, for everyone knows that
to lift a foot off the floor ruins the leverage
that one gets from the feet. All real hard
blows must start from the ball of the foot.
I'm the first contest with Jack Dempsey
in Philadelphia, before I landed the first blow,
l actually felt a hole in the padding of the
ring with the ball of my right foot which l
knew would add leverage and accordingly
increase the power at the time of impact.
Straight rights were the type of blow !
perfected. Yet there have been great fight.
ers who delivered terrific blows with right
hooks. Dempsey was more of a short hooker,
but he could punch straight with terrific force
and so can and does Louis. Louis knocked
Jim Braddock out with a swinging right hook
and he had Tony Galento helpless from a series
OF straight rights. No one, however, but a
fool or beginner, leads with a right swing"
Raft and Durocher both appeared to have
a technique of their own in which an assistant
pins the arms of the other fellow. Durocher
fractured a mans jaw in this way. He was
acquitted after a trial conducted in a manner
to amaze some citizens, but Mr.. Hickey adj
mitted that the baseball firm had had to pay
the victim about 5000. A few months ago, in
Hollywood, an attorney charged that Raft had
similarly assaulted him while his arms were
being held by another.
Since he announced that Raft would he