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SHOWMAN
all right, and his offer of a $40,000 purse, with an extra $5000 for training expenses, was satisfactory, so both fighters headed for Texas and started training. But we hadn't been there a week when the governor, a man named Culberson, told us politely that we were in the wrong pew. He hated to spoil any arrangements we might have made, but there were going to be no prizefights in the sovereign State of Texas.
We replied, as we had in Florida on a similar occasion, that, since Texas had no anti-boxing law, we didn't see what was going to stop us from fighting. That led to a long and complicated newspaper controversy about it, and I must admit that Stuart put up some brilliant arguments on our side. But all that accomplished was to back the governor into a corner— and, when properly cornered, he got out by calling a special session of the legislature, which cost the state some thousands of dollars, to have an anti-boxing statute passed to order. In a way it was flattering to have a special session called just to keep two men from taking a poke at one another. But it was also unhandy when you had lots of potential money tied up in the thing.
Stuart's next move was to persuade Hot Springs, Arkansas, that a heavyweight championship fight would attract a lot of money to the place. Arkansas also lacked an anti-boxing law, but by this time we knew that needn't prove so much— the moral backing of Hot Springs would probably prove a lot more. Corbett and I moved over there immediately. Fitzsimmons and com
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