Showman (1937)

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SHOWMAN 1896 the Horton Law had legalized boxing— twentyfive rounds to a decision— in New York State. It was the Republicans who put it over in the legislature, but the local politicians in New York City weren't going to miss an opening like that. In no time at all politics had its customary stranglehold on metropolitan boxing. The new fight clubs drew thousands every time they opened their doors and the fighters and their handlers, as well as the politicians, were, for the first time, rolling in cash derived directly from fighting. Nothing like modern money, of course— all the time I managed the Coney Island Athletic Club I never saw a $100,000 gate— but plenty tempting. And, when the theater business struck a bad slump just before the Spanish War, I was a set-up for that kind of temptation. Not that I was near bankruptcy, but you don't have to be bankrupt to feel mighty uncomfortable. And here was a potential source of revenue right under my hand, a highly profitable new deal in a game I already knew backwards. I was always wandering up to the Broadway Athletic Club and the Maspeth Club out on Long Island, looking over the new fighters and letting the smoky atmosphere and the yells of the mob and the sound of leather on ribs and jawbones take me back to the great days of Corbett and John L. and Charley Mitchell. When Jim Jeffries was announced to appear for the first time in the east at the Lenox Athletic Club, I was there with eyes wide open. I remembered Jeffries from back when 195