Jack Dempsey and The Color Line...

Because he was Dempsey's top challenger throughout his reign and the champ never faced him? You don't think that's worthy of criticism? A fighter doesn't have to be Superman to warrant a title shot. In any case Dempsey wasn't unbeaten either and he also knew first hand what it was to be knocked out.

Which is all irrelevant as fights are decided in the ring, not who the experts think will win. There were experts who thought Spinks would beat Tyson.

And these are just your opinions. If everyone was so solidly against black vs white contests, why did Wills keep winning public polls to name Dempsey's top challenger (presumably most of the respondents were white), why was Dempsey constantly being called out by white sportswriters for not facing Wills, and in the end why was Dempsey basically banned from boxing in New York for not facing him? Why would Dempsey bother signing a contract to face Wills if no one actually wanted the fight to happen anyway?

Furthermore, in this timeframe, Rickard did actually promote a championship fight between a black fighter and a white fighter (Greb vs Flowers). Was it only heavyweight fights that provoked race riots? How did Johnson's bouts with Ketchel, Willard, O'Brien etc get sanctioned?

Can you name another great heavyweight champion who has a comparable figure to Harry Wills in his title reign? Ali? Marciano? Tyson? Lewis? Foreman? Louis? Frazier? Klitschko?

Plenty of people at the time called out Dempsey for not facing Wills. This is not something new.

 

The idea is no matter who would have been the hwt champion no black hwt was getting a title shot. It was very much an American tradition never to give a black man the opportunity to win a title that would then allow the black race to claim physical superiority over the white man. (The title reign on Jack Johnson was firmly in the minds of the white people and they all were white that ran the sport). Rickard, politicians of the day and the boxing commissions who controlled boxing followed this tradition to the letter blocking any attempt to make the bout occur.

Boxing sages better informed than you or I long ago acknowledged that Wills was poorly treated by white America, and long ago took all available evidence and exonerated Jack Dempsey from blame. Even Wills' mini bio at the International Boxing Hall Of Fame points the accusing finger at the New York Governor of the day while acknowledging Dempsey's willingness to meet Wills.

TIMELINE

Nov 1918 - Kearns refuses to allow Dempsey to fight Jeannette, citing the colour line.

July 1919 - Dempsey wins title and is attributed with having drawn the colour line.

July 1920 - Dempsey, still to defend his title for the first time, erases the colour line and says that Kearns had advised him that inter racial matches were bad for boxing. He announces himself ready to fight any man.

July 1921 - Jack Johnson, released from prison, stirs up a hornet's nest by challenging Dempsey. Dempsey responds by emphatically refusing to fight Johnson, but says "There is nothing to this talk about me fighting Jack Johnson. I am confident the public don't want this fight, and while I will govern myself to a large extent according the the public wishes, I can't see my way clear to fight Johnson or any other colored man." Dempsey takes this opportunity to pay Wills a glowing and public testimonial.

Feb 1922 - Dempsey publicly declares that there is no drawing of the colour line as far as Wills is concerned and that he wishes to fight him.

Feb 1922 onward - Newspapers continue to buzz with Dempsey v Wills and Dempsey never again draws the colour line. Meanwhile, State Athletic Commission Presidents, State Governors, owners of the New York Polo Grounds, etc., etc., do everything within their powers to frustrate attempts to make the fight happen.

These are the facts of the situation, and have been for the best part of ninety years. You have produced absolutely nothing new and have shed no new light on a tired old conspiracy theory which has long been put to bed by those who were aware of the facts. When ninety nine men march ' left, right ' and one finds himself marching ' right, left, ' it is, perhaps, time to consider that he might just be wrong.

 

I don't know, but this is the report of Time Magazine on October 19, 1925

"Jack Dempsey signed a contract to meet Harry Wills in a 10 round, no decision contest in Michigan City, Indiana, in September, 1926. Promoter Floyd Fitzgibbons posted $200,000 as a forfeit. Dempsey got $100,000. Wills $50,000.

"Tex Rickard--'I have what I consider an ironclad contract for him to box Wills for me'"

"Jack Kearns--'I'll sue to prevent him fighting and proceed against every source of income he has.'"

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If Rickard is correct and he had an exclusive contract, was this all a charade?

 

On Dempsey being bugged by claims he was afraid of Wills, there was this exchange in Time Magazine, January 7, 1924

"Jack Dempsey--'All this talk that I'm afraid to fight Harry Wills is getting on my nerves. Let me get in the ring with Harry and I'll win in a round or two.'"

"Paddy Mullins (Wills' manager)--'I've been refilling my fountain pen for four years, hoping Jack Kearns would come to terms.'"
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Time Magazine 8-17-1925

"Jack Dempsey was introduced from the ring at the Olympic Stadium in Los Angeles. Booing thundered from the topmost rim of the amphitheatre, mixed with a chant of 'Bring on Wills.' Dempsey turned the color of an embarrassed orchid and crept back to his seat."

 

One thing at least to consider. The racial climate was awful,

but Wills was not Johnson. Certainly there would have been plenty of racists who would have been worked up about him winning, but the average white guy might not have been that worked up. Wills was a quiet man devoted to his family. And, don't forget, Dempsey was actually pretty unpopular in a lot of quarters for a number of reasons, some fair and some not.

Wills getting a shot might have changed attitudes the same as Louis did a decade later.

 

Ed.....Wills was not getting a title shot no matter who was champion. It was those controlling boxing that prevented the bout from happening. This has been understood for 90 some years. Snippets from newspapers never tell the underlining story of any historical event and it is very easy to pull snippets to make history appear as one would like it to be. Wills exonerated Dempsey as did true boxing historians through the years.

 

Here is Wills bio from the INternational boxing hall of fame.....

Harry Wills fought in many great fights. But he forever be remembered for the one fight he never had. Wills was a top heavyweight contender in the early 1920s but was denied a title shot because of his race.

While heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey welcomed a fight against Wills, and they both signed contracts to face each other, the Govorner of the State of New York canceled the contest fearing that race riots would follow the fight. For compensation, Wills received $50,000 for the cancellation.

An intimidating presence, Wills stood 6' 4" and weighed 220 pounds. From 1924 through 1926, he was ranked as high as number one and no lower than number six.

Some of the top white heavyweights he beat were Willie Meehan in 1914 (Meehan beat Dempsey twice and drew with him twice), Gunboat Smith in 1921 and Charley Weinert. He also met Luis Angel Firpo in a No Decision bout.

Wills met many of the top black heavyweights of his day. He fought Sam Langford 22 times, going 6-2 with 14 No Decisions. He also beat Sam McVey three times and had two "No Decision" bouts with Joe Jeannette.

In 1926, Wills was disqualified in the 13th round for excessive holding in a bout with Jack Sharkey. The next year heavyweight contender Paolino Uzcudun knocked him out in the last significant bout of his career.

 

Big Bill Tate was with Dempsey since 1918 as a regular sparring partner for the rest of Dempsey's career. Even Sam McVea was a sparring partner for Dempsey when he was training to box Miske. They all fought on the same card when Dempsey beat Miske and Tate beat Langford.

While in exhibitions they would just dance around and hardly ever hit each other, BUT white boxing people still didn't like it. Very hard today to understand how deeply racial predudice inundated American culture and especially sport at that time.

Wills's problem was that he was hampered by two issues First, he was black, and, although in the 1920s blacks were permitted to fight for the title in lower divisions, they were not allowed to compete for the heavyweight crown. This situation was an heirloom of Wills's second issue....Jack Johnson. Every time a Wills-Dempsey bout was proposed, the image of the smiling former champion surfaced in the minds of race-conscious promoters. All black heavyweights between 1908 and the mid-1930s were handicapped by the stigma of Jack Johnson. It became so difficult for a black to get a match with a good white fighter that the leading black boxers were forced to fight each other numerous times. For example, Sam Langford, who after Johnson was perhaps the best black heavyweight during the first quarter of the twentieth century, fought Sam McVey fifteen times, Joe Jeannette fourteen times, Jim Barry twelve times, Jeff Clark eleven times, and Harry Wills twenty-three times. Similarly, Wills had an extended series of bouts with Jeannette, McVey, Clark, John Lestor Johnson, Jack Thompson, and Bill Tate.

By the 1920s it became increasingly difficult to ignore black heavyweights. To be sure, the three best blacks of the Johnson era-Langford, McVey, and Jeanette-were too old for serious consideration, but Wills could not be circumvented without notice. The new organization of the sport made Wills's plight more visible. In February of 1922 Nat Fleischer, a boxing reporter, started publication of the Ring. In the foreward to the first issue he wrote, "The Ring will stand by the public, by the boxers, by those who give honestly their share to the great and glorious game." In the months that followed, the Ring established itself as the leading boxing periodical, replacing the Police Gazette. Fleischer made a serious effort to accumulate accurate records, publish lists of leading contenders, and insure that the sport imbibed liberally the virtues of honesty and integrity that he preached. "Nat Fleischer and The Ring made the sport respectable," Nat Loubet, claimed. "Before Nat any manager could say his boy was 48 and 0 with 42 knockouts. Nat checked the records; he made damn sure the manager was on the up and Up."

No sooner had Fleischer established his magazine than he started a crusade to eliminate the color line in the heavyweight division. Acting as editor, business manager, circulation manager, and general handyman of the Ring, Fleischer risked financial suicide by pleading Wills's case in the third issue he published. Speaking for the magazine,

This pressure was given direction by Wills's manager. He realized that after the Fulton bout only Wills blocked Dempsey's complete domination of the heavyweight division. He believed that given enough time and pressure from the public, Dempsey's pride would force the champion into a contest with Wills. Furthermore, Mullins recognized that his fighter was past his prime. In 1922 Wills was thirty-three years old, an advanced age for a boxer. With these two factors weighing heavily on his mind, Mullins decided on his course of action: he would apply pressure to Dempsey's pride, twitting the champion about this inactivity whenever possible, and allow Wills to fight only inept newcomers to boxing or well-tamed veterans. Of course, Mullins' strategy did not go unobserved. Grantland Rice commented that three of Wills's 1922 fights did not prove the contender's ability, for "Kid Norfolk was too small and too scared, and the two Jacksons, Tush and Tat, were too clumsy, too light and too scared." But Mullins' program was at least a partial success; Wills, fed a diet of Easy marks remained the leading contender and the public began to clamor for a Wills-Dempsey bout.

Dempsey was perfectly willing to fight Wills. True, after Dempsey won the championship in 1919, he was quick to draw the color line as was expected from every white hwt champion. Dempsey however had fought blacks before and he was willing to do so again. After he returned from Europe he told reporters that he would not draw the color line. If anything, Dempsey was irritated by the controversy. As a fighter, he was fully confident that he could defeat any man in the world. Any suspicions that Dempsey was afraid to fight Wills are nonsense.

Whether Rickard and Keams were convinced that the fight would not draw a large gate is uncertain but there can be no doubt that after the fiasco of the Johnson-Jeffries bout, a match that Rickard promoted, the Madison Square Garden czar opposed interracial heavyweight title fights on principle. Rickard believed that to promote an interracial title bout was to tamper with the delicate balance of race relations in the United States. He certainly did not want to see a reenactment of the race rioting of 1910. Furthermore, he contended that the "political forces" were against the bout. On the state level, he felt that the match would aid the antiboxing forces that were attempting to repeal the Walker Boxing Law in Albany. Rickard also once told Nat Fleischer that "powerful forces" in Washington told him not to promote the fight.

Rickard's method of satisfying the public that favored the bout was to promise to make the match but never to produce it. He hoped that his policy of active inaction would eventually outlive the public's interest in the fight. So he announced on June 22, 1922, that he would promote the fight, without saying when or where it would be staged. Rickard did not take one step to promote the fight, but when pressure arose again, he signed the two fighters to a contract that stated no terms, time, or site.

Rickard could thank William Muldoon, chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission. Fearing commercialism in the sport, Muldoon made an unexpected announcement in early September. Because "money-mad people in boxing have simply gone crazy," Muldoon took it upon himself to name the conditions under which a heavyweight title fight could be staged in New York. First, he said, at least forty thousand tickets had to be offered to the public at the price of two dollars or under. In addition, the top ringside seat could not be priced over fifteen dollars. Under these conditions, and only under these conditions, Muldoon added, would he sanction a Dempsey- Wills bout. Rickard's reaction to Muldoon's conditions was : "impossible."

Caught in the middle of the controversy, Dempsey could only wait. He must have agreed with Don Marquis, then writing for the New York Tribune, that when the talking ended and the fighting commenced it would probably be 1982. Certainly that date was agreeable to Rickard. What was not so sure was the position that Muldoon would take. Would he force Dempsey to fight Wills or would he ignore the issue? Although the question of racism was not new to boxing, there was no precedent for the handling of the issue of commercialism. In early 1923, however, Muldoon found a solution for both problems.

In February1923, Muldoon summoned New York City sports reporters to his offices. Muldoon said he would not sanction any heavyweight title matches in the state of New York. His primary concern was the erosion of the moral integrity of boxing, which he believed to be caused by cancerous commercialism. How, he asked, could Americans tolerate a heavyweight champion making more in ten minutes than the president of the United States makes in four years? Furthermore, he lambasted the press for its excessive coverage of the heavyweight division. In short, his reason for barring heavyweight title fights in the state of New York was the same as the explanation he offered several days earlier when he refused to sanction a Dempsey-Wills fight in his jurisdiction: "It is the commercialized condition produced by money-mad promoters and managers which is responsible for the commission's opposition."

Muldoon's position is probably unique in sports history. The legal representative of boxing was decrying the expenditure of too much money and an excess of publicity given to his sport. His actual motives for banning heavyweight title fights were not as pure as his public statements. Muldoon chose to prohibit a championship fight because he did not want Dempsey to battle Harry Wills. To be sure, Muldoons racism was well known. His biographer, Edward Van Every, claimed that "orders from a very high place" forced him to prohibit the contest.

Had Tex Rickard demanded the match Muldoon would certainly have relented. It is doubtful whether he would have tried seriously to match Dempsey and Wills. As Nat Fleischer wrote, Dempsey and Wills "never fought because Tex Rickard refused to promote it."

 

Darn it. This tiresome subject might have been clarified somewhat by me in the 1940s. I was standing in Stillman's Gym a few feet away from a tall gray haired man of color who seemed the object of attention. he walked away and I asked an older man, "who was that tall guy who just walked away"? He
said it was " Harry Wills the old fighter " ! Wouldn't it have been instructive
on ESB if I had the cujones and foresight to ask " Mr. Wills why didn't you and Jack Dempsey get to fight each other" ?. Might have saved us a lot of bickering today...

 

Ask yourself the following question, did Harry Wills richly deserve a shot at the world heavyweight title and did a title bout between Wills and Dempsey have a very strong chance to draw a massive gate? Based on available evidence, the answer is an emphatic yes even if people thought Dempsey would have beaten Wills at the time. Many of the same people also may have felt that Dempsey was going to beat Gene Tunney.

- Chuck Johnston

 

No offense, but this raises it's own questions. According to Time Magazine and every other source I am aware of, Dempsey and Wills signed to fight in Indiana, but this article says the Governor of New York cancelled the bout. He wouldn't have had any say in it.

 

Perry,

in all seriousness,

if Dempsey wanted to make this fight happen somewhere, could he have?

I mean by somewhere, somewhere outside the USA, and perhaps also outside of the British Empire.

Could the fight have come off in Paris? In Havana?

I notice this issue is never or at least hardly ever raised.

 

Where does Wills say Dempsey was scared of him? And can you provide a source for Langford's quote that Dempsey was scared of Wills and called him out for not facing him please? Dempsey does not say he lost to Tunney because he was poisoned .I think that is an important point.

Your post suggests something entirely different. ps Dempsey was very gracious to Tunney after his two defeats.

 

"ONLY ON ESB, ONLY ON ESB" a frustraded Burt cries out! And you know what... he's right!


There are other boxing sites out there - one with 5 times as many members and much more overall traffic than here! They all have history (or whatever they are called) sections - which are all pretty much dead! It seems, that all those who are really into boxing history spend their time here on Classic, where they can find other posters who share their interest in the oldtimers. You don't find a similar forum anywhere else - and you certainly don't see this Dempsey-bashing anywhere else! In fact, I rarely see a Dempsey thread on any of those other sites.


So when some posters here claim that the Wills duck will forever be a dark cloud hanging over Dempsey, it's probably a bit of an exaggeration. Over 200.000 fans have signed up with one (or more) of these boxing sites, and the VAST majority have done so to discuss contemporary boxing. Only a tiny, tiny fraction would ever dream of visiting a history forum! So apart from the few hundred regulars here on Classic, who out there have even heard about Wills - much less the controversy we're discussing in this thread? Very few, would be my guess!


So if you go to a big fight another 90 years from now (if boxing still exists by then!), and ask the average fan what the name Jack Dempsey means to him, will the most likely reply be: "Wasn't he the old champ from the early 20th century, who shamelessly denied Harry Wills a shot at the title?" I don't think so!




That being said, it's still an interesting topic - but only to a few people.

 

He says Kearns worded the contract to that effect, it's on page 150 of his first auto- biography.He also says Wills hounded him from1922 unitl1926 I don't think that adds up to 7 years? Dempsey says Paddy Mullins posted a$2,500 forfeit with the NY state commission for a Dempsey v Wills fight which was fine by him.he then says Wills colour nixed the bout.saying Rickard and Kearns were against it .Dempsey states that Muldoon the

NY Commissioner was privately dead against the fight.

Below is a pic of a young Harry.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/puzzlemaster/5851118243/?ytcheck=1