Was Willard Yellow?

Just came across this on the net;
[SIZE=+1][/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]PRICE FIVE CENTS
[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=+2][SIZE=+1] Jess Willard, the giant cowboy of
the plains, is not aching for the sort
of game they deal here in San Fran-
cisco. He came through with a cold
turndown of an offer to fight Gunboat
Smith here next month, intimating
through his Chicago representative that
"Smith has too much of a punch in
his right hand."
This may be taken to mean that the
cowboy is laying for the soft ones
on the other side of the Rockies and
that he does not intend to blossom
out as a candidate for the heavy weight
championship honors as the public
was led to believe.
The refusal of Willard to meet Smith
here means that there will be no im-
portant heavy weight elimination con-
test during the coming month. Up to
the time Jim Griffen received Wil-
lard's telegram yesterday afternoon,
it did look as though we would see
a battle between Willard and Smith,
and possibly one between Willard and
some other hope, but the big fellow
himself has seen fit to flash the white
feather, so he is now regarded in San
Francisco as a white joke and not
a white hope.[/SIZE]
WILLARD DOES THE DUCKING[SIZE=+1]
Smith is willing enough to take on
any of them. Although he never did
stand right with the followers of the
game in this city, he is willing enough
to keep on trying and when the Wil-
lard match was sprung on him the
Gunboat seemed delighted. So did
his manager, Jim Buckley.
As Smith is about 40 pounds under
Willard's weight and about 6 inches
shorter, it looked as though he might
duck the match, but the giant himself
did the ducking, all of which will
make the local fans all the more peeved.
Willard has been clamoring for a
chance to meet McCarty, yet he passes
up an opportunity to meet Smith, who
never was regarded as a real top liner
until some charitable person started
to mention his name with those of Mc-
Carty, Willard, Paizer and a few others
who were put in through courtesy.
Size does not make a great heavy
weight fighter. He must have courage
in addition. Tom Sharkey was not a
big man; neither was Bob Fitzsimmons;
yet the name of each of them is written
in the pages of the Queensberry ring
in the big letters and will remain there
as long as the game flourishes.
[/SIZE]A YELLOWER EXHIBITION[SIZE=+1]
Willard's present stand is not a
marker to the one that he took back
in Springfield, Mo. about a year and
a half ago against a little fellow named
Cox. W.F. Benedict, former St. Louis
sporting writer, has this to say about
the battle, to which he was an eye-
witness:
"Willard calmly stepped over the
ropes, drilled into the center of the
ring and stood looking down from his
great height at Cox as the referee
gave the fighters the ring directions.
Cox was just slightly red in the face -
possibly from excitement, probably
from excitement and nervousness com-
bined - and the crowd of fans laughed
in anticipation of what was going to
happen to the 'bantam rooster.'
"The gong sounded and the two mis-
mated fighters stepped to the center
of the ring. they sparred for a few mo-
ments; then Willard opened up,
reached about four feet with a clumsy
right and gave Cox a wallop on the
side of the jaw. Cox had tried to
guard the blow, and when he failed to
stop it the look on his face would have
given a mummy hysterics. It was sur-
prise and anger, and the combination
of feelings proved a winner. Cox
throughout the first round was 'up
against it.' and he showed it in his
face. Then the worm turned.
Willard, it was plain to see, had
shown his entire hand of tactics dur-
ing that first round. And acting on
this line of suggestion, Cox's seconds
worked on him during the minute in-
terval preceding the second time up
until Joe would have challenged a
pack of wildcats right then and there.
[/SIZE]GIANT FLEES FROM RING[SIZE=+1]
The second round saw a vast differ-
ence in the milling. Willard swung
wildly, missed haymaker after hay-
maker, and finally settled down to a
series of long jabs in an effort to
keep Cox at a distance.
Cox was an animated jumping jack.
And he was mad. Up into the air he
jumped and, with a newly invented
swing that carried his right glove
clear over his head, landed time and
time again on the left side of Willard's
face. The crowd laughed until it cried,
and all the way through Cox kept
jumping and hitting, jumping and hit-
ting, as Willard backed around the
ring with outstretched arms to escape
his tormentor.
It was a stage production of the
old Fourth reader story wherein the
youthful hero saves his sister by trim-
ming the big bully on the school
grounds at recess.
Suddenly, just before the round was
to close, Willard dropped his arms and,
to the complete surprise of the crowd,
walked quickly away from his agile
opponent and toward the side of the
ring. With more haste than grace he
crawled over the ropes and went to
his dressing room, where he arrived
before the fans had even regained the
power of speech.
[/SIZE]HIS LAME EXPLANATION[SIZE=+1]
The writer was honored - perhaps -
by an audience with Willard as the de-
feated 'fighter' left the theater in which
the scrap was staged. Only a few fight
fans remained about the outer door,
and these jeered openly the big, yel-
low streaked giant as he ambled out
and started down the street. To a
volley of questions from sports writers
Willard answered that Cox's right
hand swings to the face had broken his
cheek bone, and that it were folly to
continue the fight at the expense of a
smashed-up phyz.
Strange to say, Willard did not re-
main to undergo examination at the
hands of a local physicians, but had left
the town far behind him when dawn
crept over the Ozarks the next morn-
ning
Now he is in New York issuing
challenges to McCarty and claiming to
have once worsted the Nebraska cham-
pion.[/SIZE]
[/SIZE]