Topic 22
 THE COLONEL AND JOHN L.  SULLIVAN

OLD JOHN L.  has been a greater power for good in this country than many a highly respectable person who would scorn to meet him on terms of equality.  He has been my friend many years, and I am proud to be his."

That is where John L.  Sullivan, once champion pugilist of the world, stood in Colonel Roosevelt's estimation.

The old champion, who in his later years knew the pinch of need, had come to New York to see the Colonel and had an hour of his time while persons of real political and social importance waited in an anteroom.  His object in coming was to offer his aid in "getting over" the Colonel's division.  When he left, it was to return to Boston to hold a mass meeting in Faneuil Hall to protest against delay in the granting of the necessary permission to begin recruiting.

"I can't do much," he said, "but I guess we can rock old Faneuil Hall just to show that Boston's heart is still in the right place."

" It was mighty decent of old John L.  to come over to see me," said the Colonel after the meeting.  "He wants to help.  I more than half suspect he needs help himself, but I would not for the life of me insult him by even a hint of an offer.  Old John has many excellent qualities including a high degree of selfrespect.  He also has a large measure of native ability.  I know that his former profession is not a very exalted one, but he was a fair fighter, he never threw a fight, and, in his way, he did his best to uphold American supremacy.  Do you remember his little speech when Corbett defeated him — gratification that it was an American who whipped him?

"John's best fight, however, was made after he lost to Corbett.  I mean his whipping John Barleycorn.  That was a real victory, and I am proud of him for having made it.  Since then I believe he has been the most effective temperance lecturer I have known of.  He has been effective because he could appeal to classes of men and boys others, however gifted, could never hope to reach.  His hold on the public has been longer maintained than any other champion I ever heard of.  Men and boys would go to hear him, and the old fellow's honesty was convincing.  I like John for this contribution to good citizenship.

" I admired him in his prime.  He was a good fighter and clean.  I liked his willingness to meet all comers as fast as they came.  This marked the real champion and explains why, in defeat, he is still a popular idol.

"John is an old friend.  He used to call at the White House occasionally just as he sometimes calls at Sagamore Hill.  Once he called at the White House on a personal matter — he told my secretary it was personal and I saw him at once.  After we had shaken hands, he laid a heavy black cigar on the desk.

"'Have a cigar, Mr.  President,' he said.

"I told him I did not smoke.

"'Have another — give 'em to a friend,' he replied, laying another on the desk.

"The social amenities having been attended to, I asked what I could do for him.

"'I come to see you about a nephew,' said he, 'my favorite nephew.  He is in the navy and in trouble.'

"John explained that he had enlisted in the Marines, got into trouble of some sort, and deserted, for which he was sentenced to a dishonorable discharge.

"'Now, Colonel,' said he, 'that's something we can't have.  We don't want anything like that in our family.  He's a good boy, Colonel, just a trifle wild.  I wish you could have him in hand a little while.  You'd fix him.

"It's a tough case, too, Colonel,' he went on.  'Here's this boy, my favorite nephew; I've done everything for him, but he doesn't do anything for himself.  Why, he even went and took up music."

"John did not explain whether he had taken up violin or barrel organ, but he left no doubt that he felt this was beneath the Sullivan dignity."

"What became of the boy, Colonel?" I asked.

"The boy was all right.  I was glad to do what I could for John.  Since then he's told me the boy has done well.  I failed to ask, however, if he persisted in music."

On another occasion I called at the Harvard Club by appointment to get the news of the day as regarded the "division." The Colonel had none.

"I have had but two visitors today," he said, "Archbishop John Ireland and John L.  Sullivan, both, as you know, old friends.  And would you believe it, these young barbarians, fresh from the refining influences of my venerable Alma Mater, paid more attention to the pugilist than they did to the prelate! Had they known, that John Ireland had a record as a first class fighting man in the army and since, it might have been different.  As it was, to talk straight New York, they 'fell for the fighter, but could n't see' the man of the Church.

"It might interest you to know that old John and the Archbishop are rather good friends.  Their common interest is temperance, and they had a real good chat.  John thinks the Archbishop is all right, and the Archbishop respects John's good qualities.  Under other conditions the Archbishop thinks John might have made a splendid churchman.  I don't.  John was intended for a prize fighter, and it would have been too bad to spoil the best fighter of them all and make, perhaps, a second rate clergyman, with, probably, less real power for good than old John has exercised.  I told His Grace this, but of course he could not be expected to concede as much as that.  He does, however, think well of John.

" Of course it may be said that Sullivan was better than his profession.  This, in large measure, is true.  I liked old Bob Fitzsimmons, but as a man he was not to be compared to Sullivan — he had the fighting instinct all right, but he lacked Sullivan's brain.  Sullivan has had little more schooling than Fitz, but he has profited more by his travels and he is better informed on most matters than most men who have had no better opportunity in school work than he has had

"That, however, is not the secret of his holding his own with the public.  That's to be explained by his rugged honesty and the fact that he was a champion who was always willing to fight.

"After all, there is a lot of the primal man in most of us."