CHAPTER 5

 Keeping Fit

IT is a matter of conjecture how far the attitude of the doughboy is due to the training he got in the army, but the fact remains that boxing and wrestling have been recognized and practiced by our army officers as valuable adjuncts to military training.  Uncle Sam encouraged the science of fisticuffs on shipboard and in the training camps, under a committee headed by no other than the famous ex-champion, James J.  Corbett, because the positions and motions used in boxing are almost the same as those used in bayonet practice.  The development of gameness in the recruit is another important benefit derived from the sport.

One of the anecdotes that came out of the trenches has for its hero a short but stocky Yank who, in an encounter with a huge Prussian, dropped his rifle and went for his foe with his fists.  He knocked the fight out of the surprised German and brought him in a prisoner.  An officer who had watched his exploit thought it proper to caution him as to the danger that lay in this departure from the rules of attack.

"Danger!" spoke up the Yank, "there isn't a Fritz alive that I can't lick with just my fists!" Theodore Roosevelt, had he realized his desire to serve with the colors during the world conflict, would undoubtedly have been an enthusiastic spectator at such of the army's ring battles as were within reach of him.  Indeed, had he been still occupant of the White House it would not have been surprising to have heard of his inviting champions from the various cantonments to test their skill under the White House roof.  Mr. Roosevelt was first drawn to two naval chaplains, Fathers Chidwick and Rainey, through his discovery that each of them had bought sets of boxing gloves and encouraged their crews in boxing.  While he was President fencing or boxing were Mr. Roosevelt's favorite indoor exercises.  He was also intensely interested in jiu jitsu, the "muscle less art." To perfect himself in this exercise he employed one of the best of the Japanese instructors, and took a course of twenty lessons.

After learning the various grips, the President would practise them upon his teacher.  He soon mastered the science, and his enthusiasm over it led him to introduce jiu jitsu instruction at Annapolis and West Point.

When Mr. Roosevelt entered upon his public career heavy burdens were laid upon him, and to keep in condition to meet the hard physical and mental strain he again turned to boxing and wrestling for exercise.  When Governor of New York the champion middleweight wrestler of America came several evenings a week to wrestle with him.  The news of the purchase of a wrestling mat for the Governor's mansion at Albany created consternation on the part of the Controller, but was greeted with great enthusiasm by the red blooded men to whom the Governor had become an idol.  Many of these would have paid a great price to have been able to stand at the edge of the mat and cheer their champion in his strenuous amusement.  To the middleweight champion the job was a hard one.  Not because he experienced any difficulty in downing the Governor, but because he was so awed by the Governor's position and responsibilities that he was always in dire anxiety lest the Governor should break an arm or crack a rib.  This gingerly attitude of his opponent exasperated Roosevelt.  He didn't feel that it was fair for him to be straining like a tiger to get a half Nelson hold on the champion while the latter seemed to feel that he must play the nurse to him.  After repeated urgings he managed to get the champion to throw him about in real earnest  then he was satisfied.

Colonel Roosevelt relates in his reminiscences that, while he was in the Legislature, he had as a sparring partner a second rate prizefighter who used to come to his rooms every morning and put on the gloves for a half hour.  One morning he failed to arrive, but a few days later there came a letter from him.  It developed that he was then in jail; that boxing had been simply an avocation with him, and that his principal business was that of a burglar.

Roosevelt was fond of boxing with "Mike" Donovan, trainer at the New York Athletic Club, as well as with William Muldoon, the wrestler and trainer.  His opponents testify that the Colonel was handicapped by his poor sight.  He wanted to see his adversary's eyes to catch the gleam that comes before a blow.  Roosevelt always maneuvered to see his opponent's face, and he liked to "mix in" when boxing.

Hard and heavy was the Colonel's method, and his opponents forced the colonel to adapt his plan of fighting to theirs.  It did not matter to Roosevelt.  It was the striving, not the result, that interested him.

An illustration of Roosevelt's fondness for the Japanese art of wrestling is found in this extract from the diary of John Hay, Secretary of State:

"April 26 At the Cabinet meeting this morning the President talked of his Japanese wrestler, who is giving him lessons in jiu jitsu.  He says the muscles of his throat are so powerfully developed by training that it is impossible for any ordinary man to strangle him.  If the President succeeds once in a while in getting the better of him he says, 'Good! Lovely!''

Lieutenant Fortescue, a distant relative of the Roosevelt family, sometimes put on the gloves with the Colonel.  One day, feeling in fighting trim, Fortescue asked the Colonel to box with him.  Finally the Colonel agreed to go four rounds.  According to Joseph Grant, detective sergeant of the Washington Police Department, detailed to the White House to "guard" the President, it was the fastest bout he ever saw.

"The Colonel began to knock Lieutenant Fortescue right and left in the second round," said the detective.  "His right and left got to the army officer's jaw time after time, and the bout was stopped in the third round to prevent the army man from getting knocked out.  Then the Colonel turned to me and said: 'I think I can do the same to you.  Put on the gloves!'

"I drew them on reluctantly, and I put up the fight of my life.  The best I could do was to prevent a decision and get a draw."

It was a sporting rule of the Colonel's not only to give as good a blow as he could, but also to take without squirming the hardest blow his opponent could deliver.  The wrestler who hesitated to stand him on his head because he was Governor of New York exasperated him; nor would he have permitted a man to spar with him who held back his blows.

Nothing illustrates this rule better than an episode which the Colonel himself made public.  In October, 1917, in the course of an interview with newspaper men, he told this story in explanation of his relinquishing the gloves:

"When I was President I used to box with one of my aids, a young captain in the artillery.  One day he cross countered me and broke a blood vessel in my left eye.  I don't know whether this is known, but I never have been able to see out of that eye since.  I thought, as only one good eye was left me, I would not box any longer."

This story was too promising for the newspaper men to let drop without endeavoring to have it amplified by the soldier who delivered the blow.
A few days later, in "The New York Times," appeared this interview with Colonel Dan T.  Moore, of the 310th Field Artillery Regiment, 79th Division, National Army:

"Colonel Dan T.  Moore, of the 310th Field Artillery Regiment, 79th Division, National Army, admits he struck the blow that destroyed the sight of Colonel Roosevelt's eye.

" 'I am sorry I struck the blow.  I'm sorry the Colonel told about it, and I'm sorry my identity has been so quickly uncovered.  I give you my word I never knew I had blinded the Colonel in one eye until I read his statement in the paper.  I instantly knew, however, that I was the man referred to, because there was no other answering the description he gave who could have done it.  I shall write the Colonel a letter in a few days, expressing my regrets at the serious results of the blow.

' 'I was a military aid at the White House in 1905.  The boxers in the White House gym were the President, Kermit Roosevelt and myself.  The President went further afield for his opponents in other sports, but when he wanted to don the boxing gloves he chose Kermit or myself.'

" 'Tell about the blow that blinded the President.'
" 'I might as well try to tell about the shell that killed any particular soldier in this war.  When you put on gloves with President Roosevelt it was a case of fight all the way, and no man in the ring with him had a chance to keep track of particular blows.  A good fast referee might have known, but nobody else.  The Colonel wanted plenty of action, and he usually got it.  He had no use for a quitter or one who gave ground, and nobody but a man willing to fight all the time and all the way had a chance with him.  That's my only excuse for the fact that I seriously injured him.  There was no chance to be careful of the blows.  He simply wouldn't have stood for it.'"

Roosevelt to his last days remained keenly interested in ring champions.  He numbered among his prizefighting friends John L.  Sullivan, Bob Fitzsimmons, Battling Nelson and many another man whose fame was won by strength and skill in the ring.  Among his treasures is the pen holder Bob Fitzsimmons made for him out of a horseshoe, and the gold mounted rabbit's foot which John L.  Sullivan gave to him for a talisman when he went on his African trip.

He championed the cause of prizefighters on many occasions, though never hesitating to denounce the crookedness that has attended the commercializing of the ring.  He held that powerful, vigorous men of strong animal development must have some way in which their spirits can find vent.  His acts while Police Commissioner of New York show clearly how he distinguished between the art of boxing itself and the men who are trying to make money out of it.  On one hand, he promoted the establishment of boxing clubs in bad neighborhoods in order to draw the attention of street gangs from knifing and gun fighting.  On the other hand, finding that the prize ring had become hopelessly debased and run for the benefit of low hangers on, who permitted brutality in order to make money out of it, he aided, as Governor, in the passage of a bill putting a stop to professional boxing for money.