by Graeme Kent
Luther McCarty had started work in the family snake-oil business as a huckster, helping his father, the 21-stone self-styled White Eagle, touring the small towns of Nebraska to sell his cure-all potions by performing Native American dances to draw the crowds.
It was an era of travelling salesmen in rural areas, peddling bottled nostrums that were claimed to be cure-alls. One of the most notorious was Dr B.J. Kendall’s addictive blackberry medicine for stomach ailments. It consisted of 122-proof whiskey reinforced with opium.
These tent shows were often the only forms of entertainment to visit the remoter areas. Nebraska was a hard state. In the first decade of the twentieth century some of the original rancher settlers were still fighting the incoming, would-be farmers, who were spreading across the western part of the area to take advantage of new irrigation schemes and fresh, hardy crop strains.
Young Luther McCarty’s main job in the travelling family business was to look after the snakes used in the act while his burly sister Hazel performed what was claimed to be a genuine Native American snake dance. McCarty had taken a few boxing lessons at the Young Men’s Christian Association gymnasium, but Hazel was considered the better fistic prospect of the two. Later she earned a living in vaudeville, billed as the world’s champion woman bag-puncher.
When he was 15, Luther McCarty ran away from home with some relief and took to the road leading out of Nebraska. This led eventually to the high seas, and for several years the well-built youth shipped out as a deckhand, sailing round Cape Horn in the process. Tiring of this he returned to dry land and worked briefly as an ironworker on high bridges. He gave this up when he fell and broke a leg. When he had recovered he returned to Nebraska and in 1910 took up his life as a cowboy once more. He was still only 18.
In order to supplement his income McCarty had several professional fights in Nebraska during this period. His first bout took place at Swift Cloud, where the young heavyweight received eighteen dollars for his winning effort. But the young tyro did not have things all his own way. Boxing in Sidney against Harry Hollinger, a local tannery worker, McCarty walked into a wild right hand and was knocked out. When he recovered, the local newspaper, the News, reported him as saying to the winner, ‘You made a dub of me, Harry, but I’m going to stick to this game and show up some of you fellows before I am through.’
Soon after this, McCarty left home again. This time he abandoned a young wife, Rhoda, and Cornelia Alberta, his infant daughter. For a while, in 1911, he boxed around the Midwest under the name of Walker Monahan, perhaps to avoid discovery by his abandoned spouse.
In his first full year as a pugilist, McCarty picked up fights wherever he could find them, racking up a series of knockout victories in the process. Between bouts he filled in with a touring boxing booth, taking on all comers. He fought three times in Fargo, North Dakota, and had another three bouts in Springfield, Missouri, whose civic fathers called the town the ‘Queen of the Ozarks’. He continued to have a soft spot for Springfield and visited it as often as possible.
In Culbertson, Montana, McCarty attracted some attention by knocking out an experienced Canadian champion, Watt Adams, in the second round. An impressed Canadian promoter booked the young American to fight ‘Iron Man’ Joe Grim in Calgary.
Grim was one of the ring’s oddities. Born Saverio Giannoni in Italy in 1881, he had been brought to the USA at an early age, and then embarked upon a career as a professional boxer. He made a name for himself as a human punchbag. Grim could not box and did not possess a big punch. He could, however, soak up any amount of physical punishment. Many opponents could knock him to the canvas; few could keep him there. He lasted the distance against some of the most feared punchers of his era. At the end of each bout, the Iron Man would totter to the ropes and, through bloodied lips and broken teeth, boast to the crowd, ‘I am Joe Grim! I fear no man on earth!’
Over the course of his ring career, Grim had some 300 fights, most of them of the no-decision variety. He won a pitiful ten, but was knocked out on only three occasions. By the time the Iron Man met the novice McCarty, Grim had doggedly gone the distance with two of the greatest punchers of their era, ex-heavyweight champion Bob Fitzsimmons, who put Grim down seventeen times, and a young Jack Johnson, who downed Grim so many times that the reporters present lost count.
McCarty knocked Grim out in four rounds. Admittedly, the Italian was at the tail end of his career, but even so the young Nebraskan’s feat got him noticed by managers on the perennial lookout for White Hopes. The former heavyweight champion Tommy Burns, who had been present at the Grim fight, urged McCarty to persevere.
The former cowboy fought his way as far as Chicago, taking labouring jobs between bouts. While he was training at the McConnell gymnasium he impressed manager Billy McCarney. It was McCarney who had persuaded the gullible Victor McLaglen to spar with Jess Willard for the right to challenge Joe Cox in Springfield, and had made money by charging admission to see the gym bout.
McCarney had been shrewd enough to pass up on an opportunity to handle Jack Johnson, that walking graveyard for unsuspecting white fight managers. As McCarney told it, an impecunious Johnson had approached him in Philadelphia one day after he had won the title and told him that he had decided to appoint the former lawschool student as his new manager. ‘The combination’, Johnson told McCarney cheerfully, ‘is Fighting Jack and Manager Billy. We’re going to make a mess of money.’
Cautiously McCarney had verbally agreed to the proposed arrangement. Later that same day he received a telephone call from the expansive Johnson, who said, ‘Seeing that you’re my manager I’m sending a boy over for fifty dollars.’ ‘It’s too late,’ retorted a deadpan McCarney without missing a beat. ‘I’ve resigned.’
By the time McCarty had appeared on the horizon, Willard had lost to Cox, and the ever-optimistic McCarney was on the lookout for another heavyweight meal ticket. It was apparent on first sight that McCarty’s boyish charm would make him popular with fight crowds, but would his gymnasium form translate into a real action fight? The manager decided to waste no time finding out. He signed McCarty up and at the beginning of 1912 launched his prospect on a series of bouts against good-quality heavyweights, including several White Hopes.
In later years, in an article in Ring magazine, McCarney explained his plan of action for his new heavyweight: ‘I decided to make of Luther a picturesque, colourful character. I prepared a grand stage setting and the newspaper men, novelists and fight promoters throughout the country aided my cause . . . I gripped the public pulse with the story of this Western cowboy giant, the new “White Hope” who would whip any man in the universe.’
Things were not easy at first, and, as they crossed and recrossed the country, the manager and his huge fighter often had to share a cramped upper berth on a Pullman. However, McCarty handled all his opponents with ease, scoring a series of knockouts, including a 1912 six-round victory over the highly regarded Carl Morris. The spectacular manner of this victory caused leading sports writer W.W. Naughton to enthuse in the San Francisco Chronicle, ‘A new star has appeared in the pugilistic firmament. He tumbled big Carl Morris and his name is Luther McCarty. Sounds more like the name of a historian or a revivalist than a bruiser, doesn’t it?’
McCarney then matched his fighter against his former charge Jess Willard. Willard was regarded as clumsy and lacking in charisma, but he was also beginning to assemble a series of plodding wins over good men and was a definite prospect. The fight was scheduled for New York, the big time for both men and a definite showcase if either had any aspirations to meeting Johnson for the title. It was a tough era and one which produced tough men, especially in New York. Comedian Jimmy Durante, who was just starting his career at the time, later reminisced that in most saloons in the Big Apple you were considered effeminate if you took off your hat. McCarty was dwarfed by the taller and heavier Willard, but outboxed his opponent. He could not put the Arkansas heavyweight away, but at the end of the ten-round, no-decis
ion bout, reporters at the ringside were unanimous in giving McCarty their unofficial decision.
The Nebraskan cemented his new-found fame by ending the year with knockout victories over the still useful Al Kaufmann and the ever-dangerous slugger Jim Flynn in another White Hope tournament. By now the money was starting to roll in, and McCarty decided to make his home in Springfield. Suddenly, Luther McCarty was the man of the moment. There were now only two white heavyweights being talked about – McCarty after his display against Willard, and Al Palzer, the winner of the first White Hope tournament in New York the year before. It was a match made in heaven. When enough money had been dangled before him, Palzer agreed to defend his ersatz World White Heavyweight Championship crown.
The proposed bout aroused a great deal of interest, but almost did not take place. McCarty had badly damaged his left hand in his victory over Jim Flynn, and a few days before his contest with Palzer he broke his right hand on the head of a sparring partner. Tom O’Rourke had had it written into the contract that if either fighter defaulted he would pay his opponent $2,500. Both McCarney and his heavyweight had been living well and could not scrape together that much money.
Luther McCarty was perfectly prepared to enter the ring with his hands injected with a painkilling serum, but rumours of his injuries were going around the fight crowd and there were calls by those who had bet on the Nebraskan fighter to have the bout postponed. To prevent this happening Billy McCarney arranged for his heavyweight to have both fists X-rayed and examined by a specialist.
The doctor gave McCarty a clean bill of health, but only because the wily Billy McCarney had sent Bull Young, one of McCarty’s sparring partners, to be examined at the hospital in place of the principal in the bout. The medico, no follower of the prize ring, did not understand that he was running the rule over a ringer.
The bout took place at Vernon, California on 1 January 1913. Despite his sore hands, McCarty won on an eighteenth-round knockout and was recognised, for what it was worth, as the White Heavyweight Champion. The fight attracted great interest. Some 11,000 people paid to see the bout, while another 3,000 milled about outside the arena, trying to get in. One newspaper report said, ‘The fight was so one-sided that the referee stopped it . . . to save the reeling Palser [sic] from further punishment.’ After the bout the referee, Charlie Eyton, told reporters that McCarty was the most promising heavyweight he had seen in years.
For the once highly touted Palzer it was virtually the end of the road as a White Hope. Even his manager Tom O’Rourke disowned the Iowan. In an interview with the American correspondent of Boxing, published in the issue dated 1 February 1913, O’Rourke claimed, ‘During the two weeks preceding the ring battle Palzer was intermittently a nervous wreck, and would frequently lie at full length on a bench in his training quarters and cry like a baby for hours.’
Failing to recover from the beating McCarty had handed out to him, the Iowan went on to lose on knockouts to several new White Hopes, including Frank Moran and Dan Daily.
As a result of his victory McCarty was offered a two-week vaudeville engagement in New York at $2,000 a week. At McCarney’s urging he appeared on stage in cowboy chaps and Stetson, performing rope tricks. It was the beginning of an era of lavish revues, led by the Follies productions of Florenz Ziegfeld. Beautiful girls and speciality acts supported top-liners in a series of sketches, monologues, crosstalk duos and acrobatic performances. Even the most celebrated performer was on stage for no more than a single twenty-minute spot, and in the leading theatres a showgirl who did little more than stroll across a stage in beautiful clothes could earn $75 a week when the average annual wage was $750. The well-remunerated McCarty used some of his stage earnings to purchase a long-desired specially made silver-studded saddle for $700.
The only event which marred the aftermath of the championship bout for McCarty was when the young heavyweight returned with his freshly acquired diamond-studded belt, valued at $5,000, to his new home in Springfield. A reception which had been planned for him had to be cancelled when several church and civic leaders of the city decided that prizefighting was too ignoble a profession to be honoured in this manner.
This was small potatoes as far as manager McCarney was concerned. He was doing his best to fix up a title match for McCarty against Jack Johnson in Europe. At this time McCarty also received a challenge from an unknown self-appointed White Hope. This was Harry Hollinger, who had knocked out the novice McCarty a few years before. Lacking McCarty’s wanderlust, Hollinger had stayed at home and was still working at the local tannery. Seeing a chance for instant fame and a quick buck Hollinger offered to give McCarty a chance to reverse the decision. McCarty ignored him.
White Eagle, McCarty’s father, still peddling his snake oil, was also doing well out of Luther’s fame, securing a thirty-week vaudeville tour in which he was billed as the only man who had ever given the champion a whipping.
While negotiations were proceeding with Johnson, McCarney arranged a warm-up bout to keep his man in trim. The opponent was a 28-year-old French Canadian White Hope called Arthur Pelkey. Pelkey’s fighting career had got off to an uncertain start. He had drawn his first fight and in 1911, in his second bout, he had been knocked out in the first round by black heavyweight George Christian. Christian was one of those long-distance fighters who provide a faint thread of continuity to the game down the years. Five years later he was being knocked out in the first round by a young Jack Dempsey in Price, Utah. Welterweight fighter and boxing historian Bob Hartley remembers Christian in the 1930s, challenging booth fighters from the crowd at a Midlands fair in Great Britain.
After his loss to Christian, Pelkey had rattled off a string of victories. Records are incomplete, but it is possible that he entered the 1911 New York White Hope tournament won by Al Palzer and that he defeated Al Benedict before being eliminated in a subsequent heat by that habitual loser Sailor White. Since then, without ever scaling the heights, he had knocked out his fair share of opponents and had gone the distance in no-decision bouts with other prospects like Jess Willard, Jim Coffey and Soldier Kearns.
Pelkey, whose real name was Peletier, had been properly noticed when he was matched with fellow Canadian and former world heavyweight champion Tommy Burns. Five years had passed since Burns had lost his title to Johnson at Rushcutters Bay, and the former champion had been keeping a low profile in the interval. He had fought only twice and at the age of 31 had all but retired from the ring. He had been dabbling in promotion and management and, like every other handler, was on a constant lookout for a White Hope, preferably another Canadian.
Burns, who had made his home in Calgary and was running a clothing store, thought that Pelkey might fit the bill. Since his loss to George Christian, Pelkey had remained unbeaten. And as a former fighter Burns had one great advantage over most of his contemporaries: he could actually try out his prospects in the ring.
Burns matched himself against Pelkey and set out to sell the fight to the citizens of Calgary. He appeared at social functions, gave talks and opened public buildings. On the eve of the bout he even held a special Ladies’ Day to explain the intricacies of boxing to those members of the fairer sex who had never witnessed a bout.
The two men met over six rounds in a no-decision bout in Calgary on 2 April 1913. The fight was spectacular. Pelkey was knocked down three times while Burns went to the canvas once. Spectators were divided as to which fighter had come out on top, but everyone was agreed that the fight had been an exhilarating one. Shortly afterwards Burns announced that in future he would promote Pelkey’s major fights and that he would spare no efforts to guide his White Hope to a world-title shot.
Whether the Burns–Pelkey fight was genuine or merely a glorified exhibition match, designed to enhance Pelkey’s reputation and boost audiences for Burns’s promotions, has been a matter for speculation. The former champion was no stranger to ‘business arrangements’, as his encounters with Philadelphia Jack O’Brien had proved. He had once
expressed his simple philosophy: ‘I went into the boxing business more or less by accident, and have stuck to it because I found that I could make more money in that way than I could in any other.’
Burns was still ostensibly pursuing his claims to a self-promoted return match with Jack Johnson in Calgary. He wrote to a local newspaper, stressing this intention but also insisting that, if he were to fight Johnson once more, the referee must ensure that the breaks were clean, i.e. that both fighters must take a step backwards from a clinch when ordered to do so by the referee. ‘A clean break contest’, wrote Burns sanctimoniously, ‘is absolutely devoid of brutality.’
These wild challenges to Johnson were probably little more than attempts to gain publicity for the tournaments being held at the arena Burns had built on the fringes of the city. Certainly, Burns’s next move enhanced suspicions that he was merely beating the drum for his White Hope. He issued a personal challenge for a Burns–Luther McCarty fight, offering the white champion $10,000 – win, lose or draw – to come to Calgary. The Edmonton Journal announced with undisguised scepticism, ‘Burns is confident he is still in the game.’
Burns’s challenge got him a lot of headlines. These grew even larger when the former champion abruptly pulled out of the bout, announcing that McCarty would instead meet Arthur Pelkey in defence of his White Heavyweight Championship. It is probable that the crafty Burns never intended meeting the much younger and bigger Nebraskan, but was merely ballyhooing the fight with Pelkey. It was to be held at the newly constructed Manchester Stadium, in which Burns had an interest.
At this point, Jack Johnson, beset by monetary problems, intervened from France, offering to come to Calgary and defend his genuine world title against McCarty. Burns dismissed this challenge with hauteur. Interviewed by the Calgary Daily Herald, the promoter said self-righteously, ‘There is absolutely no reason why I should make this match. Johnson has not conducted himself in a gentlemanly manner at all since gaining the title, and now that I am a matchmaker I am only putting on matches which are between men of good character and clean-living fellows.’
