Joe Gans

by Colleen Aycock

  Thirteen Wins in 1904

  Gans fought Fitzgerald again in January of 1904, and by then sportswriters began to feel that Gans could be beaten. Of the six titleholders in the various weight divisions, Gans was the one the sportswriters predicted would lose his title in the year to come. In early January, a headline read, “Is Joe Gans in Danger? Experts Beginning to Figure that He Can Be Beaten in His Class.”23 And the New York Morning Telegraph noted that Gans was near “All-in”: “Gans has shown that he is on the wane. A great lightweight, this coffee-colored fellow—the greatest that ever shoved his hand into a glove.”24

  The fight was held in Detroit, and high hopes rested on Fitzgerald’s ability to bring the title back to Brooklyn. It had previously been held by Jack McAuliffe of Brooklyn. While Fitzgerald landed a vicious blow to Gans’ stomach that slowed his momentum in the fifth round and landed a punch to his jaw in the ninth, it was Gans’ short right to the jaw that brought Fitzgerald down in the first, and hammered his ribs over the course of the fight to give him control.

  Gans went on to make a total of 17 title defenses in the lightweight division, while also gaining weight and fighting heavier men. At this point in his career, sportswriters and other boxing experts were still assessing Gans’ place in history, calling him the greatest lightweight fighter of all time. In 1904 he fought and won “newspaper decisions” against all-time greats Jack Blackburn and Joe Walcott.

  Before Gans’ reign as lightweight champion, successful title defenses were rare occurrences in the boxing world. Since a champion, especially a white one, could earn a living making appearances and exhibitions, he had no incentive to risk his valuable title. But Gans defended his title regularly, and in the process brought a renewed interest and respectability to the sport.

  Most contemporary historians of boxing’s lightweight division indicate that Gans relinquished the title in 1904 to pursue welterweight laurels in California. In fact, Gans never relinquished his lightweight title. However, it is true that he continued to take on heavier fighters, winning, in the opinions of many, the welterweight crown. One month before he battled Jimmy Britt on October 1904, he had traveled to San Francisco, where boxers were re-creating the lore of the Wild West for the new century.

  11

  Stolen Title

  Attempts to discredit Gans and deprive him of his rightful place in fistiana accelerated after he had eliminated all of the lightweight contenders and even outfought the reigning welterweight champ, “Barbados” Joe Walcott. Fleischer writes of the late-round action, “Walcott was almost finished when a powerful smash to the jaw put him into distress. Gans battered him about the ring. The Baltimore Wonder outfought his opponent landing blow after blow with telling effect. The decision of the referee was hissed and hooted when he called the bout a draw.”1

  From 1902 to 1904 Gans fought three all-time greats of higher poundage than that carried by the Old Master: Walcott, Langford, and Jack Blackburn. His three-bout series provided some of the cleverest exhibitions of gloved fighting ever seen. In their title match Gans won a fifteen-round decision over the taller and heavier Blackburn. “In the last two sessions Gans was lightning fast of hand and feet. Cunningly, he took advantage of every opportunity offered him. He showed the material of which champions are made. At the final gong the crowd favored Gans, but no decision was rendered.”2 Blackburn, who gained later fame as the teacher of Joe Louis, spent long hours complaining to the press that Gans was avoiding him, even though they had fought three times.

  Gans’ performances against these all-time greats not only failed to gain for him laurels at welterweight, they started a controversy over the Old Master’s claim to the lightweight throne. One of the many instances in which history has mistreated Gans is that the record books show someone else holding the lightweight championship from 1904 to 1906. Nat Fleischer, in particular, said that Gans “forfeited” his title to Jimmy Britt.3 Unfortunately, a reissue of the Ring Record Book, compiled by others after Nat Fleischer died, perpetuates the notion that Gans relinquished his crown in 1904 after the Britt fight. Record books and other brief biographies that indicate Gans did not hold the lightweight title between 1904 and 1906 usually explain that he regained the title when he beat Battling Nelson in September of 1906. As of this printing, the official record book for the International Boxing Hall of Fame indicates a skip in Gans’ lightweight title reign between 1904 and 1906, explaining that Gans “relinquished the lightweight title to fight Walcott, though in some quarters he still was considered the titleholder.”4 The Walcott fight was a month prior to the Britt fight in 1904 and Gans was, by all newspaper accounts, still called the lightweight champion going into the lightweight fight with Britt; clearly this is an unfortunate error. However, the word “relinquished” in the hall-of-fame record book, and in other accounts by writers who quote the error, whitewashes the fact that the title was virtually stolen from him.

  In the summer of 2004, boxing historian Monte Cox proved beyond a doubt in his meticulously researched ring results for the years in question (1904–1906) that Gans never lost a title defense, and as a result, historical records should reflect his lineal championship from 1902 through 1908. Furthermore, his comprehensive research points to the fact that newspaper accounts (with the opinion of the press holding court) going into and including the Gans-Nelson fight (Cox quotes the Police Gazette, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Record–Herald, the New York Times, and the Washington Post) considered Gans the champion going into the fight and Nelson the “challenger” to the lightweight title.5 So what happened that caused record books to veer from standard historical practice and press reportage to crown as Gans’ “successor” the loser of his 1904 match with Jimmy Britt?

  Many record books simply assert without explanation that James Britt became the world lightweight champion. Others attempt to support Britt’s erroneous claim to the title by stating incorrectly that:

  • Gans gave up the title to fight in the welterweight division,

  • Gans couldn’t make, in the lightweight division, 133 pounds,

  • Gans refused to fight Britt in a return challenge, or that

  • Britt made a better showing in his bout against Gans, “proving that he was Gans’ master.”

  Of course, none of these explanations ring true. One newspaper, however, is key to understanding what really happened between 1904 and 1906—the San Francisco Examiner, owned by one of the most effective power-brokers in the country whose papers were read by one in four American readers at the turn of the century. With the help of the San Francisco newspaper, Britt simply misappropriated the championship title in one of boxing history’s biggest lies, starting a new lineal lightweight title succession, and most historians since have agreed with him. Britt later lost by seventeen-round knockout to Bat Nelson, the Battling Dane, who, in turn, claimed to be prince of the lightweights.

  The adage that the “best lie is the big lie” has been attributed to various individuals ranging from Augustus Caesar to Richard Nixon. Tricky Dick’s “I am not a crook” speech, delivered solemnly to the world, had even the most skeptical viewers grudgingly admitting that he was either telling the truth or demonstrating unprecedented gall.

  Credit for theorizing the big lie, in fact, rests with Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s liar-in-chief, the Nazi reich minister of propaganda. Before Goebbels, in Gans’ day some of the biggest liars were often ring managers, those gamblers and con-men profiting from the popularity of fistiana. In his book Boxing’s Greatest Champions, Bert Randolph Sugar writes of Gans, “The only qualification he lacked was a sense of discrimination, associating with confidence men who would exploit their own mothers if the price was right.”6

  Starting with the Britt brothers’ statements to the San Francisco Examiner in 1904, a big lie was concocted to deny Gans of the respect he deserved. Willus Britt, brother and consigliore to James Britt, pretender-to-the-throne, was either a prescient master of the big lie or a blowhard whose complete disreg
ard for reality was so vast, that he could convince himself and others that any idea he found advantageous for his family was, ipso facto, the truth. There were many stories. One was that refusing to see himself among the victims of an act of God after the great San Francisco earthquake, Willie Britt sued the city for negligence. As evidence he cited that God owned many churches in the area and so it could not have been His act, because He would not have destroyed His own property.7

  When Al Herford, no small liar himself, made his odd challenge to Britt earlier in 1904, there was clearly something rotten in Denmark, because the custom was not for a master champion’s manager to challenge a relative novice like Britt. If boxers had to be tough during this age, boxing managers were ruthless, and Herford was no exception to the rule. Because Gans was so good, Herford was having difficulty making money from bets, and he saw in the rising popularity of the San Francisco pug James Britt an opportunity to reinvigorate the waning gambling interests in his prized talent. Getting Britt in the ring with Gans would not be easy because Britt had told reporters he would never fight a black man.

  As Gans would painfully learn after he exposed Herford’s machinations at the height of his career and the two parted ways, Gans was at his manager’s mercy and would go penniless, unable to secure fights. The truth of the matter was that the pool of contenders willing to fight the champion was drying up. Gans had simply become too good and Herford was unable to match fighters with him. With odds always favoring Gans, Herford was unable to garner the big gambling bucks that he had made earlier in Gans’ career with the fighter coming up through the ranks, unless he was willing to make deals.

  The Gans-Britt fight of 1904 was one of those deals that would ruin the year 1905 for Gans. Herford told Gans to allow James Britt to “make a good showing,” and in return, Britt would agree to “foul out.”8 There had been many occasions where Gans had been ordered to extend a fight so the fans could get their money’s worth, but the set-up for the Britt fight seemed foul to Gans from the outset.

  One-Thirty-Three Ringside

  When he fought the great Joe Walcott at the higher welterweight limit to a 20-round draw a month earlier, Gans had weighed 141 pounds. For his lightweight title defense with Jimmy Britt, Herford had negotiated in the Articles of Agreement that Gans would drop to 133 pounds at ringside. This precipitous weight-loss prescription is but one of many instances of Herford’s disregard for Gans’ health. The notion of “133 ringside” was not a standard in the lightweight division under the Marquis of Queensberry Rules, as weigh-in any time of the day was acceptable. (The actual 135 weight limit was not established until later. Gans and others fought at a variety of weights in this division.) In retrospect, it seems that Gans was probably “set up” by his own manager and Willus Britt. In purse winnings, the match was a no-lose proposition for the Britts. According to the Articles, if James Britt won the match, he would collect 75 percent of the purse; if he lost, he would still get 50 percent. Such an agreement, so heavily weighted in favor of the challenger, was quite unusual; but for many reasons, and his race was certainly one of them, Gans had to take what he could get.

  San Francisco’s native son, white fighter extraordinaire Jimmy Edward Britt, was already being promoted as the master of the lightweights. The pride of the bay area, Britt had defeated only a handful of stout opponents, but the papers proclaimed him as a boy wonder. No fans could be more eager to see their hometown hero beat the black champion. Four days before the fight Herford told Gans that he had arranged with Willus Britt to let James Britt make “a good showing” against Gans. In exchange for the good showing, Britt would foul out by the 5th round. Publicly, Herford put up a $5000 bet that Gans would win, against Willie Britt’s $4000. Gans was furious about the arrangement, there being no love lost between him and the Britt camp. Gans’ strategy was to have been to put the young San Franciscan in his place early in the fight. He argued with Herford about the new arrangements, but his manager held the upper hand: if Gans refused to play by the rules the two managers dictated, Herford would drop Gans and see that he would never get any other promoter or future fight as punishment for “double-crossing his own manager.”9 Furthermore, if Gans revealed the arrangement, he would likewise suffer a fate of destitution, which in fact happened.

  The day before the Frisco fight, betting was light and favored Gans. Final odds were expected to be 10 to 8 in favor of the champion. Comparisons between the fighters made the news. For speed the fighters seemed on equal footing. Britt had the longer reach by three and a quarter inches. But as expert boxing analyst Charley White said about the fight, “Gans is the cleverest man and the greatest ring general we’ve had in the lightweight class since McAuliffe. He can punch hard, too.”10

  On Sunday Gans did roadwork in the morning and the afternoon. Reports about Gans’ weight varied and created an additional “buzz” for the fight. Some said he had reduced below 133 and remained strong. Others said that he was still several pounds overweight and would not be able to make the mandatory limit and maintain his strength. Britt was at his top weight of 133 and strong. He sparred with Frank Rafael but did no other training the weekend before the fight. The rumor that Gans couldn’t make the weight may have come from Britt when he announced to reporters that if Gans didn’t make the weight, he would forfeit and the fight wouldn’t go forward.

  Back in Baltimore, the upcoming fight filled twice as much news space in the sporting section of the Sun as the opening week at Pimlico, even though the turnout at the old track had surpassed the expectations of the gentlemen from the prestigious hunt clubs. Additional stalls were still being built to stable over 200 thoroughbreds, which were exercised on Monday morning for the handicap events.11

  In San Francisco, James Britt had been hailed as a renaissance-man dandy of the progressive era. Behind the scenes, plans were even being laid for his vaudeville tour after he took Gans’ title. Gans knew that the fight was cooked that night, he just did not know he was on the menu as the entrée.

  Rather than “putting up a good showing” as he had agreed to do, Britt charged the unsuspecting Gans like a bull that sees red, throwing low blows and debilitating, energy-sapping fouls early in the contest. Referee Ed Graney would in the coming year engage in a bitter war of words about this fight with the Britt brothers. Graney and Willus Britt became two of the partners in a boxing trust of four athletic clubs (the other two partners were Jim Coffroth and Moris Levy) that, for all intents and purposes, controlled boxing in San Francisco. From the evidence, it appears that young Britt was to be given more than the chance “to make a good showing,” and thereby gain lucrative boxing engagements for himself and the club. Not content with a showing, he double-crossed Gans (and possibly Graney) by going for the kill from the opening bell. Gans was caught off guard and struggled through the fight.

  Gans squares off with James Britt before their controversial title fight, October 31, 1904 (photograph by the Dana Brothers Studio, San Francisco, courtesy F. Daniel Somrack, boxing historian).

  Crowds Desire to See Local Boy Dethrone the Black Prince of the Lightweights

  On that October All Hallows Night, the house was packed with spec-tators wild with pride. News had reached them from the St. Louis World’s Fair of the daring feat of the captain of an Oakland-built airship. The dirigible had failed earlier in the day after its inventor, Captain Thomas Baldwin, and the navigator, A. Roy Knabenshue, of Toledo, had worked feverishly for 26 hours straight. It was airborne for only a few moments before it fell to the ground, breaking a propeller blade. But by the afternoon, the California Arrow ascended into the Missouri sky, floated down, and made a pass at about a thousand feet over the heads of a cheering crowd, completing a successful trip of approximately three and a half miles on its own power and proving that it could make “headway against a modest breeze.”12 Now another Bay Area son, Britt, was ready to add to the honors of Northern California. Beating the greatest black fighter alive would make the native son a home-grown hero ind
eed.

  The up-and-coming heavyweight Jack Johnson was at ringside to support his friend and mentor Gans. For two years, Joe Gans had reigned supreme in the boxing limelight. Now Johnson, the black dynamo heavyweight, appeared to be climbing the ladder threatening the heavyweight crown. Johnson had handily defeated Denver’s Ed Martin in Los Angeles. Johnson’s supporters circulated the idea of a fight with retired hero Jim Jeffries. But Jeffries was quoted as saying that he would never fight a Negro, although he had previously defeated black fighters Hank Griffin, Peter Jackson, and Bob Armstrong. It would be six more years before Californians would see “great white hope” Jeffries come out of retirement to fight Johnson, in the second great fight promoted by Tex Rickard. In 1904 the man who would be Rickard’s first attraction, Gans, was already the Old Master of the ring, and Tex Rickard hadn’t even seen a professional fight.