Joe Gans

by Colleen Aycock

  Journalists at the train station when two porters carried him out on a stretcher to board the train snapped photos that would allow the world to see his pitiful, emaciated state. The germs of consumption had taken this world class athlete and reduced him to less than a hundred pounds. Tucked neatly into crisp white sheets, he wore his signature ivy cap. His dark eyes seemed only moments away from death and dwarfed his sunken face. The oxygen used to help him breathe seemed a pitiful aid.

  The final days of the “Old Master.” Porters carry Gans to his private train-car where he clung fiercely to life until he could reach his family in Baltimore. Weighing less than 100 pounds, Gans had been removed from the train in Chicago on his way home from Prescott, Arizona, August 4, 1910. He did not have the energy to sit up, and his accompanying physician, Dr. Harry T. Southworth, thought he would die that day. Gans demanded that he be allowed to complete his journey (Chicago History Museum, Photographer: Chicago Daily News, 1910).

  Through sheer will and with the same fortitude that had seen him through so many battles, the Old Master made it to his life’s final round in Baltimore on Friday afternoon, the 5th of August. He was able to see his family, settle his financial obligations, dictate his final wishes, and profess his everlasting faith. For five long days he was attended by his family, his children James, 16, and Julia, 15, friend “Kid” North, and the Rev. C. G. Cummings. Reporters waited at his mother’s doorstep for news of his condition and telegrammed every detail to home papers. Late into the evening on Saturday, August 6, Dr. Southworth told reporters that the champion was “steadily losing strength,” but that he was still alive. The doctor predicted that he would not expire on this night; “He is resting comparatively well, but his vitality is constantly decreasing.”43

  The next day The New Times reported, “The condition of Joe Gans, who is dying of tuberculosis at the home of his mother, was reported to be unchanged tonight. Only his closest friends are allowed to see him. Realizing that the end is fast drawing near, Joe sent for his attorney yesterday afternoon and drew up an assignment turning all of his property and belongings over to his wife, Martha J. Gans. His mother has also been provided for.” 44 Gans paid Dr. Harry T. Southworth a $500 fee for accompanying him to Baltimore. He paid $1000 in expenses to bring him home. With the help of attorney Tom Smith, he deeded the Goldfield Hotel to his third wife for her to run.

  Tuesday evening before Gans died, with halting breath he quietly sang, “I Am So Glad That Jesus Loves Me.”45 He expired at 8:08 on Wednesday morning of August 10 at home, and in the arms of his aging mother.

  Word of Gans’ death came immediately to the Goldfield, Gans’ hotel. Bartender James Jackson, who had worked there from its beginning, pulled down the shades, took down the swinging doors, and locked the hotel. The lights stayed out until Monday, the only four days the place had ever been closed. The Goldfield was never again the same.

  The papers reported that his doom had been sealed for at least a year.

  For three days, thousands of people, black and white, “high in official life and lowly in the world,” came to his mother’s home on Argyle Street to give their condolences to the family and to take a final, sad look at the gentleman who brought such fame to himself and to his native Baltimore.46 At 7:30 Saturday morning, the Reverend C. G. Cummings conducted a private service in his home with family and a few friends before taking him to lie in state at Whatcoat Methodist Episcopal Church, located at Pine and Franklin Streets. As had happened at his mother’s home, a line of thousands formed outside the church to take a final look at their hero.

  At 12:00 noon his family was seated at the front of the church. Reverend Cummings began the public service by inviting the choir, congregation, and all those gathered around the church to join in singing of the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee.” Citizens later remarked that voices could be heard over Baltimore as though everyone in the city were singing the doleful hymn. There followed a scriptural reading, a prayer, and a solo by Mr. S. T. Hemsley. The Reverends Alfred Young and F. R. Williams remarked on his life. Several of Baltimore’s social groups were represented and final rituals were performed by the Monumental Lodge, the I.B.P.O.E.W., and the Knights of Pythians. Gans’ earthly remains lay in state the entire afternoon to accommodate the thousands of mourners who wished to pay their respects. Then came the long, slow journey to the Sharp Street Cemetery known as Mount Auburn, and Joe Gans was laid to final rest.

  18

  The Old Master’s Legacy

  Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, shuffled off his mortal coil with his dying words “and the rest is silence.”1 For the Old Master’s legacy the rest would be music, science, and art, and how they all came together in Baltimore at his famous establishment. In 1906, Joe Gans returned to Baltimore with winnings from the Goldfield fight totaling $15,000, well over $2 million in today’s dollars. Investing in real estate, he also became a pioneer hotelier, following the example of Tom Sharkey in New York. Although always a soft touch who spent freely, Gans was in the chips in 1907 and was able to build a hotel which he named “The Goldfield” in honor of his great battle. Its gala opening was celebrated October 29, 1907, with the crowd so large it spilled out onto the cobblestone street. The hotel became the first black-owned haven for ragtime musicians in Baltimore, or in the words of his contemporary H.L. Mencken, “the first black and tan club.” It was also the club that first hired the musician who would carry ragtime into the Jazz Age.

  Although Gans has in recent generations become an “invisible man,” he was certainly an active participant in Baltimore society when he lived there. By 1908 he owned a $5000 car. He was said to be the first black man in the city to own an automobile. Gans was among the first to give the twentieth-century black American musicians a distinguished place to perform. Gans made and spent a small fortune in the last few years of his life, and this helped keep the fire lit at the Goldfield. Gans spent thousands of dollars on his hotel in what was called the Jonestown section at the corner of 200 Chestnut (later Colvin) and East Lexington. A slab of granite at the hotel’s entrance announced with inlaid tile the “Goldfield Hotel.” Inside the swinging bat-wing doors (doors that would swing all night long) was the lobby with a staircase rising to the second level where Gans stayed when he was in town. Through the lobby was the restaurant, furnished modestly with wooden tables and chairs. On the walls and behind the large mahogany bar hung oversized photos of Gans’ many ring battles. One showed Gans helping Battling Nelson to his feet after knocking him through the ropes at Goldfield. The hotel also had a rathskeller in the basement where Gans welcomed numerous visitors, friends, and any fighter who happened to be in town. Battling Nelson visited shortly after the Goldfield opened. It was the place to be whether you were a fighter, a fight fan, or just someone who loved the music and nightlife.

  Composer and musician Eubie Blake got his big break when Joe Gans hired him to play his ragtime music at the Goldfield Hotel. Blake wrote this “rag” for Joe Gans in 1908.

  When Gans was alive the Goldfield was one of the liveliest spots in Baltimore, especially after fight-night or the burlesque shows at the nearby Monumental Theater, because that was where everyone could find the fun-loving, jovial Joe Gans. Everyone loved him. “Boxers, managers, handlers, agents, actors, vaudeville stars and thousands of sports fans made the Goldfield a sure port of call while in Baltimore.”2 After Gans returned from each winning fight in 1907 and 1908, his fans would give him a Cakewalk back at the hotel. This lively, high-stepping dance honoring a festive occasion demanded a talented piano player. It was here that the young Eubie Blake improvised popular tunes and gave a new twist to stately church songs, music that would become known as “rag time.”

  Another great fighter of the early twentieth century would pick up Gans’ boxing and musical notes within a few years of the Old Master’s prime. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Jack Johnson certainly lavished Joe Gans with flattery both inside the ring and out. Johnson’s footwork and punchin
g came right out of Gans’ bag of tricks. Jack Johnson’s ascension to the heavyweight championship corresponded with the twilight of Gans’ career. Johnson would visit the Goldfield Hotel whenever he traveled through Baltimore. Every night after his appearance on stage during one of his tours, Johnson brought an entourage to the Goldfield and kept the place jumping into the early hours. It was said that those were the “good days.” Johnson, obviously inspired by Gans’ Goldfield, would later found his own nightclubs, one in Chicago, and another, the Club Deluxe in Harlem, which would later be renamed the Cotton Club. The Harlem club would later earn fame as the subject of a 1984 movie starring Richard Gere. Much to its credit, the Cotton Club would become a proving ground for jazz musicians, the leading hotbed for Jazz and the Harlem Renaissance, and less to its credit, a haven for gangsters.

  That Joe Gans played an integral part in the founding of ragtime music, which gave its name to an entire era in American history, can be seen in the career of Eubie Blake, the premiere ragtime musician. Blake had been playing in Baltimore bordellos. His first big break came in 1907 when he was hired by Joe Gans. Because of Gans’ celebrity, the Goldfield became a prominent entertainment venue for the wealthy, society types, politicians, and entertainers of all races from all over the world. As a performer in this prestigious hotel, Blake became acquainted with these important people, many of whom had a profound impact on his later career.

  Blake composed many songs during his tenure with Gans. In addition to the hotel’s namesake, “The Goldfield Rag,” Blake wrote “The Baltimore Rag, “Tricky Fingers,” “Poor Katie,” and hundreds of other rags still played today. These tunes were heard in parlors, theaters, and saloons across the nation when they were printed on piano rolls for ease in playing. Blake’s song “Wild About Harry” became a household ditty when Harry Truman used it in his presidential campaign.

  One little girl who grew up in Baltimore listening to Eubie Blake was the legendary blues songstress Billie Holiday. She matched Gans to a degree in determination and grit, but unfortunately followed in the footsteps of Canadian boxer George Dixon with respect to excess and dissipation, becoming a drug addict in her later years. Billie’s song about a beaten-down under class, “God Bless the Child,” seemed a veritable socialist manifesto. Recent renditions of this song give it a happy turn, leaving out the sadness that gave it soul. In the movie based on Billie’s life, we see young blacks casually lynched just as they were depicted in the stories that accompanied Gans’ fights. Billie died penniless, although her songs made millions for the recording industry over the years. Gans’ success in passing on the Goldfield Hotel to his designated heirs, by contrast, was a rarity among famous performers.

  The music Eubie Blake created while at Gans’ Goldfield Hotel was both off-beat and technically perfect, captivating the American public. Mechanically, ragtime is characterized by syncopation, a style carried into the twenties. This syncopation, where musical rhythms miss a beat, occurs in the melody usually played on the piano with the right hand against a regularly accented accompaniment by the left. It is as though the two hands are playing a game with each other while dancing to their individual tunes. It is interesting to note that “syncope” has two definitions: the loss of one or more sounds or letters in the interior of a word, and the loss of consciousness resulting from insufficient blood flow to the brain. Think of a left hook off a jab by a boxer, the timing of which can also be considered the art of syncopation.

  Just as the element of unpredictability is key to ragtime, so it was essential when Muhammad Ali used a “syncopated” boxing strategy in his title-winning effort against George Foreman in Zaire. In the first round he turned the tables on Foreman by hitting him with a batch of right-hand leads that ruined the champion’s timing and had him disoriented. Throughout the rest of the fight, Ali the dancing master tricked Foreman with the now famous rope-a-dope strategy that no one had predicted.

  Gans left a legacy in ring style and technique that continues today. When author Mark Scott was a teenager boxing in the Golden Gloves, his trainer, Louie Munoz, would talk nostalgically about the days of Gans and the lost art of balance. One hotshot at the gym had a bad habit of stutter-stepping before launching his wicked left hook. Exasperated, Munoz donned the gloves on his leathery hands and climbed into the ring with the star left-hooker. They sparred lightly for a minute or so as the young star took it easy on Louie. Then came the wayward stutter-step, and quick as a flash, Louie’s straight right crashed home to the point of the chin, wobbling the young star, proving a point. The right to the chin carried with it the wisdom of the ages.

  As a child Mark watched the promotion for the upcoming Muhammad Ali fight. The excitement, the speed and grace, of the young Ali made anything Mark had seen before on the football or baseball fields seem boring by comparison. That night was born a love of boxing that continues to this day. A few years later Mark would begin an amateur boxing career, hoping to emulate the great Ali. One or two rounds in a real fight were all it took for him to know that Ali’s moves were inimitable. After escaping with a narrow win, he realized he better listen to his trainers if he wanted to avoid getting hit. By following a regime much closer to that of the Old Master, Mark enjoyed an amateur boxing career without serious injuries.

  In retrospect, virtually every move taught in boxing gymnasiums today owes a debt to the great Joe Gans. First the stance: the feet must be placed at 45-degree angles with the weight evenly balanced. A good trainer will make a novice move around the ring with his feet tied together by a rope, to combat the natural tendency to spread the stance. Only when a young fighter learns to move with balance can he block and deliver blows correctly. That Ali could do it from impossible angles was an anomaly in the annals of the ring. Gans invented proper footwork, as can be seen in his fight with Battling Nelson.

  Once a novice can move around the ring, he can learn to punch, block, and slip. The young Ali was so tall and fast that he could pull away from punches and dance out of danger. This will get a novice fighter knocked out quickly. A boxer who can move in quickly will have a wide open target in the mid-rift and an exposed chin to tee-off upon with his best punches.

  Gans perfected the art of moving only as much as necessary to slip a punch, all the while remaining in position to fire back. Some fighters of the modern era, such as Mike Ayala and Wilfred Benitez, slipped punches so well that they seemed to have a force field around their heads. This art of slipping punches is part of the legacy of Joe Gans.

  When it comes to punching, the first thing a novice learns is the jab. Thrown correctly, it can cause quite a bit of damage. In Gans’ fight with Nelson, for example, it is a hard, jarring jab in the 42nd round that spells the end for Nelson. A few moments after almost being decapitated by Gans’ jab, Nelson deliberately fouls out. After that great fight, Gans devoted much of his time to giving back to his community.

  In choosing to promote Eubie Blake’s career, Joe Gans had done for Blake what Herford had done for him. He plucked a pearl from the Baltimore Harbor to give America one of its greatest treasures. In Gans and Blake, Baltimore had provided boxing and music, two great treasures of the twentieth century.

  It is no small testament to the power of music that W.E.B. Du Bois began his masterful The Souls of Black Folk with written music that included both lyrics and the notes of the sheet music. The notes and half-notes, like hooks, jabs, and crosses of ringing melody, remind us of the integral part music played in Du Bois’ conception of black America. As noted previously, Gans ended his life singing church music among throngs of friends and admirers. It is no stretch to say that a piece of the soul of the Old Master was destined to live on in the music of ragtime and jazz.

  Joe Gans achieved his dream in his short and turbulent life and left a legacy shared by generations of Americans who may have never heard of him. He fought on in the shadow of death in order to make enough money to buy the Goldfield Hotel to insure his family’s future, and in so doing, it helped to usher in
the Jazz Age by promoting such future legends as Eubie Blake.

  He was met by thousands of friends and fans when he made his final trip home to die, ending one of the most glorious chapters in sports history.

  Gans’ dream runs through the veins of inner city youth today who rise at 5 A.M. to do roadwork, with visions of big ring paydays lifting their spirits when their bodies scream for rest. It lives on in the rings and gymnasiums throughout the world, wherever boxers and other athletes perfect the artistry of their sports.

  19

  In the Words of Peers

  and Scholars

  At the end of Gans’ life the editor of the Baltimore Sun wrote that an earlier query had been sent to the paper asking, “What were the special features which made Gans so great a fighter? The answer was: “His ability to hit hard with either hand from short distance; his defensive work with feet, head, and body; his ring generalship; his ability to take punishment and not get rattled; his clean work in the ring and adaptability to any style of boxer.”1

  The Old Master’s fellow boxers who saw him in action are lavish in their praise:

  JOHN L. SULLIVAN: “Gans is easily the fastest and cleverest man of his weight in the world.”

  BOB FITZSIMMONS: “Gans is the cleverest fighter, big or little that ever put on the gloves.”