ao THE

~ SPORTLIGHT

By BERT WHYTE

_ BEST EVENTS on television are sports spectacles, and one of
the best of these was the recent showing of the Joe Louis-Max
Schmeling fight film taken nearl 15 pears ayo. It proved an eye-open-
2r to youngsters who only saw Louis at the pathetic tailend of his
great career; and evoked a flood of reminiscenses from boxing fans
of an earlier generation. Among the latter is Lester Rodney, sports

_ editor of the New York Daily Worker, who had a ringside seat at

the actual fight, but relived the thrill all over again when he watched
the film on (TV. Rodney writes:

Nineteen-hundred and thirty-eight. Pardon the banality, but looking
at the film, it seemed like yesterday. The memory plays tricks, however.
In my mind’s eye when the white towel fluttered into the ring as the
long discarded symbol of surrender and Referee Art Donovan kicked it
out, it landed smack back on Schmeling’s manager. You see how dramatic
imagination comes to take liberty with fact.

Actually, as the film shows clearly, the towel caught and hung on.
the middle strand of the rope, and looked dramatic and symbolic enough
as young Louis’ arm was raised and Hitler’s favorite figher, Louis’ only
conqueror, was half carried back to his corner after 2.04 of the first round.

It’s hard to realize the Louis-Schmeling: fight is already a legend of
another day to a good part of the population, something they don’t re-
member. from their time. ;

I had an uncle who used to bore me stiff with accounts of ball games
and fights he had seen around the turn of the century. It seemed like
the dinosaur age he was talking about. I was interested in the current
performers. Only much later did I realize that he was recreating his
own younger years as well as those of Corbett. 4

But I’m perfectly safe in going back to the Louis-Schmeling fight.
There is too much about it that forbids it becoming part of the ruled-off

past world.
i a ane

YOU MAY! have heard the phrase “more than a fight.” Well, this
was THE one that was more than a fight. :

It was made that way not by Louis, nor by the fans, but by Schmeling'
—and Hitler. There would have been a tremendous interest in this as
a fight if the other guy was Joe Blow and not Schmeling. For this was.
the only fighter to have beaten Louis, a couple of years before, when
the intent youth from out of Detroit had been a kid on the way up and
Schmeling a solid veteran. Now, as champion «for a year, Louis had
quickly granted his sole conqueror a return fight. ee

But in addition to that, Schmeling popped off in his training camp,
telling writers such things as “Louis has no right to the championship
and he knows it,” and “The black dynasty of, boxing must be ended.”
These are both exact quotes. ‘ :

: = Ten Nazi correspondents‘ were dis-
patched to cover the event. In their
stories they referred to Louis only as
the “so-called champion,” and wrote of
Aryan supremacy once again asserting
3 itself as in the first fight. They said
that Louis would be afraid of Schmeling
m4 due to his “native inferiority” and the
memory of his past beating.

Then came the famous telegram from
Adolf himself, hailing Schmeling in ad-
vance for winning back the champion-
ship for the Aryan race. _

That stuck the whole rotten Aryan
myth on Schmeling’s jaw for the hardest
and fastest heavyweight in right history
to hit—and thow Louis hit it! (After-
ward Louis told us, “It’s the only time
I ever was angry in the ring.”)

* * * :

MORE THAN 85,000 fans packed the
Yankee Stadium that Wednesday night.
#The place was seething and electric as

: JOE LOUIS for no other sports event I have ever-
: : seen before or since.

There had been talk of a boycott of the fight because Schmeling was
‘a Nazi, but this was quickly overwhelmed by the desire of people to let
mature take its course, in the realization that Louis was as anti-Nazi as
you could get. The boycott idea was dropped and the’ ones who had
suggested it scrambled for tickets.

_ Just before it started a group of 1,000 Germans in some kind of
uniform strutted in and began adjusting fancy binoculars. They hardly
jhad time to get the gadgets focussed when their man Schmeling was
down, and the crowd around them was up, screaming. They were an
island of gaping bewilderment in a sea of intense unified rooting for
Louis. :

Schmeling got up and threw the vaunted straight right—the one that
was supposed to terrify Louis. The 24 year old champ rolled with it
easily and then came in with his lips tight and precise, short power-packed
punches exploding off left and right as shoulders and body pivoted
smoothly to put maximum power into every punch.

When Schmeling was knocked down for the third time and counted
out, the roar came down in waves from the stands and bleachers. Total
strangers were hugging each other in frantic unashamed joy.

No, this is no dusty fight for the archives with no more meaning.

In case some of the older Louis’ postwar fights have muddled the
recollection a bit, this Schmeling KO marked 38 wins out of 39 profes-
sional bouts, 832 by knockout, with the lone defeat avenged in one round.

It also made five successive former world heavyweight champions
he had knocked out—Sharkey, Carnera, Baer, Braddock and Schmeling

(Braddock for the title), all five in a total of 22 rounds!

When they mention Sullivan, Fitzsimmons, Jeffries, Johnson and
Dempsey to You, ask which did anything like that.

Joe Louis was the greatest of all, and the night of June 22, 1938,
was his greatest moment.

Thank you, television, for the reminder! } °

/

Had the British and Dutch governments divert ed to defense of their coasts against the sea som
the mililons they have spent on armaments, ;
dollars in property damage averted. This picture shows t

Morrison reads order in parliament

Churchill gov’t halted work _
on dykes, took steel for arms —

Nearly all coastal defense work was
last June to divert money, labor and materials to rearmament.

By MALCOLM MacEWEN

thousan ds. of lives might

stopped or slowed down by the Churchill govet
A sensation was caused in the

e of

have been saved and millions °
he flood-stricken Dutch village of Oude Ton8™

LONDON
nment
British

House of Commons when Herbert Morrison read out a circular to this effect issued to local autho”

ties by Harold Macmillan, minister
Failure of Home Secretary

the circular angered Labor MP’s
who hod already been aroused by
Ernest Marples, under-secretary to
Macmillan. ;

The circular read by Morrison
stated: “Coast protection works
in general are costly in money,
labor and materials, particularly
steel, and only work of exception-
al urgency can be allowed to pro-
ceed at the present time.”

It added that Macmillan hoped
to be able to set aside a small quan-
tity of steel for coast protection,
and ended: : ‘

“While the shortage persists and
more urgent demands have to be
met it is inevitable that jmany

schemes involving important
amounts of steel will have to be
deferred or slowed down.”

‘Aneurin Bevan accused the Tory
government of having sabotaged

of housing and local government, on June 27, 1952. Pe daw |
Sir David Maxwell Fyfe to give a definite promise to with® ~~

the coast protection measures tak-
en by the Labor government and
pressed (Sir David Maxwell Fyfe to
say that the circular would be with-
drawn. :

“Tf action is not taken today
much greater expense will be in-
volved and the dangers to our coast-
line will become much more acute.”

The sharp exchange recalls the
debate in the House nearly three
years ago, on April 8, 1949, when
MP’s spent five hours discussing’
the Coast Protection Bill.

The debate covered 85 columns

of Hansard, and much was said

about the urgent need to strength-
en Britain’s defenses against the
Sea. © :

It was said that $30 million to
$60 million expenditure was need
ed to maintain the sea wall and

other defense structures. Alf

Since the bill became law °
$12 million has been spemh —¢
which the government has Me. ;
buted’a mere $7 million—the hee

of one light cruise an 2
Korea tops agend 2
for UN Assembly .

NEW yor
With preparations going ES : .
for the reopening of the |
sembly session on February “ook |
was learned in Moscow this, is
that the Soviet Foreign ™ in Af :
‘Andrei Vyshinsky, will again peads :
the Soviet delegation. Kore® cout
the list of nine items which

prise the Assembly’s*agend® =

- Support the
- Pacific Tribune's |
> FIGHT for JUSTICE
inthe = =—s ||.
CLEMENS CASE —

el ‘

The Pacific Tribune, Room 6, 426 Main St., Vancouver 4;

Tencloser sxe Se as a contribution to your defense fund AL

B.C ae

Please send me a collection sheet

ne How many

é

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — FEBRUARY 20, 195