Runyon Says
Churchill is in Error.
On Boxing in Manila.
Gloves of San Mateo.
Negro Soldier Pioneer.
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By Damon Runyon
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Not long ago I read a statement
by Mr. Frank Churchill, who was
manager of the late Pancho Villa, flyweight champion of the world, confessing that he—Churchill— adjusted the first pair of boxing gloves to the hands of a Filipino.
It is of no great consequence, to be sure, but to relieve Mr. Churchill’s conscience of any sense of guilt, and to clear the record, I wish to state that I can produce evidence which completely absolves him. In other words, he is in error if he thinks he was the first to plant the germs of The Manly Art of Scrambling Ears among the Filipinos.
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I have no doubt that this news will remove a load from Mr. Churchill’s mind. He has probably gone along for years feeling conscience stricken whenever he encountered a squashed bugle, or nose, on the Escolta, which is the main street of Manila, or observed the citizens of the town walking hard on their heels.
But I see in Mr. Churchill only an
accessory to the crime to which he is pleading guilt after many years.
It was not his hands that laced the first pair of gloves on the dukes of a little born brother to William H. Taft-not
by quite a spell. It was the black hands of a soldier of the old 24th Infantry.
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Let me go back some twenty-six years, and before the arrival in the Philippines of Mr. Churchill. Let me go back to the morning of November 18, 1899, and and to the mist shrouded rice paddies around the little town of San Mateo on the
Island of Luxon, with the troopers of the Eleventh Cavalry sliding through the haze.
There was a leathery looking man in command of the cavalrymen that morning, his long legs dangling almost to the ground on either side of a shaggy little pony, and a big white helmet on his head that made him a conspicuous figure.
The man was General Lawton, one of the famous Indian fighters of the American Army, and as great a soldier as ever wore shoe leather. He was leading the cavalrymen to an assault on San Mateo against the Filipino insurgents, and he fell in that fight.
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The cavalrymen went on and took the town of San Mateo, and they found among the possessions abandoned by the fleeing insurrectos, a set of boxing gloves made by the late Sol Levinson, of San
Francisco, whose gloves came to be in San Mateo, and some of the Filipino prisoners explained that they had been brought in by a renegade soldier from the negro 24th Infantry, and that he had been schooling the Filipinos in their use.
They told of bouts beneath the
palm trees, the followers of Emilio Aguinaldo, with the negro directing and coaching, and there is no doubt in my mind that this was the very first sowing of the seed that eventually produced a Filipino world’s champion.
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As to what became of the negro soldier, I do not know. He did not fall in the fight for San Mateo, of that I am quite sure.
Perhaps he is a peaceful, and somewhat grizzled dweller, of a remote bario on Luzon, raising rice, and kicking a plodding carabao to market, little wrecking of the damage he has wrought to Filipino ears and nose since that time twenty-six years ago.
But there is no doubt that Mr. Frank Churchill can be held responsible for the development of the first Filipino boxers of any real ability, as well as for the Philippines’ first and only world’s champion.
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I think he reached the Philippines some time after the fabulous “Days of the Empire,” which period was immediately after the fall of Manila. Baseball, cock-fighting and racing flourished among the Filipinos, but there was no boxing except among the American soldiers. Mr. Churchill became one of the leading promoters of Manila and presently began
developing the natives as boxers.
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Pancho Villa was already a good fighter when Mr. Churchill first brought him to America, with several other Filipino boxers, and a good drawing card In Manila, but Mr. Churchill took very small purses for him at the outset here, just to get him started.
He realized that Villa’s reputation at home meant nothing here, and he was always confident that Villa was great fighter. Subsequent events proved Mr. Churchill was quite right.
Personally, I think Villa was the greatest fighter of his inches, The Manly Art of Scrambling Ears has seen in a long time.
I note that Mr. Churchill has imported another Filipino flyweight that he says he thinks is as good a fighter as Villa. I doubt that. I doubt that Mr. Churchill will ever have another fighter that he will think is as good as Villa.
The Villas come along at rare intervals, and few men are fortunate enough to get two of them. Villa, in addition to his fighting ability, could draw more money than most of the champions of other divisions.
He had an amazing personality and color in the ring. He was flashy, spectacular. And he could fight— how he could fight! He classes in Pugilistic history with Jimmy Barry, Jimmy Wilde, Johnny Coulon, and the other great little men of the game.
