irst-class sport to encourage in the
Young Men's Christian Association. I do not like to see young Christians
with shoulders that slope like a champagne bottle. Of course boxing
should be encouraged in the army and navy. I was first drawn to two
naval chaplains, Fathers Chidwick and Rainey, by finding that each of
them had bought half a dozen sets of boxing-gloves and encouraged their
crews in boxing.

When I was Police Commissioner, I heartily approved the effort to
get boxing clubs started in New York on a clean basis. Later I was
reluctantly obliged to come to the conclusion that the prize ring had
become hopelessly debased and demoralized, and as Governor I aided in
the passage of and signed the bill putting a stop to professional boxing
for money. This was because some of the prize-fighters themselves were
crooked, while the crowd of hangers-on who attended and made up and
profited by the matches had placed the whole business on a basis
of commercialism and brutality that was intolerable. I shall always
maintain that boxing contests themselves make good, healthy sport. It
is idle to compare them with bull-fighting; the torture and death of the
wretched horses in bull-fighting is enough of itself to blast the sport,
no matter how great the skill and prowess shown by the bull-fighters.
Any sport in which the death and torture of animals is made to furnish
pleasure to the spectators is debasing. There should always be the
opportunity provided in a glove fight or bare-fist fight to stop it when
one competitor is hopelessly outclassed or too badly hammered. But the
men who take part in these fights are hard as nails, and it is not worth
while to feel sentimental about their receiving punishment which as a
matter of fact they do not mind. Of course the men who look on ought to
be able to stand up with the gloves, or without them, themselves; I have
scant use for the type of sportsmanship which consists merely in looking
on at the feats of some one else.

Some as good citizens as I know are or were prize-fighters. Take Mike
Donovan, of New York. He and his family represent a type of American
citizenship of which we have a right to be proud. Mike is a devoted
temperance man, and can be relied upon for every movement in the
interest of good citizenship. I was first intimately thrown with him
when I was Police Commissioner. One evening he and I--both in dress
suits--attended a temperance meeting of Catholic societies. It
c