Life, 1926-10-14 · page 22 of 44
Life — October 14, 1926 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes **Gene Tunney**, the heavyweight boxing champion, for being unusually virtuous and wholesome—the opposite of what boxing champions "should" be. The author contrasts Tunney with **John Lawrence Sullivan**, a legendary 19th-century boxer known for heavy drinking and rough behavior. The joke: Tunney is so innocent and clean-living (doesn't smoke, swear, or drink bootleg liquor; has Yale-like sportsmanship) that when a staff member's poor coffee-pouring aim is observed, Tunney charitably attributes it to hay fever rather than understanding it's gambling behavior. The punchline mocks that old-time boxers like Sullivan would recognize such vices immediately—suggesting Tunney's virtue makes him almost comically naive. The small cartoon on the right depicts a religious salesman selling "religions and martyrs" to an Episcopalian customer, a separate satirical joke about denominational shopping. The "Early Morning Fly" cartoon series (left) appears unrelated.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Early Morning Fly By RK. V. Culter As One Fan to Another OR the first time in history, old F tines we have a heavyweight cham- pion who is everything a heavy- weight champion shouldn't be. The hand is the hand of Gene Tunney, but the hab- its are the habits of Dick Merriwell. He doesn’t smoke; he doesn’t swear; he doesn't gi on the wine when it is bootleg, and, so help me, when he goes into the ring he looks as if the coach had called on him to save the day for dear old Yale. Yale's days, by the way, seem to have been just one long saving, and nothing laid by. So much innocence as Gene Tunney has not been collected in one place since the Pied Piper played Hamelin. As an in- stance, I give you an occurrence I wit- nessed at Stroudsburg, Pa. An important member of the Tunney entourage was addicted to some of the elder practices of pugilism. That is to » having locked the pink lizards be- hind him in his room, he always played a sporting game with his breakfast pot of coffee. When he lifted it to pour, he was ready to accept even money that the brown-black stream would land in his cup or in his grapefruit. You could name the destination. It was as fair a gamble as could be devised, because the pourer never had the slightest idea which of the two targets he was going to hit. The cause of this delightful uncertainty on the part of one of his advisers was a mystery to Gene Tunney. But, since it was tl ason of the goldenrod, he had an explanation. “Poor fellow,” the heavyweight cham- pion observed, sympathetically, “his hay fever certainly gives him the deuce.” Can you imagine John Lawrence Sul- livan attributing anything to hay fever? Woman: 1 Want some retmovs Salesman: YES, MADAM; WE IiAVE some Nici AND MARTYRS. VLL TAKE A DOZEN oF EACK—E EPISCOPALIANS. Woman: If you said “Goldenrod” to him, — thing to ¢ he would ask if the brand was a to presen! rye, or a bourbon; or, more likely, Grade-A the Strong Boy of Boston would James tell you which it was. So now you know the worst, old timer. We have a ‘heavyweight “[P)ID champion who needs only to ac- tho cumulate a few bad habits to ac- quire the devilish nature of a Y.M.C.A. secretary who didn't manage to get to France during the war. He's so good that he leaves his press agent no virtues to invent for him. And, thus far, he hasn't had a press agent so touched with genius as to recognize that the berg wrot comicbooks.com