"Big Fight"

Warm breezes drifted in from the nearby ocean. Hot air arose in the press. A mellow Florida moon lurked behind drifting clouds. Forty thousand men and women in a bowl of raw yellow pine--the Greeks knew how to do these things much better--looked not at the elusive moon but at a garish cone of artificial light in the bowl's bottom.

"Oh, it's a great party," said Radio Announcer Graham McNamee into his microphone.

Look where you might, you saw people whom lots of people say they know--Rex Ellingwood Beach, who writes; Ray Long, who edits; John Golden, who produces; Charles Edwin Mitchell, who banks.

Mrs. Irene Castle McLaughlin wore a frock of jade green crepe and a small hat of absinthe felt. Herbert Bayard Swope, who indorsed Lucky Strikes, looked overheated George Palmer Putnam, who publicizes, was there. Walter P. Chrysler, motorist, alternately scowled and grinned.

"They are starting in," said Mr. McNamee, making absent millions wish they were there along with:

Florenz Ziegfeld, who glorifies girls; H. C. ("Bud") Fisher, who long has had a "ghost" cartoonist; James M. Cox, whom Harding buried; Scarf ace Al Capone, shadow of Chicago in Florida's sunshine; Pony McAtee, a jockey; Tris Speaker, whose name is on small boys baseball bats; Mr. & Mrs. Thomas L. Chadbourne, who had come from New York by special train with guests; Johnny Farrell, national open golf champion; Caleb Bragg, who drives automobiles at breakneck speed.

"One Eye" (no other name) Connelly, the traveling nuisance who crashes gates and whose solitary optic is glaucous, lurked by the ringside. Amid such distinguished company he had wished to appear at his best, and, for perhaps the first time in his life, wore a dinner jacket, white gloves, carried a cane. Also, over his non-existent eye, he wore a monocle. The unfortunate thing was that, having scaled the heights of sartorial formality, "One Eye" found that almost all the other gentlemen present were wearing white flannels, dark blue coats.

"One Eye" crashed the Fitzsimmons-Jeffries fight (1899) by exchanging a basket of stage money lor a basket of tickets. He saw the Jimmy Gardiner-Tommy Devine fight in a Milwaukee Armory (1903) from a steel girder to which he strapped himself early in the morning before the fight. He crashed the Dempsey-Gibbons fight in Shelby, Montana (1923), by riding into the hot arena in a covered ice wagon.

"Round four coming up, said Mr McNamee, whose phrasing is original, sometimes.

Looking around some more you could see William Harrison Dempsey, the evening's promoter; Estelle Taylor, cinemactress when she isn't being Mrs. Dempsey; A J Drexel Biddle Jr., Harvey S. Firestone, John Ringling, Baron & Baroness de Bonsetten, Irving Berlin, Senator Robert M. ("Young Bob") La Follette, Publisher Paul Block. Charles B. Dillingham. Mrs. William Randolph Hearst.

"Pretty even so far all the way," said the enigmatic Mr. McNamee. He was not noticed by:

John McCormack, who tenors; Clarence Terhune, who stowed away in the Graf Zeppelin; Lady Wavertree, Bernard Gimbel Fred Stone, Cornelius Vanderbilt ("Sonny") Whitney; Miss Helen Meany, who swims; Mr. Johnny Weismuller, who also swims; "Wild Bill" Mehlhorn, who golfs; James J. Corbett, W. C. Fields, Governor Fred Green of Michigan, Jules Mastbaum, George White.

"Tenth round coming up and then the decision," said Mr. McNamee a little regretfully.

In the crowd that struggled out of the bowl again were also:

John D. Hertz, the Yellow Cab man; Edsel Ford, Charles H. Sabin; Jed Harris, who always needs a shave; Mars Cassidy, the race starter; Francis T. Hunter, who plays tennis; Harry F. Sinclair, that oil man; and several more.

That was the whole story of last week's big fight in Miami Beach, Fla., although sticklers for exhaustiveness might also mention the names of:

Josef Paul Cukoschay of Boston, outside of whose home there is a sign: "This is the Home of Jack Sharkey Esq."; and W. L. Stribling, of the Macon, Ga., Striblings. These two are pugilists. It was to them that Mr. McNamee kept referring on his radio. They "fought" for ten rounds. Mr. Sharkey won the decision. Mr. Stribling later complained of neuritis.

Mr. Sharkey returned to Boston with his wife and very young daughter and $100,000. Mr. Stribling proceeded to Georgia with his wife and very young son and some $60,000.

"I don't know anybody in the game today," said Promoter Dempsey, who used to be a fighter himself, "who can beat Sharkey unless it's this young fellow Schmeling."

"This young fellow Schmeling" is Max Schmeling of Germany, who looks much like Mr. Dempsey and who, upon arriving home, last week, after a U. S. visit, said to his countrymen: "Previously I boxed--now I fight."