Louis Over Levinsky

Ever since a khaki-colored Detroit Negro made it clear by a long string of knockout victims climaxed by Primo Carnera that he was the most devastating hitter among heavyweight pugilists since Jack Dempsey, a smoking question in the prizefight business has been whether or not Joe Louis (pronounced Lewis) can take a punch as well as give one. The difficulty has been caused by the fact that none of Louis' adversaries, since he turned professional a year ago, has proved capable of staying in the ring with him long or actively enough to answer it. Louis' bout with Chicago's clownish Harry Krakow ("King Levinsky") last week was originally scheduled mainly as a build-up for his next really important fight in September but as the date approached, sports writers courteously began to reflect that it was within the realm of possibility for Levinsky to solve the problem by which more aspiring heavyweights had been floored. After all, he had knocked out Tommy Loughran when Loughran was still the world's ablest boxer of his weight. Attracted by this line of reasoning, the biggest crowd that has watched a Chicago fight since the second Tunney-Dempsey set-to, a wildly eager 40,000 that included six State Governors (Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan), a sprinkling of socialites, most of the underworld, and 1,000 police with tear gas and Thompson sub-machineguns, crowded into Comiskey Park to see the excitement.

The excitement lasted precisely 141 seconds. Levinsky rose from his stool in the corner, walked across the ring. The Negro knocked him down, first with a solid left hook to the chin for a referee's count of two, then, when Levinsky got up, three times more, for counts of five, five and four. After the fourth knockdown, instead of falling on the floor, Levinsky collapsed on the ropes in the corner of the ring. Dazed and beaten, he muttered something which the referee mercifully took for a superfluous confession that the fight was over.

Next day, Promoter Mike Jacobs announced the date and circumstances of the next attempt to determine, by public subscription, the still unmeasured capacity of Pugilist Louis to withstand punishment: a bout with onetime Heavyweight Champion Max Baer next month in New York or Chicago, depending on which seems more capable of paying for the privilege.

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