The Daily Independent

IN THIS CORNER

By JACK CUDDY

(Copyright, 1936, By United Press)

New York. Nov. 8.-(U.P.) Jack Dempsey certainly proved over the weekend that the belts he took on the noggin during his ring career did not leave him "punchy."

I mean the old Manassa Mauler displayed sanity and horse sense in that statement to the press in which he emphatically spiked rumors that he was considering accepting appointment to the New York boxing commission or some other political job. These rumors were a result of his vigorous campaigning for President Roosevelt and Governor Lehman.

Because of Dempsey's warm friendship with Big Jim Farley, postmaster general, chairman of the Democratic national committee, and former chairman of the New York boxing commission, it was believed along Punch Promenade that Dempsey was slated to replace one of the three mentors of maul on the commission—a member who had showed Republican leanings during the campaign.

But the former champion's nationwide popularity is bringing him rich rewards. He is knocking them dead with his restaurant and other enterprises, just as he used to do in the ring. Yes, sir, Mr. Dempsey is sitting right on top of the world, and he would like to keep his seat.

Jack would have jeopardized his popularity and his business by accepting membership on the commission because—next to being manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers—it probably is one of the most thankless jobs in the country. It's the kind of a job where a headache a day pares your friends away. And Jack had enough headaches in the war years to appreciate now the value of hard-won popularity.

There are more bitter boxing and wrestling feuds, promotional wars and newspaper alignments in New York than in any other American city. Chairman John J. Phelan, D. Walker Wear and Bill Brown are always right on the spot, caught in a withering cross-fire between feuding managers, promoters and writers.

These three men comprise the most important boxing commission in the country. Their rulings are watched closely by other athletic governing organizations throughout the United States—and usually followed. But it is a rare week in which the three men are not put on the pan and scorched for something they did or omitted doing. They are made ludicrous in the papers and held up in contempt before the nation—called the "Three Dumb Dukes." "Winkum, Blinkum and Nod," etc. etc.

They have been accused of this and that. Outraged citizens, reading the papers, have demanded investigations, house cleanings, etc.

There is no salary connected with the job. It is supposed to be a political stepping stone. Big Jim Farley used it as such. But Jim is a master-mind—and I don't think the post in his day was as stormswept as now. I'm sure Dempsey regarded the job as a possible tombstone to popularity instead of a stepping stone.

Why, only last week the commission was subjected to a blistering barrage of invective from certain quarters because of its action in straightening out the welterweight challengers' tangle that resulted from the Izzy Jannazzo-Ceferino Garcia 15-round draw at