Fight of the century triggers U.S. race riots
Friday, 18 June 2010 05:00
One hundred years ago today, June 18, 1910.
Halifax Herald. California’s “sporting fraternity is much cast down,” fearing that Governor James N. Gillette has sounded the death knell for prize fighting in the golden state. In response to “insistent protests from all parts of the state,” Gillette wrote to U.S. Attorney General Web to stop a fight between James J. Jeffries and Jack Johnson, scheduled for July 4 in San Francisco. Gillette cited an 1850 banning prize fighting in California.
The fight was held as scheduled on July 4, but in Reno, Nevada. It was billed as the “fight of the century,” and the outcome triggered race riots across the United States.
Johnson was the world’s first black heavyweight boxing champion, a title he won in 1908 by defeating Canadian champion Tommy Burns in a match in Sydney, Australia.
Novelist Jack London called for a “great white hope” to take the title from Johnson. Johnson defeated a series of great white hopes. Jeffries, a former undefeated champion, came out of retirement to take on the challenge. Johnson won by a TKO after 15 rounds. Blacks across the United States celebrated joyously. Many white boxing fans reacted with violence.
INDIANS ASSERT LAND TITLE
Montreal Star. The Naas River Indians of northern British Columbia are turning back would-be settlers from their area with a document. The document presents a legal opinion “from eminent constitutional lawyers in Toronto and Vancouver,” for which the Indians paid $2,000 ($50,000 today), asserts Indian ownership to the land under international law.
“The Nass Indians are highly civilized,” says the Star, “and take their stand on the established principles of international law that national ownership of any country may only be established by right of conquest, treaty acquisition, or formal purchase. The Nass country, they assert, has never been so acquired by Great Britain, and if it is to be claimed by right of conquest, they propose to fight for their heritage.”
During the winter, there had been a “short-lived campaign” by the Naas Indians against white settlers, “which would have doubtless been disastrous but for the prompt measures taken by the government to protect the isolated settlers in the district.”
21-MILE AIR RACE
Belleville Intelligencer. British aviator Armstrong Drexel and French aviator Leone Morane “engaged in brilliant performances of over-sea speed flights, flying at rates of almost 60 miles per hour. The course, over the English Channel near the Isle of Wight, was a distance of 21 miles. “The Frenchman covered the distance in 25 minutes, and Drexel in 34 minutes.”
JAPANESE WAR THREAT
Montreal Star. Retired U.S. General Homer Lea was 31 years years ahead of his time in predicting a Japanese invasion of the United States. He was wrong about the outcome of war that Japan started with its attack on Pearl Harbour, December 7, 1941.
As cited by the Star, in a book entitled “The Valor of Ignorance,” Lea wrote “that the United States, notwithstanding its claim of suzerainty over practically the whole of the Western Hemisphere, with the exception of Canada, is unprepared for war; that war between the United States and Japan is inevitable, and should such a war take place the United States will lose her Pacific Coast states.”