Sport: Rickard's Heirs

"Know all men by these presents that I, George L. Rickard, being of sound and disposing mind ... do hereby make. . . ."

Thus, with a familiar and ironic boast began the last will and testament of Tex Rickard, famed fight promoter, dead of an operation for appendicitis. When it was read last week, it was discovered that Tex Rickard had left his estate, amounting to between one million and three million dollars, to his wife Maxine and to his daughter, Maxine Texas Rickard.

The body of Tex Rickard was laid in the exact centre of Madison Square Garden, the arena which he built, enclosed in a glass-topped coffin, through which 35,000 members of the migratory public peered at his face—waxed to a semblance of life.

Finally, a funeral ceremony was held; Rickard was praised, sung over, paraded through the streets and put into the ground, at Woodlawn Cemetery near Manhattan. Two nights later, in the exact centre of Madison Square Garden, there was a prizefight and a ceremony. The ceremony was simple: Jack Dempsey climbed through the ropes; the announcer, red-faced Joe Humphreys, made a gesture; the lights went down; a bugler played taps. Presently the lights went on and Jimmy McLarnin, of Vancouver, Wash., beat Joe Glick, Brooklyn tailor.

The ceremony, however, was far more important than the prizefight, and to understand why, it is necessary to know something about the present conditions of the prizefight industry.

The first flop that Rickard promoted was the Tunney-Heeney fight in The Bronx last summer. Right afterward, Tunney retired, still heavyweight champion. Since it is regarded as essential that there should always be a World's Heavyweight Champion, it was necessary to discover immediately who this should be. On investigation, it appeared that there was no one good enough to fill the position adequately. Dempsey who, judged by the eminently suitable criterion of gate receipts, had never lost the heavyweight championship, was reconsidered for the honor. Frantic and slow elimination contests were held, meaning nothing. Tex Rickard, having made professional boxing into a sport more spectacular than any since the wild animal shows of the late Roman Empire, was faced with a far more difficult task, that of preserving its pomp and magnitude.

Accordingly, he went south to Miami Beach, Fla., where in some hope of booming his own and friends' real estate properties, he began arrangements for a bout between Jack Sharkey and Young Stribling, the winner to meet Jack Dempsey for the championship. Just before negotiations had crystallized into contracts, Tex Rickard died, bequeathing, to heirs unspecified in his will, a dreadful situation in the boxing business. Now there were two tasks of almost insurmountable difficulty to be encompassed. First, there must be found an heir for Tex Rickard's problems; next, an heir to Gene Tunney.