MANASSA MELODY

Dismissal of a huge extravaganza such as that which has held Chicago and, by radio and press, the entire nation spellbound, breathless and even unconscious, on the varying grounds that it was vulgar brutality, misdirected energy, or vapid inanity is begging the question in a conventional and entirely superficial fashion. The annual battle of the century may have been all of those things and many more, but since its power was so tremendous it can scarcely be passed off as just one of those things. The columns devoted to the private life, if they may be said to possess any, of Joseph Eugene and William Harrison might, it is true, prove any number of nasty things about modern journalism but any murder trial, or sashweight session would do and has done the same only moreso. One must go deeper; one must even go, as the criminal lawyers have it, to the facts--and then, that accomplished, where is one?

The sole boast to uniqueness that this combat might have had is in the characters of the principals. One was touted--to the death--as a student prince; the other made an odd comeback to popularity by emphasizing those qualities which once made him an unpopular champion--brute force and a marvelous thickness of skin as regards what the public had to say concerning him. The gentlemen met before, in Philadelphia, and each would have been much happier were the other dear charmer away. Their second encounter proved more interesting, in its preliminary bombast, than the first; due to the burst of note-writing proclivities on the part of each. Now both proceed along the ladder of fame, one downwards, the other up, each to remain in the public memory as long as is customary for fallen idols: for, to assume the pessimistic attitude and to predict the inevitable, each will be a fallen idol in a surprisingly short time, and he whose arm extended aloft in the calcium glare last night is destined to as deep an obliviou as he who failed to heed the final count. But such philosophy and pessimism is dealing in futurities by four hours, for if the comedy is postponed on account of rain, obituaries, and paeons, including editorials, will be all wet.