JOHNSON BOYCOTTED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 143, 4 November 1912, Page 3

JOHNSON BOYCOTTED.

BARRED BY FIGHT PROMOTERS.

AMERICANS' DECISIVE ACTION

Chicago, October 23,

Jack Johnson is gradually being made to realise the enormity of his misdoings, and the general reprobation with which they have met. He now finds that his conduct has provoked hostility in quarters from which he least expected anything in the way of condemnation. He has already been repudiated by the people of his own race and color, and now the boxing world itself is up against him. With the possible exception of Paris, the champion has been boycoted by the leading fight promoters in all the boxing centres of the world. American promoters are unanimous in their determination never to engage him again. Testimony which it is believed will get Johnson a long term of penal servitude has been furnished by his own brother, Charles, and has been corroborated by a mulatto girl. The evidence is said to be sufficient to send a score of other negroes to gaol for their complicity in the white slave traffic.

Charles Johnson is reported to have said that his brother was in the habit of taking white girls with him in his private car when making theatrical trips, and that he always surrounded himself with girls at his training camps. Among these girls literature was circulated of a kind that was! calculated to interest them in the negroes. Charles has further admitted that Jack had been expecting trouble, and that prior to his arrest he executed a deed under which he conveyed £4OOO worth of property to his mother. Johnson's chauffeur also has supplied details of various motor journeys in which the negro was accompanied by white girls, A horde of messengers from-Johnson's lawyers made desperate but unavailing attempts to reach Lucille Cameron, the girl whom the black is charged with having abdupted. Miss Cameron, it is reported, wants to go home to her mother.. She is quite ready to give up the negro.

CANCELLING OF AUSTRALIAN

ENGAGEMENT

Mr. Hugh D. Mcintosh, of- Sydney, has cabled to America, telling Mr. W. J. C. Kelly, his envoy in the United States, to break off all negotiations with Jack Johnson, and return to Australia immediately. This followed an urgent plea from Johnson that he might be brought to Australia, presumably to escape the storm of public indignation which has been raised against him in the United States.

After very "brief consideration, Mr. Mcintosh decided not to make himself or the Stadium a sanctuary for Johnson, fleeing from a succession of disgraces. He cabled last week the following reply to his representative: — "In view of all circumstances, have decided, in best interests of boxing, cancel Johnson. Newspaper reports here of abduction have created very, bad impression. Please cancel all negotiations and return to Australia."

Mr. Kelly, therefore, will come back, and Johnson may be regarded as having been repudiated finally and decisively from the boxinsr ring in Australia.

Mr. Mcintosh, in announcing liis decision, said: "I have liacl long and wearisome negotiations in order to bring Johnson to Australia to box for the world's championship with Sam Langford, and from first to last this business has cost me sorre thousands of pounds. It has now beco'ii.- a sickening business, and I am resolv-,1 to wo-«h my hands clean of it. Johnson is too disreputable, and boxing had better refuse to touch him for the f uture. Just at present boxing in Australia is at the highest possible level of sportsmanship. The French boys, and the Australians and Americans, too, who have bem meeting this season have all boxed and behaved like sportsmen and gentlemen, keeping up the highest traditions of the game. lam not going to degrade, this excellence by going on with the importation of Johnson. Much good money has been spent by me over tliis business, but it just has to go—• that's all."