Below, H.L. Mencken explains why every newspaper primary source, even by reporters who actually attended a prize fight, are limited, if not useless, historical resources.
In this excerpt Mencken is addressing the bogus belief that Carpentier almost stopped Dempsey in the second round with a right hand. A belief that became a legendary part of the boxing lexicon. In doing so Mencken unintentionally explains why all newspaper reports are actually of little value.
" . . . why did all the reporters and spectators agree upon the same fiction? The answer is easily given: all of them did not agree upon it. Fully a half of them knew nothing about it when they left the stand; it was not until the next day that they began to help it along. As for those who fell upon it at once, they did so for the simple reason that the second round presented the only practicable opportunity for arguing that M. Carpentier was in the fight at all, save perhaps as an unfortunate spectator. If they didn’t say that he had come near knocking out Dr. Dempsey in that round, they couldn’t say it at all. So they said it—and now every human being on this favorite planet of Heaven believes it, . . . I sweat and groan on this hot night to tell you the truth, but you will not believe me. The preponderance of evidence is against me. In six more days I’ll be with you, rid of my indigestible facts and stuffed with the bosh that soothes and nourishes man . . . Aye, why wait six days? Tomorrow I’ll kiss the book, and purge my conscience.
IV
Meanwhile, I take advantage of my hours of grace to state the ribald and immoral truth in plain terms, that an occasional misanthrope may be rejoiced. Mons. Carpentier never for a single instant showed the slightest chance of knocking out the eminent Dempsey."
The next time you feel the urge to claim Harry Greb ****** Dempsey all over the ring during sparring, or that Gun Boat Smith got the better of Jack Johnson while sparring, or even that a decision was a fixed called, think about what Mencken warns us about what newspaper men are actually up to. They need to write about something controversial and/or exciting so they will often invent the event, and then it becomes a "repeated truth."
In this excerpt Mencken is addressing the bogus belief that Carpentier almost stopped Dempsey in the second round with a right hand. A belief that became a legendary part of the boxing lexicon. In doing so Mencken unintentionally explains why all newspaper reports are actually of little value.
" . . . why did all the reporters and spectators agree upon the same fiction? The answer is easily given: all of them did not agree upon it. Fully a half of them knew nothing about it when they left the stand; it was not until the next day that they began to help it along. As for those who fell upon it at once, they did so for the simple reason that the second round presented the only practicable opportunity for arguing that M. Carpentier was in the fight at all, save perhaps as an unfortunate spectator. If they didn’t say that he had come near knocking out Dr. Dempsey in that round, they couldn’t say it at all. So they said it—and now every human being on this favorite planet of Heaven believes it, . . . I sweat and groan on this hot night to tell you the truth, but you will not believe me. The preponderance of evidence is against me. In six more days I’ll be with you, rid of my indigestible facts and stuffed with the bosh that soothes and nourishes man . . . Aye, why wait six days? Tomorrow I’ll kiss the book, and purge my conscience.
IV
Meanwhile, I take advantage of my hours of grace to state the ribald and immoral truth in plain terms, that an occasional misanthrope may be rejoiced. Mons. Carpentier never for a single instant showed the slightest chance of knocking out the eminent Dempsey."
The next time you feel the urge to claim Harry Greb ****** Dempsey all over the ring during sparring, or that Gun Boat Smith got the better of Jack Johnson while sparring, or even that a decision was a fixed called, think about what Mencken warns us about what newspaper men are actually up to. They need to write about something controversial and/or exciting so they will often invent the event, and then it becomes a "repeated truth."
Ivich
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