Jeff Debates With a Minister In Open Ring at Minneapolis

NEW YORK, July 24. - "Big Jim" Jeffries, who is preparing to wrest the title of world's champion pugilist from the black brow of "Jack" Johnson, yesterday debated prize fighting and religion with the Rev. Dr. G. L. Morrill, pastor of one of the largest churches in Minneapolis, according to special dispatches from that city yesterday. The men met in the ring in which Jeffries gave an exhibition in an amusement park, and a large crowd cheered Jeff when he said there were many prize fighters who would make good preachers, but few preachers who would make good prize fighters.

Jeff was stripped for action, with six-ounce gloves on his fists and an American flag around his waist, when Dr. Morrill climbed through the ropes. The big fighter had been told the clergyman was coming for an interview and Jeffries went to him with a smile and held out his gloved hand. "You're welcome, sir," said Jeff, "but not any more so because you are a minister."

For a moment Dr. Morrill seemed confused. The greeting evidently was not what he had looked for, but he quickly gathered himself and retorted:

"Well, Mr. Jeffries, I don't think a minister is any better than any one else just because he is a minister."

"Neither do I," said Jeffries, emphatically, "and, another thing, there are just as good people outside the church as there are inside."

"I don't even say you are not right about that," replied Dr. Morrill, who then listened to a sharp lecture from the fighter.

"Why do you preachers always fuss about differences in religious belief, and split the people up into factions?" asked Jeffries. "Why don't you, just once in a while, tell them something practicable for their good? Why don't you tell them how to take care of their bodies? How is a man going to save his soul if his liver is out of order? If you are too fat, don't it make you a better man and a better Christian to take exercise? Don't you know that as a rule a physical coward is a moral coward? I'd like to get into the pulpit and put on the gloves with you, Dr. Morrill, and then see which of us came out in the best shape to deliver a sermon."

"Big Jim" stopped and shook his head seriously. The clergyman took the chance to slip in a word.

"Perhaps you're right again, Mr. Jeffries."

"Sure I'm right," said Jeffries. "And another thing. If you want to stop men drinking, don't preach at them, for that will make them dry, but go at them and make them exercise. Make them punch the bag half an hour a day and they'll work off their craving for liquor. You never saw a well-trained man in your life bothered with a thirst. It's the soft-bodied fellows who keep the brass railings bright."

"I believe it is," put in Dr. Morrill, meekly.

"I'll say another thing," continued Jeffries, so earnestly that he had begun to back the clergyman into a corner of the ring. "Why do you preachers always condemn boxing? If I could get you to try a three-minute round with me every day for a month you'd be a convert to the game."

"No, thank you, Mr. Jeffries."

"Boxing teaches a man to take care of himself," continued the prize fighter. "It makes him confident. These glove contests are not fights. There's danger in football and wrestling. Yet you preachers look on us as criminals."

"Not all."

"We won't argue that point," said Jeff, "and I'll only say this much. I believe that when the final count comes the man who does good is going to get more credit than the man who simply tells other people to do good."

As Dr. Morrill was leaving the ring he said:

"You've missed your calling, Mr. Jeffries. You ought to have been a preacher."

"It runs in the family," responded "Big Jim." "You see, my father is a clergyman and I've got the knack from him."

Dr. Morrill said that as a result of his experience with Jeff he will preach on Sunday on "The Morals of Muscularity."

--The Syracuse Herald, Syracuse, New York, July 24, 1909, page 15.