Trophy

When you put a black cloth over almost any tall non-symmetrical object it is apt to look mysterious. Yet the people who peered at just such a covered object last week in the lobby of Manhattan's Madison Square Garden did not seem mystified. Perhaps they knew what was underneath the cloth. Florenz Ziegfeld, who was there, looked as though he knew. So did Charles H. Sabin, Walter P. Chrysler, George Palmer Putnam, Kermit Roosevelt, Cosmopolitan's Ray Long, Vanity Fair's Conde Nast and Frank Crownin-shield, Charles Dillingham, Bernarr ("Body-Love") Macfadden, John Ringling, Arthur Hopkins. New York City's Mayor James John Walker was also there and he finally pulled the cloth off. There stood a 500-lb bronze boxer, poised to slug, on a marble pedestal. The glistening figure looked more like Black Jack Johnson, onetime (1908-15) world's heavyweight champion, who stood grinning nearby, than like scowling White Jack Dempsey, who was there also, or like pompadoured White Gene Tunney, the undefeated retired champion, who was idling in the far away Brioni Island.

Retired Champion Tunney is a co-donor of the trophy designed to encourage young men to try to be his successor. The other donor is William Muldoon, 83, old-time sporting figure, now a N. Y. State boxing official and affluent health farmer. Elimination fights will be held and then some one's name will be added to the following list on the Tunney-Muldoon Trophy's marble pedestal: JOHN L. SULLIVAN (1882-1892) JAMES J. CORBETT (1892-1897) ROBERT L. FITZSIMMONS (1897-1899) JAMES J. JEFFRIES (1899-1906) TOMMY BURNS (1906-1908) JACK JOHNSON (1908-1915) JESS WILLARD (1915-1919) JACK DEMPSEY (1919-1926) GENE TUNNEY (1926-1928) The sculptor who executed the figure was Mahonri Young, grandson of the late potent Brigham Young of Salt Lake City. Looming largest to have his name engraved is Max Schmeling, "Dempsey of Germany."