THE TRADE OF HARD KNOCKS

It is not often that a champion learns the fickleness of public fancy while the crown still rests upon his brow. Gene Tunney, the first fighter to attract attention to pugilism from the intelligentsia of the country, whoever they are, has seen the laurel turn to poison ivy. The very people who had been won by his admiration of Carlyle, who yelled "Awake, arise!" into their loudspeakers during the seventh round, have turned upon him.

Among the more outstanding marks-men who have loosed the flight of slings and arrows at the ex-marine have been Heywood Broun, Louis Bromfield, Sinclair Lewis and H. L. Mencken. "One has only to contrast the interviews given by these two men, Dempsey and Tunney; one simple and profound, the other a mixture of bombast and cant," says one decrier of the literary note in Mr. Tunney's public statements. "A pugilist reading Hegel is about as appropriate as the dean of a woman's college singing. 'I'm Gonna Dance Wit' the Guy What Brung Me' says another. Unless he wishes to go down in history as the first champion to take an intellectual beating Mr. Tunney would do well to look to his Voltaire.