I

"N THE twenty-one years since she established the record for the transatlantic passage, the Mauretania has carried celebrities literally "too numerous to mention". Some of the most famous names of our time have appeared upon her passenger lists. At each end of her voyage, her decks have been repeatedly stormed by newspaper men en masse, clamoring for interviews with notables of worldwide fame.

But never has any celebrity aboard the Mauretania been more assailed by attentions from the throng on the dock, more besieged by reporters, more badgered by photographers, more hounded by every agency of "pitiless publicity," than a certain modest young man with an engaging

Two things impressed me from the outset about this most extraordinary figure in the annals of sport. The first was that popular curiosity about Gene Tunney's true self has been in inverse proportion to his popularity as a heavyweight champion. The very journals that were inclined to carp at him while he wore the crown showed a furor of interest in his smallest acts

once he had renounced that crown.

The second impressive fact about Gene Tunney was that his desire for the seclusion of private life springs from an innate nobility of character that makes him as lovable a young man as I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.

is probable that the privacy now

a few weeks ago.

Against the vociferous opinion of all the rest of the world, Gene Tunney boarded the Mauretania tenaciously holding to the theory that he was now a private individual whose affairs should no longer concern the public.

has never been so completely his, since first he entered the ring, as it was during the few brief days he spent on the Mauretania. Behind him was a career that had forced him to keep himself constantly in the public eye, surrounded by an atmosphere of the

pugilistic camps. And ahead of him, And ahead of him, though he did not realize it then, was a time when he was to be thrown into the den of London's literary lions, and mobbed by the populace in England and on the Continent as only Lindbergh before him had been mobbed.

But for the short time while he was at sea and out of range of the newspapers, Tunney could be simply and genuinely himself, among people who understood and respected him for his native fineness. As soon as he realized that the attitude of his fellow passengers was courteously casual, he cast off his restraint. Consequently, those of us who associated with him during the trip had a remarkable opportunity of knowing the real Gene Tunney. Our impressions were summed up as follows by a passenger who himself bears a name not unknown:

"Gene Tunney is my ideal of the

too much of a highbrow, lacking the real fighting punch.

I am at a loss to understand this American attitude, because Tunney once he is free from the false position in which publicity has put him proves to be the living model of America's own finest ideals of manliness. Gentle, generous, modest, wholesome, courageous, determined, preëminently successful, his kindliness tempered by the cold, scientific precision that carried him to the top against the mere brawn of the "born fighter" type what more can be said of the perfect man? Except these further things which must also be said of Gene Tunney, that he has a keen sense of humor and alert intelligence in a fine physical frame, with never a touch of insincerity in his makeup.

the moment he came aboard,

my own son."

I'

F, IN a few words, I can do my bit to put Tunney before the American people in his true light, I am anxious to do so, because I believe he is neither understood nor appreciated by the majority. In fact, he is more of a mystery in the land of his victories than he is on the other side of the Atlantic. In Europe he has been frankly taken at his face value. In America the opinion is widespread that, whatever Gene Tunney is, he cannot possibly be what he seems to be. Some people talk about him as if he were a figment of press agentry, painfully affecting literary interests in order to live up to the Tunney "tradition". The rank and file of fight fans, on the other hand, howled for Demp sey because they considered Tunney

that makes a pretense of isolation, nor the timidity that fears questioning. He might have shut himself up in his stateroom, as many a celebrity does. Instead he settled down on the sun deck and endured with all the cordiality he could the quizzing administered by reporters whose personal inquiries irked him. Four news photographers secretly stowed themselves away somewhere on board, as we left our pier, in the hope of extracting a few final tabloid sensations out of Tunney. When we discovered them they were buzzing around the retired champion like flies, and he was enduring it all with gentlemanly poise. I sent the four photographers ashore with the pilot, after giving them a dressing down that I hope they will long remember, for their act was an infraction of regulations that might have meant heavy

penalties for us. I told them I hoped they would be held on the pilot boat for three days, on bread and water, and charged $75 a day for their board.

Ba

UT even that didn't rid us of the tabloids' attentions. Before we were long at sea we were bombarded by radio messages, asking for details of Tunney's life on board.

I discussed the first message with Tunney himself. I argued that, after all, he had achieved his fortune through the immense popular interest in the world's heavyweight championship and that, despite his retirement, he might make concessions to the public, respond to reasonable interest in him as a public figure, and give the clamor six months or so to die down. He felt, in reply, that he had already given value received, and ought to be allowed to fade out of the picture at once. Still, he consented to send the papers one radio message about his enjoyment of the trip and his future plans.

last he consented to watch the dance, but he would not take part in it. Later, however, his restraint wore off, and he could be seen on deck at any time, talking naturally and casually with all comers, or reading not popular novels but books of serious value.

One day, when he complained that he was putting on weight, I taught him deck tennis. The next afternoon three youngsters asked him to make a fourth with them at deck tennis and he joined in their game with a pleasure that was as obvious as was their pride in playing with him. But later I had a still more interesting glimpse of Tunney under that final test of a great man- his genuine affection for children.

NE evening I had a small gathering in my cabin, including a Ο pianist of international fame. She asked me for my autograph.

"Why ask for mine, when there is a real celebrity coming?" I said. She looked at me in hopeful awe. "Not not Tunney?" she she exclaimed.

When Tunney arrived and they had been introduced, she showed him hesitantly a letter from her small son. In awkward, misspelled words, the boy had written something to this effect:

I think you are going to sale on the same boat with Mr. Jene Tunny. I hope you have a chance to talk with him. Of course I'm a

Britisher and Heeny was Australian, but I'm glad Mr. Tunny won, because hes my ideel of a great man.

Tunney read the letter with a smile of pleasure that was touching; and he volunteered to autograph a newspaper picture of himself that the boy had enclosed. Then and this was the

simple, spontaneous gesture that won all our hearts - he asked, almost he asked, almost shyly,

"May I have your little boy's letter - to keep?"

When the proud mother acquiesced, Tunney carefully tucked the letter in a billfold from his pocket. It obviously was not an affectation, but a charmingly sincere act. I think that little lad's letter meant more to him than would the homage of all the fight fans in the world. When his proposed walking trip through France was mentioned, he said:

"I have been there before, you know, during the war."

He might have let it go at that. But his modesty led him to add:

"I never served at the front, though. Apparently they didn't think I'd make a good enough fighter, and they kept me back of the lines."

company of any mixture, his composure was so democratic yet graceful that he put everybody else instantly at ease. When he was offered a drink, as repeatedly happened, he did not refuse, or make remarks about his own teetotal standards that might have embarrassed others. He cordially accepted a glass, touched it to his lips for a mere whiff, then unobtrusively put it aside. Gene Tunney's poise is such that if he were formally introduced to the King of England, any embarrassment would be on the other side. His native grace is his greatest charm. He is one of nature's gentlemen.

MID the recurrent slanders on mod

fighter in the ring which he would undeniably have been had he been sent to the front. His very lack of boastful, bloodthirsty qualities is certainly an added reason for praising his scientific triumph in an activity that was normally distasteful to him. And, oddly enough, the very sporting experts who will talk loudest about boxing as "the science of the gloves" were among the first to write ironically of the chap who alone has proved it to be sheer science.

But beyond all other qualities, I was most interested in Gene Tunney's complete poise. In small social gatherings, in the dining saloon, at our boxing matches (which he refused to ref eree, so completely did he insist upon his severance from the ring), in any

deck tennis with Helen Wills, recently,

and may I remark, in passing, that her famous poker face vanishes completely when she is being beaten? I said to her:

"I'm British, of course, but I hope you continue to wear the championship crown until a greater interest enters your life. There could be no head upon which laurels would rest more fittingly."

The same might have been said of Tunney. He is far too big a man to be merely heavyweight champion of the world, but he has done inestimable service in raising the standards of sport generally, and there is no head more worthy of laurels or more likely to wear them in any field of human endeavor he may enter.