MR JUDKINS REJOICES
“GLAD THE BLACK MAN WON”
“I’m glad the black man won - exceedingly glad,”
declared Mr WH Judkins yesterday at a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon at the
North Melbourne
Methodist Mission. He gave two reasons for his gladness. “First of
all,” he
said, “the black man’s victory has pricked the bubble of our miserable
Anglo-Saxon vanity. A lot of people imagined that the white man could
not be beaten - that
he was superior to the man whose skin happens to be black. It is not a
bad thing to have
dispelled that illusion.” Mr Judkins other reason for rejoicing
over
Johnson’s victory was that it had imparted a disgraceful aspect to
prize fighting,
because the white race had an aversion to a man whom God had clothed in
a black skin.
Mr Judkins’s address was largely an expression of
joy that the
world had advanced along the path of refinement of late years. Rarely,
he said, had the
world’s sensibilities been so shocked as they had in connection with
the brutal and
inhuman exhibition last week. It was a shocking thing that a
battle between two men
should hold up the world as this fight had done. The world seemed to
stand still to
witness it. Was there any similar instance of something standing for
the moral good
of the community so riveting the attention of the people? But it
was pleasing to
notice that in parts of the world governments were prohibiting
the exhibition of the
bioscope pictures, and that the many protests indicated a growing sense
of refinement. A
prize-fight was the opposite of refinement. It was gross, brutal,
barbaric. He supposed
that some of those in power would, if they had their way, permit such
exhibitions in
Victoria, and Christians should be watchful, and prevent it, if
possible. “I hope the
people in the community will rise in revolution if such a thing be
allowed,”
exclaimed Mr Judkins.
Mr W H Edgar, MLC, who presided over the gathering,
also spoke in
condemnation of the “disgraceful occurrence.” He said he would do
all he
could as a member of Parliament to prevent the exhibition of pictures
in Victoria.
On the motion of Mr Judkins, it was resolved--
“That this meeting urges the Prime Minister to forbid the
introduction to the
Commonwealth of pictures of the Johnson-Jeffries fight; and the State
Premier to introduce
legislation to prohibit the holding of prize fights within the State.”
From THE ARGUS 11th July 1910 page 7
