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Seattle Times editorial, Saturday, March 2, 1940
They killed a man at the Civic Auditorium last night! It might be more in the point to say that "We killed a man!" We, of Seattle, who have sat back and tolerated something in the name of sports that hasn't been a sport for years. We, of Seattle, who have gone to an occasional wrestling program and have more than once said, "Some day they'll kill somebody." Well, they did! A referee was thrown against the ropes enclosing the ring. He was thrown with force enough so that when he fell to the floor he died within a few minutes. Who threw him? Was it part of the horseplay that has been the only crowd-getting feature left in wrestling for these many years? Was that horseplay rehearsed or planned in advance? By whom? These things that have menaced lives before and now have claimed one -- these things don't just happen. Someone is directly responsible for them -- it's up to the proper authorities to determine who is responsible. But we, of Seattle, are indirectly responsible for having tolerated these morbid spectacles. And we, of Seattle, are directly responsible for seeing that this sorry affair is not quietly shush-shushed. And after direct responsibility for this death has been placed, we, of Seattle, must shake off our shackles of tolerance and see that this crime in the name of sports is never permitted again.
Note: Russell McGrath, the longtime managing editor of The Seattle Times, was a lifelong hater of professional wrestling. For the longest time, he would permit not even the barest mention of wrestling matches in The Times' sports sections. One might guess he had a hand in this attempt to inflame the citizenry, even as the coroner's inquest determined a heart attack killed the referee, not the other participants for throwing him "with force enough" to kill him. |
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