As a West Side kid fooling around with boxing gloves, I had been, for some reason of temperament, more interested in dodging a blow than in striking one.

I did six years of planning to win the championship from Jack Dempsey.

If all human lives depended upon their usefulness - as might be judged by certain standards - there would be a sudden and terrific mortality in the world.

Ever since boyhood I've made a religion of keeping in shape by regular, conscientious exercise.

Normally, I could hit hard enough, as anyone who studied my fights might have known. But the impression was that I was essentially defensive, the very reverse of a killer, the prize fighter who read books, even Shakespeare.

Never eat less than four hours before boxing. Then eat only lightly.

But I do say that, if you will regularly devote 15 minutes a day, preferably before breakfast, for 60 days to the simple set of exercises that I devised for conditioning men in the navy, I guarantee that you will enjoy increased physical buoyancy and mental vigor.