Get Him

Sam Langford says “I’ll get him yet,”

And this expression is the pet

Of many men all up and down

The streets of every busy town.

They’re going to “get” this thing and that

When once they get it right down pat;

They’ve got their minds on someone set

And say they’re going to get him yet.

Persistence is a wondrous thing;

It is the only way to bring

The finest of this world’s great store

And have it dumped beside your door.

It may be work, it may be gold,

It may be name and fame untold;

You cannot fool your time away,

And get much out of life today.

If there is something worth your while

Up yonder on the fortune pile,

It won’t drop down into your lap,

Nor walk into your lazy trap.

Climb up with honest, steady gait

And seize the chances that await.

If you have got the “stick”, you bet

You’ll reach success and “get him yet”.

Sept. 28, ‘10

Samuel "Sam" E. Langford (March 4, 1883 – January 12, 1956) was a Black Canadian boxing standout of the early part of the 20th century. Called the "Greatest Fighter Nobody Knows," by ESPN, he was rated #2 by The Ring on their list of "100 greatest punchers of all time." Langford was originally from Weymouth Falls, a small community in Nova Scotia, Canada. He was known as "The Boston Bonecrusher," "The Boston Terror," and his most infamous nickname, "The Boston Tar Baby." Langford stood 5 ft 7 1⁄2 in (1.71 m) and weighed 185 lb (84 kg) in his prime.

He was denied a shot at many World Championships due to the color bar and by the refusal of Jack Johnson, the first African-American World Heavyweight Champion, to fight him. Langford was the World Colored Heavyweight Champion, a title vacated by Johnson after he won the World Championship, a record five times. Many boxing aficionados consider him the greatest boxer not to win a world title and one of the greatest boxers in the history of the sport. BoxRec ranks him as the 4th greatest heavyweight of all-time, the 9th greatest pound-for-pound fighter of all-time and the greatest Canadian boxer of all-time.

Sam Langford won the World Colored Heavyweight Championship a record five times between 1910 and 1918. Jack Johnson had reigned as the World Colored Heavyweight Champion from 1903 to 1908, when he relinquished the title after winning the World Heavyweight Championship. Joe Jeanrette and Sam McVey fought in Paris in February 1909 to fill the vacant title, with McVey the victor. Jeanrette took the title away from McVey two months later.

Subsequently, Langford claimed the title during Jeanette's reign after Johnson refused to defend the World Heavyweight Championship against him. For a year there were two dueling claimants to the world colored heavyweight crown, Jeanette, the "official" champ, and Langford, the pretender, the man whom Jack Johnson "ducked." On 6 September 1910 in Boston, Massachusetts, Langford became the undisputed colored champ by winning a 15-round bout with Jeanette on points. Still, Jack Johnson refused to give him a title shot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Langford