The Daily Alaska Empire

The Night Clubs' New Era Is Here;
"Suckers" Sing "God Bless America"

"HELLO SUCKER" was the stock in trade of
yester-year's Texas Guinan. Tex usually was right.
GOD BLESS AMERICA, in your best tenor voice
with pretty girls to lead you--that's the new "era."

The glittering institution of the New York night club, born in the turbulent Twenties, has entered upon a new phase. Here in the first of a series, Broadway Columnist George Tucker tells you what has happened to it.

By GEORGE TUCKER

NEW YORK--Folks, some people claim the night clubs in New York aren't what they used to be. that the thrill is gone, that the excitement has slowed down to a walk.
"Why, I remember Zelli's. and Texas Tommy's, and the Silver Slipper," they say. "I remember the night the police broke into the Chez Morgan, armed with axes, and wrecked $75,000 worth of decorations. They hacked a 60-foot bar to pieces.
I was sitting right there. I was sitting right next to Legs' Diamond. He had a couple of beautiful Broadway butterflies with him. He was so close I could have reached out and touched him. That was a night! Boy. those were the times. You don't see things like that any more."
Well, folks, that's right, in a way. You don't see things like that any more. You don't see "Legs," because "Legs" is dead, and most of the mob is dead with him, some in silver coffins after $50,000 funerals, and others in lonely lime - pitted graves.
And you don't see much of the butterflies either, because most of them are dead, too. . . . One was strangled in a Bronx park, and to this day the solution of her death remains a mystifying puzzle. . . . Another took her own life. . . . A third disappeared.
No, you don't see the hoodlums lording it around Broadway as you used to, and you don't see wrecking crews with axes.
Open Door Policy
But you're wrong when you think the bloom is off the bush. We've got night clubs today-as many if not more than we ever had. Some are as ornate and lavish in decor as their predecessors were, and some are just as small and chummy and intimate. In fact, just to look at them you couldn't tell the difference.
But there is this difference: In the old days they peeped at you through a slot before they let you in. Today, you walk in free and easy.
Ten years ago, the sale of liquor was against the law. This meant legitimate business men couldn't operate, and so the mob was there. Today, the night clubs are back in the hands of business men.
Let's see now. Let's name them. There's the Rainbow Room. the Diamond Horseshoe, the Stork, El Morocco. Monte Carlo, Twenty-One, the Riviera. . . . These are the big night clubs, the show places of New York. There are no hoodlums there. Maybe that's what they mean when you say the thrill is gone.
Dollar Dynasty
There's something else, too. Ten years ago, when you took a drink (which never cost you less than $1 a throw) you never knew whether you suddenly would go blind or be inspired by a craving to see blood spilled. That's what illegal hootch did to you. Today the stuff inside the bottles is what the labels say it is.
Finally, ten years ago, when you walked into a night club, somebody yelled "Hello Sucker," and he (or she) was right --because you were. You were being played for a sap. You paid anywhere from three to five dollars cover charge just for the privilege of sitting in a chair. That didn't pay for anything you ate or drank.
Nobody yells "Hello Sucker" at you today.
But they're mighty likely to ask you, along with everybody else, to join in a chorus of "God Bless America."
(Tomorrow: The old Night Club Era.)