The Bismarck Tribune

The Queen Is Gone

New York, Jan. 16. There is, perhaps, no better instance of Manhattan's fickle memory than the case of Texas Guinan.

Just the other day, they mentioned Tex as "the queen of Broadway." And she was! Tex hit night club formality over the head with such a wallop that it is still a bit stunned. When she perched on her particular peak, an airless, table-clogged place, society folk sat chair to chair with swallow-tailed gents of the better rackets. In so far as any one New York spot may be said to have represented a speakeasy era, Tex's did—although she did not sell booze.

ON TO MONTREAL

All right—whatever did become of Tex Guinan? At the moment she is back in Montreal with the girls who have been given a "big hand" so often that it must be a bit tiresome. Her wisecracks will still be printed by the paragraphers, if and when she cares to send them in. Yet, not so long ago, her name hadn't been in the columns for so long a period that a wire from Chicago told of a possible marriage to an unnamed millionaire. Applesauce!

BIG SPENDERS GONE

There may be one or two or a dozen rounders who, passing certain spots, may say: "Oh, yes, that was Tex Guinan's old place!" To the transient, it's just another door. To be sure, there is no "queen of Broadway" at the moment, nor is there likely to be until money jingles in more pockets.

Tex rose with the market. Careless spenders tossed hundred dollar bills to band leaders. Today, a band leader is lucky if he collects a hundred at the end of the week. One night-going spender, who headed an important brokerage firm, is now vacationing in Sing Sing as the result of trying to line the pockets of band leaders with greenbacks.

Amusingly enough at a recent prison fete, a New York jazz band, and other entertainers, arrived at Sing Sing.

The gentleman in question, who always tried to buy the baton away from the leader in the old jazz some night clubs, finally got his chance to direct a band—but in prison garb.

SUCKERS ALL

Guinan's place, even as she boasted, was filled with "suckers." Sucker money was all over the town. The market was booming. Gents who are leaning against down town buildings today were cashing in on Anaconda, American Can, Steel and the rest. All they had to do was sit in a Chummy office, a fat cigar plastered over one lip, and keep on betting. If they lost, by some accident, credit was easy. Call money could be had, almost for the asking.

GAY HALF WORLD

Tired business men that they must have been at the end of the day, they could support Park Avenue chorines, maintain penthouses and still have spending money left for evening. The rackets were less involved, too. Big league rum runners, beer barons and the rest; dope peddlers, and high-hatted crooks with an eye for fancy jewelry—they all haunted the night world of the time. Badger games had as many rules as contract bridge; blackmail was a pushover.