Washington Confidential 34 – Mortimer · Verses Across
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Washington Confidential 34Part 3 · THE TUESDAY-TO-THURSDAY SET
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Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Washington Confidential 34
Part 3 · THE TUESDAY-TO-THURSDAY SET
MortimerEnglish
The most itching urge in Washington is to get away from it. Few have the conventional home ties there which bind the average American to the hearth, or the radiator. Weekends are dismally dull and shop shuts up from Friday night until Monday morning, with few exceptions. Civil servants rate thirty-day vacations. The winters are sleazy and frosty. The summers are insufferable in that swampy, flat region which enjoys no ocean breezes.
Where to go? Anywhere. Those who can afford it scram to New York or Atlantic City. The next layer hightails it for Baltimore or Philadelphia. Some fly to far points. Eastern Congressmen and officials rarely bring their wives and families to Washington, an arrangement of mutual consent after the rookies have tried domestic life there for a few months of high anticipation and depressing disillusionment. Most Congressmen from east of the Ohio River don’t wait for Friday. They are known as the “Tuesday-to-Thursday” set, because that’s the point of departure and return. Frank Roosevelt, Jr. is its most consistent member.
The great hegira starts Thursday, when the Congressional Limited leaves, at 4 P.M. For the rest of the day and throughout the night every outgoing train and plane is packed and the stragglers fill them up on Fridays, too. For these trips and returns, hundreds of regular reservations stand during sessions.
Weekenders who have no fences to mend or wives to mollify or private practices to superintend hie to resorts in Virginia and the Carolinas. But the pet dreamland of escape for the hiatus is Atlantic City. During spring and summer the Pennsylvania Railroad runs a through Pullman car daily to and from there, via the Delaware River bridge. This is hooked onto or off the New York-Washington train at North Philadelphia, where there is a rush for the club car. The drawing-rooms house either poker games or shut-in shebas who long to smell the sea. Teetotal-voting, Bible-Belt solons stagger up and down the boardwalk with potted patooties on the arms that beat the righteous breasts in the hallowed chambers.
The politicians favor the Claridge in Atlantic City, but the Brighton, across the street, is rapidly becoming the gay spot, much patronized by those who go up for laughs. Those who want seclusion usually stay at the Ritz-Carlton, at the end of the boardwalk and off the beaten track. The Ritz was once owned by Enoch “Nocky” Johnson, former Atlantic City political boss, recently discharged from federal prison. Nocky is on parole now and not supposed to drink or go to public places or engage in politics, but he does and is still a power in the town and is called on by visiting Washington G.O.P. dignitaries.
Nocky was one of the few leaders with underworld tie-ups prosecuted during the Roosevelt administration. Of course, Johnson was a Republican, not a Democrat, and the orders went out from Boss Hague in Jersey City to get him.
Many Washingtonians seeking fun go to Philadelphia, of all places! Philly is a natural for married men who want to do a little cheating, because who would ever think of looking for them there? “Sleepy” old Philadelphia is not so sleepy. It is one of the hottest towns in the country, loaded with after-hour spots which offer fast floor shows and run later than anything in New York.
Philadelphia is Mafia-controlled, run by the same branch of the mob which owns South Jersey and its domestic wine industry, and Atlantic City. Many Philadelphia spots break the law brazenly and openly, protected by the Mafia.
But Philadelphia has one of the finest restaurants in the world, operated by one of America’s best-known hosts. This is Jack Lynch’s Zodiac Room in the Warburton Hotel. Lynch has more friends in show business and high politics than any other man alive. Many top actors break their trips from Washington or Baltimore to New York to stop overnight for an evening with Lynch.
Philadelphia is two hours from Washington on fast trains. Many show-starved Washingtonians, who don’t have the time to get to Broadway to visit the legitimate theatre, find they can ride to Philadelphia, catch a show--there are usually four or five big-time productions playing--have a drink, and get back to Washington in time for bed. Washington wolves go to Philly to howl. Mention New York or Atlantic City and a bimbo knows that’s a weekend and all that goes with it. But invite her to Philadelphia for an evening, then a few drinks after the show--and the last train has left. A lady can’t sleep standing up.
Of course, New York remains the chief target for weekenders. Those on small budgets stay at one of the popular-priced West Side hotels, visit the usual tourist traps, occasionally see a Broadway show, and have a hell of a time without spending too much. Government clerks come away to New York for a weekend, a man and a woman, going Dutch. Groups of government girls save up for a trip to the big city. They go sight-seeing and gawking, send home colored postal cards and eat box-lunches in Grant’s Tomb.
Most good New York cafes will not serve unescorted women. So the best the typists and filers can do is wander around, oohing at the bright lights and dreaming up lies to tell when they get back.
The guys in the bigger jobs have a hell of a time when in New York. Embassy people come up regularly and are provided with introductions to top models by the State Department. Key Congressmen and high officials are brought up on junkets by lobbyists, entertained in the swank joints, and if they don’t have their wives with them they can have the best. If wives are along, they are invited by the lobbyists to go shopping at places like Saks-Fifth Avenue, Bonwit Teller, Bergdorf Goodman and Hattie Carnegie, and charge anything they want on the lobbyist’s accounts.
The favorite hangout of the New Deal set in New York is the Stork Club. The attorneys for the Stork Club are Goldwater and Flynn. The Flynn is Ed Flynn, New Deal Democratic boss, campaign manager of the late President Roosevelt. The Stork became a hangout for the left-wing and do-gooder crowd during the 1930’s, when the late Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy used to cut up on the dance-floor with cuties. Harry Hopkins, the ex-Mills Hotel Hopper, who addressed envelopes at a cent each, favored its rich menu--on the cuff.
Many of the important bleeding hearts, labor union leaders and spokesmen for the have-nots spent and still spend their time in New York in the Stork Club, where the have-nots they bleed for are rigorously barred by silken ropes.
Here such union bosses as the musicians’ Petrillo, a pal of Truman’s, and the truckmen’s Tobin, a Roosevelt favorite, are served by a nonunion restaurant staff. Sherman Billingsley, the Stork’s owner, had to cough up more than $100,000 for back salaries and unfair labor practices. But while he was fighting organized labor the chief union bosses, all the Roosevelt sons and half the cabinet frequented his place. They still do, though the restaurant unions still consider the Stork unfair. But Sherman’s friends see the place is never picketed any more.
The diplomatic set, visiting nobility and royal guests of the State Department, and the older Washington dignitaries visit John Perona’s El Morocco, the swankiest in New York. One may meet ambassadors, princes, a dispossessed king and some South American presidents in Morocco at one time. On these occasions there is more law scattered around the room than there are customers in most other clubs. A visiting potentate like a sultan or maharajah, in addition to rating a couple of Secret Service men, gets four New York detectives.
When the boys come up from Washington with nothing good on their minds they head for the Sun Up Club, in a private house in West 68th Street, right off Central Park West. This place is run by a couple of sisters who used to operate the Hour Glass Club. One, Helen O’Brien, is close to Joe Nunan, former Commissioner of Internal Revenue and intimate friend of Boss Ed Flynn. This place gets away with anything and has for years. It freely sells liquor at any hour without a license and without regard to closing ordinances.
Helen O’Brien knows a lot of amiable dishes who hang around there. If there should happen to be none when a visiting padrone comes in, they soon get there. This spot is practically unknown to New Yorkers, few of whom, including newspapermen, ever heard of it. It is patronized almost solely by august Democrats from Washington.
Visiting New Dealers pour also into Toots Shor’s restaurant, where they are almost as welcome as baseball players and prize fighters. The late Bob Hannegan, postmaster and Democratic Committee Chairman, was a regular. Sometimes he brought an unknown Senator from his home state with him, Harry Truman, who liked the conviviality of the place and bent an elbow with the boys. When the Senator was Vice President, he stopped in and played the piano in the private room. Toots, a genial giant, fat and wide and tall, had lunch at the White House with the late President Roosevelt and made him laugh. Sometimes at dinner there’s more Washington brass at Toots’ than there is in Washington. Toots also runs all non-union. But he can call a cabineteer a crumb-bum, and is then set down as a character and a wit.
