Washington Confidential 37 – Mortimer · Verses Across
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Washington Confidential 37Part 4 · TIPS ON THE TOWNS
18
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Washington Confidential 37
Part 4 · TIPS ON THE TOWNS
MortimerEnglish
Booze
Washington consumes four times as much hootch as the entire state of Maryland, including Baltimore, which alone has 200,000 more population. The most popular kind of liquor is bourbon, suh, with rye next. Only fairies, English diplomats, New Yorkers and spats-wearers drink Scotch.
The legal liquor closing for on-premises consumption in the District is 2 a.m. on weekdays and midnight on weekends. Only beer and light wine may be sold on Sundays. Baltimore sells until 2 a.m., seven nights a week, though some saloons which do not serve food and which pay a lower license fee must close their bars at one. (But you can sit there until 2 to finish anything you bought earlier.) Only beer and light wine may be sold for on-premises consumption in Virginia. The closing hour is midnight. Prince Georges, Md., has a law similar to Washington’s--seldom observed.
Legal boozing age in the three jurisdictions is 21, though minors over 18 may drink beer in Maryland and D.C.
But there’s something about the climate--everyone looks older than he is.
Cabaret Info
Most District area night clubs do three shows nightly, at 8, 10:30 and 12:30, and two on Saturdays and Sundays, at 8:30 and 12. The hotel grills do two, at 8:30 and 12.
The burlesque joints in Baltimore grind continuously until 2.
Few Washington night clubs impose a cover charge. All have minimums, usually a dollar or $1.50. The hotel cafes, when presenting expensive attractions, usually put on a couvert up to $2.
It’s agin the law and the rules of the American Guild of Variety Artists to permit female entertainers to sit at tables with male guests. The hotels and the better Washington night clubs enforce this. The others wink at it. There is no attempt at observance in the Maryland suburbs or in Baltimore.
Checks and Chicks
When the cutie in the checkroom hands you back your hat, don’t think for a moment she keeps the tip you slip her. She works on a straight per diem for a concessionaire, who pays the restaurant or hotel by the year. But if she doesn’t turn in a tip for every hat, she loses her job on grounds she swiped the money or she is so stupid or icky that she gets stiffed. For many years, the minimum hat check in New York by habit has been two bits, but the hoosiers who come to Washington get lavish with a dime or sneak off ignoring the plate with the decoy coins entirely. The concessionaire figures 18 cents as the average tip and on that basis he checks his employes. The gals learn how to pinch part of the loot from liberal tippers, though their uniforms are made without pockets. Photo concession girls may keep their tips, but cigaret girls have to turn theirs in.
Clip Joints
Beware of the invitation from the stranger you meet at the bar, who suggests you go to a friend’s place after hours for liquor and gals. There are at least 300 clip joints running in Washington, most of them in the colored neighborhoods, in private houses and flats, where you can get booze of a sort after-hours; but it may be spiked with knockout drops and you will wake up rolled and robbed--if you wake up at all. Baltimore clip-dives operate more closely to the orthodox custom. As soon as you sit down in a hideaway, a couple of bimbos rush to your table and order drinks. When you are ready to go, you get a bill that includes the month’s rent. If you don’t come across, you’ll be lucky to get out with a broken nose.
Dancing
If your specialty is the rumba or samba, don’t expect to find a partner in Washington or Baltimore, They’ll do a shaky fox trot to that music. The codgers still do the old conservative dances. The youngsters are jive maniacs.
At this writing, there are no public dance halls in Washington where you can meet partners, but, though table hopping is supposed to be de trop, you won’t have any trouble getting dames on the loose to dance with you. As in Baltimore, they will solicit you for dances, even if that’s all they’re after.
All night clubs, but few hotels, present dancing on Sundays in Washington and Maryland.
For matinee and cocktail dancing consult the appendix or the daily papers.
Dates
If you still can’t get yourself a girl after having read this book, we don’t think you’re trying. But here are some easy ways:
Ask the bell captain.
Refer to appendix for a list of dance studios.
Call Clara Lane, Friendship Center, Republic 3504 (Washington), for personal interview.
Get a manicure.
Read the newspaper ads for dances run by the State Societies.
Join a church or the Y.
In the summer, go to any beach or take a ride on a Potomac steamer.
Strike up a “Haven’t I met you somewhere” with any girl you see in a cocktail lounge or a hotel lobby. For that matter, your chances are good with almost any girl you see anywhere in Washington. She may say no. We bet you five to three she won’t.
Dining
We will recommend no restaurants here. A list of best-known places in Washington and Baltimore will be found in the appendix. We guarantee none. But Baltimore goes in for good food in the good places, while Washington doesn’t know what fine cuisine is. Meals are cheaper in Washington than in New York. Baltimore, with some of the finest restaurants in the country, charges even less.
Most people dine early in both towns. Some of the best restaurants close for the night at 8 or 9. This is the Keokuk touch.
Washington politicians hang out at Harvey’s and the Occidental. They don’t mind the insults. Some of the better food is at Olmsted’s. The tax-payers foot the losses of the dining-rooms in the Senate and House of Representatives.
Baltimore politicians dine in the back room of the Emerson; the ward heelers eat at Bickford’s, called “No. 10 Downing Street.”
There are no swank dining places of the grade of El Morocco, the Colony or 21 in Washington or Baltimore. The elite in government service eat lunch in their own private dining-rooms and dinner at their clubs.
Divorce
The divorce rate in the District, as well as in Maryland and Virginia, is considerably below the national average, though the grounds are not particularly oppressive. At this writing there are 4,000 divorced males in the District of Columbia and 8,000 divorced females.
All three jurisdictions require one year’s residence before beginning a divorce action, which eliminates them from competition with Nevada or Florida. If the grounds are out-of-state, it’s two years in D.C. You have to wait six months after a District decree before remarriage.
Grounds for divorce in the District are adultery, desertion for two years, conviction for felony, and living apart five years. Maryland adds impotence and insanity. Virginia also grants divorce for impotence, pregnancy of wife at time of marriage and wife’s unchastity, as well as all causes specified in the District.
Some smart lawyers know how to beat the residence provisions, but if you can afford that kind of a lawyer you’re much better off going to states that specialize in hot-cake divorces.
Guns
You require a license to carry a concealed weapon, but no one enforces the law if you keep a dozen machine-guns in your house. The courts have ruled you are not carrying a concealed weapon if you have a gun in the glove compartment of your car or if you have an unloaded one in your pocket, even if you have cartridges on you. Cops can’t pinch you without a search warrant.
The Federal Small Arms Act, enforced by the Alcoholic Tax Unit of the U.S. Treasury, imposes a $300 tax on transfer of certain firearms and forbids any felon to carry a pistol. But this is practically unenforceable in the District, because of the niggardly appropriations of Congress and the disinclination of federal judges to sentence anyone for anything.
Hotels
In most towns we warn first-time visitors to beware of cab drivers who steer them to hotels they don’t want to go to. But Washington hotels are usually so crowded, you’re lucky to be steered. We have seen people sit in lobbies from early in the morning until midnight, while the clerks phoned all other hotels, trying to take care of the overflow.
Do not come to Washington unless you have made a reservation in advance. Be sure the reservation is confirmed. A few hotels are part of nationwide chains, among them the Mayflower (Hilton), the Hay-Adams (Manger) and the Statler. You can probably make your reservations and have them confirmed in your own home town.
Hotel rates are high. The cheapest single room in the first-class hotels is $8, and that faces the garbage cans. Modest suites are $20 a day, and you pay at least $25 for anything decent.
But Washington abounds with cheap assignation hotels, where you can take a broad for the night for three bucks, no baggage required. In Baltimore you can find this kind for as little as one dollar a night.
Few good Washington hotels have any qualms about your morals. If you are raided because that gal isn’t your wife, it is because the house dick and bell captain have their own stable of fillies and they get no cut-in from outside competition. The “security officer” (refined designation for a house dick) of one of the oldest and most famous hotels in Washington, near the White House, was recently fired because he ran a shakedown racket, putting the bite on guests who brought dames in.
(Inside stuff: Smart guys start charge accounts in hotels and have their bills mailed to their offices. That way, if they suddenly make a date, they can call and have a room prepared for them. Hotels do not like to cash checks for strangers, but will for those with charge accounts. It is a specific crime to defraud an inn-keeper.)
Washington and Baltimore hotels, unlike those in northern cities, are not required to serve or admit Negroes.
(Unless you are expecting a guest, do not open your door if someone raps on it. Many people have been robbed, raped or assaulted that way. When the girl with the nice voice phones and announces she’s from Harris & Ewing, the photographers, and read you were in town and wanted to take your picture, don’t think you are a celebrity. This firm goes through all registrations, plays for the chumps. After you pose for their photos, a glib salesman sells you a dozen. We wouldn’t have minded, but they phoned us at three in the afternoon, and we never get up until four.)
(Tips: And that’s the only way you’ll get along in any hotel--with tips, big ones. If you can’t get a room, slip the room clerk a sawbuck. Liberal handouts to the bellhops, doormen and elevator boys will help you get service, also pave the way for the things that hotels aren’t supposed to supply, but always do.)
Limousines
We told you about the smooth con-men who travel in shiny chauffeur-driven limousines. The cars are easy to obtain. All smart travelers rent them wherever they go. They cost $5 an hour, which is usually cheaper than cabs for any considerable use. They are available at any hour. The chauffeurs are well-trained and in uniform. The cars are brand new Cadillacs or Packards, indistinguishable from a millionaire’s private car, except that the D.C. license plate begins with the letter “L.” Look in the phone book or ask the hotel porter to get you a car or phone Haines, HObart 8460, ask for James Conley, the best driver in town. Minimum tip one dollar an hour, unless you’re a skunk. In Baltimore, phone Belvedere, LE 8888.
Marriage
It’s much cheaper and easier without rice and old shoes here, but you will always find a few old-fashioned people who like it the hard way. If you are one who has to be respectable, we will give you the lowdown on how to go about it in the area.
(Note: Common law marriages are valid in the District. They are not in Maryland and Virginia, though the former state, while prohibiting such marriages for its own residents, will recognize as binding any such entered into in the District.)
The marriageable ages in the three jurisdictions are 16 for girls and 18 for boys, with parents’ consent; 18 and 21 in D.C. and Maryland, without consent, and 21 and 21 in Virginia. Marriages between first cousins are permitted in all three.
Maryland and Virginia forbid marriages between whites and Negroes or Orientals. Virginia also proscribes American Indians. There are no racial restrictions in the District.
Maryland and Virginia require medical certificates before marriage, but Washington doesn’t. So, if you flunk your Wassermann, come to the District. The waiting time between issuance of license and ceremony is two days in Maryland, four in the District, and none in Virginia. Maryland requires that all marriages be solemnized by a clergyman, which is pretty prissy for that state, where you can get so much without marrying at all.
Both the District and Maryland permit one party of a proposed marriage to take out a license without the consent or knowledge of the other. Sometimes overly-eager ones take out these licenses (which are published) as a means of bringing final pressure on the other person. Recently a 21-year-old Marine shot himself to death after a minister refused to marry him and an unwilling maiden who had not been aware a license was issued.
Washington men are the choosiest in the country when it comes to picking wives. The marriage rate is falling yearly. In 1950, 10,729 licenses were taken out compared to 10,885 the year before and 12,156 in 1948. Meanwhile other cities are reporting increases. These figures are even worse than they read. Many transients come to wed in the District, to avoid blood tests elsewhere or to boast they were hitched in the nation’s capital.
Medical
Osteopaths, chiropractors, naturopaths and other such unorthodox healers are permitted both in the District and Maryland and are allowed to precede their names with the honorific “Dr.” Many Washington residents from Los Angeles, the Southwest and the moronic regions where faith healers, layer-oners-of-hands, herb doctors and other such quacks are common, are now living in Washington and provide a boom market for the irregular curers.
One of Washington’s biggest medical problems is V.D., because of the shifting, transient nature of the population and the unusual Negro percentage. Last year, more than 16,000 cases of gonorrhea were reported, and 507 new cases of syphilis. Fifteen people died of unchecked syphilis.
Midday Manners
Both as a world capital and as an Eastern city, Washington’s manners and modes, on paper at least, could be supposed to resemble those of New York. But it is in a warmer belt and much of its resident population originated in other sections of the country, where habits are different, so some compromise of customs is common.
Washington women generally follow the New York style of not wearing hats. But the men wear lids all year around, even on the hottest days.
The women wear suits for daytime in winter and print dresses in summer. Men wear dark suits in winter, but, because of the deadly heat, don such tropical outfits as Palm Beach, seersucker, crash and linen in summer. Like most yokels, a sharp crease in the sleeve means a well-pressed suit.
A Washington woman never wears slacks on the street. When you see any dame so attired, you know she arrived by bus on a sight-seeing jaunt.
Midnight Manners
Few women wear hats at night. Those who do are visitors. Most men wear dark suits but compromise good taste with god-awful loud ties. Customers of the classier rooms, i.e., the hotel grills, are apt to overdress. You see more people wearing evening clothes than in New York, where such frummery is now worn only on occasions when required, like a formal ball or the opening of the opera.
All restaurants and night clubs, regardless of season, require men to wear coats, though some of the more popular-priced ones do not demand ties in the summer.
Protocol
If you are a climber, or the wife of a government official, social precedence and correct social forms are more important in your life than the Sermon on the Mount. When in doubt about whether the governor of Nevada sits ahead of or in back of the minister of Costa Rica, you should consult Mrs. Carolyn Hagner Shaw, Wisconsin 3030.
Taxi Talk
The first thing that amazes the visitor is the terrific number of cabs on the streets. There is no limitation by law and, at this writing, there are 9,000. Cabs do not have meters, but operate on a zone system, the first charge 30 cents anywhere within the zone, or 20 cents a head for two or more passengers. They are asking for an extra dime a zone. The out-of-towner is always puzzled figuring out how the owner of the cab gets a fair shake from the driver, with no meter to check up on him. It was Congressman Tom Blanton who slipped riders into all bills to ban meters in the District.
What happens is that every hackman is an independent contractor. He rents his cab by the day, for which he pays $6, which includes insurance, tires and advertising. He buys his own gas and oil, which comes to another $3.50 a day. He keeps everything above that outlay. When business is bad, he swallows the loss himself. He can keep the cab 24 hours a day, and he usually drives it home at night and starts out in the morning in it. Some older cabs are rented for less, as low as $3.50 a day. These are used by men who hack in their spare time, such as policemen, chauffeurs, and government employes, who act as cabbies for four or five hours a day.
Washington law not only permits cabbies to double up passengers, but requires them to do so. Your taxi will not leave Union Station until it has a full load going in your direction. When Washington cabs go to the airport in Virginia or the suburbs of Maryland, they make a flat rate. They are not permitted to pick up return passengers outside the District. Maryland and Virginia cabs which come into Washington must return home empty.
Despite the huge number of cabs, it is almost impossible to get one at around five, when the government offices empty, or whenever it rains. The rates are so cheap, many Washingtonians find it costs them only a nickel more to go to their destination by cab than by bus or street-car. Few locals ever tip. Cab drivers fall all over out-of-towners.
If you are having trouble hailing a cab, the best place to get one is outside a hotel or a popular restaurant or night spot, for they will be driving up to these places with passengers. If you are caught at the Capitol and can’t get a cab, go over to the Congressional Hotel, across from the House Office Building, where the doorman can usually snag one for you. Don’t forget a tip. Our favorite cabbie is Harold Ramsburg, EM 2438, and you can hire him by the hour.
Tipping
While on that subject, don’t act like a rube, a Southern cracker or a dope. Most hotel, restaurant and transportation employes are practically dependent for their livings on gratuities. Ten percent is no longer enough. Your waiter should get 20 percent, even more in a high class place where each waiter has only a few tables. Don’t forget the captains and headwaiters, especially if you want a good table.
Traffic Tickets
We always got our parking and speeding tickets killed by Congressmen’s secretaries. That is one thing they are good for. Congressmen are the rulers of the District; when their secretaries call the District Commissioners or the Chief of Police, they get a respectful hearing.
Congressmen, themselves, are immune from arrest when Congress is in session. They are provided with special plates over their own license tags reading “Member, 82nd Congress.” Smart Congressmen seldom use the special plates. They say that when they do, traffic cops always bother them, then suddenly pretend they noticed the plates for the first time, after which they let the Congressman go, making it appear they are doing him a great favor. The next day they show up in his office asking for a favor--a promotion, probably.
Transportation
You can get to Washington by train, plane, bus, auto, bike, or merely hitch-hiking. Train service, while frequent and fast, is generally lousy. From New York on the Pennsylvania there is only one first-class train, the Congressional Limited, which makes the 226 miles in 215 minutes, but it’s a shell of its old self, when it was all Pullman and extra fare. The Congressional is one of the few day trains in the country which runs complete cars of drawing rooms. These are always full, with lobbyists, officials and their dames, and other heavy drinking parties, spending the three and a half hours as pleasantly as possible. (Note: No liquor is served on trains in Pennsylvania on Sundays.)
The two best trains from the West are the B & O’s Capital Limited and the Pennsy’s Liberty Limited from Chicago. The Capital is an all-Pullman streamliner and carries a through car to Los Angeles, which connects with the Santa Fe’s Chief in Chicago.
Railroad and plane tickets to and from Washington are difficult to get, especially on key days of the week. Traffic moves to Washington on Sunday nights and Monday and away on weekends, beginning Thursday. At those times a little judicious tipping of hotel porters is advised. Railroad and plane employes are forbidden by law to take gratuities, but who’s going to do anything about it if they find a $10 bill neatly folded in their breast pockets?
The Washington Airport, though in Virginia, is only 15 minutes from the center of town. Baggage is unloaded considerably faster than in other airports. But the Union Station is a madhouse. Sometimes it takes a half-hour for your bags to get out to the taxi stand, if you can get a red cap at all. Then there is another wait for a cab going your way to fill up. (Note: The railroad exacts a 25-cent charge for each parcel carried by the red cap. He doesn’t keep that. You are expected to tip him on top.)
(Inside Stuff: There are special airplane and railroad ticket offices for members of Congress in the Capitol Building.)
