Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells: The Best of Early Vanity Fair

by Unknown

  • • •

  The search for subjects on which to employ the new publicity machine is conducted under highly competitive conditions. This is a matter of business. As a result of this competition we have seen the development of some weird devices for stimulating the interest of readers whose imaginations do not soar unaided. For the literate who cannot quite translate words into visual images there is now the synthetic photograph made by scissors, paste, and hired models. It tells a story, if not the story, almost without words. But above all there is the personal narrative which gives the illusion of intimacy and inwardness. This personal narrative is, of course, rarely written by the person involved: by the ladies who are still dripping wet from their channel swim, by the ladies waiting for the electric chair, by the flyers caught in a jam of kings and prime ministers. Even journalism is not produced under such conditions. And as for the recently published memoirs of Rudolph Valentino from the spirit world, even the most trusting smile as they read eagerly about his love-life there. The competition is fierce, and the rules are few. The go-getters of the publishing world set the pace.

  But in those enterprises where they run foul of such critical public opinion as still exists they are usually aided and abetted by the law and its officers. The worst cases, the ones which have really aroused protest, are almost invariably based on court proceedings. It is here that we have all gone mad. On the theory that any act involving a public official may legitimately be published in a free country by a free press we have made the divorce courts and murder trials a privileged source of material for these sensations. The ordinary rules of libel and laws about decency do not prevail apparently where the pretense can be employed that only matters of record are being published. It is here, if anywhere, that some attempt is likely to be made to control the whole business.

  The suit against Charlie Chaplin furnished a striking example of how abominable the thing can become. The unproved allegations of his wife’s lawyers, having become a matter of record, could be published to the world without fear of punishment for the outrage, and without the possibility of adequate remedy to Mr. Chaplin himself. Fortunately in this instance friends of Mr. Chaplin in the responsible press rose in their wrath and mitigated the outrage. But that is exceptional. The whole proceedings in divorce cases are essentially private matters, certainly as to details, and if it is not possible to adopt some sort of self-denying ordinance against the exploitation of divorce cases, we may be driven to experiment with some law like the recent English law which forbids the publication of all the juicy scandal, and confines the report of a divorce case to the barest legally relevant facts.

  In murder trials the thing has also gotten altogether out of hand. The Snyder trial was conducted by Mr. Justice Scudder with extraordinary dignity inside the court room. Yet the trial was a scandal by every established standard of justice. No doubt the pair were as guilty as Satan. It was nevertheless a scandal to have the trial conducted to an accompaniment of comments by celebrities seated in the bleachers who took the case out of the hands of the judge and the jury, and rendered a daily verdict at so much per column on the precise guilt of the two defendants. Justice cannot be done if this is to be the normal atmosphere of great trials, and some day I believe a courageous judge will have us up before him for that contempt of court of which we are unquestionably guilty. Some judge will have to do this, I am afraid and hope, before the bench can restore that atmosphere of deliberation to which the most contemptible criminal is entitled.

  The modern publicity machine will not be destroyed by such regulation as this. It will still have a world of excitements on which to work. There is no way of imagining where it will take us. We do not, for example, know how to imagine what the consequences will be of attempting to conduct popular government with an electorate which is subjected to a series of disconnected, but all in their moments absolutely absorbing, hullabaloos. There is no apparent logic in the series; once it is like a peep show with vast multitudes looking through the keyhole of the bedroom door; and then again it is like a religious festival with the multitudes worshipping sublime youth. We observe that through it all the important and prosaic affairs of mankind, government and diplomacy and education are rather completely ignored by the participating crowd. It would be idiotic to pass judgment on something about which we know so little. And yet one wonders, I at least with some anxiety, what would happen if some day the lights of this engine were suddenly set blazing upon our sectional and our sectarian irritations; or upon some great and delicate controversy with a foreign power. For once the machine is running in high, it evokes a kind of circular intoxication in which the excitement about the object of it all is made more furious by fresh excitement about the excitement itself.

  The old adage of our salad days about the curative effects of publicity under popular government seems rather naive in this age of publicity. The light we now throw on events can burn as well as heal, and somehow we shall have to learn to apply it gingerly. The question is whether we can. The perfecting of the machinery will not wait upon our acquiring the wisdom to use it. In all probability we shall only very slowly acquire the wisdom we need by trial and error in the use of the machine itself. The human mind is not prophetic enough to pursue the problem and solve it theoretically in advance. There is no use grumbling then about the character of some of our hullabaloos. They should be regarded frankly as experiments.

  The philosophy which inspires the whole process is based on the theory, which is no doubt correct, that a great population under modern conditions is not held by sustained convictions and traditions, but that it wants and must have one thrill after another. Perhaps the appetite was always there. But the new publicity engine is peculiarly adapted to feeding it. We have yet to find out what will be the effect on morals and religion and popular government when the generation is in control, which has had its main public experiences in the intermittent blare of these sensations. There is something new in the world of which we can but dimly apprehend the meaning.

  That it means the turning away of popular interest from a continuing interest in public affairs seems fairly clear. Whether one is to regard this as a good thing or a bad depends, I suppose, at least upon one’s feeling about how desirable it is to have the people take a direct part in public affairs. I am inclined to ask myself whether in view of the technical complexity of almost all great public questions, it is really possible any longer for the mass of voters to form significant public opinions. The issues are not understandable to anyone who will not give extraordinary effort to studying them. The usual rhetoric of politics has in the meantime gone stale, and it cannot begin to compete in vividness and human interest with the big spectacles of murder, love, death, and triumphant adventure which the new publicity is organized to supply. The management of affairs tends, therefore, once again to rest in a governing class, a class which is not hereditary, which is without titles, but is none the less obeyed and followed.

  A PRIMER OF BROADWAY SLANG

  WALTER WINCHELL

  FROM NOVEMBER 1927

  Noah Webster, the big verb and adjective man, who is remembered for his famous corner on words, tossed off without a break in his lexical stride this definition of the word “Slang”:

  “Slang: To use abusive language, to use slang, an insulting word, a new word that has no just reason for being. Origin: Cant of thieves, gypsies, beggars, etc.; new language or words consisting either of new words or phrases, often of the vagrant or illiterate classes, or of ordinary words or phases in arbitrary senses, and having a conventional but vulgar or inelegant use; also the jargon of a particular calling or class of society; popular cant.”

  All of which any Broadway “peasant” might dismiss with: “Mebbe so, but it sounds like a lotta applesauce because that mug Webster certainly don’t know his groceries.” But Mr. Webster, it seems, knew his dictionary. Slang, briefly speaking, is verbal short hand, a language coined by various groups to cry
stallize in one word or phrase a frequently needed and complicated meaning. There is army slang, hobo slang, railroad slang, circus slang, stage slang, underworld slang and countless other kinds of argot, but the slang of the show business has, perhaps, more colour and certainly a wider currency than any other.

  Probably because Broadway is where the theatrical business begins (and ends for most of its followers) it is the slang capitol of the world. It is difficult to imagine any other spot on the globe where the citizenry takes so readily to slang, and one suspects that the reason why the articulations of the show business are chiefly in slang, is that most actors were “born in a dressing room” or neglected their schooling to go on the stage. Consequently they are naturally more accomplished in the art of mimicry than they are in the three R’s and even the youngsters whose parents are stars and can afford special tutors for them, are exposed to the idiom of the theatre long before they begin kindergarten.

  It is not, therefore, unjust to assume that the majority of show people are no more than semi-literate. The terms in which they evaluate their fellow-men are sufficiently indicated in the line: “Look at that guy enjoying life. I’ll bet he’s so ignorant he can’t even do a handstand!”

  The average member of the show business (and one speaks quite naturally of all Broadway natives in the same breath) would rather perfect his “personality,” his specialty, or his stage style than achieve an education. When he has developed a dance routine distinguished by some hair-raising steps or is able to arouse an audience to gratifying applause with his songs or stories it does not matter very much whether he can swap conversation with what he calls “highbrows”. Hence his daily commerce is accomplished in the language he understands—slang.

  He doesn’t hope that he “makes good”. He hopes that he “clicks”. He trusts that he doesn’t “flop” or “brody” meaning that he hopes he will not fail. And when he “wows ’em” or “panics ’em”, he has been a “hit”, and, when a person snubs him he doesn’t call that snob “a high-hat” or “a ritzy person”. He merely decides that he has been “up-stage”. The greatest distance from the “apron” back to the rear wall is “up-stage” or as far away as you can get from the footlights. The word “up-stage” is commonly used today by all groups.

  Perhaps, Variety, known as the Bible of the theatrical profession, is responsible for most of the show business slang. What it does not actually invent is eventually recorded by it. The staff of Variety consists of men who started their careers in the theatre either as ushers or players and one of them, Jack Conway, who also served the baseball team at first base, is conceded to be the ace “slanguage” hurler in the world. At least many authorities so report of him.

  • • •

  For the vaudeville branch of the show business Variety coined such famous colloquialisms as “Big Time” and “Small Time”, differentiating the first rate circuits from the second rate. Several years ago the paper was ineffectually urged by the B. F. Keith Circuit to cease labelling the three-a-day houses “small-time”, but Variety could not be persuaded to abandon its foundling.

  To this day the B. F. Keith chain call the small-time “The Family Time” but the players still string along with the theatrical paper. Mr. Conway’s adroit word-coining was the subject of a recent article in The American Mercury. Although Conway is now concerned with motion pictures in Hollywood, his contributions to slang still make up most of the current Broadway tongue. Among some of Conway’s more famous expressions are: “Bimbo” (for a dumb girl); “They got belly laughs” (an act that aroused hearty abdominal laughter); “She has plenty of S. A.” (a girl with a lot of sex-appeal); “That’s a lotta boloney!” (I don’t believe it); “It’s a pushover” (a “cinch”; easy to accomplish); “High-Hat” (swell-head); “Arab” (A Jew); “Laugh That Off!” (“Put that in your pipe and smoke it”); “Peasants” (People); “Stems” and “Gambs” (legs); “Play the chill” (putting on airs); “Meet the Headache” (the wife).

  There are numerous other Conway word claims. One—not too well known—was employed in a play last year by John V. A. Weaver. It was “she wears round heels”. Conway declares that the expression was used to describe a woman who was easy to make a date with, but others contend that “a round-heeler” was applied to street-walkers many years ago. However, Conway’s “That’s the pay off!” is swiftly making the rounds. It is employed when one enthusiastically describes anything that is first-rate: the acme, the last word!

  T. A. Dorgan (Tad), the eminent cartoonist, has contributed gracefully to “slanguage”. In his newspaper cartoons he invariably offers a new one, but his most famous was “Yes, We Have No Bananas”. Two obscure song-writers fashioned a comedy song around the expression and collected over $100,000 royalty on it. Tad never drew a penny or even recognition for inventing it. Another of his famous hits was “ball and chain” (for wife).

  Nationally famous is “He’s a great big butter and egg man”. There are various versions of how that was coined. A New York columnist once requested a Broadwayite to furnish its origin and the Broadway lad told how Texas Guinan created it when a stranger in her café ordered drinks for the house and wouldn’t give her his name when she asked him for it, so she might introduce him. To hear the veterans of Broadway argue it, Texas Guinan did nothing of the kind. The credit, “the howl,” belongs to Harry Richman, also a café entertainer, who so described a big spender while officiating as master of ceremonies at the Shelbourne Hotel, Coney Island, five years ago.

  The spender was “Uncle Sam” Balcom, who represents a butter and egg firm. His accounts include most of the New York cabarets and he returns some of the profits to the cafés by being liberal with his expense money. One night at the Shelbourne he was in an unusually generous mood. He ordered champagne for every one in the house. Richman broke the happy news in this fashion: “Folks, I have a treat for you. You’re all going to drink champagne on a friend of mine. I can’t think of his name off-hand, but he’s a great big butter and egg man!” Cheers followed the announcement and some of the merry-makers gathered about Balcom, toasting him. From then on Mr. Balcom was known wherever he went as “That great big butter and egg man”.

  Later the phrase became a synonym for heavy spenders and rapidly circulated through the country. And most of the night club managements assert that its constant use in the newspapers to identify visitors to New York who spend money in cafés was chiefly responsible for last year’s disastrous slump in Broadway night club patronage. These strangers, it seems, felt that they were being overcharged, and since they were merely out for a good time, they could not in justice be termed “suckers”.

  The slang expression “Hello, Sucker!” constantly used by Texas Guinan in her night club was first employed by a Denver newspaper publisher and circus owner who greeted everyone, friend or foe with “Hello, Sucker!” Wilson Mizner brought it East. Miss Guinan will confess that her abuse of both expressions was responsible for a marked decrease in night club business. The visitors began to resent her slapping them on the head with a clacker—a procedure invariably followed by the greeting “Hello, Sucker!” In the old days, a spender or “sucker” was “a John”, but that phrase is passé now.

  Perhaps, the slang word that attained the greatest international significance was “Jazz”. Walter J. Kingsley, a press agent claims that he first exploited it, when he represented Reisenweber’s, a onetime popular rendezvous near Columbus Circle, in New York. The “Paradise Room” at Reisenweber’s, then conducted by Margaret Hawkesworth sought a new attraction. They sent for a traveling crew of musicians who featured a style of music, new to Broadway. Their try-out captivated Miss Hawkesworth and Mr. Kingsley.

  “What sort of music is that?” queried the press agent. “What do you call it?”

  “Oh, I dunno,” responded the director, “we just jazz up the arrangement, plenty of clarinet and brass variations”.

  “Well, what do they cal
l it in Chicago?” asked Kingsley.

  “They calls it jazz, I guess. Some calls it jass and some spells it jasc.”

  “Well, sir,” beamed Kingsley, “it will be Jazz here in New York” and he immediately wrote a display advertisement featuring JAZZ Music. He had to keep advertising the name for a while and it was some months before it caught on. Then it went into general use after an invasion of jazz outfits from Chicago and its adoption by Paul Whiteman.

  Jazz comes from the idea that a score is jazzed into an arrangement that is jasbo—a slang expression used many years ago by minstrels who resorted to cheap stuff for laugh material. Jazz, in other words, is musical hokum entertainment. “Hokum”, in case you haven’t heard, is low-down stuff. Actors who redden their noses, and wear ill-fitting apparel, and take falls to get laughs, are “hokum comics” a la “skid” in Mr. Arthur Hopkins’ successful play Burlesque.

  The word “hoofer” is show business for dancer. Entertainers who “hoof” used to “hop the buck”. When Bonnie Glass, the wife of Ben Ali Haggin, danced at the Palace Theatre in New York she was described on the billhoards as a “high-toned hoofer”.

  “And so’s your old man!”

  Maybe you’ve heard the alleged origin of that one. The legend is that one night the Duke of M—was being driven about London for air. After a long taxi ride he told the driver to pull up at the Bachelors’ Club. “How much is the fare?” asked the Duke.

  “I leave it to yer lordship,” said the cabman.

  “In that case here’s a shilling,” countered M—, who likes to pull a nifty now and then.

  The veteran cabman weighed the shilling in his palm and asked:

  “Are you a member of the Bachelors’ Club?”

  “Yes, for many years.”

  “So’s your old man!” chirped the vindictive driver as he motored away.