Washington Confidential - free ebook by Jack Lait

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Washington Confidential

Jack Lait

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71 chapters

Previously Published

Previously Published

by Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer by Jack Lait by Lee Mortimer WASHINGTON Confidential BY JACK LAIT AND LEE MORTIMER CROWN PUBLISHERS, INC. NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1951, BY CROWN PUBLISHERS, INC. Second Printing, February 1951 Printed in the United States of America American Book—Knickerbocker Press, Inc., New York...

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WASHINGTON CONFIDENTIAL

WASHINGTON CONFIDENTIAL

P-s-s-s-t! Here we go again—Confidential. We turned New York inside out; but we both live there. We turned Chicago upside down; but we were both raised there. We descended on Washington not quite like Stanley invaded Africa, because in our combined 75 years of newspaper work we had been in the capital hundreds of times. It intrigued us because we never could understand it. So we decided brashly to do a Lait-Mortimer operation on it from scratch. Our principal discovery was that nobody understand

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1. DISTRICT OF CONFUSION

1. DISTRICT OF CONFUSION

The Nation’s Capital is a bastard born of a compromise and nurtured on a lottery. The founding fathers, whose infinite wisdom gave us a Constitution and form of government well nigh perfect, located the seat of that government in a stinking, steaming swamp. This was a peace offering to recalcitrant Southerners, who were that way then just as they are now. The first funds to build and improve that city were raised by selling real estate by lottery. With such ancestry, it is no wonder today that “

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2. “GORGEOUS” GEORGETOWN

2. “GORGEOUS” GEORGETOWN

We shall begin this catalog of places with Georgetown, by far the oldest in the city. Not all who reside in Georgetown are rich, red or queer, nor do all Washington millionaires, Commies and/or fags dwell in Georgetown. But if you know anyone who fulfills at least two of the foregoing three qualifications don’t take odds he doesn’t prance behind Early American shutters in a reconditioned stable or slave-pen in this unique city within a city. Georgetown was a thriving Colonial village when the re

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3. NW COULD MEAN NOWHERE

3. NW COULD MEAN NOWHERE

The first question asked by members of the new Seventh Congress, after taking the oath in the draughty and unfinished Capitol in 1801, was “where is a saloon with dames?” or the early 19th century equivalent thereof. The chief usher escorted them to the steps on the Hill, which overlooked what there then was of the young city, a collection of boxes resembling nothing so much as a rude Oklahoma oil-boom town on a rainy day, and pointed northwest. “There,” he replied. Ever since that historic mome

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4. NOT-SO-TENDER TENDERLOIN

4. NOT-SO-TENDER TENDERLOIN

The District’s “red-light” region may be the largest on earth. That is because almost all of it is such, neither restricted by law, custom nor local habit to a particular part of town. But, more than any other, NW is the Tenderloin, in some ways more blatantly open than ever was New York’s infamous Satan’s Circus or Chicago’s 22nd Street. Of all places, you would think Washington would be the last location a practical, professional prostitute would pick to pitch her camp. With so many more women

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5. HOBOES WITH NO HORIZON

5. HOBOES WITH NO HORIZON

The pride of the bum, even when he has abandoned the virile vitality to hold out his paw as a panhandler, is a terminal twinkle of consciousness that he is only resting between Election Days, when he is a man. These derelicts have swung cities and states. But in Washington even that last link to a reason for being is lost. No Hinky Dink, no Pendergast caters to him, gives him free beer and rot-gut or a kip in the flop on the joint. No eager dirty duke stretches forth to greet the floater and the

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6. GREEN PASTURES

6. GREEN PASTURES

Agonized oratory through the decades has been banging against the walls of the Capitol, demanding that Washingtonians be given the precious privilege of the vote. It is as futile as spitting against the wind. And we will tell you why there will be no vote—Confidential. If Washington got home rule, its first mayor would be a gentleman affectionately known to his constituency as Puddin’ Head Jones. And Mr. Jones is a Negro. We will tell you what no one else has dared to publish—there are more Negr

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7. MIGHTY LIKE A ROSE

7. MIGHTY LIKE A ROSE

There is a daily in Washington (as there are others in principal cities) which never identifies a Negro as such unless he wins a Nobel prize or is selected the rookie of the year. We protest. News cannot be honestly reported by arbitrarily slurring facts. Of almost all other non-whites, many are marked by recognizable names. Most Negroes have Anglo-Saxon names, many of them adopted centuries ago from their slave-owners. For instance, Thompson’s Ebenezer evolved into Ebenezer Thompson. That same

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8. CHINATOWN CHIPPIES

8. CHINATOWN CHIPPIES

Sam Wong , an owner of the China Clipper, Quonsett Inn, the Dragon and other popular restaurants, was indicted on a $250,000 tax fraud. The government charged he gave most of it to two blondes—sisters—who lived with him. The case was tried in Baltimore. ( Note : Though Washington is the nation’s capital, it is merely part of the Maryland Internal Revenue collection district.) When the case was called, the courtroom filled with poker-faced orientals. The government called some, the defense called

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A. Maryland

A. Maryland

This is the Free State, where anything goes. Chicago has Cicero, Washington has Prince Georges County. The same cause which gives Washington the unenviable lead as the Number 1 law-breaker among cities—public apathy—is what usually makes Prince Georges County unique among county areas of the country. Washington does not have the vote, the residents of Prince Georges do have it. And they exercise it by usually voting Democratic and corrupt. Last November they kicked over the traces for the first

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B. Virginia

B. Virginia

The Virginia suburbs present a more respectable exterior, though under the surface there’s plenty going on. The policy of the Old Dominion is policy. Virginia’s laws do not permit the sale of hard liquor for on-premises consumption. Only beer and wine may be drunk that way. Hard stuff must be bought at liquor stores and taken out. This isn’t conducive to anything like gay night life. Virginians go into the District or up to Maryland if they want hi-jinks. Otherwise, most of their fun-making take

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10. UNCLE SAM: LANDLORD

10. UNCLE SAM: LANDLORD

This is Washington’s largest segment—the federal domain. More than 40 percent of the property in the District is owned by Uncle Sam. (Queen Wilhelmina of The Netherlands is said to be the largest private owner of real estate in the District. She owned the huge Westchester apartments, but sold the property recently to Hilton.) Though not contiguous, it has an entity of its own. It is immune from local law. That is important, because some federal property oozes across District borders, such as the

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11. THERE’S NOTHING LIKE A DAME

11. THERE’S NOTHING LIKE A DAME

Women are the same everywhere, except in Washington, where they not only are different, but there are more of them. Females generally fall into two categories, good and bad—the good being so because they can’t get the necessary masculine cooperation to be bad. We have seen them all, all over the world, but nowhere else are they like they are in Washington. This town has 100,000 more nubile women than men. Forty-five percent of all its females earn their own livings. Most of them are government e

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A. Government Girls

A. Government Girls

About 200,000 women work five days a week for Uncle Sam. They come from every corner of the nation. And no matter how long they remain here, few of them ever really live here. They sleep in various kinds of barracks, rooming-houses, rundown hotels, board with retired married ones, and in all constitute a class so large and so displaced that the city cannot absorb them as it does working-women in other communities. They are not all physically repellant, nor do they behave generally like spinsters

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B. Girls with Glamor

B. Girls with Glamor

Let it not be surmised that government-girls are all the girls. There are wives and fiancées, college co-eds, a sprinkling of debutantes and other daughters of the rare society clans, smart saleswomen, even a few presentable sob-sisters. But the true glamorette, as she is known on Broadway and Fifth Avenue, Vine Street and Sunset Boulevard, and even in such remote oases of joy as Galveston, Texas, is virtually non-existent. Chorines are but a memory of leg and lavender for the old inhabitants. E

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13. COMPANY GIRLS

13. COMPANY GIRLS

This is a specialty known only to Washington. With the procuring situation as it is, the business of getting girls for fun, friendship, or what have you in mind is so commercialized, it’s incredible. In our excursions into life in New York and Chicago, we found that girls you pay for an evening can be divided into two classes: party-girls and call-girls. You summon the former, but they are not necessarily whores. You whistle for the others only when there’s to be a party. If this seems contradic

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WISDOM OF A WASHINGTON WOLF

WISDOM OF A WASHINGTON WOLF

When you see someone waiting for a bus or streetcar, it’s considered polite to offer a lift in your car. Washington gallants are very polite, especially if the hitch-hiker is cute. We noticed Washington wolves seldom ply their dates with flowers. This may be because the girls are so anxious they’d give the guy orchids. Or maybe because Washington is an Eastern city, and in the East—New York especially—few well-dressed women wear corsages. Most G-gals start work early in the morning. The wise Was

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15. GARDEN OF PANSIES

15. GARDEN OF PANSIES

If you’re wondering where your wandering semi-boy is tonight, he’s probably in Washington. The good people shook their heads in disbelief with the revelation that more than 90 twisted twerps in trousers had been swished out of the State Department. Fly commentators seized on it for gags about fags, whimsy with overtones of Kinsey and the odor of lavender. We pursued the subject and we found that there are at least 6,000 homosexuals on the government payroll, most of them known, and these compris

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16. THE LITTLE RED HERRINGS

16. THE LITTLE RED HERRINGS

The district headquarters of the Communist Party—the local setup, not the Washington nest of the national outfit—is only a block away from the doorway of the F.B.I., on 9th near F Street. So close is the line of battle drawn. This Union Square of the District of Columbia is, appropriately, on Skid Row. It is the apparatus that recruits government employes. And sometimes 9th Street is more active and important than 16th Street—the White House. The District chairman is Roy H. Wood. This book does

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17. KICKING THE GONG AROUND

17. KICKING THE GONG AROUND

It may be news that widespread addiction to narcotics is a comparatively recent American manifestation. Long after the turn of the century, a few trickles supplied pig-tailed Chinamen, despondent prostitutes, ex-cons who had picked up the habit in stir and a few rich fools who would try anything for a bang. Juvenile use was unheard of. Marijuana was unknown outside pad-parties in the Harlem jungles and among a thin fringe of Mexicans. The Harrison Narcotics Law, first federal recognition of the

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18. THE YOUNG IN HEART

18. THE YOUNG IN HEART

Juvenile delinquency as a topic has become a bromide. You’d think there was little left to add. But here we found not only more of it, but conditions behind it were frequently the exact opposite of those obtaining in other populous cities. It is generally accepted as beyond dispute that youngsters go wrong because of poverty, congestion, lack of play-space, exposure to the tenement atmosphere, the saloon and miserable home life. But Washington, with its top average of prosperity, nothing that co

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19. BOOZE AND BOTTLES

19. BOOZE AND BOTTLES

Washingtonians imbibe three times as much as you do, friend voter. Except for a few silly restrictions, no place in the country offers as many inducements to the potential alcoholic. The answer is, 14,151 drunks last year created a jail “housing crisis.” The number more than doubled in the last five years. Liquor consumption of the District is three times the U. S. average. Every resident, including new-born infants, soaked up almost four gallons of hooch last year. Even allowing for thirsty tou

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20. CAFE AU CORN

20. CAFE AU CORN

Foreigners who have never seen the United States dream of beholding its wonders, of which the first two are New York and Washington. They envision not the monuments or the Government Printing Office, but a glittering world capital swirling with diplomats in colorful costumes, officers in dress uniforms, and pageantry punctuated with dazzling dames of the haute monde and the demi-monde. For this is the capital of capitals, and it must have everything, including what none of the others has—dough.

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21. CALL ME MADAM

21. CALL ME MADAM

This is a brief brush-off of the social parvenus who scrambled up as Society scrammed out—through death and Democratic administration. Faded and forgotten are the days and nights when Washington was ablaze with social brilliance and the gossip behind the fans reflected the sturdy foibles and feuds and infidelities of a class in superior strata of lineage, wealth and those graces which cannot be acquired with sudden fortune. Society is always the shadow of one luminous, scintillant, predominant w

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22. STRIPED PANTS

22. STRIPED PANTS

Elsewhere, men who wear them bury the dead; here, most of those who wear them are dead but not buried. The decadence of the diplomats ran parallel with the fadeout of society, though not for the same causes. Continental and cosmopolitan life on Embassy Row was a war casualty. The democratization and bolshevization of Europe turned their extra-territorial domains here into tawdry outhouses reflecting monarchies and empires riddled into busted republics and dictatorships, either scrabbling for the

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23. THE RIGHT TO PETITION

23. THE RIGHT TO PETITION

“ Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances ”—First Amendment to the Constitution. Don’t you believe it. Congress hamstrung lobbying by requiring practitioners to register. Then it appointed a committee to investigate them. Neither gesture got far. Lobbyists are among the most delightful people in Washington. They are the friends of everybody, including the Congressmen who are “probing” them. Lobb

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24. RACKETS BY REMOTE CONTROL

24. RACKETS BY REMOTE CONTROL

Our newspaper confreres, in the main, were willing to be hospitable and helpful when we galloped in and made no secret of our aims. We don’t expect them to write our books. But they often give us tips, which saves work. The first question we asked was, “Who is the Washington Mafia boss?” The invariable answer was that the local underworld was unaffiliated with the national setup, free and independent, self-contained. All our experience made us reject that picture. We had traced and charted organ

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25. WHO’S WHO IN MOBOCRACY

25. WHO’S WHO IN MOBOCRACY

For two books and for the hundreds of newspaper stories we have done on American gangsters and their maze of intertwining organization we got enough to be publicly proclaimed America’s top experts in the field. We have been offered lectures and speaking engagements before bodies of bankers, merchants, criminologists, police conventions and on radio programs. But we have saved some new names and some newly-discovered secrets for this book, because a “confidential” without that factor would be reg

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26. TERROR FROM TENNESSEE

26. TERROR FROM TENNESSEE

The House and the Senate have unlimited power and initiative in one function only—they can investigate anything. No President can veto a resolution for an investigation or by law curb its activities or its scope. Theoretically, the purpose is to acquire facts on which to base future legislation. Some of the mightiest of our historical moves have sprung from such inquiries. Giants have risen in the course of them. Harry Truman would probably have remained an obscure little nonentity were it not t

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27. LUCKY NUMBERS

27. LUCKY NUMBERS

The first thing a Congressional investigating committee gets, the sine qua non, is an appropriation. The next is a sheaf of time-tables. Then comes the joyful junketing-time to remote places—remote from the capital and remote from the subject. The Kefauver committee made the grand tour—California and Florida, Chicago and New York, about everything but Yellowstone Park. Its golden fleece was gambling. They could have cleaned up their quest for about $1.60 on a taxi meter. All the evidence, all th

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28. IT’S A CRIME

28. IT’S A CRIME

No thanks is due United States Attorney George Morris Fay for the fact that figures and information regarding the local wave of crime are still available. Shortly after he took office, in 1946, Fay rewrote the Constitution and closed off the court files from inspection by the press on felony cases. Not satisfied, last year he tightened up in Municipal Court, introducing a form of censorship for newsmen trying to check facts. But we finagled some figures: Per capita computations show Washington r

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29. THE LAW

29. THE LAW

We mean the poor underpaid bulls, who enforce it—or, anyway, are supposed to. Last year the Attorney General of the United States held a conference of mayors and other local law enforcement officers to try to figure out the causes of crime. When it was over, we button-holed a mayor of a Western city and asked him the following question: “How come no one mentioned that hardly a crime or a vice violation is possible without the connivance of or the knowledge of local officials?” The mayor replied,

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30. HOW TO STAY OUT OF JAIL

30. HOW TO STAY OUT OF JAIL

These are the steps: First you break the law. Then you get pinched. Then you hire Charlie Ford. Who is he? Charles E. Ford is the “Fifth Street Cicero.” Ford, a behemoth of 220 pounds, is 52. He has been practic ing law in Washington for 28 years. His father, a New Jersey Democrat, was the public printer of the United States in 1913. Since then a lot has been printed about his son in the public records. As noted, Ford was the late Jimmy La Fontaine’s lawyer and is a trustee of his estate. He app

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31. THE BOSSES

31. THE BOSSES

The last orthodox political boss of Washington was Alexander Robey Shepherd. When he finished with the city treasury, Congress voted to end home rule and took back the government. From the time of its incorporation as a city, in 1802, Washington was run by elected mayors and aldermen. In 1871, in President Grant’s administration, it was turned into a territory, similar to Alaska or Hawaii, with delegates in Congress and a large measure of home rule. Shepherd was a pal of General Grant, who had n

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32. MONARCHS OF THE METROPOLIS

32. MONARCHS OF THE METROPOLIS

Since wood-cuts added to the native press the element of pictorial illustration, cartoonists have caricatured the American alderman. His heavy foot is on the bottom rung of the legislative ladder. The “gray wolves” of Chicago were known around the globe for venality, degradation and cold-blooded chicanery. The Tammany members of the board, the San Francisco, Kansas City, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Boston, Albany and St. Louis “city fathers” were in their most nefarious days gangsters, brothel-ke

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33. WIRETAPPERS, SNOOPS AND SPIES

33. WIRETAPPERS, SNOOPS AND SPIES

After you’ve exchanged conversation with a number of Washingtonians, you wonder what made them decidedly different from others. Then it dawns on you. They are whisperers. They all seem consciously afraid that they may be overheard. That marks them even in casual conversations, and when they utter secrets they are theatrically overcautious. These are acquired habits, not without foundation. All mankind has a common weakness for spreading gossip. Most people can retail only minutiae. But in Washin

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34. THE TUESDAY-TO-THURSDAY SET

34. THE TUESDAY-TO-THURSDAY SET

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 Yor

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35. BALTIMORE, CONFIDENTIAL

35. BALTIMORE, CONFIDENTIAL

( Authors’ note : This is a chapter, not the going-over that a Lait-Mortimer excavating job on our sixth biggest city, our second port in tonnage, truly rates. It is a by-product of this work, because aristocratic, historic Baltimore is the slumming-ground for thousands of escaping Washingtonians, only 36 miles away over fast rails and modern autobahns.) Stir up your memory and try to think when and where you have read an “exposé” or any other study of Baltimore. You can recall pieces, kindly or

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PART FOUR THE LOWDOWN (Confidential!)

PART FOUR THE LOWDOWN (Confidential!)

The sharpie who got tired of selling the Brooklyn Bridge moved into the District and now sells the Washington Monument. Suckers aren’t born at the rate of one a minute, Washington never does anything on time; but the Union Station and the airfield pour them out day and night. And God made them marks. For they are either simpletons with cow-dung on their boots or they are the conman’s dream, the lunk with larceny in his heart. Those who don’t come to Washington to gawk come to get. And the little

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A. Swindlers with Swank

A. Swindlers with Swank

Beware of smooth-gabbing guys who drive around in big black limousines with chauffeurs and live in costly apartments staffed with butlers, housekeepers and valets. Some may be on the up-and-up. But, what with taxes and cost of living, few square shooters can afford such luxury. A few we know: One has an “in” in the reservation departments of the big hotels. He is tipped off to the prospective arrival of a wealthy chump. This is how he worked one case: When Mr. Money arrived at the airport, the g

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B. Fortune-tellers

B. Fortune-tellers

Reading the future is big business and strictly sanctioned by law, at an annual fee of $250. Wives of high officials, members of Congress, and society dames are pushovers for this kind of flimflam, and fork over sums to astrologers, palmists, psychics, clairvoyants, and other such miracle-mongers. Many government officials furtively consult fortune-fakers. (Look at the state the country is in now.) These thimble-riggers advertise openly. Most of them state “Licensed by the District of Columbia,”

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C. Free Loaders

C. Free Loaders

A shrewdie can live here forever on the cuff. A gate-crasher, if well-dressed, can be choosy about eating and drinking gratis. Every day there’s a profusion of breakfasts, lunches, cocktail parties, dinners and late suppers thrown by lobbyists, corporations, officials, pressure groups, embassies and social climbers. Admission is by invitation, but bids are sent out broadside. Organizations and lobbyists exchange mailing lists, even take names out of directories. Almost anyone who cares to get on

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D. The Introducers

D. The Introducers

Nowhere else on earth, including New York, are there as many guys who make their livings introducing people. These articles thrive because they are personality-plus ghees with guts, who know right people, and if they don’t they go through the motions. If you want to meet someone—cabinet officer, army brass, congressman, fixer, or social hostess—these birds will introduce you—no hoke. They can get you into the White House to meet the President. They play poker with General Vaughan. These fellows

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Booze

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, t

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Cabaret Info

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

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Checks and Chicks

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

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Clip Joints

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 si

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Dancing

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

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Dates

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

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Dining

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 Keoku

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Divorce

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 mo

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Guns

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

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Hotels

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 chain

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Limousines

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 p

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Marriage

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 marriag

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Medical

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

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Midday Manners

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

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Midnight Manners

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 popula

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Protocol

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....

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Taxi Talk

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 wa

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Tipping

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....

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Traffic Tickets

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.

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Transportation

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

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38. CONFIDENTIAL GUIDE TO WASHINGTON AND BALTIMORE

38. CONFIDENTIAL GUIDE TO WASHINGTON AND BALTIMORE

Alcoholism Treated : The per capita consumption of hootch here is the highest in the world. If you raise it still more call: (Washington) Greenhill Institute, CO 4754. (Baltimore) Baltimore Clinic, LA 1200. Amusement Parks : Where lonely people meet. The rides are fun, too. (Washington) Glen Echo Park and Marshall Hall Park. (Baltimore) Bay Shore Park, Gwynn Oak Park and Carlins. Art Instruction : Learn to paint nudes in the nude. (Washington) de Burgos, ME 1039; Kane, ST 7917. Astrologers : If

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A. HEADWAITERS

A. HEADWAITERS

This and a sawbuck gets you an insult....

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B. GUSTATORY GUIDE

B. GUSTATORY GUIDE

Listed, but not necessarily guaranteed. FOR COCKTAILS: FOR DINING: FOR DINING &amp; DANCING: FOR DINING IN BALTIMORE:...

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C. DINING AROUND THE WORLD IN WASHINGTON

C. DINING AROUND THE WORLD IN WASHINGTON

Chinese : English : Old English Tap Room &amp; Lounge, Hay-Adams House, 16th &amp; H, ME-2260 French : German : Greek : Italian : Mexican &amp; Latin American : Near East : The Sheik, 2317 Calvert, HU-4343 Roumanian : Roumanian Inn, 8151 13th St., RE-6434 Turkish : Dardanelles, Falls Church, Va., FA-2171 Scandinavian : New Smorgasbord, 2641 Conn., AD-9659 Viennese : Little Vienna, 2122 Penn., RE-9316 Yiddish :...

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D. BARE BABES

D. BARE BABES

Where to find ’em. Or where to keep away from ’em, which is harder....

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E. LUPO’S LOG BOOK

E. LUPO’S LOG BOOK

Being some notes to file away where your wife won’t look....

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F. THE INNER CIRCLE

F. THE INNER CIRCLE

These are extracts from a master list of 800 names submitted to the Kefauver Committee of the U.S. Senate by Narcotics Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger in June 1950. Since this list was compiled by Commissioner Anslinger some of the subjects on it changed their addresses—some to a much warmer climate. SAVERIO, Frank, Alias Frank COSTELLO: (International List 310) This subject holds the No. 1 position among major criminals in the United States today. He is a member of the Grand Council of the Inte

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