Dorothy Day.
“Morning Call.”
February 27-28, 1924
The Thrills of 1924,
February 27, 1924
BY DOROTHY DAY
Everybody knows about the “Morning Call” that little coffee stand in the middle of the French Market. There debutante and matron, working girl and blue stocking, sit elbow to elbow, cheek by jowl with what Evangeline Booth and Thomas Burke, both master stylists, would call denizens of the underworld, lost and abandoned creatures who slink in from the mist of the river front, evil faces from ill lit streets, murky shadows so impalpable as to be almost improbable.
The “Morning Call” is to New Orleans what Child’s Fifty-Ninth street restaurant is to New York. There is a harmless, though basically morbid (honesty compels us to say) thrill in sitting on the high stools at a late hour of the night and drinking the coffee which is really good and has a welcome warmth in this little circle of cold light hemmed in by the night mists of the river. And there is an interesting waiter there with an Egyptian, or would you call it an Assyrian profile?
Underworld for Cats
All around are the vegetable stalls, colorful and odorous, and far down the block, are the long dank alleys of the fish market, which we have decided is the underworld for cats. If you have ever noticed the fastidious grace which even the most bourgeoise of cats will avoid the wet and odorous, hastily scrubbing paws and jowl after any contamination, you will realize that only the most abandoned cats will sink to the horrid depths of the fish market. Why, we have even noticed kittens of tenderest age — however this is a story about humans.
It was this midnight or early morning coffee habit which led some of the younger set of New Orleans to discover that there is a watchman who will sometimes allow you to cross the tracks along the river front down in this section, go through the piers, and wander along the docks, a thrilling adventure even to the bravest on a misty night. Big freighters loom above the docks, so high when the river is up that they assume a wraithlike quality, and there is a swell on the river which you can hear rising and falling with a soft hiss against the piles. On a dry night there are spars to sit on, and the edge of the pier is raised so that it forms a convenient though terrifying seat. On some nights there is a moon.
Escort Registers Protest
Gossip has it, that one night, a month or so ago, an adventurous spirit seized one young woman who decided that she must stow away on one of the huge freighters. There was a convenient ladder — an escort (the thing simply isn’t done without an escort, you know), and the night was clear enough so that she could see her way, and yet misty enough to cover her actions. She was an athletic young woman, and silent as a cat. Under protest, her escort followed and grumbled as he found a place by the side of her, on a pile of rope. It might have been the coffee they were drinking which made them overlook the fact that it might be well to find out when the boat was sailing before looking for the hold (if ships have holds nowadays) as all stowaways should.
After the two of them had wandered around the deck for a few minutes in search of someone who would give them the information, they had forgotten their purpose. Nevertheless, they found an affable and courteous young officer who took it for granted that it was perfectly all right for them to be where they were, and showed them around the ship, and tried to explain all about oil burners.
The young woman, however, had seen “The Hairy Ape” and wanted to find a ship with a stoke hold, so they took leave of the officer. As to whether they found it or not, we don’t know, because it was the young officer who told us of this escapade although to him it did not seem an escapade but a perfectly natural desire of a young woman to want to explore a ship in the dead of the night. It is indeed hard to find a man who will be surprised at anything a woman will do nowadays. Anything may be expected of them.
In Black Draped Room
Then there is the gossip of the woman who had a studio down in “the quarter,” that thrilling section of town, who was tired of the ordinary run of parties. This is truly gossip, because we heard it from someone who had heard it from someone else. And we don’t know whether the someone else was at the party he mentioned, or not.
At any rate, the story goes that a large assembly gathered at the invitation of this woman who was widely known about town as an eccentric and an exotic, and sat in a black draped room with lowered lights while an orchestra with muted strings played Chopin’s funeral march. It is not mentioned in the story we heard, whether any of the guests made any remarks about their hostess during this enforced wait for her appearance. If they had, like as not she would have appreciated these impromptu obituaries for her studied funeral party. When the black curtain which was suspended from one end of the room was finally drawn aside, the hostess was discovered to be lying on a black draped bier, clad in a long black gown, with her eyes closed and a lily on her breast. When she had appreciated the gasp of astonishment to its fullest, she languidly opened her eyes, rose from her couch, and joined her guests.
The story does not tell whether, like Des Esseintes, the French decadent, a dinner was served consistent with the opening of the party Russian rye bread, turtle soup, black ripe olives, smoked black pudding, game with sauces the color of licorice and truffle gravy, black heart cherries and rich dark wines.
Anything is Possible
But in New Orleans, the only city in the United States where cooking is a fine art not confined alone to the best restaurants, anything is possible. Nor was it stated the reason for this party. Everyone took it for a whim of a notoriously eccentric woman.
But here we find ourselves wandering from the “Morning Call,” to the docks, to the decks of ships, to studio parties when what we were aiming at are the poker parties which add to the tensity of existence for the women of New Orleans.
However, have you ever noticed the hectic, fevered, wandering and irrelevant conversation of the present day woman who indulges in a continual and frenzied search for thrills? Then let this day’s story act as an illustration and an object of what even two weeks of a thrilling life will do to you. Carried to such an extreme that it becomes a vice; indulged in only by those women who can afford to lose, and lose continually, huge sums in the hopes of some day making a clean up; a pleasure that can be indulged in at the home, at the club, while traveling — this is a game of chance more widespread among women than roulette, mah jongg, bridge, or any other game of chance.
The Thrills of 1924,
February 28, 1924
BY DOROTHY DAY
Women may go to the races and bet with men, they may play around the roulette wheel and the dice table with them in amicable intercourse, but they may not play poker with them. Whether it is because men think that this is a game which requires special skill, rather than luck, and cannot sit at the same table with a woman without arguing the age-old argument of the sexes, we don’t know. Of course bridge is a gambling game, often for high stakes. But it is also a social and parlor game whereas poker is a “he-man” game, associated with the Klondike, the gold fields and the great open spaces where men are men — and they want to keep women out of it. But women won’t be kept out. There is an intensity about this form of gambling which other games lack, a “kick” and a feeling of suspense which they must have. So they’ve gone ahead and formed clubs of their own at which they play day after day, and often far into the night.
“A man doesn’t mind standing by seeing his wife, or the women he is with losing money at roulette,” one man summed it up. “That’s a chance. But he hates to see her making bonehead plays in poker, raising on a pair of jacks, trying to bluff. He hates to have his money thrown away, and he hates to have his wife making a fool out of herself and incidently him by showing how little she knows about the game, and what bad judgment she has. A man and wife can never take part in a game, because if one throws down the hand, the other will always pick it up to see what was being discarded, and to see if he or she couldn’t have played it better. More divorces have been caused over poker!”
Excluded from Clubs
Women are excluded from all the clubs where poker is played about the city, but the truth of the matter is, they don’t mind. And that’s because alone, among their own sex, they can play as recklessly and as intuitively as they like.
To begin at the top and go down, there is in this town, at the present time, a little group of six or eight women, the elite, the creme de la creme, most exclusive of society women who meet day after day and night after night for poker. “The sky’s the limit,” would be the motto of this club, if they called it a club, but they don’t. So lost are they to all else but poker, that they take their afternoon and evening game for granted and make few other engagements. Sometimes the games start early in the afternoon and last until early the next morning and when you consider the game is stud poker, and there is betting on every card, and no limit to the betting, you can realize how enormous are the stakes.
Changes in Group
Of course the little group changes. A woman will lose her allowance, even her household money. She will pawn her jewelry, or having paste made even go so far as to sell it. And eventually she will tear her self away from the glittering vice, and someone else will step in to take her place. Or her nerves will become ragged, her face will take on lines and she won’t be able to sleep at night. All through her troubled dozing, she will see the cards being dealt out and she will bet and bet, and then when she looks at the buried card, she will find that it wasn’t the ace she thought it, but a deuce, and she’ll realize again that she has lost everything.
Other society women have been invited to join this little group, but most of them are afraid. The stakes are too high.
Prefers Slower Game
“I’m something of a fiend at poker,” one woman told us, “but I couldn’t play with them. I content myself with the little club I belong to which meets Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. It’s stud poker, of course. Draw poker is too slow for women nowadays, though sometimes I wish they’d stick to draw. You have more of a chance to break even, and I prefer a slower game so that I have time to enjoy myself. Our husbands all think that we play a nickel limit but we’ve made it a 15-cent limit game. But even so I’ve lost $50 in an afternoon, and when you figure out we play twice a week, you can see what a few weeks of steady losing will do to your allowance.”
So much for society women — those who can afford to lose.
For those who haven’t entree to these New Orleans homes — for those whom the upper 10 would consider the bourgeoise, the demi-monde, and the transient there are clubs, the dues of which are from $15 to $25 worth of chips with which to enter a game.
Clubs for Women
The chips bought, you are given a card which informs you, that having paid your dues for the coming year, you are a member in good standing and are entitled to the privileges of the club. There are hundreds of these clubs for men and some half dozen for women, through the city — in back of pool rooms, cigar stores, billiard parlors, and nominally they are social or athletic clubs. But the club consists of a bare room, with a few tables and chairs, and the privileges mentioned on the membership card consist in sitting in a game and paying the house a cut of 10 to 25 percent from every pot.
There are club rooms in Gretna, Southport, Jefferson parish and in the heart of the city where women who have never seen each other before sit in a game. It isn’t the companionableness or desirability of the women you are playing with; the game’s the thing.
The fact that you don’t know from Adam whom you are playing with, sometimes leads to disastrous consequences.
Woman Intoxicated
There is the story one club tells, how a well-dressed, and apparently refined woman sitting in the game showed, little by little, that she was under the influence of liquor. Although it is true of women of New Orleans that they drink very little, fearing the ravages not only of the climate but of games of chance, they are not the ones to judge too harshly those transients and weaker sisters who drink too much. Others in the game pretended to pay little attention to the signs of her condition, although every now and then she returned from powdering her nose a little more unsteady. It was an unsteadiness which would be noticeable only to the others who had an opportunity to watch her closely as she played. Of course she was losing steadily, and betting recklessly.
It is the custom at these games to drop out when you feel like it. There are usually only three games going on, and the clubrooms are often full. Many times there are other women sitting around, or watching the game, waiting for a chance to sit in.
Player Without a Conscience
On this afternoon, one of the women dropped out and another entered and the party became more exciting. Up to this time, the other women in the game with consideration, refused to take advantage of the other’s condition to clean her up. But the newcomer had no conscience. From the moment she started to play, the others could see that she had been observing the condition of the other and was thinking to profit by it. The result was that the others threw scruples to the wind, and every one was out for herself. The game ended with the newcomer cleaning out not only the woman who was drinking, but the others as well. There was good feeling on all sides, however, for all agreed it had been a good game.
But opinion differed the next day. Rumor had it that the weak sister and the unscrupulous one had been working together and they had left town the night before, and that it was their practice to travel from town to town making their living by their wits.
In any city where there are clubs like those of New Orleans, one of the pair deliberately got drunk and entered the game. With no sign of recognition, the other would play, taking advantage of the fact that the others in the game would pay little attention to the sober one, while they were attempting to win from the drunken one.
This incident led to a little flurry among the clubs, however. Gamblers, whether they are men or women, are a philosophical lot and women are more so than men. Although men occasionally shoot each other over the card table, there is no record in New Orleans of a woman having done so yet.
Text prepared by:
- Bruce R. Magee
Source
Day, Dorothy. “The Thrills of 1924.” The New Orleans Item, 27 Feb. 1924, p. 5. Print.