MODERN GOMORRAH.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 225, 22 September 1928, Page 3 (Supplement)

MODERN GOMORRAH.

NEW YORK SIN CHASERS.

NIGHT CLUB "HOSTESSES" INDIGNANT.

A dramatic climax has followed the publication of the report of the Committee of Fourteen, an official body appointed years ago to investigate conditions in New York. Their report is staggering in its frankness and denunciation. The American capital is dubbed a modern Gomorrah with Broadway as a glittering highway of shame.

"The city," says the report under the signature of Mr. George E. Worthington, chairman, ''abounds in sinners arid the opportunity to sin." The prevalence of commercialised vice is laid straight at the door of prohibition. The speak-easies, night clubs and other fungi that have followed in the wake of the Eighteenth amendment "are directly responsible for a marked increase in the volume of prostitution," the committee states. "The hostess of the night club and speakeasy is the American counterpart of the geisha girl," says the report. "She is employed for the main purpose of increasing the sales of liquor; incidentally, she is to provide aesthetic, social and other entertainment for the men customers." Many speakeasies have love nests, wherethe Broadway Magdalene roll drunken customers. Addresses of several such places were given to the police. New York discarded its "loose" district only to have its modern counterpart spread all over town, the report says. Dance halls are another source of undercover vice, according to the. report, which states: "Hostesses are recruited by advertisements which seek for 'young, attractive girls, over eighteen, experience unnecessary.'" This type of dance hall, according to the committee, "is a growing and serious menace; it is here that the largest number of girls get then? start toward ruin." Instructresses take the clumsy males who would like to be jazz experts, and give them instruction in locked rooms. "It is difficult to find a legitimate reason for instruction so strictly private as this," the committee comments. Members of the committee who visited several of these resorts stated that the girl teachers made improper advances. There is a strong condemnation of taxi-drivers who prowl the streets looking for drunken Lotharios and convey them to night haunts. All in all, New York is worse than ever, according to the report, which winds up with a sop to the police in the form of a tribute to Police Commissioner Joseph A. Warren for "doing his best." It was anticipated that the report would cause a stin It did. And into the breach in defence of their clubs and their giris stepped Texas Guinan, Mollie Doherty, and Helen Morgan, three of the principal night club proprietors. Tex is always in the limelight. She is an institution and proud of it. Not only did she say what she thought of the Committee of Fourteen, but she went to see Mr. Worthington—and found him out. Invitation to Night Club. "I shall pay no attention to the report," said Tex. "What does this guy mean by calling my instructresses 'Geisha Girls?' Every one is a good girl, and they all have mothers who chaperon them behind the scenes. I'll give him 'palaces of passion' and 'inns of iniquity.' "Worthington can come over to, one of my clubs and use his wet blanket for a cover," said Tex generously. "I guarantee every customer will go out with his. wife ■and his watch. Why, whadda I look like, Terrible Texas, the Flaming Mamie of the Foolish Forties?" • And then Tex, who prides herself on the number of mothers her girls can show, had a calmer moment. "I suppose," she said, "there are some bad places, and Worthington should be commended for driving them out. But they aren't night clubs, and he is libelling a great profession." Night, club girls interviewed all insisted that the nearest they ever came to being geisha girls is when they eat supper in a Chinese cafe. "We're too busy," Renie Valerie, one of the best known night club singers, said. "Some of the smaller speakeasies may be conducted improperly, but not the larger ones." A fling at college girls was taken by Dot Justin, brunette charmer of the Salon Roy ale, who said: "I don't know anything about the charges except that all my girl friends in the.Royale are perfect ladies and a whole lot better than some I know in colleges." The Hanley sisters, well known in Europe and America, joined the chorus. "We think those charges are so much bunkum," they said. "If anyone thinks that the Lincoln car we drive isn't bought by us by the labour of our feet they are crazy." Mr. Barney Gallant, proprietor of a famous club, was scornful in* his attitude toward Worthington. "One doesn't indict the entire medical profession because of a handful of quacks," he declared. "Because there are a few 'dens of iniquity' in New York, all the night clubs are not necessarily gilded palaces of sin. "As regards prostitution, New York is the cleanest big city ih the world. And I know, for I have lived in every capital in Europe. New Yor,k is not so bad as London or Paris." Sex Appeal a Crime? Another night club hostess read Worthington's disapproval of her profession avidly up to page 22, where she stopped at "Her sex appeal largely accounts for her success." "Well, for the love of Mike," said she, "does he want us to go around in sackcloth and ashes, or something V Of course I've got sex appeal. So has John Gilbert. Maybe Worthington has, too. Are they going to" make that a crime now ?" To these emphatic denials of straying from the straight and narrow path,* the Committee of Fourteen issued a stern reply, reiterating their charges and alleging that the night-club "queens" had actually hired women to chaperon their girls and pasß as their mothers. Tex, to the fore again, grouped her girls and their mothers into one big photograph, with names underneath, and sent it without compliments to the committee. The latest phase is a general order to the police to clean up the capital. Several raids took place on a score or so of night clubs, and the girls and proprietors warned of their future conduct. Now, suddenly, has come the sin-chasers' big push. Eighteen clubs suffered their unwelcome attentions, and 108 people, including Texas Guinan, were placed under arrest. So far the changes have not been gone into.