The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1919-07-23

Chicago, July 23.--Chicago's Bohemian
quarter is small but intense.
Unlike Greenwich village in New
York.. 1t has not yet been made self.
conscious by literary exploitation OF
turned into circus for the amusement
of the ''gilded Philistine."
! The heart and center of this corn
belt Bohemia is the famous Dill Pickles
club in Tooker place. Tooker place Is
paved alley, which Is entered at one
end by crack about fourteen inches
| wide between two high buildings. The
bricks on either side of this narrow
| way have taken on a high polish from
nightly contact with the embonpoint OF
the supercultured.
Dill Pickle Club.
The Dill Pickles club, though II Is al
ways getting its name into the papers,
remains mystery: Its founder and
quilting spirit, who has the appearance
of a poet and the names of Jones, says
he doesn't know what 1t Is, and chal-
lenges the inquirer to tell him. It's phys
one above the other The lower floor
is furnished with kitchen chairs and
tables, painted bright blue, with a yell
low border. The walls are covered with
paintings, sketches, cartoons and news
paper clippings. There is a piano at
one end and a cookstove at the other.
The second floor is an auditorium with
chairs and a raised platform. The club
has two meetings a week which any,
one may attend, and anyone also may
may throw quarter into a cigar box.
These quarters go to the upkeep of
the club, and presumably to that of
Jones.
One Of the weekly meetings of the
D. p. Is literary. At these sessions you
may hear poets read their own verses
or somebody else's. The other meeting
which takes place on Sunday and is
he OF hn
scribed as woozey. Indian Swamis, pro-
fessors of psychoanalysis, and all sorts
of seers of the esoteric, the exotic and
especially the erotic, hold forth in the
Dill Pickles club on the Sabbath.
This unique organization seems to be
all things to all people. The police
watch 1t as hangout of radicals, but
it Is not of record that they have ever
raided the place or caught anything
dangerous there. Perhaps, like other
people, they have got the Dill Pickles
habit Commissioners, of art and letters
go there to meet celebrities and hunt
for new talents. The righteous and
the respectable regard 1t is a den of
strange vices and resort to 1t surrepti-
tiously in search of thrills.
Mixed Clientele.
1t surely has a mixed clientele. You
can find anything there, politically, from
a protesting anarchist, who never tried
to explode anything more dangerous
than a theory, to a shocked and horri-
fled conservative. Here are all types
intellectually from an unmitigated
bonehead to an acknowledged genius,
and everything in the social (this is,
the Financially sale, from fashionable la
dies who come in taxicabs to factory
girls and futurist poets,
Among those present Mt one gathering
were a novelist who has recently
achieved a national reputation. a poet
of equal fame. a little working girl with
a hard palm and a soft voice selling
pamphlet about the Mooney case. and
a gifted musician who is a renegade
from the Russian symphony orchestra.
A large part Of every gathering seems
to be made UP of joyously irresponsi-
BILE youths not far past 20, with their
full of Righteousness and profoundly.
frolicking in this place of intellectual
license like spring lambs in a pasture.
The atmosphere of the Dill Pickles
club Is delightfully."- tolerant and demo-
cratic. No matter who you are. you
can walk in and stay as long as you
please. You can take your hat off or
keep II on, just as you please. You
can sit on a chair or on a table or. on
the floor. which ever you prefer. If you
leave your coat and necktie at home.
you will not be conspicuous for that
reason. No one will make you uncom-
Portable by staring at you. On the
other hand, you can address anyone
present without being introduced on
any subject and be sure of getting a
reply If not an argument. Poets and
poetesses will read you their works,
artists will take you to their studios
and show you their pictures. Almost
anyone will expound you his soul.