The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-01-02
Bv WEsTBsOoK PEGLER

NEW YORK.-Paul " McNutt's entreaty
to the war-plant workers to go to sleep early
and sober on Friday night and celebrate new
Years eve "a hours later II at all seems TO
have the authentic ring OF experience; but
if he speaks only from hearsay and not as
one who has suffered, he must nave someone
in his office who has. Simple hangover is
a terrible maady, but second one piled
right on top of the first is net just two hang
overs. That is millions of hangovers and
Mr.. McNutt must have been thinking OF his
production for Saturday, Sunday and Monday
with recovery just beginning to set in on
Tuesday.
Mr. McNutt did not go far as to suggest
that anyone planning to get plastered by way
of greeting the glad new year should do SO
Saturday night instead OF Friday night and
thus save Saturdays schedule, at least. He
said nothing about anybody's getting drunk
at any time but, knowing ne is man of the
world and knowing some thing of the habits
of my fellow citizens, I interpret this to mean
that he naturally expects that many of his
subjects will go, to Bangor, so to speak, ac-
cording to regular custom, on Saturday night,
and sleep it off Sunday, as usual
At this point, it occurs to me that the Gus
tom of getting drunk deliberately on New
Years Eve is of comparatively recent origin
here. 1 believe it came into its great popu-
larity with the introduction of the back room
and the entertainers, around 1910. These
places were called cabarets and they soon
put out of business the old and sedate
back room at the DutcEman'S CT the Irish
mans where papa took mama for few quiet
beers of an evening and d sandwich of linn
burger or corned beef. True. even in those
days, the dumps had back rooms and singing
walters and were frequented by females, but
that is another story. They were another kind
of female
With the arrival of the cabaret, drinking
became more and more coeducational and rea-
sonably respectable citizens especially young
squirts, started going out the town. And
the custom developed of selling reserved tables
for New Years Eve and furnishing horns and
streamers and silly caps The fact that the
world of entertainment was moving from the
theaters into the cabarets, later to be known
as night clubs, had something to do with this.
The theater people were playing hard-to-get
with their tickets and yelling mo- at CUSTOM
ers who came to the box office instead of
going direct to the scalpers, and the saloon
keepers found that by shaping on cover
charge and tipping the tabs, they could afford
to hire very expensive talent to moo or yow
! about love, or dance, or tell cCmical stories
that nobody heard above the clatter. 1t came
to be So during prohibition. that even the
frowsiest little joints held New Years Eve
galas, and charged as much as So per head
charged $25 or more. The custom became,
in fact, an awful ordeal with people, especially
the females, passing out cold and guys on
the streets showing feather tickIers under the
chins of other guys girls and getting socked
and seeking back, and hoodlun!s stampeding
through the crowds and the mounties riding
their steeds onto the sidewalks, yelling break
! it up, break it up"
During prohibition, New Years Eve wasn't
enough and we had similar localized braWs
| in our cities large and small, after the big
football games and the Kentucky Derby; and
in connection with certain World Series peo-
pie would get blind On bathtub and corn and
90 roaring over the roads from New Haven,
| Princeton and Ann Arbor and the death rate
from football, which did kill Z few, was neg
| ligible by comparison with the slaughter on
the way home. In California, after one big
game they were taking furniture apart by
hand in big hotel and heaving it out the
windows.
Well it is still free country and it is ou1
way. And while it may strike some as un
seemly with so many young men off fighting
on New Years Eve and some actually dying
undoubtedly there will &c many men in uni
form raising their share of the hell Probably
some of the boys who are away would bf
in there pitching themselves if they were home
and had the money.
-V---