The Wilmington morning star., 1947-01-30
As Pegler Sees 1t
nv wEsTBROOK PEGLER
Nv ning Features syndicate, Inc.

il his later years. at the Stork and in Holly
wood.
Mr.. Cook is a fellow with . great inquisi-
tiveneSs about our country. He has travelled
the United States more than most Americans
have and he has a good ear for our speech.
1t will not misrepresent him to say that he re-
CARDS Runyonese not as any typical American
jargon but as something that one man made
up and the English people in England, vino
are tncul ably naive about us, COOLED il a De-
lief that this was the real thing.
agree with MT COOK. l used to know many
OF the individuals that Rullyon wrote mo MS
stories, and although some OF them did speak
a slang OF their own and toss Off amusing
figures OF speech, they couldn't keep it up as
Damon S people did Moreover, that ornateneSS
that he impai ted to their conversation, as
Wnen the feLow says, and this is regarded
as very replChCn --ule, Ili4-~u u eucn con-
duct is heartily Geplored by one and al' -
things like that was pleasantly sardonic and
gave the reader to feel that he recognized the
quaint character who was speaking, but actual
ly it was hopeleSsly stilted as they discovered
when they put this language onto the sound
tracks of the movies.
Although Damon mad been a bad drinker in
his youth, he was a teetotaler as long as !
knew him, an acquaintanceship Of a little over
80 years because, as he once remarked,
there are ten guys in this world who can t
handle liquor and l am nine of them" There
fore, for sitting-a al ound purposes, he drank cof-
fee and he was always at the Office. as YOU
CO, Id say, because his ear was always record
ing and his mind improving and polishing the
remarks and the cynicism Of his
acquaintance.
Other writer's, drinking a little or too much,
would relax and enjoy themselves, always with
the thought that they would mentally jt the
cliches and anecdotes of the evening, whether
it was l., a d~rawing-room, going someWhere
L"4 Ia
you know how it is about that. Your mind re
jects work and the next day you have forgot
ten.
Damon had an honest preference for under
world personalities and he disliked "respecta-
, bility," holding that high-suburban gentlemen
were no more honest or ethical than his own
frankly low rapscallion friends. We were dis
cussing a mutual friend and colleague one
day who had ben caught in the collapse OF
1929 and Damon SAID that he ran with a lot OF
phonies who gave him bum tips on the market
whereas his own associates were always profit.
able because he was always writing them into
fiction and movies at high prices.
Only a few of Damon's set really spoke
slang flrently and beautifully, and much OF
their language required cleaning up before it
could be offered for sale. One was E.. Phociaa
Howard, an original man who ran a little
weekly called the New York Press, a racing
and theatrical paper and a sort OF trade jour
nal of the gambling industry. Phoclan called
it the fireside companion. l think it was Pho
clan who first said AL horse-players must die
broke and l know that Damon sat {. his
knees, as many OF us did. to learn the psy-
choloey of those who sincerely believed that
suckers were born to be taken and that GER
tain others were appointed by nature to take
them.
Spike O'Donnell an old Chicago hoodlum,
also spoke the language without affectatlol.
l4 ,1L~l,, z--Il 49,. L4n, ,,l,,o 1n rifir ~
and how much he picked up from others.
Spike called a sawed-off shotgun a blast furn-
ace and he never could be guilty of any sucn
clumsiness as "scram'' or "am-scray" which
writer's who tried to interpret the underworld
by hearsay often used with such bold but syn
thetic authority in those days, Spike would
say, ''be away or ''be missing"
Not only the English Runyon public, but
the Americans, too, are completely mistaken
il their belief that Damon interpreted New
York, few New Workers could know less of
New York than he did. His New York con-
sisted mostly of a small and changing set
Of individuals, most of them cheap, chisel-
ing, double-crossers who might talk of loyalty
but generally knew better than to trust me
another, who infested a few places and follow
ed the seasons to the Miamis and Saratoga.
His friends included some intellig lent lawyers,
song-WrIterS and what = not who liked and
were of Broadway but did not walk and speak
through the pages of his stories. because there
was nothing spectacular about them. His fic.
ton characters were, on the whole. a vicious
lot, and more so IN real life. and certainly
that is not the New York character or even
the Broadway character, which is by no means
typical of New York.
The population of the five borouehS is just
a little under eight million and there are
about three million more in the Metropolitan
area. The capacity of all the famous night
A1,L~ >rI a.. cka~1y . 4 4- C~~A
cabana. Ell Morocco. Versailles. Shor's, the
Starlight and Wedgwood Rooms. Leon and Ed
dies and Roses Place. is required by law TO
be stated in red numerals 81 white cards and
rather unsightly they are. too. amid the decor
and the total is only a Few thousand. These
clubs wouldn't hold half the population of
Montclair. N. j., at one sitting and on an av-
erage night probably less than hall. but more
than a quarter of them, are visitors from out
of town. The population of Broadway would
be negligible If we considered only those who
live in that section OF Broadway which is
known as "~Broadway'' to the world. Hardly
anyone resides in that sector but a few thou
sand live in the little hotels and the rooming
houses, most of them mean, in the side streets
of the area. Most of these people have come
in from elsewhere and many Of them are poor,
worried, friendless strangers to most OF the
others.
Damon knew nothing Of family lie in areas
of New York where most of New York lives
neither in luxury nor in squalor, neither by
crime nor on large incomes, but from week to
week by working at jobs. OF these millions
not more than one in a thousand has ever
seen the inside of those expensive places which
in the imagination Of millions here and abroad
have been established as p sort Of collective
town pump of New York
Editorial Comment