Up in the Old Hotel (Vintage Classics)

by Joseph Mitchell

  On Mr Colborne’s flat-topped desk were a coffee cup half filled with foreign stamps clipped from envelopes, a begonia plant and a geranium plant in little red pots, an alarm clock, and a great pile of correspondence, books, and religious magazines. There were also five neat stacks of exterminators. I found the scrapbook he had mentioned under some copies of a monthly magazine called the Holy Name Journal. Pasted in the scrapbook were scores of letters from publishers, politicians, actors, public officials, and moving-picture and radio-station executives, either replying to Mr Colborne’s complaints about ‘profanity conditions’ or thanking him for sending them exterminators. Most of the letters were evasive, but all were extremely respectful. One, from William Randolph Hearst’s secretary, said, ‘On behalf of Mr Hearst, I want to thank you for the little cards you sent to him. It was very kind of you. Mr Hearst is not in town, and therefore it is impossible to give them to him.’ I was about half through the book when Mr Colborne returned, still wearing his black apron. He sat down, clasped his hands over his paunch, and yawned.

  ‘I’m sort of sleepy,’ he said. ‘Sat up late last night studying over bar and grill profanity. Why, the women are worse than the men. And you can’t talk to them! Why, they’ll spit in your eye! I got a notion to revive the warnings I used to put up in saloons back before prohibition. In those days the liquor-dealing element cooperated with me. In 1916 I had posters tacked up in four thousand premises, bar and back room. I’ll show you one.’ He ransacked a desk drawer and brought out a cardboard poster which said, ‘IN THE INTEREST OF CLEAN SPEECH AND COMMON DECENCY, PLEASE REFRAIN FROM THE OBJECTIONABLE USE OF PROFANE AND OBSCENE LANGUAGE AND EXPECTORATING IN PUBLIC PLACES. WOULD YOU USE SUCH LANGUAGE IN YOUR OWN HOME? RESPECT YOUR FELLOW MAN. ANTIPROFANITY LEAGUE.’

  ‘Those warnings did a world of good,’ Mr Colborne said. ‘They just about put a stop to saloon profanity, and then along came prohibition and tore down all my work. Looking at it from an antiprofanity standpoint, prohibition was an awful nuisance. Nowadays saloons don’t even look like saloons, and I’m not sure they’ll let me hang posters in them. In the old days saloonkeepers were generous friends of the League. They used to call me the Professor. Practically every place I put up posters, the boss would insist on making a contribution. I held them in high esteem. So much so that when Mayor Jimmy Walker, a fine man, was organizing his great beer parade up Fifth Avenue in May, 1932, I went to my most active members and I said, “The liquor-dealing element was always nice to us, and now we should hit a lick for them. Let’s have a delegation from the League in the beer parade.” The idea caught on, and during the morning of the parade we rounded up five hundred head of people and a brass band. That afternoon we marched right behind the Tammany Hall delegation. We carried tin growlers and shouted, “We want beer!,” “Down with profanity,” “Beer for taxation,” “Boycott profanity!,” and the like of that, and had a most enjoyable time. We wound up in a saloon and drank more beer than John saw.’

  Mr Colborne was interrupted by the doorbell. He grunted and got up and opened the door. A thin, elderly woman came in. ‘I already passed out the exterminators you gave me last month,’ she said, with obvious pride. ‘You better let me have about two hundred this time.’ ‘Oh, my!’ said Mr Colborne. ‘That’s good work. Keep at it, and one of these days you’ll have the Bronx all cleaned up.’ He handed the woman a supply of cards held together with a rubber band and she dropped them in her handbag. ‘Mr Colborne,’ she said, ‘do you think there’s been an improvement over last year?’ Mr Colborne stood quite still for a few moments, deep in thought. ‘I’ve noticed a decline in street swearing,’ he said finally, ‘but there’s an awful lot of work still to be done.’ ‘You never spoke a truer word,’ the woman said. ‘You know, it’s disgusting to me the way the city’s tearing down the elevated lines. There was always less swearing on the “L” than on the dirty old subway. A lot less obscenity, too, if you ask me. It just means we’ll have to redouble our efforts.’ ‘That’s the spirit!’ Mr Colborne exclaimed. ‘We’ll have to keep plugging away. Isn’t that right?’ The woman smacked her palms together. ‘That’s right, Mr Colborne!’ she said emphatically. Then she left.

  ‘She’s a widow woman from the Bronx and one of our most active workers,’ Mr Colborne said. ‘Look here, my boy, would you be interested in hearing how I came to start this work?’

  I said that I would.

  ‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘the history of the League and the story of my life are all wrapped up together, so I’ll begin at the beginning, as the fellow said. I’m English-Irish by descent, born down on Avenue A and Fourteenth Street. I’m a Roman Catholic by religion, although some think I’m hooked up with the Salvation Army. Not that the Army isn’t a fine thing. Some of those Salvation fellers are wonderful for passing out exterminators. By trade, I’m a picture-restorer, frame-maker, and gilder, the third generation in that line. I own a set of gilder’s tools and a toolbox that was used by my grandfather and my father. I’m also a painter – not house but oil. I painted most of the pictures you see on the walls of this room. I went to work in the picture line when I was fresh out of knee britches and became a fine craftsman. Look at my hands, the hands of a man that knows his trade. In 1890, I took my savings and went over to Brooklyn and opened me up a store of my own, the Paris Art Gallery, occupying an entire four-floor building at Broadway and Gates Avenue. Pictures, frames, gilding, and bric-a-brac. Did a big business.

  ‘The Paris was the number-one thing in my life until on or about the middle of October, 1901, when I heard a sermon concerning the profanity evil that shook me up to such an extent I determined to go out in the highways and byways and do something about it. And I did, let me tell you! At first I would just step up to profane persons and reason with them, telling them that swearing was vile and vicious, out of place, uncalled for, and a snare and a delusion, signifying nothing. I would say, “Your dear old mother never taught you to talk like that. Think it over!” Or I’d say, “If you haven’t got self-respect, please have some respect for the general public. Think it over!” Or I’d say, “Now, aren’t you ashamed of yourself, a grown man a-carrying on like that? Think it over!” But in those days I was a little bashful about talking to strangers, and one day the idea came to me: Why not let the printed word do the job? So I had a few thousand cards printed up requesting people to control their tongues. To make it look official, I had the printer put Anti-Profanity League down at the bottom.

  ‘Then, when I had any spare time, I’d stuff my pockets full of cards and go out in search of profanity conditions. Like I would attend meetings in the union halls of the teamsters. They used to be bad for swearing, but not as bad as the truck-drivers of today. A teamster would just swear at his poor old nag, but a truck-driver will swear at anything, man or beast, quick or dead, going or coming. And when I saw a building in construction, I’d drop around at noon and ask the foreman for permission to address the bricklayers and hod-carriers. They would be squatting around eating their dinner out of buckets and I would give them a little oration. Some would laugh, but some would take heed. My, the fun we had! And I’d go to baseball parks and pass cards out right and left. Baseball is an incubator of profanity. And I’d go to prisons, to the Navy Yard district, to pool parlors, to saloons where longshoremen and the rowdy element hung out. Everywhere I went, subway, elevated, or streetcar, I passed out cards. Nobody rebuked me. In fact, in forty years of cleaning up profanity nobody has ever got their back up with me. Instead, they apologize. That’s how I enrolled my first members. A man would say, “You’re dead right, Mister. What a fool a man is to swear!” Then I’d catch him up. I’d look him right in the eye and say, “If you feel that way, my boy, take a few hundred cards and pass them out yourself.” Presently I had around three hundred and fifty card-passing members in the city. For some reason the city membership stays around that figure. Old ones drop out, new ones come in. Internationally, I just don’t know how many members we have. It must run into
thousands. I don’t burden myself down with a lot of records.’

  I lit a cigarette, and Mr Colborne sniffed the smoke wistfully.

  ‘Used to be a great cigar-smoker, but the doctors made me cut it out,’ he said. ‘Nothing like a good cigar! Well, as I told you, my store in Brooklyn did a big business, but in 1905, after I had operated it for fifteen years, I lost interest. It was taking up too much of my time. I had saved up some money and I had no dependents. All my family is dead. Far’s I know, I’m the last of the Colbornes. So I closed the store and retired from business. Friends tried to stop me, but I told them I didn’t want to do anything but fight profanity. I became a world traveller. In fact, between 1905 and 1936, I crossed the ocean twenty-five times. Went to all the important cities of Europe, passing out exterminators and talking. On shipboard you can really talk to people. They can’t get away. I had exterminators printed up in French, Italian, Spanish, and Hebrew. Here and there I’d meet a go-getter, and I’d prevail on him to establish a branch of the League in his home country. At present there’s branches in Italy, Cuba, Australia, and Kingston, Jamaica. I always had great success in Rome. Pope Pius X and Pope Pius XI both wrote me letters, blessing my work. I wouldn’t take a mint of money for those letters. I bought me an iron safe in a second-hand store just to keep them locked up in. In Rome, in 1926, I sent a note to King Victor Emmanuel on a League letterhead. I told him I represented a multitude of right-thinking Americans, and we had a chat that lasted all morning. I got him so stirred up he talked the matter over with old Mussolini, and next year the two of them passed drastic laws against profanity. They posted warnings everywhere, even in streetcars, and arrested hundreds. I figure I’m personally responsible for ridding Italy of the profanity evil.’

  ‘Did the money you saved between 1890 and 1905 keep you going all these years?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, that money ran out a generation ago,’ Mr Colborne said. ‘I live very economic, and I return to my trade when I run low. I restore paintings in big churches, including St Patrick’s Cathedral. Off and on, I do special frame-making and gilding jobs. Sometimes I’ll keep a job for years. Between 1918 and 1926, I worked for the Hippodrome Theatre, repairing everything that got out of whack. Profanity conditions among those show people were past belief when I went to work for the Hippodrome, but I cleaned things up, let me tell you. When I was travelling all over the world, it didn’t cost me much. I used to make most of my expenses guiding Americans. I know the big cities of Europe as well as I know this basement. I’ve guided many a party to the miraculous grotto in Lourdes, to Rome, and to the Holy Land. Anyhow, it doesn’t take much to keep the League going. I can get a hundred thousand exterminators printed for fifty dollars. It’s the postage that amounts up. The mail I get! It’s a sight. I have to do a lot of pecking on my typewriter to answer all my mail.’

  Mr Colborne suddenly chuckled and slapped his knee.

  ‘I sure got upset here the other day,’ he said. ‘I had written a whole lot of letters and I went out to mail them. On the way I stopped at a grocery for a box of eggs, and I got to talking to the clerk about profanity. After a while I left the grocery, and I was crossing the street when I heard a cabdriver a-cussing at a truck-driver. I got out an exterminator and started over to the cabdriver, and just then the lights changed and he drove off, still a-cussing. He drove right past me and splashed some muddy water on my britches. It was very provoking! And when I got back to my door I found I had forgotten to mail my letters, and when I looked in my pocket for my keys I remembered I had left them on my desk. Well, I got so vexed I stomped my foot on the floor and the eggs fell down and broke all to pieces, and then I came right out and said it!’

  Mr Colborne slapped his knee again.

  ‘What did you say?’ I asked.

  ‘I said, “The dickens!”’

  We both laughed. While we were laughing, the alarm clock on the desk began to ring.

  ‘That’s to remind me to turn on the radio,’ Mr Colborne said. ‘There’s a program due I don’t want to miss. Hillbilly singing. Very wholesome.’

  I got up to go. Mr Colborne counted out twenty-five exterminators and insisted that I take them and pass them out.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s too many,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, you’ll use them up in no time,’ he said.

  At the door I asked him if he believed that there is less profanity now than in 1901, when he began his work.

  ‘Oh, my goodness, yes!’ he said. ‘Sooner or later we’ll have it all eradicated. There was a story in the Holy Name Journal that has some bearing on your question. It seems that two big turtles and one little turtle went into a saloon and ordered beers. It began to rain and one big turtle said to the other big turtle, “We should’ve brought our umbrellas. How about asking the little turtle to run home and get our umbrellas?” But the little turtle was listening and he said, “I’ll not go get your umbrellas, because when I’m gone you’ll drink my beer.” The big turtles promised they wouldn’t, so the little turtle started out. Two months later one of the big turtles said to the other, “If that little turtle doesn’t come back soon, I’m going to drink his beer.” And just then, at the end of the bar, a tiny voice said, “If you do, I won’t go get your umbrellas.”’

  I laughed, but there must have been a puzzled expression on my face, because Mr Colborne said, ‘You don’t get the connection between those turtles and the total eradication of cussing, do you?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ I said.

  ‘Slow but sure!’ Mr Colborne said, laughing heartily and giving me a poke in the ribs with an index finger. ‘Slow but sure!’

  (1941)

  Obituary of a Gin Mill

  IT MAKES ME lonesome to walk past the old yellow-brick building, just south of Washington Market, once occupied by Dick’s Bar and Grill. The windows are so dusty and rain-streaked and plastered with ‘For Rent’ stickers that you can’t see inside, and there is a padlock growing rusty on the door. Dick’s prospered as a speakeasy throughout prohibition; after repeal, as a licensed establishment, it was just about as lawless as ever. A year or so ago, however, when Dick moved up the street, things changed. In his new place he commenced obeying the New York State Liquor Authority’s regulations: he refused to let his customers shake Indian dice on the bar for rounds of drinks; he refused to put drinks on the tab; he refused to sell liquor by the bottle late at night after the liquor stores had closed. In the old days Dick was an independent man. He was delighted when he got an opportunity to tell a customer to go to hell. He and his bartenders, in fact, usually acted as if they loathed their customers and the customers liked this because it made them feel at home; most of them were men who were made ill at ease by solicitude or service. When Dick started abiding by the liquor laws, however, a hunted look appeared on his fat, sad-eyed, Neapolitan face. He began to cringe and bow and shake hands with the customers, and he would even help them on with their coats. When they finished eating, he would go over, smile with effort, and ask, ‘Was the pot roast O.K.?’ In the old days he never acted that way. If someone complained about a gristly steak or a baked potato raw in the middle, he would grunt and say, ‘If you don’t like my grub, you don’t have to eat in here. I’d just as soon I never saw you again.’

  The change in Dick reflects the innovations in his new saloon, which is six blocks away from the old one – a big, classy place with a chromium and glass-brick front, a neon sign in four colors, a mahogany bar, a row of chromium bar stools with red-leather seats like those in the uptown cocktail lounges, a kitchen full of gleaming copper pots, a moody chef who once worked in Moneta’s, a printed menu with French all over it, and seven new brands of Scotch. He told the bartenders they would have to shave every morning and made them put on starched white coats. For several days thereafter they looked clean and aloof, like people when they first get out of the hospital. The place was so stylish that Dick did not, for good luck, frame the first dollar bill passed across the bar; he framed the f
irst five-dollar bill.

  Dick’s regular customers had always been clannish – hanging together two and three deep at the end of the bar near the greasy swinging door to the kitchen – and some of them began to congregate at the fancy bar in Dick’s new place. Here they resented everything. They snickered at the French on the menu, they sneered at the bartenders in their starched white coats. One of them waved a menu in Dick’s face. ‘What the hell does this mean,’ he demanded, ‘this here “Country Sausage Gastronome”?’ The question made Dick uncomfortable. ‘It means meat sauce,’ he said.

  Before the night of the grand opening was half over, one of the customers, an amateur evangelist who used to deliver burlesque sermons regularly in the old place, climbed up on the shiny new bar and began to preach. He had given out his text for the evening and was shouting ‘Brothers and sisters! You full of sin! You full of gin! You and the Devil are real close kin! Are you ready for the Judgment Day? Where will you spend eternity? Ain’t it awful?’ when Dick came out of the kitchen and caught sight of him. ‘Oh, my God! Dick screamed. ‘Do you want to ruin me? I can’t have such monkey business in here. I got a big investment in here.’ There was so much genuine agony in his voice that the amateur evangelist jumped down from his pulpit and apologized. Thereupon the old customers felt sorry for Dick. Sitting behind his bar on a busy night in the old joint, Dick used to have the aplomb of a sow on her belly in a bog, but in the new place he soon became apprehensive and haggard. One night the kitchen door swung open and the old customers saw Dick bent over a big ledger, struggling with his cost accounting. From the look on his face they knew he was quite sick of the chromium stools and the French menu. ‘He don’t like this joint, either,’ one of them said. From then on they would tone down anyone who started to holler and throw glasses when Dick insisted on obeying the letter and the spirit of one of the alcohol laws. ‘After all,’ they would say, ‘he’s got a big investment in here. He don’t want to lose his license.’ However, no matter how big the investment, I never felt the same about the new Dick’s.