NEW YORK VENOM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 221, 19 September 1938, Page 4

NEW YORK VENOM.

LOSS OF BALANCE.

SECTIONAL HATRED OF ROOSEVELT. DEWEY THE RACKET BUSTER. (By CHARLES ESTCOURT.) XEW YORK, August 20. Although New York City gave a large majority to President Roosevelt in 1030, it in possible to live a varied daily life here without ever meeting one of his supporters. If you work down town and play on the east side up town, and read a certain popular morning paper and a certain popular evening paper, the chances are it will never occur to you there is anybody at all who can like the President, his charming wife or even his energetic and charming sons. As a matter of fact, a woman executive of the Irving Trust Co. down tnv-n told me the other day that the news of the President's re-election was the most stunning surprise of her life, and that she never had been able to figure where all those votes came »from until the American Legion, of which she is an officer, came to town last fall for its convention. "The boys were from out of town," she explained, 1 "and they cleared up the mystery for me. They were as much for Roosevelt a* the people I meet here are against him." Isolation From Facta. This isolation from the facts of life among cosmopolitan people living in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world is so provincial as to be comical if it did not have its ugly side. The ugly side is violently ugly. While the violence may be heard if you have friends among the brokers in Wall Street, it can be seen, no matter who your friends ire, in the night club region where the brokers come to drink drinks. All the Roosevelt bors, with young John and Franklin D., junior, the most diligent at it, are frequent visitors to the hot spots. They are friendly men. unselfconscfous and very well behaved about having a good time. Yet, a while ago, a drunken broker decided in a lush saloon that a way to defend the Constitution and express his emotions toward the New Deal was to squirt soda-water on the President's son (John). At least, he said, while bein«* huetled towards the exit, that all he had W w? ». 4< \. do wm * B^uirt B °d«-water, although there was a suspicion that he was aiming the bottle instead of its contents. Nice, Jen't itf Waiter* Aa Bodyguards. Anyway, ever since, night club proprietor* take no chances, and, whenever a Roosevelt appears on the premises, a waiter is stationed nearby to ward off hot-headed visitors. The Rooaevelts refuse the attentions of the secret service and, it is felt, they would object to the presence of the waiter. That's why they are not told. The waiter just stands there in the background. Last night, the President's wife went to the theatre and, as she was being ushered to her seat in the fourth row, a middle-aged and well dressed girl rose and announced to the usher in a voice that carried righteous rage far and wide: "I will not sit next to that woman t" The usher struggled with apoplexy for a moment and eventually subdued it to inform the pleasant girl that, since the house was sold out, there was no way to change her seat.

"I'd. rather stand then," she announced and flounced determinedly up the aisle. Her companion did not follow her. Her companion, safely separated from Mrs. Roosevelt, by an empty seat, a kind of cordon sanitaire or barricade, remained comfortable, if embarrassed. But the girl stood grimly through three acts. Broadway Disturbed. Broadway itself, meaning those who make their living off it, feels rather disturbed about this unpleasantness. It still has the quaint notion that entertaining the family of the President of the United States is an honour. It is disturbed and a little puzzled. There is no record of New York society ever having made violent protest over sharing a night club or a theatre with the thugs, gangsters, jewel thieves, gigolos, blackmailers and dubious ladies who infest these places. George M. Cohan, the Yankee Doodle boy and typical of Broadway, recently made a political pronouncement that deserves framing as a democratic and American creed, the way such ia understood along the main street: "Any grousing I got to do," he said, "I do at the ballot box. Between elections, I keep my mouth shut.'! Backet Busting. District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey, the ex-baritone singer, has become the most ferociously hated public benefactor in recent history. Because, of course, of his racket-busting. The busted ones "no like." Broadway is clean now, meaning that—as any frank night-spot proprietor will tell yoti —for the first time since the early twenties, it is possible to-day to open a club without partners whose muscles bulge out el pistol holsters.

If you ask Dewey whether lie isn't afraid of bcinir waylaid in cluKc alleys by fellows who know how to play dirty, he'll tell you he hasn't cot time ti> go home, much less walk- up dark alleys. Nevertheless, his staff downtown have made a survey of the killings of public prosecutors in this country and found that only two of the victims were above keeping in with both sides, in other words, that only two were honest. Fit for a King. The dinner started with half a cantaloupe whoso centre had been filled with a fresh fruit salad. Alongside it stood a glass of Kinoiitillnilo sheny. Then came a consomme in which thin strands of vegetables swam, and alongside that stood a glass of white wine. Next, there was a platter of cold Delaware lake trout in jelly, and, this time, alongside the white wine stood a tomato hollowed out and stuffed with cucumbers. Then you got down to business with a breast of guinea -hen spattered with juniper berries ai*d flanked by asparagus and noisette potatoes and a glass of Chateau Pouet Canet (1!»2S. if you're fussy about details). You slacked off with a mixed green salad drenched in hot, melted cheese, and were revived by a pyramid of a cake whose sponge was made piquant by carved layers of blueberry and vanilla ice cream. Alongside of this, and looking surprisingly shy, was champagne. The final exhausted fillip was coffee and cognac. A dinner fit for a king? Well, Oscar of the Waldorf thought it up for Crown Princess Louise of Sweden and her son. Prince Bertill. Royalty looked at the menu and their eyes glistened with gratitude, not for what was there, but for what was left out. meaning smorgasbord. Everywhere the Prince has been in America thus far, smorgasbord has been served at every meal.