Was Ahead of His Times

Man Who Introduced the Now Popular Tango Into New York Was Chased From City.

"It's great stuff to be a pioneer," says Sweeney. "The best you get is to be shot full of arrows."

Meaning that Sweeney brought the turkey trot to New York seven or eight years ago. At that time the town was hardly ripe for it. So that Sweeney's dance hall had about all the defenses of a battleship. One got in by presenting a card which certified that the bearer was a regular member of a club with a nice Indian name. Two or three times the police tried to raid it. Then there were battles all over the street, while the patrons were slipped to safety by subterranean routes. It was his boast then that he did not pay license to the city or graft to the police. The upper circles used to visit Sweeney's when out slumming. It was a poor night when one failed to bounce a bottle off some other one's resilient bean. Sweeney himself had a pretty trick of knife throwing.

"They closed me like a book," said Sweeney. "Said that the dancing in my place was a little too gritty. Moralists said that the contiguous wiggle as practiced at Sweeney's would jar the susceptibilities of a Pluto. But I give you my word that if anyone had pulled any of the physical fox passes in my place that you can see in the middle aisle of any restaurant nowadays you could a heard me holler on Ellis island."

Comment: The name is Walter Sweeney, name of the place Walter Sweeney's. "You could a heard me holler" is in the original article.

--The Grand Rapids Tribune, Grand Rapids, Wisconsin, March 4, 1914, p. 12.