Cabaret Girls Tell of Songs and Dances: Sensual, Improper

Chicago, 1913

CABARET GIRLS TELL OF SONGS AND DANCES

They Admit That Songs Are Improper and That Dances Are Sensual

Chicago, April 12. — Agents of the Illinois vice commission late last night and early today brought consternation to the fashionable guests of the two down-town restaurants — Rector's and the States — against whose reputations there rested, no question except the nature of their cabaret entertainments.

While the cabaret was in full blast investigators entered the down-town restaurants and a wine room in the tenderloin at midnight and brought performers, managers and guests to a hotel for interrogation. The inquiry lasted until 2 o'clock this morning.

From some of them the senators drew reluctant admissions that a few of the songs and dances "might be" suggestive and "perhaps had been a bad effect on the diners."

"In My Harem."

A girl singer, crying as she testified asserted she never would sing "In My Harem," a song Lieutenant Governor O'Hara was particularly inquisitive about.

The manager of a well known restaurant said the restaurant business had degenerated into a vaudeville show, and he did not know when it would stop. After investigators and members of a "slumming" party said they had heard an improper song in a place in Twenty-first street, the commission voted to recommend to Mayor Harrison that the cafe's license he revoked. The commission will call the attention of the state's attorney to the testimony of the manager, who said nothing indecent went on.

Senator Beall said he saw girls not more than 15 or 16 years imbibing mixed drinks in the cafe, and some at them were more or less intoxicated.

Mrs. Maud Joseph told of the singing and dances at a downtown restaurant. She said in one dance the performer "might just as well have had no skirts at all."

She stated that a girl did an Oriental dance, wearing pink tights and a "sort of a skirt of black chiffon." She thought the dance was suggestive. She said a couple did a fancy dance, a combination between the "Tango" and the "Apache."

"Was it art or suggestion?" asked the lieutenant-governor.

"There was no art in it."

Free For All Dance.

The performers led a free for all dance on a space made by clearing away tables.

The professional who led the dance said they had tried to eliminate anything which might appear sensual in their act, but admitted they might not have been entirely successful.

"Don't you think that where you see art others might see vice?" asked Mr. O'Hara. "I guess it appeals differently, but I do not see anything obscene about it," was a reply.

O. B. Stimpson, manager of another down-town restaurant, asserted the business had drifted into a show, but he was compelled to put up a first class cabaret to get the trade. He was of opinion that some popular songs have gone too far. He said guests did the "bear" dance in the aisles, between the tables, but that they never got "raw." An entertainer in this restaurant said there was nothing out of the way in the song "All Night Long." "It's all in the way you sing it," she stated. "Some people are so weak minded that they will take up anything."

Time to Revoke.

When the vice commissioners reassembled they received a telephone message from Mayor Harrison saying, "This looks like a good day to revoke some licenses."

The mayor referred to unsavory restaurants which survived when the old segregated district on the south side was closed several months ago. He said he had made up his mind to close two places as a result of testimony at the night session of the commission and would investigate others.

Frank Benent, manager of "Dream Land," where the dancers number from 500 to 1,000 a night, testified that no liquor was sold there, and that "dummy" dancers hired by the management mingled with the crowds to prevent suggestive dancing.

"We couldn't make money if we sold liquor or permitted lewd action," said the witness. "If the dance halls of Chicago want to make money they should work in harmony with this commission." Girls at previous sessions have testified that it was at "Dream Land" they made acquaintances who led them on their first steps downward.

—The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, April 13, 1913, page 1B.