Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, June 1922 · page 57 of 68
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This 1920s satire condemns New York's nightclub culture during Prohibition. The article attacks the "new aristocracy" of profiteers and bootleggers living lavishly while returning soldiers face joblessness and poverty. The specific critique targets all-night cabarets (2 AM–6 AM operations) where patrons pay exorbitant fees ($40–$150 per couple) for food and entertainment—including performances by dancer Gilda Grey, known for the "shimmy" dance. The Rendezvous cabaret's pre-dawn raid and Grey's arrest (later dismissed) exemplify the moral decay the author sees. The satire's bite: wealthy urbanites flout both financial responsibility and laws (Prohibition) while ordinary Americans suffer. The dismissive term "sticks" for rural readers emphasizes the East Coast elite's arrogance. The piece argues this decadent nightlife represents America's spiritual decline, invoking Babylon as a biblical metaphor for corrupt civilization heading toward ruin.
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Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 55 BUT let us turn from the maligned movies. Is blase New York headed for the down- fall of Babylon? While the country at large strains itself to meet its financial burdens and while hundreds of thousands of men—many of them returned soldiers—sit, jobless, in actual want, there seems to be no lack of money among a certain strata of New York city life. And these folk—profiteers, bootleggers and other members of the “new aristocracy”—are build- ing a new cult. In the old before-the-war days the cabaret was wont to go its hectic way sometime between the hours of 7:00 o’clock and 1:00 A. M. After these hours, the jaded had to seek distant motor road houses—and that was all. Now—harken, ye good people of the “sticks,” as Broadway disdainfully calls you—the real cabaret begins at 2:00 A. M. and runs to about 6:00 A. M. It isn’t possible to have a table at one of these places without eating and it isn’t possible to eat without achieving a check for $40 or more for two people. And the check may run up to $150. Two “revenooers” recently testified they spent an early morning at one of these restaurants. Their check was $100. Only the other day one of these places, the Rendezvous, was raided just before dawn and Gilda Grey, the well known exponent of the shimmie, and her three hula-hula girls were arrested or the charge of giving an indecent performance. They were discharged later for