The Charlotte Observer from Charlotte, North Carolina • 21

I SECTION THREE THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER The Foremost Newspaper in the Two Carolina s- 'AUGUST 10 1930 PAGE FIVE Forum For The Exchange Of Midnight Erudition SUGGESTS THAT ROCKEFELLER BE ANGEL TO ANOTHER JACK'S AND BRING BILL MI2NER BACK Cleveland Would Blow Summons on His Great Horn and Then Watch His Volunteers in the Valleys Below Mount for the Rendezvous Here Patriots Were Drilled by Col Ben Cleveland for Campaign Against Ferguson Which Culminated in Battle of Kings Mountain Recalls Some of the Colorful Personalities of the Past Along But the Intellectual Grandier of the Street Seems to be gone Some of the Great Still Survive In Other When Royalty Visited Broadway Between Midnight and Dawn helL Ward nr i Anyway Frank la "hark a ha left a little tnl 5' of oU-tlma New York reportenad- th Main Stem and tla country aeneraUy ham deteriorated with hi abence Mr who la aa aue writer no he need to be a a reporter hn been romparing the olden goldrn day with the preaent In a aerlea of Mz Itwei of which this is tho last) BY FRANK WARD (Copyright 1930 for The Obaerver) OMEBODY who knew the Broadway that I remember ought to tell young Junior Rockefeller that when he begins work on the big amusement center at Fifth avenue and the Fifties which Junior dm3 to give to Manhattan he should include in his educational scheme an all-night restaurant forum combining and retaining the oest features of the now defunct Jim Joel cloistered and the incomparable John comparatively smooth ad level land Within two or three hundred yards of the top on all sides of the mountain and about equidistant from each other are four bold springs of sparkling cold water around which attractive tourist camp-sites can be located The natural scenery and Hitting are unsurpassed It is easily accessible from every section of the country The Boone Trail highway Route No 60 running from Wilmington to the Tennessee line and far beyond skirts around the southern foot of the mountain Highway No 68 leading from North Wilkesboro to Jefferson skirts around the eastern and northern foot Highway No 67 with important connections Intersects the Boone Trail at Wilkesboro and furnishes an excellent route south to Charlotte as well as Intermediate points and points beyond From Wilkesboro this highway leads orthward to Sparta and points beyond BECOMES STATE PARK Mall from Greensboro and Winston-Salem passes by a bus line on tbe highways on both sides of this mountain by 3 In the morning Considering everything that should go to make a park both attractive and historic no place In northwestern North Carolina equals Rendezvous mountain This attractive mountain with its thododendron laurel azalea dog-' wood ehady primeval forests and eoo! springs Is to be converted not only Into a state park but a patriotic) shrine where th Daughters of American Revolution Intend to place on a suitable boulder or monument a bronze tablet with the names of lie three or four hundred who rendezvoused and trained there Cleveland at Kings Mountain HIGHEST POINT At that time there were 10 com-I anles under the command of Col-onai Ben Cleveland In Wilkes crunty He lived at Roundabout on the Yadkin river about 15 mlla east of Wilkesboro where the town of Ronda Is now located His brother Bob who was captain of one of tla companies lived in the valley ot Lewis Fork creek His two-story leg house still stands Bob Cleveland weighed 350 pounds Among his tableware is still preserved his Individual dish 20 Inches in length Lewis Fork valley and Reddles river valley near by were thickly settled at that time Rendezvous mountain Is the highest point of mountain range dividing these t-vo valleys and by reason of Its location was doubtless chosen by Colonel Cleveland as the most suitable point to assemble his troops because from this place ths largest rumber of troops could be reached BLASTS FROM HORN Judge Finley says that about 20 years ago Cyrus Watson a die t'ngulshed lawyer and statesman of Winston-Salem at one time a candl date for governor of our state gave him the first Inspiration to perpetuate the patriotic Importance of Rendezvous mountain Mr Watson slated that Colonel Ben Cleveland who at that time weighed 800 pounds and before his death weighed 460 pounds had the largest hern ever seen In use that he stood on top of Rendezvous mountain and turned his horn toward Reddies river valley on the north and gave three long blasts That from this point he could tee many of the patriots saddle their horses and start at a gallop in response to his summons that then he would turn his Immense horn to the southeast over the intervening plateau on to the Wlikesboros and Yadkin valley home of Col Benjamin fame in more recent years Rhonda three things: his military genius his many Judicial positions and stringent law enforcement He not only presided over the first court In Wilkes county but was also a dominant factor In the courtmartial proceedings that sentenced 33 Tories io death after the battle of Kings Mountain The still tands In the court house square at Wilkesboro on which Cleveland hung three Tories at one time and twe at another A BEAUTIFUL SPOT Rendezvous mountain Is a beau-tllui spot and a suitable place for commemorating patriotic achievement In fact It stands as a perpetual monument to the creative genius of the Great Architect of the universe and will ever stand as a consecrated monument to the heroic deeds of our ancestors Nature preaches a continuous sermon from the depths ot the sounding sea to the tops of its everlasting hills The mountains have ever been an Inspiration to the musician the poet the patriot and the preacher It was on Mount Sinai amid the thunder and clouds that the Ten Command ments were handed to Moses It was on Mount Ararat that the human race was saved from the flood The greatest sermon that ever fell from the lips of man was the Sermon on the Mount In 1314 freedom was won by Bruce largely with the Scotch Highlanders at the Battle of Bannockburn and the Battle of Kings Mountain turned ths tide of war for our revolutionary ancestora EASILY ACCESSIBLE Rendezvous mountain Is today a picturesque spot commanding I dear view of all that stretch of ter riiory lying between the Blue Ridgs and the Brushy mountains which comprises nearly all of Wilkes and most of Surry and Yadkin counties On the summit are several acres of vintage Lizzie bought by Bill an hour or bo earlier for thirty dollars and It swooped Inward and stopped at the theater entrance miles ahead of the tall end of the Field of the Cloth of Platinum Chauffeur Bill Mlzner stepped out and ceremoniously handed down to the curb a beauteous cutie A watchful traffic cop These troops were frequently assembled in a little wooded dell making a sylvan ampitheater near the crest of the mountain where councils of war were held and from this cradle of liberty bodies of troops were organized to suppress the Indians and to engage In many battles against the British and from this point 225 picked troops werq accepted without draft to accompany Colonel Cleveland and his captains to Kings Mountain and thera aid in winning a victory of national Importance In fact this battle won largely by the prowess of soldiers from the mountain sec-t'cn was the forerunner and principal cause of colonial Independence culminating at Yorktown Colonel Cleveland was noted for line stretching from the blaze of glory of the theater lobby almost back to the foothills of the Sierra Madre Reaching the carpeted entrance without nicking thousands of dollars worth of platinum off the hoods was a tedious and painful feat Up the car tracks In the middle of the street suddenly banged a JUDGE IT BY WHAT IT OFFER: in Beauty In Performance in Dependability SNDEZVOUS Mountain one of North Carolina's most historic spots being Intimately Identified with the War of the Revolution and the Battle of Kings Mountain was donated to ths state In 1926 by Judge Finley for re-forestatlon purposes and the park In trust for the Daughters of the American Revolution Under the supervision of the state the mountain will be maintained as a park In perpetuity The significance of the name Is apparent The Yadkin valley in Wilkies county is about 20 miles broad bounded by ths Blue Ridge on the north and lower range the Brushy mountains on the south On a spur of tbe Blue Ridge running southeast near Obids (Ashe county) towards Wilkesboro between the waters of Reddles river and Lewis Fork creek this mountain Is located and has been known ever since the Revolution as the Rendezvous mountain It Is In Wilkes county in nine miles of Wilkesboro ASSEMBLY GROUND It is on top of this round picturesque mountain overlooking the valley of Reddies rivjr and of Lewis Fork creek and the Yadkin river and the tablelands and distant mountains that Colonel Benjamin Cleveland assembled and trained the 226 patriots whom he afterwards led to a rendezvous at Quaker Meadows nsar Morganton and Joined Campbell and Williams from Virginia Sevier and Shelby from Tennessee with their forces and the McDowells and others from North Carolina and later materially aided in winning the Battle of Kings Mountain that culminated In the Anal victory at Yorktown Colonel Joseph Winston after whom the city cf Winston was named came from Surry county wilh 125 men and Joined the Wilkes county forces and fought under three years earlier when he had rushed out from our peer and finnan haddie at to help cover the still warm body of Rosenthal dead on the sidewalk at the other end of the Forty-third street block with a Metropole tablecloth A great night that night following he Becker execution for For once 1 talked as much as I always wrant to talk Even If the eminent Harry Thaw had entered Harry was eeml-per-manently detained elsewhere In those days he would have passed unnoticed It was distinctly Frank night in A BASHFUL YOUNG MAX All us crooks and highbinders crowded many deep around the table of our hero and raconteur forgetting our tripple but drinking in every mldnlght-to-dayllght word ot the Jackster to witness the execution of the mighty Becker My display of the beautifully engraved card of in vltation which a socially punctilious state always issues for these death-house functions aroused impressive awe and Interest One thin pale-faced quiet young man somewhat bashfully Interrupted I recall to ask me whether or not 1 would sell him the Invitation and he drew forth two fifty-dollar bills O'Malley that prince of good fellows freely and promptly gave the engraved card to the young man a gift received with awe grme latitude He wh a young fellow just trying to get along and mind his own business named Arnold Rothsteln European royalty visited Tack's at fairly frequent Intervals but we didn't encourage them The closest I came to any of them was one morning about three o'clock when someone eased Into the white room of Jack's escorting a freshly-scarred lady who was in troduced all around as the crown princess of Sweden Just to put her at her ease I remember extending my hand and remarking affably "Glad to meet you crown princess mitt the king of Greece" We would have our quips In Jack's HER STORY Her highness had a aad story Only an hour earlier she told us she had entered the Scandla restaurant under the Columbia burlesque theater and had thought to thrill her many loyal Scandinavian subjects there by announc Ing that she was thinking of marrying the crown prince ot Sweden most any day and soon would be their queen The Scandla was so thrilled that from every table the diners began to toss all tbe table flowers st her but forgot to detach the earthern flower pots before tossing the posies Her highness arrived among us at Jack's with shower bouquets of geraniums and spaghetti still twined round her ears Obviously some loyal subject also had tosed her way a boiled New England dinner But she had had a final moment of triumph bringing into Jack's what was left of a Scandla table leg with which she had braned someone named Ole Months later I learned that she did not marry the crown prince of Sweden and lived happily ever after But now look at Manhattan all the greatness gone! Even the bowery I find has degenerated these days to a mere busy busl ness street Who had taken the place of Big Tim Little Tim and Florrle Sullivan? Nobody Is Larry Mulligan still alive? couldn't him It was the Lar ry Mulligan Association which gave the annual Larry Mulligan ball at Terrace garden a function of city-wide Importance that never disappointed me round four a there was always a general fight at the downstairs bar on the order of the third day at Get tvshurg and always good for at least two columns in our now defunct old Morning Sun LAIUtY MtlXIGAN BALL In fact my own report of the annual Larry Mulligan hall scrap always appeared In earliest editions on the street two or three hours before the fight Itself began Larry Mulligan functions ran so true to form that I always turn'd In mv completed report of the ball before midnight thus leaving me free to go uptown to the ball and enjov It unhampered bv thoughts of work I had methodiz'd the annual news assignment even to the point of keeping at hnd a standard opening for the th" ran: xoada led to Terrace Formerly Roundabout Cleveland of Revolutionary the Hickerson vlantation at about nine miles distant and give three more blasts and then he wculd turn his horn to the southwest toward Happy Valley and the upper reaches of the Yadkin river and give three final blows from hla immense trumpet that echoed and re-echoed and reverberated until It finally broke on Blowing Rock about SO miles distant and In a shert time by tha relayed signals Ills 10 companies would assemble So truly It can be said that a blast iiom Benjamin Cleveland's horn was worth a thousand men as he stood upon his native heath WILKES RECORD Wilkes county furnished more soldiers In the Battle of Kings Mountain than any other county in the state Mlzner Is still available Is the only note of hope The latest and very recent news I heard of him is proof that he Is still far from brain-fagged Thers was an appallingly swagger first night run of a feature picture at Hollywood recently It seems with the movie limousines of pure platinum stretching back in a slow-moving The one decide motor car on a that's when truly For built to want and You can your own and driving Come in every line of finish to the taste of Drive in acceleration smoothness comfort control POPULAR FORTJM GONE As I found things during my brief rambles through ths new Broadway on recent nights I was truck by the total lack today ybf any popular forum for the exchange of midnight to morning I thought such as we long enjoyed rv Young Junior Rockefeller might even go eo far as to honor either himself or his Pa or both by retaining as the moniker of the all-night unit of his contemplated aesthetic center the historic name of Jack's Both even with the great name retained plus the backing of hundreds of millions the Rockefeller boys will have to go eome to recreate the atmosphere physical as well as and the traditions and above all the explosions of pure Intellect forum and the day-and-night grandeur that was Not once during my recent midnight excursions and explorations In the Time Square vicinity did I find the picturesque not even the picturesque among the picaresque sort of human headlights of imagination and dazzling 'Intellect which back In the older days were sclntillant on any midnight and still going strong enough to make a fool out of the sunlight Itself at dawn Many of them I suppose collapsed long ago from the strain of Jotting down new wheezes on the hard cuffs of their time all day and springing the wheees across the harder stuff all night gone at last to long-deferred nights of full rest beneath Long Island sod or as we euphemistically put it bye-bye Brooklyn GREAT STILL SURVIVE Some of the great atlll survive I learned if living in Hollywood Is looked upon by a Broadway Intellectual as surviving Indeed the dean and tophole wit of us all I learned further Is there The first time I run into either of the Rockefeller boys John I) or Junle I shall Insist that they go out and get him If the new Rockefeller amusement and aesthetic center In Manhattan Is to include a much needed revival of a Jack's all-night forum only our old dean philosopher and wit Wilson slang for Mlzner can put the Joint over Bill Mlzner they tell me Just now Is throning It every midnight In a restaurant called The Brown Derby out Hollywood way which Bill and a cronle Bert Samborn bought not long ago with the idea of doing for the west coast what I am urging Junle Rockefeller to do for Manhattan Obviously BUI still leans toward tbe restful cloistered life In his frantic and lifelong effort to escape the curse of work BUI Mlzner has been variously good playwright the worst actor a Tenderloin hotel proprietor for weeks outstanding newspaper front page husband a mining engineer raconteur show medicine man and tape-worm exterminator professional boulevardler Florida realty booster and California knocker California realty booster and Florida knocker successful short-Jfory writer lecturer perfectly rotten blackface comlo'on honk-atonk circuits of the northwest Fifth Avenue picture dealer and savant of aesthetics and for two years manager of the late Btan-ley Ketchel world champ box fighter fired from school In his scholarly youth BUI sought learning In 11 private schools one public school and one college from all of which he was fired Later in life however he more than balanced this record by never being thrown out of Jack's When I first knew Bill Mlzner he and a monied young man named Barnes had Just taken over a hotel off Broadway the Rand the Uke of which I could not find on Broadway during my recent Manhattan rambles Bill as usual put up the experience for the hotel venture Ills first Innovation as a hotel man I recall was to place Just Inside the entrance a sign which read: opium smoking in elevators or lobbies' It was a swell little hotel Finally the only guest wss the sheriff so BUI turned playwright With the late George Bronson Howard he wrote the first of the crook plays only As to the play's success I recall only the last line of the venerable Wll liam Winter's review of It the next morning a brief summation that ended: "It Is too bad that all cheese Tl UNED OUT A FARCE Then with Taul Armstrong Bill wrote It was produced in Pittsburgh aa a rlous poignant drama BUI hlmaelf tells me that before the end of the first act even usually dignified -white-haired wives of steel magnates wero rolling down the aisles hysterical with laughter So pill end Taul auddenly realizing that they unsuspectingly had produced a farce put It on in New York as such with success Followed royalties that meant midnight chlcken-a-la-king at Jack' where the Mlzner table was most exclusive Only One charged upon Bill not I are blocking BUI patiently explained to tha cop pressing a folded paper Into the Irate traffic hand your car not mine officer! There's the bill of sale In your hand Better get your car out the w-ay at once my garden last night where the Larry Mulligan association held its annual high carnival Champagne flowed like water Amid garlands of flowers and the sweet strains of the light fantastic leading Tammany statesmen the more prominent wine agents and song pluggers and the elite of the Bowery danced the hours away with their lovely ladles Injured: Eddie Thirl and fourth chins scarified by high-set diamond ring Treated by Doc Potter ot the Hippodrome Yet Clinic who In turn was treated by Mr Burke's betting partner wine agent Manny Chapelle everybody being then treated bv Mr Burke In a generous and final round Eastman Monk Compound fracture 1 of- brass knuckles Removed to police headquarters where Mr Eastman was Identified aa unknown Donovan Trailing Arbutus Biggie Other eye also closed Removed to Consldine's to to Jack's to etc etc etc" A standard list of the names of everybody who was anybody concluded the report each year everybody who was anybody on Broadway or ths Bowery always being there The body ot the report Included everthlng and anything in as much as everything any anything happened at a Larry Mulligan ball I trust I do not give John and Junior the Impression that the proposed all-night forum Is to be given over entirely to frivolities such as the lighter moments I have listed We had our serious moments also even many that were highly educational I remember for Instance that It was at one ot Jack's It was not I recall the oyster bar where I received from none other than George Cohen himself the most concrete and telling lecture on the art of playwriting that I have ever heard The lecure was both extremely brief and meaty The tired George came wearily Into the bar at the dinner hour careworn from a hard day of rehearsals He ordered his usual revlvlfier Iced buttermilk I took the same without buttermilk I had Just given more than an hour to not drinking buttermilk and when Georgle Cohan Joined me I felt refreshed to the point where could freely tell him the plot of a play I was about to still Intend to write when I can find time to get at It Orally I raised the curtain on my first art for George and began myself declaiming all the more striking lines I proposed to give to the 14 leading characters of my play Night fell By the time I had worked Into my third act I had to race through my lines Georgle staring steadily at the cash register and breaking his sllenca only to order still another glass of buttermilk for himself and another without buttermilk for me Soon I could see he would hurst with buttermilk A rOLITE LISTENER A polite and wonderful listener George always was Later he told me that he mentally wrote "Seven Keya to and four songs that evening In while listening to me But he speak once until I finally had ended my oral last art Then he picked up his buttermilk tabs and raid them pausing to deliver his telling dlotum on mv play he said thoughtfully and significantly rubbing his hand on the polished mahogany of the bar Is a great place to wrl'e tind faded Into the night I am keeping notes of this and Innumerable other educational data gathered during my extensive pragmatlo career lal of which Intend to give freely to John and Junior the first chance get to huttonhole them I think I shall he of help to them I fear that the Rorkefeller boys together with Henry Ford Edison and our other great men who give much time thought money and news paper Interviews for the puhtlc good never got around much nights At least I never met them In the right places Rut I am afraid also that mv new Rockefeller All-Night Jack's Foundation will have to give all 'ts attention at first to selecting and developing a wholly new per-sope! if Broadway celehrlt'es The 'IM mean and knw all sem to have gone The fact that our dean BUI Corse Payton world's best bad actor" of another day Eyed Connolly Arnold Rothsteln a few like were welcome at Bill's table We long quoted calm but telling rebuff to the soused butter-and-egg man from Schenectady who tried to sit with us: kid You have a breath that would start the windmill on an old Dutch He wag like that cerebrally snappy always and everywhere I remember him testifying as a character witness before the eminent Justice John Goff benign but most dignified and strictest enforcer of courtroom proprieties When the Justice asked Witness BUI whether or not he played faro Bill replied that he had played the game further explaining until quieted by the court that faro was a game which requires no human intelligence beyond the ability to sit up in a TECHNIQUE OF OPIUM Justice Goff switched his examination to the technic of opium smoking Bill never drank or smoked opium not even tobacco but as usual he was at ease when the white-haired Justice asked him to begin by describing the opium pipe Leaning forward gracefully in the witness chair his manicured hands extended to indicate the length of the pipe Mr Mlzner broke the churchllke silence of the intent courtroom "Your he began solemnly gazing down upon his extended palms "this greatest of gifts to mankind Is Order was finally restored sufficiently to adjourn court until the following Monday And what's happened to Corse Payton? Nightly he used to announce himself in Jack's as best bad actor" Corse couldn't have been within a mile or more of either side of Broadway when I fruitlessly sought him the other night or I would have heard him declaiming A FUNNY INCIDENT The time came when the dead line for Corse in was the wide doorway leading from the most northerly green room Into the other eating rooms of the noted Institution Corse was permitted to do his suff in the green room least popular of Jack's four dining rooms but Corse and Shakespeare must not step over the deadline He broke the rule only one night the1 I remember when he foolishly -'ed the Battling Nelson grill gan to let loose with 'uy Unfortunate Mi Payton paused to soliloquize Just beneath the highly-varnUhed remains of ths world's largest lobster weight 14 and 3-4 pounds which dangled on a atout cord from the celling Corse had scarcely begun to warm up as Hamlet when the Iloa-Matt Morgan climbed high on the slippery still-life display of fish crabs and cracked Ice beside Corse and cut the cord from which the relict of the lobster dangled The pounds lost his footing slid all the way down a weakflsh and landed on Corse Just below an Instant before tbe papa of all lobsters crashed down upon the Messrs Payton and Morgan The lobster was smashed and so to a large extent were Corse and Matt Morgan We were sorry about the lobster SOME GREAT NIGHTS Right here I could tell young Junior Rockefeller of countless great nights like this all of them full of helpful suggestions for the all-night forum which I hope to see him Include In his new Fifth Avenuo art center I had the honor personally to have an active part tn more than one more or less notable night In Jack's old forum ranging from the visits of Euro pean royalty to our little midnight circle up to the great night when I alone held the even Rill Mlzner might be listed merely as those present" that because early that day I had had a front seat In the Sing Sing death house when Becker was executed for the murder of Herman Rosenthal We night workers of hid thought dreamed and thought of little else but the Becker murder sine that post-mldnlght moment Then check dependability first by studying the staunch and sturdy construction of the car itself second by talking to owners who know by experience just what a car this is Finally when you feel that you really have all the facts compare the results with what you could buy anywhere else at the price That's the test of value And that too is one of the many points which urge a decision in favor of this fine car Oldsmobile is a ear when you sec it when you lrire it when you have one for your own Come in today examine Oldsmobile feature by feature and judge the car by the many fine things it offers you at moderate price sure way to the merit of a is to judge it point-for-point basis And Oldsmobile reveals its remarkable value Oldsmobile is designed and give you everything you in beauty in performance in dependability prove this statement to satisfaction by examining the car yourself and see its many smartly-styled Fisher bodies Note how and contour every detail and equipment lends itself beauty luxury and good appearance the ear Test its performance every way for speed power and full-range Find out how its balanced chassis design contributes to roadability and ease of under all driringconditions TWO-DOOR 9FDAN 895 Him Wirh fptrf tlrmnd bumpers Consider the Delivered Price CoMidtf the dalivmd price wU tbt liat price ben con poring tetenebile vtloee while delivered prices In clod only reeeoDtble charge lot Ihery and OLDSMOBILE O'T 0'Dll OF GEN OLDS MOTOR WORKS 500 Tryon Street CHARLOTTE NORTH CAROLINA 1 4 i rfTM a -a mir '--woe.