Brethren of the Ancient Order of Dill Pickles,
I greet you…
Now let us get right down to business,
as the speakers are all on time.
-Ben Reitman
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 8, 1919
Chicago, Illinois – An Evening at the Dill Pickle Club
From The Chicago Daily Tribune of January 6, 1919:
DILL PICKLERS LOVE LIGHT,
BUT O YOU SOUP!
—–
So Psycho-Analysis Is Made
Slave to Lunch Counter.
—–BY MAUDE MARTIN EVERS.
We of the Dill Pickle believe in everything. We are radicals, anarchists, pickpockets, second story men, and-thinkers. Anything to make the mind think! Some of us practice free love and some medicine. Most of us have gone through religion and tired of it-some of us have tired of our wives…
Up spake Ben Reitman, chairman, as he called to order the weekly meeting of the Dill Picklers at the Dill Pickle club rooms, 18 Tooker place.
Brethren of the Ancient Order of Dill Pickles, I greet you in behalf of the Truck Gardeners of America. Now let us get right down to business, as the speakers are all on time.
Speech Violin Solo.
The speakers were Dr. William J. Hickson, a municipal alienist and Miss Anna Folsom, whose speech was a violin solo.
The subject for the edification of the Picklers was Psycho-Analysis and Freud. Dr. Hickson was allowed forty-five minutes to pour light into the variegated skulls of his audience. Mr. Reitman sat near with a stop watch and announced the passing time at stated intervals.
An anarchist in the second row center, entranced by the speaker’s bright blue eyes, begged for an extension of time, but Mr. Reitman-or Ben as the Picklers know him-was firm and rising, waved away Dr. Hickson and anarchist, saying,
I am autocrat here-Trotzky had nothing on me!
Violin Solo Interrupted.
Then Miss Folsom was interrupted before she was quite finished rendering the “Meditation from Thais” by an enthusiastic admirer clapping her hands feverishly. You can see how deeply appreciation goes with radicals. It isn’t that they’re in haste to get at the counter where egg sandwiches and soup are sold-simply that they desire the bearers of light and comfort to know that they are for them. Food within a couple of leaps and one jump is conducive to brain whirls. A good point for Burton Holmes or Mangasarian to look into. For after Dr. Hickson finished his forty-five minutes of pearl casting the audience did not drift homeward, but stayed for their full quarter’s worth.
Treat for the Eyes.
But still let us be fair to Chairman Reitman. He has the magnetic quality of a sideshow ballyhooer and a hypnotic optic for those who rustle papers or shuffle feet. Also he is something for the eye to relish. Last night he wore an afternoon frock coat with just a peep of a daring red shirt visible between the coat and his windsor tie.
When the interrupted, dreamy eyed violinist came to the last note Chairman Ben introduced his wife, who read a poem entitled “I Am a Woman, Wee.” The poem went on all about standing in the light and looking toward the sun and cosmic love.
The evening drew pleasantly to a close with the audience still thirsting long with egg sandwiches for more analyzing.
One free man, possibly a Bolshevik, rose to inquire what neurosis was, when the speaker had dwelt for the greater part of his forty-five minutes on such. Another burned to know how psycho-analysis applied to the war.
And Ben when he felt that his flock had learned their lessons sufficiently for one evening dismissed one and all with a benign smile and a kindly blessing, inviting one and all to another sandwich at 10 cents per.
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SOURCE & IMAGE
The Chicago Daily Tribune
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Jan 6, 1919
https://www.newspapers.com/image/355021971/
See also:
Dill Pickle Club
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dil_Pickle_Club
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dill-Pickle-Club#ref1199524
Ben Reitman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Reitman
A Brief History of the Dill Pickle Club
https://publications.newberry.org/frontiertoheartland/exhibits/show/perspectives/dillpickle/briefhistory
Step High, Stoop Low, Leave Your Dignity Outside
https://publications.newberry.org/frontiertoheartland/exhibits/show/perspectives/dillpickle
The Rise & Fall of the Dil Pickle
Jazz-age Chicago’s Wildest & Most Outrageously
Creative Hobohemian Nightspot
-by Franklin Rosemont
Charles H. Kerr Pub., 2004
https://books.google.com/books?id=RVsSAQAAIAAJ
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M. Kamio – Meditation from Thais