The Pittsburgh Press (June 11, 1943)
Carrying razors –
‘Slick chicks’ join zoot war
Waitress slashed by girls in reet pleat skirts
Bulletin
Los Angeles, California –
Maj. Gen. Maxwell Murray, commanding the Southern California sector of the Western Defense Command, promised swift punishment today for all military personnel participating in street fighting with zoot-suited hoodlums.
Miss Betty Morgan, slashed by “slick chick”
Los Angeles, California (UP) –
Dark-eyed “cholitas,” packing razors in the tops of their black mesh stockings, took up today street fighting where their male zoot-suit counterparts were being forced to drop it.
The “slick chicks,” garbed entirely in midnight black, with an above-the-knee version of the hobble skirt, grandiosely vowed to carry the battle against servicemen and police “until one side or the other is wiped out.”
Three of them attacked a waitress coming out of a downtown tunnel, knocked her down, and slashed her with a razor.
Her assailants fled when an unidentified man ran to her aid. The victim, Miss Betty Morgan, 22, bore several cuts and was bleeding profusely. Taken to emergency hospital, she was hysterical.
There was no apparent reason for the attack.
The cholitas, auxiliaries of the zoot-suit gangs which for months have made walks on dimly-lighted streets a risky affair, stoutly insisted they would not be diverted.
Although servicemen have been ripping the zoot clothing from the male mobsters, such treatment of the female branch presented a problem.
A cholita advised police:
Nobody is going to take my outfit off me.
Previously taken in custody was a young woman who carried a pair of brass knuckles, and police said, “knew how to use them.” A 20-year-old girl was taken to jail for inciting resistance to officers attempting to make an arrest.
The county grand jury began an investigation of the riots, which had led the Navy to declare the entire city out of bounds and left the Skid Row district on the Army blacklist.
The grand jury ordered the investigation after District Attorney Fred N. Howser appealed for such a move admitting that:
Los Angeles is faced with the humiliating fact that the Navy has found it necessary to declare the city out of bounds.
Both Army and Navy authorities held an off-the-record session with State Attorney General Robert W. Kenny, here to conduct an investigation.
Neither Maj. Gen. Maxwell Murphy, commander of the southern sector of the Western Defense Command, nor Capt. Schuyler F. Heim, commandant of the naval operating base, San Pedro, would comment after the meeting. Kenny, too, was silent.
Another investigation by the Office of Inter-American Affairs was underway, but so far had not passed the “report” stage.
Attacks scattered
Zoot attacks, meanwhile, were scattered. In the downtown area, trouble was slight, with the Skid Row area virtually deserted in consequence of the military orders. In outlying areas, zoot-suiters staged a half-dozen attacks but there was no rioting.
At Pasadena, a mob of sailors and civilians pursued fleeing zoot-suiters through the downtown district, but halted at the doors to the police station, where the zoot-suiters fled for safety. Police took them home and the mob dispersed.
Police said the mob “appeared to be in good humor.”
Russell E. Foss, 32, was slashed on the throat by two zooters to whom he gave a ride. They were quarreling, he said, and when he ordered them out of his car, they attacked him.
One zoot-suiter wore overalls over his beloved drape-shape pants, but was given away by his ducktail haircut. Two sailors who spotted him and another zooter removed both the overalls and the ankle-chokers.
Waitress wants revenge
Mr. Howser said:
A state of near anarchy has existed in this county for the past several weeks. This condition has been brought about by the growth of gangster life in our community.
The attack on Miss Morgan by the female zoot-suiters was said by police to be one of the most vicious in the week of mobster violence. She said the three cholitas – one of them wearing a knee-length beige coat over her black blouse and skirt – had knocked her down, kicked her in the chest and slashed her with a razor.
Miss Morgan said:
I fought back and threw one of them off my back. One tackled me around the legs, though, and I lost my balance and went down. I would like to meet one of them face to face – it would be her or me.
The attack came after the cholitas, or “slick chicks,” had spread the word around Los Angeles’ East Side that the warfare with servicemen and police would be continued “until one side or the other is wiped out.”
One girl said:
We won’t quit. I paid $75 for my outfit, and nobody is going to take it off me, either.
She referred to the military maneuver known as “pantsing,” carried out by servicemen in many of their clashes with zoot-suiters.
New York (UP) –
The dubious distinction of having created the zoot suit belongs to a Gainesville, Georgia, busboy, in the opinion of J. V. D. Carlyle, fashion editor of Men’s Apparel Reporter, garment trade publication.
The February 1941 issue of the Reporter carried an “exclusive style flash” that depicted:
…the newest model, known in South Georgia as the Killer-Diller… coat length 37 inches, button top two… 26-inch knees… 14-unch bottom, requiring a shoehorn to get the foot through…
The trade was amused, Mr. Carlyle said.
The story pictured Clyde Duncan of Gainesville wearing the model he ordered from Frierson-McEver’s early in 1940 – complete with “drape shape,” “reet pleat” and “stuff cuff.” A. C. McEver, conservative half of the Gainesville combination, said he forwarded the specifications to the Globe Tailoring Co. of Chicago after futilely trying to “talk the boys out of it.” Duncan was adamant.
Mr. McEver disclaimed any credit for the creation, asserting the specifications were Mr. Duncan’s, so far as he knew. The suit cost $33.50.
Mr. McEver commented:
I thought it was crazy as could be and I told Globe Tailoring so in my letter.