The Duquesne Club

If walls could talk, Pittsburghers would give much to hear what the richly carved panels of the Duquesne Club had to say. For of all U. S. businessmen's clubs, the Duquesne is among the richest and most discreet. Its big, squarish, brownstone-fronted building in the centre of the Golden Triangle is the citadel of Pittsburgh tycoonery. There Mellons, Scaifes, Weirs, Benedums, McClintics, other Pittsburgh bigwigs eat, drink, relax, play poker, shoot craps, make deals. Some 35 corporations maintain suites for business purposes at the Duquesne.

Last week the Duquesne Club busily tried to prove to a Pittsburgh Federal judge that all of these activities added up to nothing more than the normal functions of a businessmen's luncheon club. Reason: the club wanted the Government to refund $75,000 worth of taxes it had collected from 1935 through 1938 because the Duquesne was a social organization.

One thing the Duquesne Club made clear at the outset: it never gave anything away. Even when rival bridge teams came to the club for tournaments they had to buy their own liquor. Cardroom receipts ran about $2,000 a year (35-c- a seat), but that was only 1/2 of 1% of the club's income. Biggest items were food and drink --nearly $300,000 yearly. Sometimes two-thirds of the club's 1,200-odd members would lunch simultaneously. The secretary could recall only one member having to be suspended for using unsuitable language. On New Year's Eve the place was "like a morgue."

To this seemly chronicle of club life, Government attorneys added the testimony of Pittsburgh newspaper reporters who had attended debutante luncheons, hunt festivities, other social functions at the club. Their reports, the Government contended, destroyed the Duquesne's luncheon-club theory. Just before the court adjourned the case for two weeks, one Pittsburgh sports editor got in a final lick. Asked whether drinks had been served at a club dinner he attended, the editor answered dolefully: "I remember that particularly well--there was just one drink."

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