Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) the facts, the truth, trustworthy information.

1866		C.H. Smith Bill Arp 35: You should git the straight of it from one who seen it with his eyes.
1887		W.E. Henley ‘Villon’s Straight Tip’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 176: Suppose you screeve, or go cheap-jack? / [...] / Suppose you duff? or nose and lag? / Or get the straight, and land your pot?
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 18 Feb. 4/8: I got the demon ter give me the straight of it.
1909		W. Irwin Confessions of a Con Man 179: I guess that’s about the straight of it.
1912		R.A. Wason Friar Tuck 165: Friar, there’s a lot o’ talk about you havin’ run off with Kit Murray. Now I want the straight of it.
1929		D. Hammett Red Harvest (1965) 36: Give me the straight of it. I only need that to pop the job.
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 63: If I would tell him the straight of it, he would get it printed.
1973		Son House in Charters Robert Johnson 16: ‘We never did get the straight of it. We first heard that he got stabbed to death. Next, a woman poisoned him, and then we heard something else. [...] Never did just get the straight of it...’ .
1977		Rolling Stone 22 Sept. 42: The straight is that we loved that man, that’s what the straight is.