1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett

OLD WALDORF BAR DAYS "And drop upon its grave a tear."

I I I

PART I What and Wherefore "lf ET WHO will write the history: of a people, if I am but L permitted to write its songs," is something like the way somebody once put it. That sentime·i:it I can under– stand and appreciate. But when it comes to "letting George do it," as a cartoonist taughtt: us to say, I sing in a different key. Were I to subscribe to a sort of laissez faire with regard to the history of the American people, . rather than write its songs, or sing them-which latter might prove more difficult-I should prefer to drink its drinks. Not, mind you, the American drinks of to-day. Them I would not dare tackle-at least, most of them. When I speak of the drinks of the American people, I mean those appetizers and stimulative potations of American origin and invention, which, until the adven't of statutory ref– ormation, and in what would now seem bewildering variety and abundance, were to be had by any tree . citizen, did he know where to go-and had the price. Indeed, for many years there existed a real and dis– tinctive American School of Drinking--one that had a recognized standing, ifnot among ins ti tu tions of learning, [ 5]