1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett

Faculty and Proctors enough fell victim to a straw hat crusade. In downtown New York and in other parts of the city, custom im– memorial has decreed that straw hats should not be worn after the middle of September-a custom foolish, of course, and which has embarrassed and annoyed many persons who don't see why anybody has a right to tell them what they shall wear, or when. "STRAW HAT!" It was after the fifteenth-considerably past it, in fact -when Jones entered the·room wearing headgear that was now on the Index Expurgatorius of local custom. At one of the tables sat · ~ group of which "Pete" J. Rogers was one. Another was John R. Burton. The straw hat immediately attracted the table's attention. ''I'll tell you what," said one of the group to Burton, "if you go over and take that fellow's hat off and smash it, I'll give one hundred dollars to the Red Cross." Burton got up, went over to the man 'with the straw hat, whom he knew. "M J " h .d " h ' . . h " r. ones, e sa1 , t at s qmte a mce at. "Do you like it?" Mr. Jones refurned, smiling. "Yes," said the othet, grabbing it. Then he rammed his fist through it. Jones, who was a buyer for one of the railroads, im– mediately got ready to clean out the whole place. It looked as if there would be a real fight. The men left the table and gathered around the pair, and offered to give Jones twenty-five dollars out of the money won for the Red Cross, in order to calm him down. However, Jones would not be appeased. He tried to have the manage- [ 93]