1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett

Faculty and Proctors same company at the Bar-side with "Jim" Blaine. Jim had gone too far in his indulgence and he said something which Flynn resented. Flynn intimated as much, where– upon Blaine, who did not realize to whom he was talk– ing, said something worse. And before he had quite got it out of his mouth, Flynn's fist had landed under his chin, and Blaine went down on the floor. There was a hubbub, of course, but friends intervened, and by the time the news of the scrap had drawn a crowd from all parts of the lobby, Blaine had been hustled out; and except that friends \yere saying, "Charlie, you served 1 him right," and.offering to buy Flynn drinks, the excite– ment had subsitled. However, for days the story was told in the Bar with constantly increasing embellish– ment. BATTLE OF THE CHAMPAGNE By no means was all the liquor consumed in that locality swallowed in the Bar. Nor was the biggest fight that ever took place in the hotel staged in that room. That honor belonged to a great room used as a serving pantry to the Grand Ballroom on the floor above. And the fracas came near spoiling the ~.ig banquet given by the New Yorker Staats Zeitung in honor of Prince Henry of Prussia, brother of the German Kaiser, _when he came to this country early in 1902. Long antedating, as it did, the great struggle between the Germans and the French for the possession of the champagne country and Rheims during the Great War, it nevertheless deserves to be known as the "Battle of the Champagne," for cham– pagne began it. It was fought in an arena walled with cases of "Mumm" and "Louis Roederer" and "Porn- [ 95]