1935 Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book

HISTORICAL 159 tinis being most popular and Manhattans running second. That was before the "Clover Club" had won in New York temples of thirst a wide but short-lived popularity. Very few fancy drinks were served at cocktail-time. There were many customers, who would stand up to the bar with a group of friends, and before they moved away would gulp down five or six Manhattans or Martinis in succession. A big banquet in the hotel would fill the Barroom at mid– night, for whatever · they had had upstairs of cocktails, champagne, and liqueurs, many men must have, in those days, a nightcap. Often, it took several to get them prop- erly "head-dressed" for bed. · Not infrequently, revblution-experts were of the com– pany present-men who were the heads or members of organizations that stood ready, at the drop of a hat, or upon receipt of a code cable, to start up trouble in any Latin-American country, provided the price was forthcom– ing. Gun-running was at one time a remunerative, if some– time hazardous vocation-some spelled it "avocation"-in the Caribbean and along the West coast from Nicaragua down. One dealer in ammunition and guns owned, or leased, an island up the Hudson, which was reported to be well stocked with the latest·war material.of the day. This could be promptly dumped into the hold of a chartered "tramp" and headed wherever trouble was brewing. Every gold rush was followed sooner or later by an influx of rough-looking men wearing wide-brimmed hats– and more than once, cowhide boots-and the air. would resound with tales of ccbig strikes" and of "prospects" that promised big, and whose performances later made a big hole in many a speculative bank account. Cripple Creek, for example; Alaska, Tonopah-all paid tribute to Boldt's