1935 Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book

HISTORICAL to subject his art gallery to a process of weeding.

To dismiss a recollection of a place where much rude, ungainly and uproarious story-telling was done, but where, too, so much real humor came out under the stimulative effect of generously drunk spirit, without calling to mind one of its most decorative as well as most intelljgent wits, would almost mean leaving the best egg out of this rum omelet. Up rises from a table at the farther end of the room a tall, slender' man whose gray mustache bears evi– dence that the lingering traces·of good liquor may be held too precious for desecration by ·a pocket handkerchief. "Private John Allen to the bar!" And "Private" John Allen never said nay to such an invitation. The way he used to tell it, Congressman Allen-of Tupelo, Mississippi, suh!-had dubbed himself with the title by which he was invariably known. After the Civil War he. found the South overrun with generals and colo– nels and majors, so that at encampments of Confederate veterans, when it seemed that everyhody he met had com– manded an army, a brigade, a regiment, or at least a bat– talion, while he himself had never risen above the ranks, he concluded he must be the only private of the Confed– erate Army who had survived the conflict. So he chose for himself the title of "Private," and thereafter gave it dis– tinction. Private Allen showed up at least once a year at the Waldorf, and his visits seldom continued less than three weeks. One afternoon, his friend, Colonel E.T. Brown of Atlanta, arrived at the hotel and, suspecting the whereabouts of his intimate, sought the door of the Bar. And, sure enough, at his favorite table, the center of a group of atten-