20 / 252
OldWaldorf Bar Days
sale of wines and liquors. And the Waldorf Bar had its
imitators all over the land. Its free lunch t ably came to
be a standard that many another establishment en–
deavored to equal.
Now the American School of Drinking has gone. It
was real. It was distinctive. It was influential; indeed,
dominating. And to-day, nowhere can we look upon its
like. When we try to find it abroad, we discover only its
influence, weakened by time, transplantatior{ and imi–
tation.
At home we look about us. What has taken its place?
The drug store soda counter?
Stop, look, and listen.
At first glance you might think this popular institution
an inheritance from a glorious, if bibulous, past. But
scrutinize it. Boys and girls, and men and women, sipping
soda fizzes and coca cola, or sopping up sundaes!
"But," you say, "look, they are eating! Does not that
remind one of the free lunch counter?"
Decidedly, no! Nothing is free except a glass of ice
water. And what you pay for in the way of food over
that counter is far away from and behind what you
could get free, without even asking for it, in the old
Waldorf Bar.
In
that haven of the hungry and the
thirsty, what you got without cost was always good and
digestible. Could the same be said of the attack the drug
store lunch counter is maki.og upon the great American
stomach?
No. The American School of Drinking has gone !
[ 20]