Publication information |
Source: Buffalo Evening News Source type: newspaper Document type: article Document title: “Waited on McKinley at Last Dinner” Author(s): anonymous City of publication: Buffalo, New York Date of publication: 6 September 1921 Volume number: 76 Issue number: 125 Part/Section: 2 Pagination: 24 |
Citation |
“Waited on McKinley at Last Dinner.” Buffalo Evening News 6 Sept. 1921 v76n125: sect. 2, p. 24. |
Transcription |
full text |
Keywords |
Harry Winer; William McKinley (at Pan-American Exposition); Pan-American Exposition (President’s Day: luncheon). |
Named persons |
Leon Czolgosz; Charles Evans Hughes; William McKinley; William Joel Stone; William Howard Taft; Charles S. Whitman; Harry Winer [misspelled once below]; George H. Woolley. |
Notes |
Three paragraphs in the newspaper (an online scanned document) are
blurry, rendering selected words difficult or impossible to read. The
accuracy of the transcription (below) with respect to the menu items results
from corroborating information found in other newspaper articles on this
same topic.
The article is accompanied on the same page with a photograph of the banquet menu card and of Harry Winer. The latter has a caption beneath it that reads: “Harry Winer, Buffalo caterer, who, 20 years ago, personally served President McKinley at last banquet given in his honor in the Hotel Iroquois, and face of elaborate menu card used at event.” |
Document |
Waited on McKinley at Last Dinner
Harry Winer, caterer, 12 Spruce street [sic],
is reminiscent today.
Just 20 years ago, September 6, 1901, President
McKinley was assassinated while attending the Pan-American exposition here.
Winer was the President’s waiter at the last banquet
given in his honor on the night before he was shot, in the New York State building,
now the home of the Buffalo Historical society.
It was not the first time that Winer had served
McKinley. For a whole week one summer in the late ’90s, he waited on the table
of the nation’s next chief executive while the latter was attending the Republican
national convention in Saint Louis. Winer was then employed at the Hotel Planter,
in that city, where McKinley dined daily during the convention as the guest
of the late Governor Stone of Missouri.
The story of President McKinley’s last banquet
can best be told in Winer’s own words:
“I had come to Buffalo, my home town, from Saint
Louis the year before and had found work in the Hotel Iroquois. When it was
learned we were to serve the banquet in honor of the President on his arrival
here, George H. Woolley, then manager of the Iroquois, asked all the employes
[sic] if any of them knew the waiter who had served McKinley at Saint
Louis, for if possible he wanted to have that same waiter attend the President
on this occasion.
“You bet I spoke up and the honor was conferred
upon me.
“The President recognized me at once, and seemed
pleased with the arrangement.
Banquet Gorgeous Affair.
“I remember it as though it were but yesterday,
that last banquet. It was a gorgeous affair. The President sat at a table with
the representatives of 13 nations. It was I who escorted him to his seat at
the table.
“Back of him was a closed door, draped with the
flags of the nations represented at the banquet. When the President moved towards
his seat, he noticed this door and said to me, ‘My boy, what is on the other
side of that door?’
“‘That leads to the pool, Sir,’ I answered. ‘Shall
I open it?’
“‘No, do not take the trouble; I was just curious,’
the President replied.
“The next day, after the shooting, I learned that
Czolgosz, the President’s assassin, had been hiding behind the closed door that
self-same moment, waiting for some one to open it that he might gain access
to the room where the President was. He shot the President next day, about 2:30
o’clock in the afternoon, in the Temple of Music.
“McKinley was in fine spirits—in fact, I had never
seen him so jovial and carefree—on the night of the banquet, little knowing
that in less than 24 hours hence he would be hovering between life and death
from an assassin’s bullet.
“Back in those good old days the 18th amendment
was as undreamed of as a system of wireless freight transportation and the champagne
and wine flowed freely at the President’s table.
“But he touched none of it, waving it all by,
his cigar as well, with a terse comment that he never drank or smoked.
Gets Cigar and Menu.
“I have his cigar as well as his menu card.
When he got up to leave the table, I asked him [?] he was not going to take
them.
“‘No, my boy,’ he replied. ‘You may have them
yourself if you care for them.’
“Did I care for them! Does a fish swim? I have
them today, and a fortune could not induce me to part with that bit of embossed
cardboard which had been handled by our nation’s martyr. The 20-year-old cigar
is an enormous one, much larger and longer than the kind made today. I am keeping
it in the little black box, just as it laid before the President’s plate.”
The menu card to which Mr. Wiler refers is a cardboard
folder about 6 by 8 inches in size. On it in colors is President McKinley’s
picture, an engraving of the New York State building, where the banquet was
held, and the American flag and coat of arms. A bit of red, white and blue ribbon
gives the finishing touches to the [book?].
On the front page Mr. Woolley, then manager of
the Hotel Iroquois, has written: “Harry Winer is the waiter that had the honor
to wait on President McKinley. This menu was used by President McKinley at the
luncheon given in his honor at the New York State building on the Pan-American
grounds, September 5, 1901.” This is followed by Mr. Woolley’s signature.
The menu served was as follows:
Canape, a la Russe with Old English sherry, vintage
of 1878; strained gumbo en gelee, pate of crab meat a la creme with haut sauternes;
sweetbreads glace, aux petits pois and two brands of champagne; breast of spring
turkey, farcie, with browned sweet potatoes and asparagus francaise; pudding
nesselrode, sauce marasquin; petits fours, fruits, roquefort and brie; coffee,
cigars, and appollinaris [sic].
Besides McKinley and Governor Stone, Mr. Winer
during his career as a hotel waiter has served several other noted men, including
President Taft and Governors Hughes and Whitman.
Mr. Winer has been a caterer for [?] years. He
began his career as a waiter in the Arlington hotel, [opposite?] the New York
Central railroad station. From there he went to St. Louis, where for seven years
he was employed as waiter at the Planters’ hotel. He returned to Buffalo in
1900 and for 10 years worked at the Iroquois hotel. Since leaving there he has
been in the catering business for himself.