A Social Arbiter Loses Lofty Perch

“The first object to be aimed at is to make your dinners so charming and agreeable, the invitations to them are eagerly sought for, and to let all feel that it is a great privilege to dine at your house, where they are sure there will be only those whom they wish to meet. You cannot instruct people buy a book on how to entertain, though Aristotle is said to have applied his talents to a compilation of a code of laws for the table. Success in entertaining is accomplished by magnetism and tact, which combined constitute social genius. It is the ladder to social success. If successfully done, it naturally creates jealousy.” — Menu and quote from Ward McAllister, in his book, “Society as I Have Found It”

First Talk of Deposing the 400’s Ward McAllister from His Societal Dictatorship 

Ward McAllister's venture into the ranks of the great public to take a hand in the management of the centennial ball is likely to be attended with disastrous results to him as a social leader. When Mr. McAllister awoke to the fact that he was not the entire committee— merely a member of it—it astonished him.
To have his dictates questioned in social affairs was a new, novel, and rather unpleasant experience. That the world should continue to move after his deposition from the absolute dictatorship was a surprise indeed. But the world does move, and the motion doesn’t suit ward McAllister.


The trouble is that the deposition from leadership in centennial affairs isn’t all that is liable to be the outcome of the sudden and startling discovery that the social world can wag without the assistance of Mr. McAllister. The latter factor struck the society leaders, or those who would be such, with peculiar force. At the clubs it has created as much of a sensation as did the recent cable bulletin to the effect that the Prince of Wales had appeared in public without gloves. 

It has led to more animated discussion in the Union and Knickerbocker Clubs than has any subject since the announcement that trousers were to be one and one-half inches narrower in the vicinity of the knees, than they were last season. The matter was started at the Union Club, when a member, who is also a Patriarch, is said, after an hour’s deep thought, to have created almost a panic by the inquiry: “I say there, would it be possible to give a Patriarch’s Ball and have it managed by a committee instead of Mr. Ward McAllister, doncher know?”


The question alone seemed like the starting of a social rebellion. A revolution it would be, at least. The news that the question had been to asked spread to the Brunswick and thence to the Knickerbocker with cyclonic speed and before the members of the Union had fairly recovered from its effects, it was the only question of any moment discussed or even thought of. Social circles caught it up, and now the ladies talk of it with bated breath between discussions cut painfully short about the hitherto all important questions, as to how to trim hats or whether costumes shall tend toward the Directoire or Empire style.


Society is deeply agitated about the matter. The Knickerbocker Club has already decided against Mr. McAllister. The Union Club is very evenly divided just now, with a tendency committee word, though the official action of the governing committee had not been bullet and up to midnight last night. The general belief, however, is that the next assembly of the patriarchs will be under the management of a committee instead of under a dictatorship. Social lights fear that the result may be disastrous, but the male element in the much talked of 400 seem determined, because Mr. McAllister has actually brought them into scorn and ridicule by his failure to retain his dictatorship and thus their prestige. — The New York Times April 1889

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