The morning news., 1889-03-15
MoALL1srER R GREW GREAT.
The Leader of the Four Hundred Just
Developed.
From the Netc York Star.

| others are born great, Others still nave their
greatness thrust upon them. Napoleon
Bonaparte and Steve Brodie are good illus
trations of the first class of great men. The
Prince of Wales and the Irish Giant are
fair examples of the advantages of being
| born high up in the world, and while an
unwilling candidate for President and
man who weighs 800 in the shade are pass
able illustrations of great men who have
have had their greatness thrust upon them,
| there is yet another class of great men, but
| there is only one in the class. He comes
high, but We must have him.
| Ward McAllister, the leader of the Four
Hundred, was not born great, nor can he
| actually be said to have achieved greatness
nor yet to have had greatness thrust upon
him. How, then, did he become greats
| How did he come to occupy his present ex-
alted position as the social emperor OF New
Yorkf The answer is Simple-he has grown
| great.
Just as the lily of the valley tolls not,
neither does 1t spin, yet grows in beauty
all the while, just as the ''goober' OF his
native state slowly evolutes from an insig-
nificent shuck into the succulent, seductive
cracker, sold in the streets Of New York
for cents a cup, so Mr.. McAllister grew
from Georgia infant, yelling and squaH-
ing in his nurses arms, into New York's
| most gorgeous society beau, whose d1ctum
can put a social beggar on horseback or
make fat-legged lackey decline to recog-
nize parvenu Croesus when he meets him
| on the avenue.
The subject of Mr.. McAllister's lineage is
an interesting topic just now in view OF the
position he has taken in the matter of the
great quadrille at the centennial ball. Mr..
| McAllister insists that none but descend
ants of revolutionary celebrities should
take part in the great dance, and excluded
Mrs. Waldorf Astor from it because she
does not boast such descent.
Mr.. McAllister comes himself of a very
respectable family, his father having been
| United States district attorney at Savan-
nah, Ga, a position which his grandfather
also held by appointment from President
George Washington. He was mayor of
the city and delegate to the democratic
| convention that nominated Gen. Lewis
Cass for the presidency. In 1850
he removed to California, where he
was appointed the first United States
circuit judge for that state. His son,
Julian, was an officer in the army, and died
on Governors island two years ago, being
then a lieutenant colonel. Another brother,
| Hall, is one of the leading lawyers of the
Pacific coast Ward McAllister was edu-
Gated as a lawyer, but has never practiced,
his income being sufficient to keep him as
real gentleman should live without doing
any very hard work. He lives in brown
stone house at No. 16 East Sixteenth street
with his wife, daughter land a son, an older
son being lawyer in San Francisco.
MIR. McAllister is about 55 years of age,
and does not look much older than he is
He is heavy blonde, that Is, he is not a
light blonde, weighing about 200 pounds,
and his features are Napoleonic in cast
The long, heavy naustache and goatee add
to the resemblance to Louis Napoleon. Mr..
| McAllister is said to be very proud of this
resemblance, Napoleon himself, being a
well-known society leader in his way.
Mr.. McAllister was born in the native
land of the goober, better known in the
north as peanuts, and he acquired early in
life taste for the crisp cracker that he has
long attempted to get rid of in vain. The
habit of peanut eating has taken such an
inexorable hold upon him, it is said, that
even when leading the German at the
Patriarchs' ball it is with the greatest diff
Guilty that he can prevent himself from TAX
ing a crack at goober, handful of which
he always carries in his pocket.
Another Georgia delicacy of which Mr..
NcAlhster Is passionately fond, is corn pone
hoecake Bake the hoecake dun, sonny"
was a remark often made to him by his old
nurse, an aged colored lady, who was said
to have been a nurse also of Gen. Washing
ton, TO whose family the McAllisters are
said to be very distantly related.
Pot liquor is another wel-known Georgia
dish of which the leader of the Four Hun
dred is said to be passionately fond. Pot
liquor is the soup of bacon and green's and
MIR. McAllister is not ashamed to make a
square meal of his old friend, even although
he would not, of course, care to put it on
the menu Of the centennial ball.
The little gastronomic partialities noted
above are interesting, of course, only to
show that Mr.. McAllister really is, as he
claims to be, truly democratic, despite the
fact that he does not want anybody but
A,I 90
revolution to dance at his centennial ball
next month
Along some time about 1850 the McAllis-
ter family removed to California from
Georgia, and young Ward began to go out
into society. The gold fever craze brought
large influx of choice society into the
state, and the city of San Francisco espe-
cilH'i, where the family took up its abode,
and young Ward at once took the same
commanding position in society that he
afterward took here.
A good many of the leading members of
the San Francisco elite had no pedigrees to
speak of, and many others took it as a per-
sonal affront to mention the subject at all
in their presence, but still larger number
had pedigrees minutely recorded, along
with their times of sentence and discharge,
and didn't care much whether anybody
knew it or not.
The society Of so many people with pedi-
greeS was, OF course, very pleasing 10 Mr.
McAllister, but he finally tore himself away
from the Golden Gate and came to New
York. 1t would be hard to tell Just how
Mr. McAllister became the leader of soce-
ty here. Society certainly did not go to
the Grand Central depot in a procession
with a brass band TO meet him. 1t is alto
gether probable, in fact, that society did
not know there was such a parsonage in
existence as Ward McAllister, but Mr..
McAllister knew it, and he soon began to
let society into the secret.
Mr.. McAllister's gradual conquest of the
ancient lineage and pedigrees Of New York
began about fifteen or sixteen years ago,
when the first subscription balls were
! given in Newport, r. l., where Mr.. Nc
Allister had a summer house. There were
thirty subscriptions to these balls, at 500
for the season. aud each subscriber had nine
invitations at his disposal. The balls we're
in charge of Mr.. McAllister and were
| highly successful.
They were the origin of the Patriarchs'
balls in New York, attendance al which is
the final test of ones "respectability," as
Mr.. McAlster puts it. NcAllister was put
in charge OF these affairs also. and thus he
may be said to have gradually acquired the
KEY to the situation-a key which can un-
lock the door TO the most exclusive mansions
in New York or bar it 80 absolutely that
Midas with all his money bags cannot fnd