The Princeton union., 1922-10-19
CAME: L: BY CHANCE.
New Workers. Explanation Of
Origin of Ice Cream Soda.
Customer Who Insisted on Cooling
Drink Credited With the Invention
Of the Popular Beverage.


This is the day and generation Of
the soda-fountain feeders. With pro-
hibition has come the rapid rise Of
the sandwich section Of the marble
bar, the lunch that is quick but not
free. The soda fountain has covered
the country along with the car, the
phonograph and the film. They have
all been accepted, it seems, as among
the greatest of life's safe improve
ments.
OF the whole lot, the soda foun-
tain has shown the greatest recent
change. An interesting sequel to the
eighteenth amendment is definite
demand for the installation of milk
pump in the middle Of every modern
fountain. With the milk pump has
come the urn and demand for fresh
brewed coffee, for fresh orange juice,
and for stacks of assorted sand
wiches. The latest soda fountain has
more attachments than an automO-
bile.
But despite all these minor addi-
tions a soda fountain is still soda
fountain and not restaurant, or
fruit stand, or a coffee counter. These
have not interfered with it's main
mission. 1t still does it's biggest
business in the sale of those original
American concOctions commonly
called soft drinks, remarks writer
in the New York Sun.
Not so long ago there was no such
thing as an ice-cream soda. The
pride of a first-class fountain was not
in the number Of it's sirup pumps nor
in it's Jars Of crushed fresh fruit.
Rather was rank gagged by the num-
ber Of kinds Of mineral water kept
on draft. Plain charged water was
not served out as vichy or seltzer or
anything else a customer happened to
ask for.
"The soda clerks of today don't
know any better, most Of them," said
an old-timer. "They think all car
donated water is about the same
thing.
"Why, one place on Broadway must
have had eight or ten mineral waters
Ion draft all the time. Vichy and
lKissingen, Kaiser and Seltzer, Deep
Rock, half a dozen others. They came
in by the barrel, mostly from Sara
;toga.
every place else had them, too
The older stores, the bar at the Hoff-
imam house. the Fifth Avenue hotel
1the Victoria, the Imperial, the Abe
lmarle. It was the regular thing to
take a couple of glasses Of mineral
water or soda, or even phosphate,
which was then rated as tonic, in
the morning.
"This demand for an early drink
was the thing that led to the discov-
.ery of ice-cream soda. Of course,
philadelphia claims that ice-cream
soda was invented down there, and
went so far as publicly to give Robert
Green credit for starting it. They
,gave him the credit after he was dead.
But they can hardly make a clear
,case, and hold to the Eighth avenue
version of it's invention. New York
has just as good claim.
Iue llllIS WAS eullTely uCClueICal.
Early in the morning customer came
into lower Eighth avenue drug store
land asked for glass Of soda. The
proprietor apologized because he had
mo Ice, and offered a plate Of ice
lcream instead.
"That was no substitute for the
thing wanted. The customer wanted
soda, and insisted that the ice cream
ibe put into it if there was no ice
available. That was done. The re-
sult was remarkable, and ice cream
tsOda has been spreading over the
country ever since.
"Sundaes are much later idea.
The sale of them began, 1 think, by
ian effort to evade in legal manner
1.-THE old Sunday closing laws, when ice
|cream parlors were not open. Drug
lstores were generally not closed, and
here ice cream was camouflaged and
isold as 'sundae'
"But nobody ever believed that sit
ting at soda fountain would take
frank as a great popular diversion all
lover the United States. In less than
lone generation that has happened.
tTimes change"