Of course this was all very confusing to me. I did my best to get it straight. Learning that the Tammany delegation, two thousand strong, was to arrive from New York this same day and that the leaders were to be quartered at the Auditorium, I made my way there, determined to obtain an interview with no less a person than Richard Croker, who, along with Bourke Cochran, and a hard-faced, beefy individual by the name of John F. Carroll seemed to be the brains and mouthpiece of the Tammany organization. In honor of their presence, the Auditorium was decorated with flags and banners, some of them crossed with tomahawks or Indian feathers. Above the onyx-lined bar was a huge tiger with a stiff projecting tail which when pulled downward, as it was every few seconds by one bartender and another, caused the papier-mâché image to emit a deep growl. This delighted the crowd, and after each growl there was another round of drinks. Red-faced men in silk hats and long frockcoats slapped each other on the back and bawled out their joy or threats or prophecies.
On the first floor above the office of the hotel, were Richard Croker, his friend and adviser, Carroll, and Bourke Cochran. They sat in the center of a great room on a huge red plush divan, receiving and talking.
As a representative of the Globe, a cheap nickel star fastened to one of the lapels of my waistcoat and concealed by my coat, my soul stirred by being allowed to mingle in affairs of great import, I finally made my way to the footstool of this imposing group and ventured to ask for an interview with Croker himself. The great man, short, stocky, carefully, almost too carefully, dressed, his face the humanized replica of that of a tiger, looked at me in a genial, quizzical, condescending way and said: “No interviews.” I remember the patent leather button shoes with the gray suède tops, the heavy gold ring on one finger, and the heavy watch-chain across his chest.
“You won’t say who is to be nominated?” I persisted nervously.
“I wish I could,” he grinned. “I wouldn’t be sitting here trying to find out.” He smiled again and repeated my question to one of his companions. They all looked at me with smiling condescension and I beat a swift retreat.
Defeated though I was, I decided to write out the little scene, largely to prove to the city editor that I had actually seen Croker and been refused an interview.
I went down to the bar to review the scene being enacted there. While I was standing at the bar drinking a lemonade there came a curious lull. In the midst of it the voices of two men near me became audible as they argued who would be nominated, Cleveland, Hill or some third man, not the one I have mentioned. Bursting with my new political knowledge and longing to air it, I, at the place where one of the strangers mentioned the third man as the most likely choice, solemnly shook my head as much as to say: “You are all wrong.”
“Well, then, who do you think?” inquired the stranger, who was short, red-faced, intoxicated.
“Senator McEntee, of South Carolina,” I replied, feeling as though I were stating an incontrovertible truth.
A tall, fair-complexioned, dark-haired Southerner in a wide-brimmed white hat and flaring frockcoat paused at this moment in his hurried passage through the room and, looking at the group, exclaimed: