gift for party and picnic planning soon made him a society darling. Among the undesirables McAllister endeavored to exclude from the charmed circle of the Four Hundred were the many nouveau riche Midwesterners who poured into New York seeking social recognition. In 1893, McAllister wrote a column about the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in which he urged that if Chicago society hostesses wanted to be taken seriously, they should hire French chefs and "not frappé their wine too much." The Chicago Journal replied, "The mayor will not frappé his wine too much. He will frappé it just enough so the guests can blow the foam off the tops of the glasses without a vulgar exhibition of lung and lip power. His ham sandwiches, sinkers, and ... pigs' feet, will be triumphs of the gastronomic art." McAllister's downfall came when he published a book of memoirs entitled Society as I Have Found It in 1890. The book, and his hunger for media attention, did little to endear him to the old guard, who valued their privacy in an era when millionaires were the equivalent of modern movie stars. "The Four Hundred" McAllister coined the phrase "The Four Hundred" by declaring that there were "only 400 people in fashionable New York Society." According to him, this was the number of people in New York who really mattered; the people who felt at ease in the ballrooms of high society ("If you go outside that number," he warned, "you strike people who are either not at ease in a ballroom or else make other people not at ease."). The number was popularly supposed to be the capacity of Mrs William Backhouse Astor Jr.'s ballroom. The lavish parties were held at the Astor mansion. On February 16, 1892, McAllister named the official list of The Four Hundred in The New York Times. The Four Million, the title of a book by O. Henry, was a reaction to this phrase, expressing O. Henry's opinion that every human being in New York was worthy of notice. Society of Patriarchs In 1872, McAllister founded the "Society of Patriarchs" which was a group of 25 gentlemen from New York Society. The group of 25 were "representative men of worth, respectability, and responsibility." Beginning with the 1885–1886 season, the Patriarchs threw a ball each year, known as the Patriarchs Ball, which each member was entitled to invite four ladies