from New York City Folklore
The Origin of the Dutch Treat Club
The Dutch Treat Club originated seventeen years ago [as of 1924, actual founding date is 1905] in a very unpretentious way. At that time Tuesday was Regular Contributors' Day at the editorial office of Life -- the day of the week when J. A. Mitchell looked over the drawings and sketches of his stand-by artists. Every Tuesday morning Life's anteroom would be thronged with clever illustrators chatting together sociably as they waited their turns to be ushered into the sanctum of "JAM", and writers waiting similarly for interviews with Thomas L. Masson, the literary editor. Since many of these contributors lived in the suburbs, it was natural that, being in town for the day, they should feel like having a good time in each other's company. And so the "gang" got the habit of lunching somewhere together, each paying for his own meal.
Life contributors brought friends who had no connection with that magazine. Numbers grew till one Tuesday the bunch organized themselves officially as the Dutch Treat Club, with Masson as President. Among those founder members were James Montgomery Flagg, Rupert Hughes, Julian Street, Ellis Parker Butler, Frank Ward O'Malley, and the Irwin brothers, Will and Wallace. The member who christened the club was George Barr Mallon, then city editor of The Sun.
From "Where Celebrities Foregather," by Ronald Armstrong, Little Old New York, Vol. II (July-August, 1924), No. 10, p. 3. New York: Thirty-Fourth Street Midtown Association, Inc.
