"Bloody Mary" bloody controversy

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

     How can Fred Shapiro question that Harry's New York Bar in Paris first
created the Bloody Mary?  As stated before, the facts are in BON APPETIT,
September 1999, pg. 118, col 2:

     In Paris, many expats gathered at Harry's New York Bar and the bar of
the Ritz Hotel, the birthplaces of the Bloody Mary (in 1921) and the mimosa
(in 1925), respectively.

    It's clear as day!  You want more?  This is from the NEW YORK TIMES, 5
June 1958, pg. 31, col. 5:

_MACELHONE DEAD;_
_RAN FAMOUS BAR_
_Owner of Harry's, Meeting_
_Place of Americans in_
_Paris for 35 years_
(...) _Tourists' Rendezvous_
     Harry's Bar at 5 Rue Dauhou is a widely known meeting place for American
tourists in Paris.  Mr. Macelhone opened it thirty-five years ago and used to
say that it was the second American bar to open in Paris.  Henry's Bar at the
Chatham Hotel had been opened a year or two before Harry's.

    The Bloody Mary is not mentioned.  But I have more!  A check of the UMI
OBITUARIES 1990-1997 database (these new databases are created every month or
every week) shows this from the Associated Press, 20 September 1996:

     Paris--Andrew MacElhone, longtime owner of a famous Paris watering hole,
Harry's New York Bar, has died of a heart attack, his son said yesterday.  He
was 73.
     Mr. MacElhone--whose father, Harry, opened the bar, catered to Ernest
Hemingway and mixed the first Bloody Mary--was the owner-manager from 1958
until 1989, said his son and current owner, Duncan MacElhone.
     Andy MacElhone, born on the day his father bought the bar in 1923...
     Cocktails invented at Harry's Bar include the French 75 (named after a
World War I artillery piece) in 1915, the Bloody Mary in 1919 and the Side
Car in 1931.

    There!  It's fact!  I rest my case!
    The Bloody Mary was invented at Harry's New York Bar in 1919 or possibly
1921--just a few years before 1923, when Harry's New York Bar would first
open!