Roy Kojima, Busted and Boastful

Roy Kojima was a Japanese proprietor of the Nikko Inn, a speakeasy operating in Harmon-on-Hudson during Prohibition. In May 1925, federal authorities padlocked the establishment for two months after agents purchased illegal alcohol there.

In 1931, journalist Karl Kingsley Kitchen visited the inn and documented Kojima's surprising claim: he asserted he had authored the popular song "The Million-Dollar Baby" years earlier. Kitchen observed that while Kojima's original poem differed from the published version, the central concept of meeting someone in a five-and-ten-cent store paralleled the song's theme.

Kojima attributed the similarity to either great minds thinking alike or to his orchestra having performed the song so frequently that New York songwriters may have heard it.