The parent bottlers were also unhappy with their arrangement with the actual bottlers. It was obviously going to be impractical to hire a supervisor for every bottler. In addition, these direct employees of the parent bottlers caused bad feeling with the actual bottlers, who felt there was a spy in their midst. Or, like the Memphis bottler, they complained that this special employee was a slob who didn’t show up for work on time. Finally, the parent organizations realized that by insisting on a return of half of the profits, they might well bankrupt their bottlers.
For all of these reasons, Whitehead and Thomas came to a new arrangement with The Coca-Cola Company in November of 1901. In an undated amendment, the 1899 contract was changed to allow a ten-cent-per-gallon rebate to give the bottlers responsibility for their own advertising. In effect, the syrup price was set at ninety cents a gallon, with the parent bottlers paying ten cents a gallon for advertising—an expense they immediately passed through to their actual bottlers. At the same time, Thomas and Whitehead abandoned their obligation to place an employee/spy with each actual bottler. Rather than taking half of the bottlers’ profits, they now switched to a straight royalty of six cents per case, or a quarter cent per bottle. Given the increasing demand, this seemingly small levy would make the parent bottlers millionaires within a few years, while permitting a nice profit for the actual bottlers, jobbers, and retailers of the drink.
CHILD LABOR AND ADULTERATED SYRUP
The actual bottlers replaced the supervisor as cheaply as possible, often with child labor. Thomas helped to find responsible, inexpensive help for his bottlers, in 1902 recommending a “negro boy” who would work for four dollars a week. Although wages would rise somewhat in the future, the tedious manual labor in Coca-Cola bottling plants never commanded a decent salary. In later years, because of the noise and monotony, many plants hired deaf employees at minimum wage.
After the contract amendment, Thomas cut corners in other ways as well. He began to adulterate his own syrup, the same practice that all good Coca-Cola men professed to find so evil. In September of 1901, he rush-ordered ten pounds of saccharin (trade-named “garantose”) from Merck & Company for experimentation. In January, Thomas sent a coded recipe for “simple syrup” to his bottlers. By adding caramel coloring, phosphoric acid, and saccharin in the right proportions, bottlers stretched a gallon of Coca-Cola syrup so that it would yield 144 bottles. In the ensuing months, Thomas engaged in considerable correspondence about the proportions of this saccharin mixture, because it resulted in slight variations in color, acidity, and sweetness. Writing to his Pittsburgh bottler, Thomas said, “I do not think that you can make a mistake in having your Coca-Cola too sweet. . . . I am sure that it tastes better than that which is not so sweet.” He went on to say that “tastes vary” regarding the proper amount of acidity.
In Thomas’ defense, he was probably adding saccharin not only because it was cheaper than sugar but because it acted as a preservative. From the outset, he had been plagued by a cloudy drink that deposited an unpleasant sediment. At first he blamed the Hutchinsons’ faulty seal. When the problem continued with the crown cork, he decided that polluted water must be the cause. An amateur chemist, Thomas tinkered with pasteurization of Coca-Cola, but it killed the taste. Eventually, he devised a system of cleaning the water with alum, and recommended filtering the syrup before use as well.
PARENT BOTTLERS: PIONEERS OR PIRATES?
The efforts of Thomas have been emphasized here simply because no similar records have survived from Whitehead and Lupton. It is obvious from the correspondence between Thomas and Whitehead that both men deserve full credit for building the Coca-Cola bottling business. Whitehead, frazzled by overwork, died of pneumonia in 1906 at forty-two, and Thomas followed at fifty-two in 1914. They had seen the future far more clearly than Asa Candler, and their protean efforts paid off quickly. They were at the same time salesmen, cheerleaders, advertising agents, bottlers, lawyers, negotiators, venture capitalists, chemists, and accountants. They created the prototype of the American franchise system, and they brought Coca-Cola to the masses.
Years later, during a bitter court battle between the bottlers and The Coca-Cola Company, Company officials would denigrate the accomplishments of the parent bottlers, accurately pointing out that the parent organization never even saw the Coca-Cola syrup that was shipped directly to the actual bottlers. Why should they have a perpetual right to their royalty? In later years, there was certainly some validity to those arguments, and The Coca-Cola Company eventually bought back the parent bottlers to avoid this unnecessary tithe. But in these early years, there is no doubt that the parent bottlers performed the essential job of recruiting, coordinating, and training legions of small bottlers, all with growing capital expenditures. Without lifting a finger or investing a penny, Asa Candler and his Company saw their business mushroom and reach into untapped rural areas. Coca-Cola advertising, already extensive, gained added momentum as parent and local bottlers covered their territory with the Coca-Cola logo.
By 1902, Whitehead, even with his smaller bottle, was doing an “enormous business” of 2,400 cases a week in Atlanta alone. At the same time, Thomas observed that bottles didn’t have to piggyback on an existing fountain trade. “In Charleston, where Coca-Cola had practically no [fountain] business, the bottling plant is running considerably over an average of 100 cases a day. It has been a great surprise to every one.”
Some fountain operators felt threatened. “We predict the death of your specialty— which has had so many years of success,” wrote an indignant Indiana fountain man in 1904. He complained that the bottled drink came in a motley assortment of containers, “as pleases the whim, ignorance or averice” of the local distributor, thus “throwing down the Bars for the many imitators of your drink” and “destroying Fountain trade.” Although sales might initially be “immenseily increased,” the angry owner predicted that the inevitable result would be that “any old thing with an amber color” would soon pass for Coca-Cola. A Company official reassured the apoplectic druggist that, far from hurting the trade, bottlers would help the fountain in the long run. “The bottled goods are as a rule so uniform and satisfactory that it stimulates the dispensers to give a better glass of Coca-Cola in order to hold their trade,” wrote the Company man. “In this city the matter has been tested for years, and the dispensers are doing more business now than ever before.”
By 1904, no one at The Coca-Cola Company would say anything against the bottlers. Where five years before, there had been only sporadic, informal efforts to bottle Coca-Cola, now there were over 120 manufacturing facilities covering almost every state. By the end of the year, the Company published a booklet showing the sales of the bottled drink, asking readers to consider the import of this growing branch of the business, with its “remarkable, and in many cases phenomenal” growth. Pointing out that every gallon of syrup represented about ten dozen bottles of Coca-Cola, the spokesman urged the reader to “use your pencil, make a few calculations and see what an enormous business has been done in nearly every place where a bottling plant has been established.”
Although at first it had been difficult to lure anyone into the bottling business, the parent bottlers were soon turning away droves of eager entrepreneurs. In 1912, one self-promoting Texas owner had stationery printed up depicting a Coca-Cola bottle spewing dollar signs instead of a beverage. “THERE IS MONEY IN IT” the legend below bluntly stated. By 1919, there were 1,200 plants; virtually every town in America had a Coca-Cola bottler. Asa Candler was delighted but still mystified by the bottlers’ success. One day in 1904, Candler ran into Veazey Rainwater, who operated the booming Athens, Georgia, plant at the time. “Veazey,” Candler said, “what are you doing with all of that syrup, pouring it into the Oconee River?” Rainwater just smiled, but later, when he had taken over the Atlanta parent bottler administration following Whitehead’s death, he accurately summed up the bottlers’ accomplishments. Coca-Cola, he said, had been put into the han
ds of “thousands of merchants in the suburbs and outlying districts of every city, in the stores of every country town and village, and in the homes of thousands of people where it had not been possible to put Coca-Cola before.” As a result, “an enormous field was opened up . . . and hundreds of thousands of individuals who had never before tasted or seen Coca-Cola were introduced to this product first in bottles.”
THE COCAINE KICKER
The bottling business had one unfortunate, unforeseen consequence, however. No longer simply a soda fountain drink for upper-class urban white professionals, Coca-Cola was increasingly consumed by blacks. Sensational stories of “Negro coke fiends” attacking whites caused many to fear the widespread availability of Coca-Cola. As the century turned, so did public opinion, and in 1900 Candler found himself under intensified pressure to reform his “dope.”
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* In later years, Candler denied that he intended it to be a permanent contract. Only months earlier, when Seth A. Fowle had suggested that his twenty-year contract be made perpetual, Candler responded that “the laws of Georgia would not permit us to give you the extension of terms that you wish.”
* Coca-Cola salesmen sold logo-embossed fountain glasses at low cost, in part to encourage soda jerks to mix the drink properly, a horizontal line near the bottom indicating a one-ounce level.
* As time went by, and the business grew larger, other parent bottlers split off from the original two. In 1903, Texas and the Indian territories were ceded to Whitehead/Lupton, who incorporated what became known as “the 1903 Company,” or the Southwestern parent bottler. In 1905, the Western parent bottler, headquartered in Chicago and covering a huge area, was split from the Whitehead/Lupton territory. In 1912, the Seth Fowle contract in New England expired, allowing bottling franchises to begin in New England, where the New England parent bottler was formed in 1916. Finally, in 1924, the Pacific Coast parent bottler was split off from the Thomas Company.
*Big Beverage calls the drink Solo Soda, replaced here by Coca-Cola. In the novel, Bert Simpson = Ben Thomas, Blasingame = Candler.
Part II
Heretics and True Believers
(1900–1922)
Asa Candler could no longer stand it. His younger brother John, the lawyer, had told him to stay away from the trial, but it was more than he could bear. He had endured enough, reading the outrageous lies every day in the Atlanta Georgian. What possible difference could it make if he just went and sat quietly in the back?*
And so, on a rainy April morning in 1911, the president of The Coca-Cola Company snuck quietly into the back of a Chattanooga courtroom. Glancing around, he quickly found that all the Coca-Cola men, including his son Howard, sat on the left. He joined them. Putting his finger to his lips, he warned Howard not to make an issue of his father’s presence. Hunching inconspicuously in his seat, he fidgeted with repressed rage, listening to government witnesses malign his drink. He recognized that great tub of lard, Harvey Wiley, nodding sagely on the other side of the courtroom.
At the noon recess, Candler had just stepped outside and was about to hurry away when a hand pulled at his elbow. “Mr. Candler, I believe.” That voice! It was Kebler, the government spy he’d caught skulking around the Atlanta syrup plant two years ago. Turning around, Candler turned a shade of Coca-Cola red. “Ah, I thought it was you. Mr. Candler, I’d like to introduce Dr. Wiley.” And Kebler gently pushed Candler toward the imposing chemist, who reached out a massive hand. “I’m pleased finally to meet so worthy an opponent,” Wiley boomed.
“You, sir, are a hypocrite to offer your hand,” Candler said. “I won’t take it. You are persecuting and attempting to ruin a beneficial beverage, a boon to mankind. Well, you won’t succeed.” Candler was just building to one of his explosive, high-pitched climaxes when his brother John grabbed him by the arm. “Asa!” he hissed, pulling him away, “I thought you agreed not to come. You’re causing a scene. Please, please, go back to Atlanta.”
Asa Candler shook himself loose, straightening his tie. He took a deep breath. “Johnnie, you’re right. I’d better go before I do bodily harm, sure enough. But you know that God watches over His own, and we will prevail.” And reassuming his dignity, the gray-haired little man walked away.
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* This scenario is based on fact. On March 30, 1911, Candler wrote to his son Howard, “I can’t avoid wanting to be with you all, but Uncle John advises staying away. I am ready to go on a moment’s notice.” He then briefly attended the trial in Chattanooga sometime in April.
~ 6 ~
Success Under Siege
It is only since the rising tide of Coca-Cola’s popularity has grown to the extent of attracting general public attention that this fire has been directed to it. . . . Now that everybody drinks it, a certain coterie, composed mostly of disgruntled competitors and misguided fanatics, have discovered that it is more seductive than opium, more injurious than tobacco and more pernicious than whisky.
—Judge John S. Candler, 1909
Asa Candler had a problem: by 1900, Coca-Cola was already not simply a soft drink, but a phenomenon. With success, however, came increased notoriety and controversy. The drink’s cocaine content had been a source of trouble from the beginning, but it was also a major selling point. Without the benefit of the coca leaf’s small kick, how could Coca-Cola survive? Also, if Candler took it out, how could he legally defend his trademark? It would be like jettisoning the first half of the name. Candler was determined not to tamper with the formula. In 1898, a zealous Oregon evangelist named Lindsay had arrived in Marietta, Georgia, near Atlanta, as the minister of the local Baptist church. From the pulpit, Reverend Lindsay had launched a hellfire attack on Coca-Cola, the ingredients of which were, he asserted, fully two-thirds cocaine; imbibing would lead to “morphine eating.” His accusations made good newspaper copy, prompting a quick Candler response: “I do not propose to vend a poison or be instrumental if I know it of doing harm to anybody.” By righteously denying that his magical drink had any harmful effects, Candler hoped to defuse any controversy.
The 1898 incident was a local disturbance and faded away, but cocaine was soon making national headlines, in part because racism was on the rise, in the North as well as the South. In September of 1906, a major race riot occurred in Atlanta—though it primarily involved whites attacking blacks rather than vice versa—caused by inflammatory newspaper accounts of black “brutes” attacking white women. Long before the riot, cocaine, the 1885 wonder drug, had become the 1900 scourge of humanity, and in the South it allegedly caused crazed Negroes to attack their bosses and rape white women. There may have been vestiges of truth behind the sensational headlines, since many farmers were giving cocaine to their black sharecroppers in lieu of food and cocaine in the city, where fifty cents bought a week’s supply, was a cheaper high than alcohol.
Whatever the reason, the papers were filled with black cocaine fiends. A white Georgian complained to a New York Tribune reporter that “in Atlanta, cocaine sniffing has grown to such proportions that some of the keepers of saloons patronized by the colored people are going out of business,” adding that Coca-Cola produced “similar effects to cocaine, morphine, and such like. Men become addicted to drinking it, and find it hard to release themselves from the habit.” The Atlanta Constitution wrote in 1901 that “use of the drug among negroes is growing to an alarming extent. . . . It is stated that quite a number of the soft drinks dispensed at soda fountains contain cocaine, and that these drinks serve to unconsciously cultivate the habit.”
During his testimony in the trial against the IRS, Candler admitted that there was a “very small proportion” of cocaine in Coca-Cola. With mounting frustration, he listened to physicians testify on the effects of the “Coca-Cola habit.” One Atlanta doctor cited the case of a thirteen-year-old boy who usually drank ten to twelve glasses per day but lost his job and was suddenly unable to buy Coca-Cola: “He came to my office the day after in a very ner
vous, almost collapsed condition, stating to me that he could not get his Coca-Cola and that he knew something was the matter with him.” Another doctor said that his neurasthenic partner was “very strangely affected” by drinking Coca-Cola: “If he takes a glass, he can’t find his way home.” Perhaps the poor man drank a double or quadruple dose, since Atlanta druggists were in the habit of using anywhere from one to four ounces of syrup per glass, according to one witness.
All of these statements come from the 1902 trial, but Candler had already heard similar testimony during the first IRS trial, which had ended in July of 1901 with a hung jury. At some point during the first trial, the accumulation of such testimony, combined with adverse press coverage and the spread of bottled Coca-Cola among black consumers, forced him to remove the cocaine. His first attempt was only partially successful, which explains why a chemist found four-hundredths of a grain of cocaine per ounce of syrup in 1902. It also accounts for Candler’s curious, stumbling answer at one point when he was asked how much cocaine was in Coca-Cola: “If we got all of it—but we don’t treat it—” The lawyer saved him by interrupting with another question. No wonder Candler was smitten with severe headaches while on the witness stand.
Soon afterward, in August of 1903, Candler contracted with the Schaefer Alkaloid Works of Maywood, New Jersey, to decocainize the coca leaves before sending “Merchandise No. 5” on to Atlanta.* The exact date of Candler’s first attempt to remove cocaine cannot be pinpointed, but it was probably in 1901. That January, Coca-Cola distributed a defensive pamphlet, What Is It? Coca-Cola, What It Is, in which Candler admitted a small amount of cocaine. The pamphlet contained an 1891 analysis which said “it would require about thirty glasses . . . to make an ordinary dose of the drug.” The text also praised the coca leaf, which “makes one active, brilliant, vigorous, and able to accomplish great tasks easily.” It seems clear, then, that at the beginning of 1901, cocaine was still in the drink, but most of it had been removed by the following year.
For God, Country, and Coca-Cola Page 13