The removal of the cocaine presented a delicate public relations problem. If the company responded to attacks by telling the truth, they would be admitting that the drink did once have cocaine in it. The implication would be that they had removed it because it was harmful, which might even open the door to lawsuits. Besides, it was unthinkable to admit that Coca-Cola had ever been anything but pure and wholesome. Finally, of course, they didn’t want the public to know that one of the drink’s more enticing ingredients was now missing.
Consequently, Candler orchestrated a mighty revision of Coca-Cola history, perhaps convincing himself in the process. In later years, he repeatedly denied, under oath, that the drink had ever had cocaine in it. Even today, the Company feels compelled to deny it. After 1900, instead of bragging about the removal of cocaine, the Company poured on the advertising, stressing the soft drink’s healthful qualities. In December of 1902, the Georgia legislature made the sale of cocaine in any form illegal. By luck, grace, or good judgment, Coca-Cola once more narrowly escaped disaster, though the controversy over the drink had only begun.
AN ADVERTISING BLITZ
When John Candler was asked during the IRS trial what sort of vehicles The Coca-Cola Company used for its advertising, he answered, “I don’t know anything they don’t advertise on.” By the turn of the century, Frank Robinson was annually sending out over a million pieces of advertising in some thirty forms. In 1900, the firm spent almost $85,000 on advertising. By 1912, that figure was well over a million dollars a year, and Sam Dobbs could accurately claim that Coca-Cola was the single best-advertised product in the United States. Wherever Americans looked, they could not avoid seeing the Coca-Cola script. During 1913, the company advertised on over a hundred million items, including thermometers, cardboard cutouts, and metal signs (fifty thousand each); Japanese fans and calendars (a million each); two million soda fountain trays, ten million matchbooks, twenty million blotters, twenty-five million baseball cards, and innumerable signs made of cardboard and metal. The novelties distributed in that one year alone could have supplied every man, woman, and child who had lived in the continental United States since 1650.
It is little wonder that Coca-Cola had begun to permeate every aspect of American life. Horses were named Coca-Cola; bears at Yellowstone drank it.* Coca-Cola chewing gum, cigars, and candy were marketed to take advantage of the popular trademark.† Because of the stigma attached to the drink, Coca-Cola added a deliciously sinful note to lyrics of popular songs. In one ditty, a young man enjoying his first debauch in the big city wrote home to say, “Oh! mother, you wouldn’t know your child / Oh! mother, I’m getting awfully wild / I am drinking Coca-Cola now / On the level, I’m a little devil.” In “Follow Me, Girls, to the Fountain, and Be My Coca-Cola Girl,” the drink was used as a seductive lure. The composer dedicated the song to The Coca-Cola Company, “whose delicious drink has wet the whistle of countless thousands and made ‘HIGH LIFE’ possible even in a dry town.”
The young film industry, too, had begun its love affair with the soft drink. Asa Candler bragged that “a moving picture cannot be taken in the open air . . ., but what it is likely to catch a Coca-Cola [sign].” Buster Keaton drank it on-screen. Popular silent film stars such as Pearl White and Marion Davies appeared in Coca-Cola ads. The drink even found its way into an early Hollywood sex scandal, when comedian Fatty Arbuckle was rumored to have utilized a Coca-Cola bottle during an orgy.
Asa Candler was undoubtedly as unhappy about the Arbuckle publicity as he was with the unauthorized advertising of the Western Coca-Cola Bottling Company. In 1905, this third parent bottler, owned by J. T. Lupton, had split from the Southeastern parent bottler. Based in Chicago, it faced stiff competition from the breweries and depressed sales during Northern winters. S. L. Whitten, who ran the organization, wrote to Asa Candler at the beginning of 1907 that “not a single Coca-Cola bottling company in our territory . . . made money last year” but added that “we are working along lines somewhat differing from our work of last year.”
Whitten’s “somewhat differing” approach used overtly sexual advertising for Coca-Cola. One of his 1908 trays featured a bare-breasted young woman holding a Coca-Cola bottle. The surrounding text suggested trying “Coca-Cola High Balls” and “Coca-Cola Gin Rickies.” Another ad showed a young woman in black lingerie reclining on a tiger-skin rug with an expression of exhausted bliss. She held an empty glass, a Coca-Cola bottle on the table beside her. The caption: “Satisfied”—obviously in more ways than one.
While the sanctimonious Candler was appalled by Western’s ads, the beautiful young women used in authorized ads were suggestive in their own ways. The wholesome-but-sensuous models specialized in come-hither looks from the corner of the eye while they sipped their drinks demurely through a straw. One contemporary critic described the “bewitching sirens who lure us to Coca-Cola, with their display of charms,” but were ready to flee in “innocent alarm at the possibility of spectators.” Men fell in love with the millions of pictures of Betty, the 1914 calendar girl, while women made every attempt to look like her.
The most visible, widespread advertising for Coca-Cola, however, were hand-painted signs. One thirty-two-foot-high effort featured a soda jerk drawing a glass with real water flowing from the spigot. Most signs weren’t so elaborate, but many were as large, taking up entire sides of buildings. The first wall turned red for Coca-Cola in Cartersville, Georgia, in 1894. By 1914, the Company had over five million square feet of painted walls, enough to give one unfortunate consumer nightmares, as a salesman reported in 1906. “Hounded almost to a state of imbecility with Coca-Cola signs,” the poor man would “wake up at night with big white devils with a red mantel chasing after him screeching ‘Coca-Cola! Coca-Cola!’ until he made up his mind that he would have to go in somewhere and get a glass of Coca-Cola or part with his reason.”
THE COCA-COLA INSTITUTE
Backed by such effective advertising, the small band of Coca-Cola men invaded the cities and towns of America in the first decade of the century. In December of 1903, the twenty-nine salesmen were summoned to Atlanta for a four-day pep rally and sales meeting grandly called the Coca-Cola Institute. As Candler noted in his annual report, “some of these men had never before been seen by the officers of the Company. They were brought into personal contact with each other and have returned to their various fields of work greatly enthused.”
Sam Dobbs had taken firm charge of the sales force, traveling extensively to supervise his far-flung team. At the 1903 meeting, he praised them as “splendid men,” gentlemanly and high-toned. “Never be ashamed to say you are a traveling salesman,” Dobbs urged. Thoroughly aroused, the salesmen burst out with cheers of “HURRAH for Coca-Cola, the drink that strengthens but does not inebriate—Coca-Cola, the drink of the age!” Throughout the rest of the week, they shared tips with one another on how best to spread the gospel, such as rigging a “mechanical attachment” to a man in a window display so that he moved a Coca-Cola glass to his lips while rolling his eyes or putting large thermometers in a sunny window, accompanied by an offer of a free fan with every glass of Coca-Cola.
Salesmen discussed the proper distribution of free tickets, counseling one another to avoid residential neighborhoods, where most of the tickets would end up with children and to stick to the business districts, office buildings, and college campuses. “Don’t cast [tickets] before swine or small boys. [But] do not be stingy. Let the public feel that The Coca-Cola Company is the most liberal Santa Claus in the world.” Though one salesman noted that “female stenographers and bookkeepers are good Coca-Cola drinkers,” no one identified women as a major market for Coca-Cola outside the workforce. In order to avoid counterfeits, the tickets were lithographed by a German firm in lots of two million. Even so, many soda fountain operators redeemed Coca-Cola tickets for other soft drinks. Salesmen could best prevent such practices by bribing the soda jerk with novelties such as pocketknives or watch fobs.
Frank Robi
nson spoke at the 1903 meeting, too, but he lacked the inspirational tone of Sam Dobbs, stressing small matters such as urging the salesmen to note the name of imitation colas. Robinson said that he ordered “high class, artistic and expensive advertising matter,” which should be carefully placed: “a large lithograph costing $1.00 should not go into an obscure place or be left with a dispenser to do with as he pleases.” His warnings were understandable, since the sixteen-color artwork was gorgeous. Robinson betrayed some emotion when he pointed out with pride that he had just placed 650 large lithographs in railway stations and that “in Philadelphia and Chicago the large oilcloth signs are so conspicuous and so numerous . . . as to give the impression that The Coca-Cola Company owns the town.”
By the end of the week, the salesmen were well indoctrinated. Coca-Cola was “a thirst-quenching, heaven-sent drink,” one employee glowed, “a blessing to this sun-parched earth.” Another speaker advised salesmen to think of themselves as bearers of a secular religion. Like “the missionary going into a foreign field” to teach the “rudiments,” the Coca-Cola man must be “a live one, [a] practical, hustling man.” Bishop Warren Candler visited the Institute several times to open the meetings with a morning prayer. Together, Warren and Asa led the group in a rousing rendition of “Onward, Christian Soldiers” to end the week. As the printed report of the meeting stated, “the Convention . . . was carried on from beginning to end with a very unusual degree of earnestness and enthusiasm.”
THE BISHOP’S BLESSING
The bishop wasn’t simply doing his brother a favor. Asa’s younger brother truly believed in the twin virtues of capitalism and religion. In 1888, he had helped Coca-Cola gain its first foothold in Nashville, and he owned Coca-Cola stock. Warren and Asa Candler were extremely close, sharing religious values and monetary advice throughout their lives. The bishop was the greater intellect, dominating the Southern branch of the Methodist Church for over thirty years with the force of his character, writings, and sermons. Howard Candler described his uncle as “a short, barrel-shaped man” with “quick passions and doggedly stubborn prejudices.” The bishop’s son compared him to a bulldog. A contentious, pompous little man, he relished good fights, and his conservative views guaranteed he would find them—often with Tom Watson, the Georgia populist-turned-demagogue who called Bishop Candler “a Coca-Cola lobbyist . . . unctuous, self-righteous, [and] self-complacent.”
Warren Candler believed deeply in the superiority of what he called Anglo-Saxon culture. In his 1904 book, Great Revivals and the Great Republic, he asserted that the United States was destined to lead the world because of its revivalistic religion: “Romanism has made South America and Southern Europe what they are, and Protestantism has made England, Germany, Holland, and North America what they are.” In other words, God was on America’s side, and He smiled as Americans made money.
One of Bishop Candler’s strongest arguments in favor of revivals was that they helped maintain the status quo and avert labor unrest. He pointed out that “disturbances between labor and capital have been most frequent in those industries in which the laborers have been brought from the unevangelized masses of Continental Europe.” He ended by emphasizing that the efforts of ministers were essential in an industrial age: “What they [have] accomplished in the way of soothing the irritations of the social system, and of postponing if not preventing the worst industrial disorder, can scarcely be overestimated.” Warren Candler’s paternalistic, conservative views were echoed by his brother Asa, who set the pattern of anti-unionism at The Coca-Cola Company, whose Atlanta employees never organized.
Naturally, the bishop thought it essential for missionaries to disseminate the Protestant gospel and the virtues of industrial harmony. “The missionary enterprise must go in advance of international commerce,” Bishop Candler wrote, “to secure justice in trade and safety for the merchantmen.” He personally spread the Word to China, Korea, and Mexico, but his great love was Cuba. The Spanish-American War of 1898 opened the perfect target for the Methodist missionary—a country full of poor, oppressed Catholics.
The war was scarcely over* when, in late 1898, Warren Candler sailed for Cuba, the first of twenty such visits. Upon his return, he enthusiastically reported that Cuba was “our nearest, neediest, ripest missionary field.” The next year, he helped to found Candler College, a Cuban Methodist mission school. Asa provided funds for the school, explaining, “We may be sure that commercial currents will follow the channels which education opens and deepens. . . . Herein our duty and our interest coincide.” After hearing about this “ripe field” from Warren, Asa promptly enlisted José Parejo, a wine merchant, as a Havana wholesaler for Coca-Cola in May of 1899.
Cuba was not the first foreign country to be invaded by Coca-Cola. It had been sold in Canada, Hawaii, and Mexico by 1897. When Howard Candler went to England during the summer of 1900, he took along a gallon of Coca-Cola syrup and was delighted to find John Ralphs, an American, running one of the new London soda fountains. Ralphs used up the gallon and ordered more from Coca-Cola’s Philadelphia branch.
ASA’S UPS AND DOWNS
In one of his manic moments in 1900, Asa Candler wrote to Howard in London, envisioning Coca-Cola’s world dominion. While his fantasies would not come true during his tenure at the Company, Asa Candler wasn’t a bad prophet. “I propose to put you and your brother in charge somewhere in some of the important places,” he wrote, asking Howard to “critically observe conditions in Europe” while Buddie (Asa Jr.), presumably from his vantage point on the West Coast, would plot strategy for Asia. “Together we must map out for great conquests.” The next year, Candler bragged to a reporter that “Coca-Cola is now being shipped to London and to Berlin, to Canada and to Honolulu, and it is being sold in large quantities in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Kingston, Jamaica.” In fact, outside of Canada and Cuba, the amount sold was negligible. It was primarily distributed through New York and Philadelphia brokers who wouldn’t even tell Coca-Cola officers who their customers were, for fear the Company would sell to them directly.
Asa Candler enjoyed picturing these “great conquests” for his children, but he was becoming increasingly morbid about his own life. In 1901, Candler wrote that “I realize with almost crushing disappointment that I can only be of importance to the interests of my generation through the good that I may bring to it in my boys. I pray constantly that my boys may be men.” The following year, when he was only fifty-one, Candler sounded as if he were dying of old age. “Only a few years at best and I will have to sit down and wait for the Reaper to carry me off like the streetcleaner the trash,” he moaned. “I have not felt well for two weeks. My head aches now.”
Candler’s business was outgrowing him. He was appalled at the amount of money that was being spent on advertising and labor, even though the dollars were accruing faster than he could spend them. At the beginning of 1901, he complained that “we have grown so large and so many to be paid, and with that, money goes out in great torrents.” At that moment, there was a cash surplus of nearly $200,000 and the Company owned $71,000 in real estate free and clear.
Similarly, he wasn’t keeping up with his drink’s potential market. He continued to harbor the Victorian illusion that Coca-Cola must remain a high-class fountain drink, fighting the democratic tide that bottling had unleashed. “We must not cater to dives and cheap places.” Nor was he eager to embrace the automobile. Complaining about mechanical difficulties plaguing the New York office’s Locomobile in 1902, he expressed no confidence in “such machines,” adding that “like the Bycicle I have looked upon them as a fad only.”
The horseless carriage was no fad. In fact, it was a fitting symbol for the restless age that Candler himself represented. In 1901, an Atlanta Constitution journalist wrote that “our new friend, the automobile, [is] a striking exemplification of this queer spirit of unrest which seems to have become an heritage of our national life.” Everyone in America appeared to be “incessantly searching for some new metho
d of economizing time and condensing life into the briefest possible compass. Even our pleasures are taken in that same forceful, strenuous, nerve-straining manner.”
If Candler read this editorial, he must have recognized himself in it. “I am so habituated to hurry,” he wrote, “that I seem to be unable to stay in one place.” When someone politely asked Candler for his ear when he next found a leisure moment, he snapped, “I am never at leisure; what will you have while I am busy?” Finding no peace in his triumph, Candler was as much a victim as a hero of his age. Coca-Cola brought him no relief, though its advertisements promised quick new energy or instant relaxation. In fact, Coca-Cola was emblematic of the modern American attempt to package pleasure. As the editorial implied, even leisure had become strenuous. Candler’s nephew, J. J. Willard, who edited the Coca-Cola Bottler, wrote that the “fever heat” of American civilization, characterized by “rushing and striving,” accounted for the growing demand for Coca-Cola, an instant pick-me-up. But for harried businessmen, including his uncle, the drink provided only temporary respite. Candler could not cope with membership in the leisure class, comprehending only the virtues of work. Years ago, he had clipped a poem which advised: “It is hustle that will tell; / It is Godlike to excel. / Have you work? Do it well.” Though he had excelled, Asa Candler did not feel godlike. His stomach hurt. Searching for solace, he carefully typed out a quotation from Hawthorne: “The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease.”
For God, Country, and Coca-Cola Page 14