For God, Country, and Coca-Cola

by Mark Pendergrast

  1890: YEAR OF DECISION

  On January 1, 1890, Asa Candler took stock of his financial situation, writing out a personal balance sheet. He was no longer in debt, showing a net worth of $17,326, although this included his house. One of the entries shows “Coca-Cola Patent Trade Mark etc . . . $2,000,” which is presumably what Candler figured he had paid for it. At the same time, he downgraded De-Lec-Ta-Lave to $1,000, though he had purchased it for almost $4,000. He did not list any other patent medicines by name.

  That January, in the drab coolness of an Atlanta winter, Coca-Cola continued to sell, an unprecedented feat for a soda fountain drink, normally confined to summer sipping. By the month’s end, Candler had sold 168 gallons of syrup. Inspired by these figures, he wrote a form letter that he sent to druggists in February, promoting Coca-Cola as “a delightful summer and winter soda fountain beverage.” Candler asserted that “the genuine merit and deserved popularity” of the drink was proved by “a reputation that now extends all over the states of Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Tennessee, and to numerous localities in many other States.”

  Candler clearly had been reading Pemberton’s old notes and ads, praising the “medical properties of the Coca Plant and the extract of the celebrated African Cola Nut,” adding that “the best physicians unhesitatingly endorse and recommend [Coca-Cola] for mental and physical exhaustion, headache, tired feeling, mental depression, etc.” Finally, Candler emphasized that “the principal customers for Coca-Cola are business and professional men, who do not generally spend their money for that which gives them nothing in return.” Coca-Cola was, he implied, a practical pick-me-up for the harried man of business, a theme he would stress repeatedly in the ensuing years.

  Although he promoted Coca-Cola as a soda fountain drink, Candler also advertised the straight syrup as a patent medicine, which he sold for twenty-five cents a bottle—about a quarter of the going rate for most medicines—in grocery and drug stores. In almanacs distributed throughout the Southern states, Candler suggested that Coca-Cola syrup “should be kept in every house to cure headache and tired feeling,” as well as to “overcome depression and languor.” The suggested dosage was a tablespoonful to a wineglass of water.

  Sales for 1890 amounted to 8,855 gallons, over four times the previous year’s record. By the end of the year, Asa Candler realized that if he could pay sufficient attention to Coca-Cola, it might well make his fortune. He finally decided to abandon the drug business and devote all of his time to Coca-Cola. Careful as always, he remained diversified for the moment, retaining the rights to B.B.B. and De-Lec-Ta-Lave. A January 1891 newspaper piece, titled “Going Out of Business,” noted that Candler’s trade in the three proprietary medicines had “grown to be immense and all of his time is required to look after them.”

  Convinced that Coca-Cola was his future, Candler decided to create a solid chain of title, and on April 22, 1891, he persuaded Joe Jacobs, the only other remaining member of Walker, Candler & Company (Woolfolk Walker having conveniently disappeared in 1888), to sign over that company’s Coca-Cola rights to Candler individually. Then, on June 5, Candler deposited all of the relevant documents with the U.S. Patent Office.

  Having sold his drug business, Candler sought to economize by moving that fall to 42½ Decatur Street, where he manufactured Coca-Cola above a pawnshop, secondhand clothing store, and black saloon. He was not a popular tenant, because the forty-gallon kettle of brewing syrup periodically boiled over. The sweet, sticky mixture would ooze through the floorboards and drip into the establishments below.

  As the money from Coca-Cola rolled in, Candler spent more on advertising his product throughout Georgia and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the South, using the now-familiar Coca-Cola script logo originated by Frank Robinson. He soon hired a black man, George Curtright, and another nephew, Sam Willard, to make Coca-Cola, freeing Robinson to market the drink full-time.

  ROBINSON: THE UNSUNG HERO

  If anyone can be called the unsung hero of Coca-Cola, it is certainly Frank Robinson. A small, unassuming man—even shorter than Asa Candler—with a bushy mustache, Robinson never demanded attention or fame. Although a stark contrast, he and Candler made a complementary team. While Candler was driven, high-strung, and temperamental, always on the verge of cracking, Robinson remained calm, deliberate, and unflappable in the face of the worst controversy. Following Candler’s example, Robinson taught Sunday school. But while Candler’s prepubescent students made fun of him behind his back, Robinson studied the Bible with a devoted flock of young women in their twenties. One photograph of the period shows Robinson, looking quietly pleased with himself, seated on a stool surrounded by fifty of his female students.

  A 1917 biographical sketch noted that “while Mr. Robinson’s modesty would not permit him to make any such claim, many knowing friends do not hesitate to say that it was Frank M. Robinson who made Coca-Cola and gave it its worldwide reputation.” Indeed, Robinson’s behind-the-scenes creation of Coca-Cola advertising over the next twenty years would catapult the drink to fame. The mastermind of this most Southern soft drink was a native of Corinth, Maine. His father had been severely wounded in the battle of Cold Harbor during the Civil War, and Frank Robinson himself had served in the Maine Volunteers. Despite his accomplishments with Coca-Cola, one of his greatest sources of pride recalled in later years was his election as county auditor of Osceola County, Iowa, in 1872, before he came to Atlanta.

  Candler, however, probably devised some early ads himself. Written in the first person, they bear his rather idiosyncratic stamp. “IT MAKES FRIENDS RAPIDLY. IT DOES WHAT IS CLAIMED FOR IT. MERIT SELLS IT,” one such ad proclaimed. His statement in an early ad was, in light of Coca-Cola’s subsequent history, ironic: “I challenge the world to show an article of its kind as popular as Coca-Cola, for which so little advertising has been done.” In the same ad, Candler explained that he had been “a great and almost daily sufferer” of headaches before trying Coca-Cola. “In offering it to the public,” he added, “I feel I am a public benefactor.”

  When that first year of full-time devotion to Coca-Cola, B.B.B., and De-Lec-Ta-Lave was over, Candler had sold 19,831 gallons of syrup, more than double the previous year’s record, and he had done it with a relatively small promotional budget. What would happen if he really funneled money into advertising? Sure that there was more money to be made from Coca-Cola, a boon to suffering mankind, Candler determinedly put all of his effort behind the single product. He soon sold De-Lec-Ta-Lave to Joe Jacobs and B.B.B. to J. B. Brooks, one of his part-time traveling salesmen, and on December 29, 1891, Candler filed for incorporation of The Coca-Cola Company.

  COCAINE BLUES

  Even as Coca-Cola was rocketing to fame, however, rumors of its cocaine content were stirring. As they would for many years to come, patrons calling for Coca-Cola usually asked for a “dope,” a practice that infuriated Candler. On June 12, 1891, just a week after depositing his chain of title with the Patent Office, Candler opened the Atlanta Constitution and read the headline, “WHAT’S IN COCA COLA? A Popular Drink Which Is Said to Foster the Cocaine Habit.” His stomach churning and a headache rolling like a thunderclap up the base of his neck, Candler read what a “thoughtful citizen” had told a reporter.

  Coca-Cola drinking was, the indignant citizen said, “a very vicious and pernicious thing,” and “people are drinking it a dozen times a day.” The informant asserted that “the ingredient which makes coca cola so popular is cocaine. There is evidently enough of it in the drink to affect people and it is insiduously but surely getting thousands of people into the cocaine habit.” He then related the story of his friend who, in despair over his inability to shake the cocaine habit, had shot himself. The implication, of course, was that drinking a Coca-Cola was the first step on the road to self-destruction.

  Candler responded by taking out an ad in which he challenged anyone to prove a case in which Coca-Cola had led to cocaine addiction. “If I thought it could possibly hurt an
ybody,” he asserted, “I would quit the manufacture of Coca-Cola instantly.” He stated that the formula for Coca-Cola called for only a half-ounce of coca leaf per gallon of syrup and that “no sensible man would undertake to say that this quantity in a gallon would hurt a person taking a glass of the beverage.” If Candler was giving accurate information, he was certainly correct that a glass of Coca-Cola had a negligible amount of cocaine in it, amounting to about 0.4 milligrams. Either Candler was lying, however, or he had substantially reduced the amount of coca leaf in the formula, because the Pemberton formula called for eleven times the amount Candler claimed to use.*

  The controversy died down, and Coca-Cola drinkers indulged their nefarious habit with no visible ill effect. Nonetheless, rumors about Coca-Cola’s drug content would continue to haunt Candler and the drink in the years to come. It is likely, in fact, that these rumors helped more than hindered sales. People were intrigued by the stigma associated with the drink and felt a sinful thrill when imbibing it.

  THE MAGIC FORMULA

  The mystique of Coca-Cola was also enhanced, of course, by its secret formula, whose blend of flavors was code-named 7X.† Soon after Frank Robinson brought him the formula, Asa Candler changed it. His son said that he did so because “the Pemberton product did not have an altogether agreeable taste; it was unstable; it contained too many things, too much of some ingredients and too little of others . . . the bouquet of several of the volatile essential oils previously used was adversely affected by some ingredients.”

  Candler also modified the formula to distinguish it from all of the other recipes floating around. At least ten people had access to the original Pemberton formula.‡ In addition, as Coca-Cola achieved universal popularity, versions of the formula were offered by imitators, druggists, and charlatans for varying amounts, ranging, according to Joe Jacobs, “from $1,000 down to a bottle of Whiskey.”

  In order to protect his valuable secret, Candler engaged in an elaborate ritual whenever he received a shipment of ingredients. Either he or Robinson would remove the labels immediately, instead adding a number code, from 1 to 9 (the essential oils for 7X were left entirely unlabeled). Candler opened all of the Company mail, so that he could intercept invoices for secret ingredients before anyone in the accounting department saw them.

  At first, only Candler or Robinson mixed the precious 7X. Later, when Howard Candler joined the business, he was taught the solemn ceremony as a rite of passage. “One of the proudest moments of my life,” he remembered, “came when my father . . . initiated me into the mysteries of the secret flavoring formula, inducting me as it were into the ‘Holy of Holies.’” Supposedly, no formula or instructions were written down. The containers, labels removed, were identified “only by sight, smell and remembering where each was put on the shelf.” Finally, either Candler or Robinson sampled each batch of syrup before it left the factory. Robinson had a particularly keen nose and palate and could detect even a trace of an off flavor.

  INCORPORATION (RE-INCORPORATION)

  The Coca-Cola Company was granted its corporate charter on January 29, 1892. Candler must have breathed a sigh of relief when no bureaucrat noticed that there was already a Coca-Cola Company on the books from 1888. The charter for the new company called for a capitalization of $100,000 to be divided into a thousand shares at $100 each.

  In February, Candler transferred his rights in Coca-Cola to the corporation in return for 500 shares, while giving Frank Robinson only 10. Candler intended to raise money for his business in 1892 by selling the other 490 shares to investors, which explains two unfamiliar names: J. M. Berry of Virginia and F. W. Prescott of Massachusetts. Although Berry soon dropped out of the picture, Prescott, an entrepreneur “well posted in the different markets,” according to one newspaper account, actively tried to market shares in the Boston area. Candler also contacted stockbrokers and venture capitalists in New York and Baltimore. Despite the demonstrated profitability of Coca-Cola, Candler located few backers for his relatively unknown proprietary medicine. Candler granted the Darby Manufacturing Company of Baltimore the exclusive Maryland territory for Coca-Cola for ten years; as an added incentive, they received a share of Coca-Cola stock for every five hundred gallons of syrup they bought (up to fifty shares). They had earned eighteen shares by 1899 when they sold back to the Candler family.

  F. W. Prescott found better investors in Boston. The firm of Seth Fowle & Sons, already in the proprietary drug business, bought fifty shares and the exclusive rights to the New England trade for twenty years. The two Fowle sons became dedicated Coca-Cola men, issuing the first newsletter to boost the product. The Coca-Cola News of the 1890s, aimed at the retailer, emphasized the profits to be made from the soft drink, calling it a “restorative, a blessing to humanity.” Recognizing the new national rage for bicycling, the Fowle brothers urged the drink upon “wheelmen” and other athletes. The ever-increasing sales of Coca-Cola soon gave Candler all the capital he needed—there were never more than 586 shares outstanding at any one time.

  RUNNING AFOUL OF KENT’S COCA-COLA

  As business gathered momentum, in May of 1892 Candler decided to patent the trademark Coca-Cola script. What he thought would be a routine matter threatened to destroy his business before it fairly got off the ground. He was denied the registration; incredibly, someone else had already invented and trademarked a product called Coca-Cola. This was cause for another Candler headache, a bona fide migraine.

  It shouldn’t have shocked Candler. By the mid-1880s, the coca leaf and kola nut were frequently mentioned in conjunction; it appeared inevitable that someone would put the two ingredients together. It is not too surprising, then, that two men not only had the same idea, but the same name.* A Paterson, New Jersey, druggist named Benjamin Kent had seen the 1883–1884 Frederick Stearns catalog with parallel columns on coca and kola and, inspired by the juxtaposition, named his new tonic Kent’s Coca-Cola in late 1884, over a year before Frank Robinson named Pemberton’s drink.

  Like Pemberton’s formula, Kent’s Coca-Cola was imbibed mainly as a hangover remedy, the label, eerily similar to Pemberton’s, calling the medicine “a panacea for all those tired, worn out, exhausted mental and physical conditions that require a frequent tonic.” Unlike Pemberton’s drink, however, Kent’s contained not only caffeine and cocaine but a healthy dollop of whisky, euphemistically called “spirits of frumenty.” The bitter syrup was taken with soda water and became quite popular in Paterson.

  In 1888, Kent approached John Kerr, a Paterson lawyer, about registering his Coca-Cola as a trademark, which Kerr did on January 22, 1889. The application stated that Kent had used the trademark “continuously in the business since June 1, 1888.” Kerr later testified that he advised Kent to use the 1888 date, because a U.S. trademark required that the article be sold outside the United States. Consequently, he had told Kent to sell his Coca-Cola through a friend in Canada, which he had accomplished in June of 1888. Due to this technicality, Atlanta’s version of Coca-Cola was eventually given precedence. Pemberton had registered the Coca-Cola trademark a year earlier, on June 28, 1887, and in Interference Procedure No. 15,753, the Patent Office ruled that only the official dates given in the applications were relevant. In 1894, Candler quietly bought out Kent for $400, though the hopeful New Jersey druggist had asked for $10,000.

  COCA-COLA TAKES OFF

  With all major obstacles removed, properly incorporated and duly trademarked, Candler’s Coca-Cola was poised for a period of phenomenal growth. From almost 20,000 gallons in 1891, sales shot up to 35,360 gallons in 1892, then (during a nationwide depression) to 48,427 in 1893, 64,333 in 1894, and 76,244 in 1895. All of this was accomplished with a tiny home office staff, never more than thirty in the first two decades of the Company. The key, as Candler and Robinson soon demonstrated, was advertising. In his first annual report, covering the ten months after incorporation in 1892, Candler reported that the firm had spent almost $22,500 on ingredients for Coca-Cola and over half of
that amount ($11,400) on advertising. He commented that “we have done very considerable advertising in territory which has not as yet yielded any returns. We have reason to believe that it will show good returns during the ensuing year.”

  The majority of the advertising budget was spent on point-of-purchase signs, calendars, novelties, and newspaper ads, all of them prominently displaying the Coca-Cola script. Candler, who at first had misspelled his own product, became very touchy about the correct spelling of Coca-Cola—not coco-cola or cocoa-cola, it must also be capitalized and hyphenated. His concern, although sometimes petulantly expressed, was justified, because variant spellings and lower-case usage would have made it easier for the drink to become a generic term open to any competitor.

  The early ads were almost universally medicinal. Although the firm letterhead did proclaim that Coca-Cola was “Delicious, Refreshing, Exhilarating, Invigorating,” Candler’s early ads failed to use those adjectives. Instead, Coca-Cola was “Harmless, Wonderful, Efficient, Quick . . . Relieves Headache . . . Gives Prompt Rest.” It was the “Ideal Brain Tonic and Sovereign Remedy for Headache and Nervousness. It makes the sad glad and the weak strong.” Clearly, Candler believed in the drink’s beneficial effects, even if he denied they were due to cocaine.

  Although the ads were primarily aimed at businessmen, a few addressed women: “The ladies are taking it right along. They find it relieves headaches and exhaustion, besides it’s a tonic and a pleasant beverage.” Another sought to attract smokers, who presumably could wash away that stale tobacco taste. Finally, Candler recognized that children, who could wheedle a nickel from their parents, were prime customers. An early trade card showed three small boys in sailor suits holding a sign proclaiming, “We drink Coca-Cola.”