We’re on the hunt for a toxic dope that’s certain to kill, sans fail,
But it is a tricky, elusive thing and knows we’re on its trail.
For all the things that could kill we’ve downed in many a gruesome wad,
And still we are gaining a pound a day, for we are the Pizen Squad!
The next year, Wiley used his new public status to attack the patent medicine industry and to demand passage of a pure food and drug bill. All such proposed legislation—almost two hundred bills in the thirty previous years—had been killed by the combined lobbying efforts of the Proprietary Association of America and the whisky and food industries. “There seemed to be an understanding between the two Houses [of Congress],” Wiley recalled, “that when one passed a bill . . . the other would see that it suffered a lingering death.” The tide of public opinion, however, had begun to turn, in large measure because of the press. The ads of the nineteenth-century patent-medicine maker had been largely responsible for the growth of national magazines. Now, ironically, it was those same magazines that gave men like Harvey Wiley and journalists Samuel Hopkins Adams and Mark Sullivan the platform from which to blast the overblown claims and narcotic contents of the nostrums. In October of 1905, Collier’s published the first in a series titled “The Great American Fraud”—blistering, well-researched pieces by Adams that galvanized public and legislative opinion.
In his first article, Adams exposed the “red clause” used by patent medicine men to blackmail publications into favorable editorial positions. Printed in red in advertising contracts, the paragraph voided a contract if hostile state legislation were passed. “Tyrannical masters, these heavy purchasers of advertising space,” Adams remarked, commending William Allen White, editor of the Emporia Gazette in Emporia, Kansas, for refusing to bow to such pressure.
What made it possible for White and other editors to be so courageous was the growth of other advertising revenue from more savory products. Patent medicines had led the way, but now manufacturers of breakfast foods, sewing machines, farm implements, and other mass-produced items were finding that advertising paid. Following Adams’ 1905 praise, White, using his small-town Kansas paper as a platform, became the conscience of America’s heartland for the next forty years.
When William McKinley was assassinated in 1901 and an unpredictable but pugnacious Theodore Roosevelt replaced him as president, the Gilded Age gave way to the Progressive Era. Reform, a natural consequence of the rapid change and industrialization of the late 1800s, suddenly achieved a respectable status. Now members of the previously docile urban middle class demanded assurance of the safety and purity of the foods and drugs they bought. They began to suspect the worst of impersonal, powerful corporations, whose beguiling advertising often promoted adulterated products. Goaded by the muckrakers, consumers clamored for change on all fronts. Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle was published in February of 1906, revealing the revolting conditions in Chicago’s meat packinghouses. A socialist, Sinclair wrote his book primarily as an indictment of working conditions, but it was his graphic description of laborers falling into vats and becoming part of the lard sold at the corner store that had an effect. “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach,” he lamented.
In the new muckraking atmosphere, Coca-Cola was the unhappy object of multiple assaults. “In the past years,” J. J. Willard wrote in the Coca-Cola Bottler, “we have seen a great, cyclonic wave of reform sweeping over the country, pretending, upon its face, to correct all manner of evils and remedy many defects. . . . Very few of the successful industrial concerns of the country have not felt its sting.” Coca-Cola, he noted, was certainly no exception, finding itself vilified by “the man who has excess zeal and little knowledge, the professional boozer, the original teetotaler, and the man with his upturned palm.” Willard’s list aptly summarized the drink’s enemies. Reformers possessed, in his opinion, “excess zeal” and insufficient knowledge. The brewers (“boozers”) were convinced that Coca-Cola was providing secret funds for the Prohibition lobby and resented the soft drink, which claimed to be a temperance beverage but still provided a kick reputed to be as substantial as alcohol’s. Coca-Cola was also denigrated by the temperance forces (“teetotalers”) because of its caffeine content and rumors of cocaine. Finally, lawmakers (with “upturned palm”) saw the wealthy bottlers and The Coca-Cola Company as a convenient source of special sin taxes.
THE PURE FOOD LAW IS PASSED
In 1906, with Adams continuing his series in Collier’s and Sinclair’s book a bestseller, the time was finally ripe for passage of strong national legislation. Wiley stumped the country tirelessly, lobbying the legislatures, advising sympathetic journalists. He wrote to state chemists, talked to women’s clubs, addressed trade associations. He seemed to be everywhere at once. When the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed in June of 1906, it was almost universally known as Dr. Wiley’s Law.
Asa Candler and everyone else at The Coca-Cola Company were, of course, well aware of the pure food movement. Sam Dobbs archly referred to “pure food cranks,” while John Candler complained of “misguided fanatics.” On the state level, Coca-Cola had been fighting adverse legislation since the turn of the century, enlisting the help of local bottlers to kill bills to tax or ban Coca-Cola in virtually every Southern state. It became clear to Judge John Candler, however, that some form of national legislation was inevitable. Although appointed to the Georgia Supreme Court in 1902, he still devoted almost half of his time to Coca-Cola’s legal affairs, and, as the pure food movement gained momentum, the judge realized that the Company needed a full-time lawyer. Assessing his priorities, he resigned from the bench in January of 1906. Ever politically astute, John Candler convinced his older brother Asa that the impending pure food law could actually work to the Company’s benefit. By supporting it, Coca-Cola would appear virtuous and set itself apart from the “bad” patent medicines. Besides, the law could be used to Coca-Cola’s advantage; it would probably put imitators with cocaine content out of business.
Consequently, John Candler traveled to Washington in the spring of 1906 to testify in favor of the Pure Food and Drug Act. When it passed, the Company ran ads prominently declaring that Coca-Cola was pure and wholesome, the Great National Temperance Beverage. “Refreshing as a Summer Breeze,” one late 1906 ad soothingly began, “it aids digestion and is genuinely good to the taste, gives a zest for additional labor and a keener enjoyment of recreation. Guaranteed under the Pure Food and Drugs Act.” Coca-Cola fountain salesmen used the new law to threaten those who were diluting or substituting, saying they would send samples to the Pure Food Commission.
As a result of the law, The Coca-Cola Company also changed the formula, apparently to take saccharin out of both bottle and fountain syrup. Wiley was known to object to saccharin as an adulterant. Exactly when and why the artificial sweetener had been added is a matter of conjecture, but it was probably after consultation with Benjamin Thomas, who convinced Candler that it would be cheaper and would act as a preservative. Since the changed formula cost more, Asa Candler attempted to raise the price of bottlers’ syrup by ten cents a gallon. Thomas objected, referring pointedly to his fixed-price contract, eventually compromising at a two-cent-per-gallon hike. Though no Coca-Cola publicity called attention to the changed formula, it was soon common knowledge. In Emporia, Kansas, William Allen White reported that “a number of the drinkers of this beverage do not think the new kind is as good as the old, but the fountains have their usual run of regular customers.”
WILEY TAKES ON DOPE
For a few months, it appeared that all would be well. But early in 1907, Asa Candler picked up a paper and read the headline: “Dr. Wiley Will Take Up Soda Fountain ‘Dope.’” Clearly, Wiley was referring to Coca-Cola. Although its producers had claimed to remove the cocaine, he said, Coca-Cola’s caffeine content was subject to investigation. Candler wrote to Wiley on February 25, 1907, to complain that his statement would “work
vast deteriment” to his drink’s sales and offered Wiley the “plain facts” that Coca-Cola was a harmless non-alcoholic beverage. “It contains no cocaine, nor any deleterious drug,” he stressed, adding that a serving of the soft drink contained about as much caffeine as a weak cup of tea. “There can be no more objection to the consumption of caffeine in the form of Coca-Cola than there is . . . to the importation of tea and coffee and their use,” Candler concluded. “We therefore ask you most respectfully to give your endorsement to the meritorious cause to which we have devoted our energy.”
Candler may be forgiven for believing that this would resolve the matter, but he didn’t understand how Harvey Wiley’s mind worked. In many ways, Candler and Wiley had similar backgrounds. Both were imbued with a strong religious fundamentalism and grew up on antebellum country farms. Wiley was raised in Indiana, suffering through strictly observed Sundays during which, he recalled, fishing was considered a “heinous sin.” Where Candler had thought of becoming a physician before turning to pharmacy, Wiley had actually earned a medical degree but never practiced, instead becoming a chemistry professor. Their most important similarity, however, was an almost fanatical belief in the righteousness and correctness of their respective causes. Wiley took his father’s advice seriously: “Be sure you are right and then go ahead.”
In almost every other way, Wiley and Candler were opposites. A Yankee whose father read Uncle Tom’s Cabin aloud and made his home a station on the Underground Railroad, Wiley served in Sherman’s army, though he saw limited combat. Physically, Wiley dwarfed Candler. He was a solid six-footer, “tall and massive of stature,” as one journalist put it, “with a big head firmly posed above a pair of titanic shoulders.” His “penetrating glance” unnerved opponents, but, unlike Asa Candler, he possessed a sense of humor and ready wit, taking robust pleasure from life. Wiley’s humor left him, however, when he thundered from the pure food pulpit; he was repeatedly mistaken for a clergyman because of his dress and demeanor, earning the nickname Father Wiley. In fact, he was a professed agnostic, but all of Wiley’s childhood religious training was channeled into his work. He was, as his admirers called him, a “preacher of purity,” or, as his critics preferred, a “zealot.” One historian has aptly described him as a “chemical fundamentalist.”
Above all else, Wiley mounted a moral crusade against fraud and vice. “The injury to public health,” he said, “is the least important question . . . [and] should be considered last of all. The real evil of food adulteration is deception of the consumer.” Wiley’s obsession with deceit rather than health issues was reflected in his law. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 did not make poisonous substances illegal; it simply said that they had to be stated on the label.* Logically enough, Candler felt that he was safe under the new pure food law. Caffeine (unlike cocaine) was not on the list of poisonous substances and consequently did not have to be listed on the label. Candler was merely using common sense when he said that Coca-Cola was no more harmful than a cup of tea.
For Wiley, however, there was a clear difference. Everyone knew that tea contained caffeine, but Coca-Cola purported to be a wholesome drink and was sold to children as such. Also, caffeine was a natural constituent of tea and coffee, but not of Coca-Cola. Candler could hardly have been happy with Wiley’s reply of February 28, 1907: “I have heard many complaints of the Coca-Cola habit. . . . You might as well say that hydrocyanic acid is harmless because it occurs in peaches and almonds.” Ominously, Wiley ended by reassuring Candler that “the Department will not do anything that is hasty or illegal . . . and when we come to the examination of your product, you shall have full opportunity to be heard.”
In July, the acting secretary of Agriculture (no doubt prompted by Wiley, whose Bureau of Chemistry was part of the Agriculture Department) wrote to The Coca-Cola Company, threatening to cancel its serial number if it did not stop claiming in ads to be “guaranteed” under the pure food law. As the Company’s attorney, John Candler wrote a polite response asking how the guaranty was being abused; he was told that the Agriculture Department objected to ads claiming that Coca-Cola was “pure.” The Company agreed to drop the offending word from future ads.
THE WCTU ENTERS THE FRAY
Meanwhile, Wiley plotted against Coca-Cola behind the scenes, enlisting the aid of Mrs. Martha M. Allen, chair of the Medical Temperance Department of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the wife of a Methodist minister. A formidable opponent, Mrs. Allen had written a book about hidden alcohol and narcotics in medicines and had been elected to membership of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Somehow, she and Wiley found old testimony from the 1901 IRS mistrial showing that Coca-Cola contained a small amount of cocaine and 2 percent alcohol. Using the old trial testimony, Wiley and Allen elicited support from the Surgeon General of the Army, who wrote in May that “a soldier drinking a half dozen bottles of this preparation during the day would get an indefinite quantity of cocaine . . . and the same amount of alcohol [as] in an equal quantity of beer.” Based on this assessment, the U.S. Army banned Coca-Cola in June of 1907—quite a blow for the Company, which was trying to position its product as the patriotic National Temperance Beverage.
Coca-Cola did, in fact, have a tiny amount of alcohol, less than one percent of the syrup, a residue from the essential oils and extracts. The 2 percent figure apparently came from an assay of adulterated syrup. To persuade the Army to remove the ban, Coca-Cola braved the lion’s den and asked Wiley’s Bureau of Chemistry to analyze samples of the drink, probably hoping to convince Wiley of its harmlessness at the same time. In September of 1907, John Candler sent Wiley a chemical analysis of Coca-Cola made by an independent pharmacist, showing 1.25 grains of caffeine, compared with 2 grains in the average cup of coffee. “Tests for cocaine failed to respond,” the pharmacist wrote. Wiley sent back a curt note of thanks.
Influential politicians, obviously seeking to please their powerful Coca-Cola constituents, besieged the Army with requests for reconsideration of the ban, among them Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts and Georgia congressman Leonidas Livingston. At the same time, sensational newspaper coverage broke the story nationwide. “COCAINE IS SERVED AT SODA FOUNTAINS,” blared one New Jersey headline. “War Department Bars It from Army Canteens—Concoction Asserted to Contain Not Only Cocaine and Caffeine, but Also as Much Alcohol as Beer—South Has the Habit.” As a result, the Army received letters of inquiry from alarmed organizations whose executives had read the newspaper stories. The International Sunday School Association, the Illinois Board of Health, and the Chautauqua Institution wanted to know if Coca-Cola was injurious. It was a public relations disaster for the soft drink company.
Once it became clear that there was no cocaine and negligible alcohol in Coca-Cola, the Army rescinded the ban in November of 1907, but not before substantial damage had been done. Sales weren’t materially affected in the United States, but the incident nearly ruined the Cuban business. The Coca-Cola Company had opened its own bottling plant in Havana in 1902 and built a thriving business based on sales to Cubans, tourists, and the U.S. Army, which had intervened a second time since the Spanish-American War to crush a revolt. When local competitors found that Coca-Cola had been banned on Army bases, they distributed handbills proclaiming that the drink was a “subtle poison.” Cuban sales plummeted. “Our competitors considered us dead,” the plant manager later wrote. For the first but not the last time, Coca-Cola became the symbol of American imperialism; it took years to rebuild the Cuban trade.
SAM DOBBS MEETS MRS. ALLEN
Mrs. Allen was intent on mobilizing the mothers of America against Coca-Cola. With Wiley’s help, she published a pamphlet implying that the drink still contained cocaine and asserting that its caffeine, combined with the alcohol content, was a health hazard, particularly to children. In an attempt to placate the feisty WCTU leader, Sam Dobbs proceeded north where, as though taking part in a duel, he and Allen each brought a “second” to the Yates
Hotel in Syracuse, New York, near Mrs. Allen’s home. Dobbs opened the debate by praising his Uncle Asa. “It would be impossible for so high-minded a man to make and sell a beverage that contained the least possible danger of a drug-habit,” he explained. “Why, he gives largely to missions and schools.”
Mrs. Allen remained unimpressed, calmly commenting that the British tyrant Charles I had been noted for his kindness to children. “Giving to missions, Mr. Dobbs, is small atonement for years of advertising a coca beverage.” At this, Dobbs lost his temper and waved the defamatory WCTU pamphlet in her face, screaming, “Do you suppose we would give poison to our own children? My children drink Coca-Cola; if it had poison in it, do you think I would let them have it?” When he sputtered into silence, Mrs. Allen replied that the pamphlet never used the word “poison,” but that she believed the drink to be harmful. “I know of a lad who has become worthless in school or anywhere else because of his addiction to Coca-Cola.” As a finale, Dobbs countered by invoking the patron saint of the muckrakers, Samuel Hopkins Adams, asserting that when Collier’s had sent Adams to Georgia to investigate Coca-Cola, he had been unable to find anyone injured by the drink.
It was clear when the two parted that neither duelist had changed the other’s mind, but Martha Allen subsequently wrote to Adams to ask about his trip to Georgia. “Mr. Dobbs has used my name not only without authority,” Adams replied, “but in a way to produce a false impression. What I reported to Collier’s was that I was convinced that coca cola does not contain cocaine. I do most emphatically believe that it produces a habit . . . baneful and difficult to break. There is too much smoke not to indicate some fire, and I hear from all parts of the South, both by letter and personal interview, of cases where the addict must have his fifteen or twenty [daily] glasses of ‘dope.’”
For God, Country, and Coca-Cola Page 17
