Judge — November 18, 1911 — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

We Get a Slap The big coffee trust, made up of Brazilian growers and American importers, has been trying various tactics to boost the price of coffee and get more money from the people. Always the man who is trying to dig extra money out of the public pocket, on a combination, hates the man who blocks the game. Now comesa plaintive bleat from the “exasper- ated” ones. The Journal of Commerce lately said: ‘A stirring circular has just been issued to the coffee trade.” The article further says: “The coffee world is discussing what is to be the future of coffee as a result of the campaign of miseducation carried on by the cereal coffee people. We have before us a letter from one of the largest roasters in the South asking what can be done to counteract the work of the enemies —— suas Brazilian Coffee Grower of coltee. “The matter should have been taken up by the Brazilian Gov't when they were completing their beautiful valorization scheme. Then the article proceeds to denounce Postum and works intoa fine frenzy, be- cause we have published facts regarding the effect of coffee on some people. The harrowing tale goes on. “Where a few years ago everybody drank coffee, several cups a day, now we find in every walk in life people who imagine they cannot drink it. (The underscoring is ours.) urly blacksmiths, carpenters, laborers and athletes have discontinued or cut down the use of coffee; as there is not a person who reads this and will not be able to find the same conditions existing among his cwn circle of acquaintances, is it not well fo. the Brazilians to sit up and take notice?’” Isn’t_ it curious these “burly” strong men should pick out coffee to ‘tim- agine’’ about?) Why not ‘‘imagine’’ that regular doses of whiskey are harmful, or daily slugs of morphine? If ‘‘imagination’”? makes the caffeine in coffee clog the liver, depress the heart and steadily tear down the nervous system, bringing on one or more of the dozens of types of diseases which follow broken-down nervous systems, many people don’t know it. But it remained for the man who has coffee, morphine or whiskey to sell, to have the supreme nerve to say: ‘‘You_ only im- agine_your_disorders. ep_on_ buying from me. Let us continue to quote from his article. “‘Notwithstanding the enormous increase in population during the past three years, coffee shows an appalling decrease _in_con- sumption.’’ ee Then follows a tiresome lot of statistics which wind up by showing a decrease of consumption in two years of, in round fig- ures, two hundred million pounds. Here we see the cause for the attacks on us and the Brazilian sneers at Americans who prefer to use a healthful, home-made breakfast drink and incidentally keep the money in America, rather than send the millions to Brazil and pay for an article that chemists_class_among the drugs and not among the foods. Will the reader please remember, we never announce that coffee ‘‘hurts all people.” Some persons seem to have excess vital- ity enough to use coffee, tobacco and whiskey for years and apparently be none the worse, but the number is small, and when a sensible man or woman finds an article acts harmfully they exercise some degree of intelligence by dropping it. We quote again from the article: “These figures are paralyzing but correct, being taken from Leech’s statistics, recog- nized as the most reliable.” This is one of the highest compliments ever paid to the level-headed, common sense of Americans who cut off about two hundred million pounds of coffee when they found by actual experiment (in the major- ity of cases) that the subtle drug caffeine, in coffee, worked discomfort and varying forms of disease, Some people haven’t the character to stop a habit when they know it is killing them, but it is easy to shift from coffee to Postum, for, when made according to di- rections, it comes to table a cup of bever- age, seal brown color, which turns to rich golden brown when cream is added, and the taste is very like the milder grades of Old Gov’t Java, Postum is a veritable food-drink and highly nourishing, containing all the parts of wheat carefully prepared to which is added about 10 per cent of New Orleans molasses, and that is absolutely all that Postum is made of. Thousands of visitors to the pure food factories see the ingredients and how pre- pared. Every nook and corner is open for every visitor to carefully inspect. Crowds come daily and seem to enjoy it. “There’s a Reason” Postum Cereal Company, Limited Battle Creek, Michigan comicbooks.com