EDITORIAL 



i6i 



may do to America in a political wa\ , she 

 can not undo the great service she did our 

 country by introducing- us to chcwing- 

 gum. According to the New ^'ork Tri- 

 bune, it was General Santa Anna, of 

 Mexico, when a candidate tor the Presi- 

 dency of that changeal)le countr}-, who 

 brought the new confection to the notice 

 of an astute American friend. As the 

 account runs : 



On one of his campaign-tours for Re- 

 volving President of ^Mexico, General 

 Santa Anna went in June, 1866, to confer 

 with a friend at Snug Harbor, Staten 

 Island. Little realizing what momentous 

 results were to attend his action, came one 

 Thomas Adams, Jr., to pay a social call 

 on the distinguished thug. One word led 

 to another, and before the afternoon was 

 half over they had reached such a state of 

 familiarity that General Santa Anna had 

 gone to his bureau-drawer and taken out 

 a little chunk of something resembling" 

 overshoeing and, placing a piece of it in 

 his mouth, began to chew it with apparent 

 relish, at the same time ofifering a sector 

 of it to Mr. Adams and his son. 



With a nice regard for convention, ]\Ir. 

 Adams asked the General what it was 

 before he placed it in his mouth, and was 

 informed that it was the gum of the 

 zapote-tree, known to its friends as 

 "chicle." 



Thus reassured, Mr. Adams took a 

 chance, and was at once imprest with the 

 substance's possibilities as a commercial 

 rubber. He asked Santa Anna to give him 

 a piece about the size of a man's fist, and 

 took it home with him for experimental 

 purposes to see if it could not be vulcan- 

 ized. 



In conference with a chemist and a 

 manufacturer of dental supplies, he tried 

 to produce from it a substance that could 

 be used as a base for artificial teeth, but 

 the thing must have had some intuitive 

 sense of what it had really been brought 

 into the world for, as it successfully re- 

 fused to be vulcanized and remained just 

 what it was when it first came from Santa 

 Anna's bureau — a potential stick of 

 health-giving, circulation-building, teeth- 

 preserving, digestion-aiding, brain-re- 

 freshing, chest-developing, soul-tuning 

 chewing-gum. 



One day as they sat around the dissect- 

 ing-table gazing hopelessly at the defiant 



mass of chicle, some one said in a pet that 

 the only thing the darn stuff was good 

 for apparently was to be chewed. And 

 ]\Ir. Adams, l)eing of that type of men 

 pictured in the encyclopedia advertise- 

 ments who have, without a college 

 education, worked their way from a line- 

 cut fadeway in the background, repre- 

 senting' a barefoot boy, to a half-tone pic- 

 ture of a man in a two-button sack suit, 

 with his hand on an open volume, im- 

 mediately answered back with "We'll 

 fight it out on this line if it takes all 

 summer," or ^Millions for defense, but not 

 one cent for tribute." or some such histor- 

 ical phrase, and the manufacture of chew- 

 ing-gum from chicle was begun. 



The Adamses, father and son, managed 

 to get together a capital of thirty-five 

 dollars, and with this as a working basis, 

 the account tells us. they began the manu- 

 facture of this new — what shall we call 

 it, well, commodity. They started then 

 what proved to be the greatest national 

 movement America has ever seen, the jaw 

 movement. 



As to the actual manufacture of chew- 

 ing-gum, we learn that it was very simple. 

 The thirty-five dollars would go a long 

 way, for we read : 



The chicle was boiled on an ordinary 

 cook-stove, like molasses candy, until it 

 had the consistency of bread-dough, when 

 it was rolled into long strips and ctit off 

 in inch-sections. These were hardened 

 in cold water and packed, a hundred in a 

 box, and the thing was done. 



The chewing of gum in the early days 

 of its manufacture was more a matter 

 of conscientious application to the work 

 at hand than it is to-day, for there Was 

 no such thing as flavoring to help along 

 the delusion of having a good time. It 

 was just chewing for chewing's sake, 

 and the pioneers who gave their time and 

 energy without even a trace of spearmint 

 or blood-orange reward deserve all the 

 praise due to men and women who blaze 

 the trail for those who follow in effete 

 enjoyment of the fruits of their hardships. 

 It was necessary at first to give away 

 the pieces of gum with purchases of 

 candy, so that the children might have 

 a chance to take it home and try it over on 

 their piazzas, with the idea that they 

 would soon come back for more, once they 



