CHEWING-GUM KING

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 January 1925, Page 2

CHEWING-GUM KING

CONQUESTS PAST AND FUTURE

The recent publication of income tax returns at Washington, which has caused such infinite distress in plutocratic quarters, reveals the fact that one of America’s greatest fortunes belongs to the man who Jiarliessed the jaw-power of a nation, says a correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian.” His name is William Wrigley, junior, of Chicago and California, and his fortune, which, if not in the Rockefeller and Ford Class ranks easily among the first ten, has been made from chewing gum. Wrigley’s father was a soap manufacturer in Philadelphia, where the son was born in 1861. Always an adventurous spirit, he ran away from home and sold papers for a time for a living, but he was eventually captured, and when his schooling was completed was put to selling the paternal soap. He conceived the idea of distributing a stick of chewing gum with each cake of soap sold, and when the lure proved popular he was put in charge of a branch department which made chewing gum. In his capable hands it soon became a separate business, and a large trade was speedily built up in the Southern and Western States. But old-established firms retained the New York market, and Wrigley’s first attempt-to capture it at the biginning of this century failed.

Five years later he made a ; second effort with a special advertising programme which' : cost ■’■£ 1,-500,000 dollars. It only met with qualified success, but he was not dismayed, and gradually increased his -advertising operations till his persistence bore fruit and he began to outsell all rivals throughout the whole country. The Wrigley firm now dominates the-Am-erican market, and has selling agencies 'Utt Ariosi cornerk of the universe. Lately Mr. Wrigley has been making an intensive drive upon the

Asiatic market, and it is rumoured that he intends next to get more work out of the comparatively idle jaws of Europe and Africa. - -