Part 20 (2/2)

In 1862 white explorers had observed Ugandan native use of robusta, but no one thought of using it commercially then. Members of the Baganda tribe separated two robusta beans from the same berry, smeared them with their blood, and thereby declared blood brotherhood.

42.

A Chicago journalist wrote a satirical piece about ”The Face on the Coffeehouse Floor” in which ”the bartender . . . can tell by your trembling hand and your shaken nerves that you are after coffee.”

43.

The Coffee Club Coffee Club newsletter sometimes strained for ill.u.s.trations. On a 1924 cover three bored-looking young men dressed in suits and ties stare into s.p.a.ce over their coffee cups, with the caption: ”A corner of the Yale Club . . . with a coffee party in full blast.” newsletter sometimes strained for ill.u.s.trations. On a 1924 cover three bored-looking young men dressed in suits and ties stare into s.p.a.ce over their coffee cups, with the caption: ”A corner of the Yale Club . . . with a coffee party in full blast.”

44.

The author's mother, an Atlanta native, credited the Alice Foote MacDougall coffeehouses with saving her life when she was a little girl visiting New York with her mother in the twenties. ”I was scared to death of white waiters, whom I had never seen. I would only eat at the coffeehouses where blacks served the food.”

45.

The rise of the automobile affected the coffee industry of Venezuela as well. Located at the top of South America, east of Colombia, Venezuela's mountains provided ideal coffee-growing conditions. In 1920 coffee provided two-thirds of the country's exports, but during that decade rich oil deposits offered a more lucrative alternative, and coffee cultivation declined.

46.

Things may have run smoothly under the direction of the second generation, but the generous treatment of employees was eroding. In 1922, according to a company memo, ”the practice of distributing coffee gratuitously to employees” was discontinued.

47.

John Watson was not the only one who made such observations. In 1922 the novelist Sinclair Lewis created George Babbitt, the quintessential American consumer for whom ”standard advertised wares . . . were his symbols and proofs of excellence; at first the signs, then the subst.i.tutes, for joy and pa.s.sion and wisdom.” Every morning the insecure Babbitt ”gulped a cup of coffee in the hope of pacifying his stomach and his soul.”

48.

The year before, in 1927, Postum acquired the U.S. rights to market Sanka, a decaffeinated coffee. A Southern black ”mammy” graced the label, clearly attempting to cash in on the same Southern a.s.sociations that sold Maxwell House.

49.

Herbert Hoover, who objected to the artificial prosperity of the coffee growers, failed to see any parallel to the U.S. economy, inflated by speculative stock buying. ”We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land,” he stated in a stump speech. ”We shall soon, with the help of G.o.d, be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation.”

50.

In Nicaragua, dictator Jose Santos Zelaya received U.S. government support, as Americans hoped to negotiate a ca.n.a.l through his country. After 1903, however, when the United States engineered a coup in Panama and secured rights to a ca.n.a.l there, Zelaya's fights against U.S. business interests proved more difficult, and in 1909 he was forced to resign. From 1909 until 1933, with the exception of a brief period in 1926-1927, the U.S. Marines established a protectorate in Nicaragua to ensure the domination of American interests there. North Americans controlled the banks, the military, and the coffee growers. As a consequence, the Nicaraguan coffee economy stagnated in comparison with its Central American neighbors.

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