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PROHIBITION WILL INCREASE ATLANTA'S DISTINCTION AS         
         LEADING SOFT DRINK DISPENSING CITY OF THE WORLD

__________

People Here Spend $1,000,000
a Year on Liquids That
Quench Thirst But Do
Not Intoxicate.

THIS AMOUNT WILL BE           
          INCREASED AFTER JAN. 1
__________

Soda Water Fountain Manufacturers
All Have Southern Agencies
Here---Some Astounding
Figures of Trade
__________

Atlanta's distinction of being the leading city in the world in the matter of the consumption of soft drinks will be added to on January 1 when Prohibition comes in.  One concern, which manufactures a popular drink-and the reader can readily guess the name of the drink-the other day ordered 380,000,000 glasses for the trade in this country.  The concern which got this order wired back for confirmation.  It was feared a mistake had been made.
  Of course not all these glasses will go into prohibition territory, but as Atlanta is the distribution center of the leading soft drink manufacturers, and it as it is headquarters also for the southern territory in the soda fount trade, business in Georgia, and other southern sates is bound to come here after January 1.
  D. A. Loyless, editor of the Southern Carbonator and Bottler, and formerly secretary of the Georgia Bottlers' association, who has lately launched another publication devoted to soda water interests, gives it as his opinion that $1,000,000 is spent annually in Atlanta on soft drinks.  There are twenty concerns in Atlanta that manufacture and bottle soft drinks exclusively.  The amount of their investment ranges from $2,999 to over $500,000.

$346,500

The amount of their output is $16,926,100.
  This output is shipped all over the country.  Coca-cola, for instance, has orders as far away as Alaska.  red Rock Ginger Ale got orders the other day from South Dakota.
  Figures are often deceptive; and it is next to impossible to give more than approximate estimates.  To begin with, there are twenty or more soft drink manufacturing and bottling concerns in Atlanta.  They are: Coca-cola and its bottling plant: Hagan & Dodd Co., Viva Food company, the Hop Ale company, Kentucky Mineral Water, Benjamin-Ozburn company, Afri-Cola company, Burroughs & Cummings, Kola Ade, Koca Nola company, Wise Ola company, Capital City Bottling Works, National Bottling company, Wiseola Bottling Works, Aphro company, Rainbow Ale company, and others.

$16,926,100 Output

These companies, exclusive of Coca-cola proper (the bottling plant is included) represent an investment $346,500, approximately.  The amount of the investment of the coca-cola people is a hard thing to get at.  The Candler building, for instance, which grew out of coca-cola directly or indirectly, cost $1,000,000.  The general investment, though, is scattered over the country.
  The output of these concerns, exclusive of coca-cola proper, but including coca-cola bottled, represents a money value of $876,190.  The total output of coca-cola for 1907 will be approximately 2,500,000 gallons.  There are 130 glasses to the gallon, and figured at the retail price, coca-cola brings $6.50 a gallon.  The people of the content spend $16,250,000 approximately for coca-cola in glasses and bottles.  The consumption of this drink here is about 10,000 gallons a month, or 120,000 a year; 1,300,000 glasses a month or 15,600,000 a year, and the later, at five cents a glass, make $780,000 a year which Atlanta and the vicinity pay for coca-cola in glasses, exclusive of the bottles.
  Figures it all up, and including the $16,750,000 which the nation pays for coca-cola.  Atlanta soft drinks get annually, at retail prices, something like $16,926,100.  It was coca-cola, by the way, which ordered the 360,000,000 glasses.  Soft drink men don't dispute the lead this drink has.

When "Dryness" Comes

With Atlanta spending a million a year for soft drinks without prohibition, what will she spend after January 1st, when the most drastic prohibition bill ever passed by a legislature will go into effect? There are now approximately 300 soda founts in Atlanta.  These do not include groceries, fruit stands, small restaurants and the like which sell bottled non-alcoholic mixtures.
  Of the 150 or more barrrooms that will be put out of business by prohibition perhaps fifty will put in soda founts to meet the increased demand for next year for soft drinks, and this will mean an increase in the output of soft drink manufacturers here.  Alabama in another year will have become dry, and still another market will be widened.  Atlanta's lead as a soft drink dispensing city as well as a consuming one, will take another bound.
  So important has the city become as a soft drink center that manufacturers of soda fountains all have their southern headquarters here.  these firma are the Liquid Carbonic Co., the American Soda Fountain Co., the Puffer Manufacturing Co., the Becker Soda Fountain Co., the Twentieth Century Soda Fountain Co., and Green & Son.  these firms supply out-of-town and southern dealers as well as the local.
  One of these firms carries a $100,000 stock of fountains and fixtures all the time.  There are fountains in Atlanta costing as high as $20,000.  Expert soda water jerkers demand a salary as high as $1,800 a year.  Dealers in the shopping districts, or on busy corners, have as many as four dispensers.
  Eighty million labels a year are used by local bottlers of soft drinks, for which a sum of $40,000 a year is spent.  A factory here makes a specialty of crates for bottled soft drinks and mineral waters.
Lee Hagan, of Hagan & Dodd Co., and one of the best posted men in Atlanta in the business, said that soft drinks had advertised Atlanta to the world more than any other business here.

Lee Hagan Talks

"The ordinary business, you see," Mr. Hagan said, "caters almost entirely to a nearby territory, Atlanta soft drinks are sent all over the world.  The other day we got an order in South Dakota.  Another concerns sells regularly to Alaska.
  "This is not only an advertisement, but it also brings money here from other places.  There is not city in the world that has Atlanta's reputation for the consumption and sale of non-alcoholic drinks.  It is marvelous.
"We ca nall (sic) remember the time when soda fountains closed in September and never opened al all during the winter season.  Look at the difference now, when no place closes during the winter season.  Look at the differences also in the expensiveness of the founts, and the increase in attractiveness of the places that sell soft drinks.
  "Of course, prohibition will help the trade wonderfully.  People who have drunk alcoholic drinks, having formed the habit of drinking something, will turn now to non-alcoholic drinks."

History of Soft Drinks

Climatic conditions have undoubtedly had something to do with the vogue of soft drinks in the south.  In the north, even in the big cities like New York and Philadelphia, little attention is paid to them.  The places that dispense them have small fountains and unattractive ones.
  It seems in the natural order of things, therefore, that the south should have had the first bottling plant.  It was established in Charleston in 1840.  John Ryan followed with one in Atlanta in 1867.  A man names Pillsbury established a plant here after the war, and he was followed in turn by Charles Brown.
  The first druggist here to dispense soda water was Theodore Schumann, who conducted a drug store at Whitehall and Hunter streets.  The boys and girls who drank at this marvelous fountain 28 years ago must marvel at the change that has come since then.
  Speaking of the increase in the business of of soft drink bottlers which must come with prohibition after January 1, consider this summary of the "wet and dry" situation in the south, which Atlanta manufacturers so largely supply.

Prohibition in South

Texas-243 counties; 145 dry, 51 partly dry, 47 wet.
  Oklahoma-Constitutional prohibition.
  Arkansas-75 counties, 58 dry.
  Louisiana-59 parishes, 23 dry.
  Kentucky-119 counties, 94 dry, 4 wet, and 21 liquor in cities only.
  Tennessee-All counties dry, except liquor sold in three cities and three towns only.
  Mississippi-76 counties, 69 dry.
  Alabama-67 counties; total prohibition, effective January 1909.
  Florida-47 counties, 34 dry.
  Georgia-Total prohibition after January 1.
  South Carolina-41 counties, 17 dry.
  North Carolina-97 counties, 82 dry.
  Virginia-100 counties, 46 dry, 26 counties dry outside of cities.
  West Virginia-55 counties, 33 dry.
  Summary: Dry, 950 counties; wet 508; partially wet, 98 counties.  In the few remaining wet counties, liquor is confined principally to larger towns.
  So important a center is "Atlanta" that the last convention of American Bottlers' Protective association was held here.  It brought delegates from every city nearly in America.