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Show Give Us More Wrigleys (The El Paso Times) When a suggestion is made in the senate finance committee to remove the tax of 2 per cent on chewing gum, the suspicion is immediately voiced that a secret bargain has been entered into somewhere. "Who made this bargain?" asks Senator Reed. "It demands an explanation expla-nation when a gentleman can escape $1,000,000 in taxes on something that is useless and worthless. What was the influence that reached behind the doors and took the tax off Mr. Wrigley?" The imputation is, we presume, that because William Wrigley, Jr., is a good friend of Warren Harding and had quite a bit to do in electing him, through the publicity in which Mr. Wrigley is an expert, that something some-thing crooked is going on. The imputation is scarcely fair. The country could stand a few more Wrigleys. The nation's business needs them. He i3 the kind of man who, when he finds the demand for his product is not what he would like it to be, goes out and creates the demand. He makes two sticks of gum grow where only one grew before and he works ona big scale. 1 At the risk of infringing on the advertising columns, we call attention to the fact that Mr. Wrigley, who says himself that he "found there were a lot of nickels in this world," sold his chewing gum for a five-cent piece before the war. During the' war when sugar went away up, he kept on selling his gum for a five-cent piece. When the tax was put oa-most everything else, the manufacturers shoved it along onto the "people. If an article had been sel- ung at live cents, it was boosted to six cents. Mr. Wrigley swallowed the tax himself and kept on selling his gum for a nickel. Chewing gum was one of the few articles that reminded us that the nickel still waved. All of this time Mr. Wrigley was cutting into his profits to buy sugar, more than half of his entire income was being paid to the government, ii is said. That is in addition to the tax he paid on his gum. Debate in the senate committee brought out the tact from Senator Watson that the committee had no information that Mr. Wrigley had objected ob-jected to the tax; that the purpose of its repeal was to get factories of the American Chicle company, which have closed down, going again. If the nation decided that it needed a tax on chewing gum, Mr. Wrigley is the kind of a man who would promptly agree to it, and turn his attention atten-tion to getting a greater volume of sales He is a super-financier. He doesn't believe In sticking the individual purchaser. He will cut his profit on one sale in two and go out and gel two more purchasers. Three sales at, say half a cent profit each, net him more than one sale at a cent. We don't know if these are the figuers, bill that is good business. If we had more Wrigleys, there would be less talk of business depression. depres-sion. When business lags he got out and gets new business. And his friends say that the one way to get Wrigley eternally down on you is to tell him something he wants to do "can't be done." We wish Mr. Wrigley was interested in something in Ei Paso. And The Herald Wishes Mr. Wrigley was interested in something in Provo. The News is mighty proud to state that Mr. Wrigley is interested In (his valley, he being; one of the largest stockholders in (he Gunnison Valley Sugar company, operating the million dollar plant at Centerfield, If the farmers here would follow the chewing; gum magnate's policy -double the acreage and double the income, the results would be similar 50 what Mr. Wrigley gets. And also if (lie merchants and others who' Vc something to sell, the same as .Mr. Wrigley and would spend ut-nrf 1,1 advertising, they might some day be a W rigley.. He spends a ini.,?. loU.irs a year in advertising and the people know that be is in bnsines.ched"' '" |