The chief fault in most of the coffee propagandas here and abroad has been the doubtful practise of subsidizing particular coffee concerns instead of spending the funds in a manner designed to distribute the benefits among the trade as a whole. This mistake, and local politics in the producing countries, have made for ultimate failure. A notable exception is the latest propaganda for Brazil coffee in the United States, where all the various interests, the the São Paulo government, the growers, exporters, importers, roasters, jobbers, and dealers, have co-operated in a plan of campaign to advertise coffee per se, and not to secure special privilege to any individual, house, or group.
Joint Coffee Trade Publicity Campaign
Twenty years ago the author began an agitation for co-operative advertising, by the coffee trade. He suggested as a slogan, "Tell the truth about coffee;" and it is gratifying to find that many of his original ideas have been embodied in the present joint coffee trade publicity campaign, now in its fourth year.
Theodore Langgaard de Menezes
The coffee roasters at first were slow to respond to the co-operative advertising suggestion, because in those days competition was more unenlightened than now, and therefore more ruthless. It needed organization to bring the trade to a better understanding of the benefits certain to be shared by all when their individual interests were pooled in a common cause. Leaders of the best thought in the trade, however, were quick to realize that only by united effort was it possible to achieve real progress; and when it was suggested that the first step was to organize the roasting trade, the idea took so firm a hold that it only needed some one to start it to bring together in one combination the keenest minds in the business.
The coffee roasters organized their national association in 1911. The author of this work urged that co-operative advertising based upon scientific research should be done by the roasters themselves independently of the growers; but it was found impracticable to unite diverging interests on such an issue, and so the leaders of the movement bent all their energies toward promoting a campaign that would be backed jointly by growers and distributers, since both would receive equal benefit from any resulting increase in consumption. Brazil, the source of nearly three-quarters of the world's coffee, was the logical ally; and an appeal was made to the planters of that country. A party of ten leading United States roasters and importers visited Brazil in 1912 at the invitation of the federal government.
In Brazil, as in the United States, progress resulted from organization. The planters of the state of São Paulo, who produce more than one-half of all coffee used in the United States, were the first to appreciate the propaganda idea. After their attempts to interest the national government failed, the São Paulo coffee men founded the Sociedade Promotora da Defesa do café (Society to Promote the Defense of Coffee), and persuaded their state legislature to pass a law taxing every bag of coffee shipped from the plantations of that state in a period of four years. This tax, amounting to one hundred reis per bag of 132 pounds, or about two and one-half cents United States money at even exchange rates, is collected by the railroads from the shippers, and turned over to the Sociedade.