Kolossal

This took place the spring of 1911, before War and Kultur, before Prohibition. . . .

Adolphus Busch, St. Louis beermaker and Lillie Eberhard Anheuser Busch had been married 50 years, and they had to celebrate. First, 5,000 employes of the Anheuser-Busch breweries were given the day off, and gifts of $5,000 each went to various German-American charities. Adolphus gave his Lillie a crown of gold, studded with pearls and diamonds. William Howard Taft, then President, sent gifts. So did his predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt; and the then Kaiser Wilhelm der Zweite, particular friend of the St. Louis brew master. Everyone sent gifts, $500,000 worth, flowers, $50,000 worth. Adolphus Busch could think only in multiples of 50 that day as squads of relatives and platoons of friends came to his 40-acre flower garden at Pasadena, Calif., to wish the couple felicitations. He, merry and expansive, withal a little ill, welcomed them, fed them, entertained them, as no man since Roman politicians has done. "Kolossal," cried guests.

Then he went to his castle on the Rhine, at Langenschwalbach in Prussia, dainty town, famed for its iron and carbonic waters. Adolphus Busch had money, stupendous amounts to the minds of his castle servants and the country folk. His breweries at St. Louis, Vereinigten Staaten, were making. 1,599,459 barrels of good beer every year. His maroon-painted trucks with the spread-eagle trademark rumbled through every large U. S. city delivering cases of beer to barrooms, clubs and homes. He was wealthy. It was Kolossal, his casual hiring of entire hotels to ac commodate his guests for a season.

That same summer of 1911 he learned that the American Medical Association was to meet at Los Angeles. So from Langenschwalbach he ordered a Kolossal barbecue prepared. There was so much meat roasting in the pits that cooks had to dig it up with pitchforks and spades.

In 1913, Busch died, aged 71, and miserable with dropsy; in his Rhenish castle.

His oldest son, August A. Busch, took charge of the Anheuser-Busch interests. He became the active head of two large St. Louis families, the Anheusers and the Busches, who have been in close marital and business relations ever since Adolphus Busch, rich immigrant, sold grain to Eberhard Anheuser, small brewer of St. Louis, and became his partner.

The Kolossal beer business they had built up seemed ruined when Prohibition was put into effect. In St. Louis their factories covered 70 city blocks. They had 7,000 to 8,000 men all specialists in beer-making and selling; $50,000,000 invested in tangible properties; in calculable goodwill. It cost them $30,000 to open their doors each day, and they might no longer make beer.

August A. Busch had anticipated Prohibition by manufacturing "Bevo," a grain drink. Although his heart was not in its manufacture, he developed a great volume of sales for this brew. (He personally directs his company's advertising and promotion work; lays out campaigns; analyzes sales posbilities.) In making Bevo, he explained in last week's issue of Forbes: "We hardly proved ourselves prophets. We failed to diagnose correctly in advance the psychological reactions of the people to Prohibition legislation. We did not foresee the lessened respect for law which actually developed. We never anticipated the enormous increase which took place in the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages, even as compared with pre-Prohibition days, by way of moonshine, home brew and smuggled whiskey, and the corresponding decrease in the demand for soft drinks."

After six months of Prohibition, "Bevo," sales fell off. The North, used to good beer, disliked "Bevo." In the South it continues popular. Mr. Busch sat down to figure out just what he could do. His relatives depended upon him for income, employes for work, customers for drinks. Basically, he decided, he was a converter of grain. Grain was the unique feature of his business. The problem was: What could his factories, equipment and men make out of grain? They could and do make "Bevo," near beer, ginger ale, root beer, malt extracts, food tonics, grape drinks, starch, glucose, syrups; live stock and poultry foods from the grain residues; yeast, which is rapidly becoming an important product. His wagon works he re-arranged so that it could make motor truck and bus bodies. His cabinet workers who used to make bar fixtures were idle. He set them to making cabinets for ice cream par lors. His refrigerating engineers devised a refrigerated motor truck and compact drug store coolers. In Manhattan, New Organs and Oklahoma City, Anheuser-Busch branches are making 1,000,000 gallons of ice cream yearly. Branches make 750,000 tons of ice each year and operate 14,000,000 cu. ft. of refrigerating space.

It was hard for August A. Busch to go to the banks for money wherewith to transform the business his father left him. "For decades we had been in the position of being able to loan to the banks, rather than to borrow from them. But neither in point of volume, nor in margin of profit, could the new products at first come up to the old, and borrowing was essential." Four-years ago Anheuser-Busch was breaking even. That was remarkable after the complete break-up of the business. This year profits, although not of the pre-Prohibition magnitude, are high. In ten years August A. Busch expects them to be Kolossal. He then will sail to his castle on the Rhine, to hunt the wild boar in peace of soul.