Dry Toast

At Chicago's Edgewater Beach Hotel last week, 1,302 members of the American Society of Bakery Engineers held a convention which would have convinced many a veteran convention-goer that he had come down with the d.t.s. No salesmen of bakers' equipment set up bars to dispense alcoholic cheer. Toasts were drunk in tomato juice. Even at the biggest banquet the 30 men at the speakers' table decorously drank cocktails of milk, without even a spot of gin to take away a taste abhorred by most convention guests.

No prudes, the bakers' engineers have no objection to an occasional nip at the hotel bar or a bottle in their rooms, but since 1931 they have ruled out mass alcoholism. Explained Secretary Victor E Marx: "Most of the men who come to this meeting are employes. If the boss hears that the convention is nothing but a grand party, they may not come again." Marveled the hotel's President William Dewey: "It just goes to show what can be accomplished when a convention is not hampered by indulgence and late hours."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.