Black Batches & Beards

When he went to New York on a business trip recently, William W. Smith II, the president of Smith Brothers Cough Drops, was refused a hotel room until he paid in advance. The reason was his scraggly beard, which made him look like a vagrant.

Last week Smith's beard was in bushy bloom. So, after three embarrassing months (during which one man was mistaken for an escaped convict), were the beards of many males in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. To go with them, womenfolk dragged out their grandmothers' dresses. With beards, bustles and a banquet, Poughkeepsie celebrated the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Smith Brothers.

A Brewing Business. The firm was started by James Smith, a Scottish carpenter, who supposedly got a recipe for cough drops from a peddler. He began brewing 5-lb. batches in his kitchen, sent sons William and Andrew to hawk the drops. After James died, the bewhiskered sons put the drops in boxes, stamped their faces on the cartons, and moved into a factory on "Cough Drop Street."

As sales increased, William ("Trade") and Andrew ("Mark") became so famed that bearded men all over the U.S. were greeted by one name or the other, according to the shape of their crop.*

Busy Trade, Easy Mark. Bachelor Mark became known as "Easy Mark," a soft touch for a loan. Trade also handed out plenty--for hospitals, churches, parks, etc., blithely putting Mark down for half of each donation but always getting just his name on the cornerstones. Trade was the penny-watcher. Except for his habit of taking the waitresses from their plant restaurant for a daily ride in his surrey (later a Fiat), he ran everything with Scottish austerity. As a result of his insistence that all paper work be done on the backs of old envelopes, Smith Brothers kept no records for 65 years. Trade's pet project was the Prohibition Party, under whose banner he once ran for mayor. He was soundly beaten by a local brewer.

Pillar & Post. Trade's grandsons, President William and Vice President Robert, are a modem counterpart of the original brothers. Hard-working William, a churchgoer and Shakespeare-reader, once kept his Rolls-Royce in his garage until July so that he would have to pay only half price for a license. Easygoing Robert, 57, plays gin rummy every afternoon, turned down a minister last week who promised to grow a beard if Robert would come to Sunday service. They run the business themselves with little top help from outside, gross an estimated $4,500,000 a year.

Only they know the secret drop formula. Twice a year William retires behind locked doors, mixes a large batch of concentrate, enough for six months' production. Robert says only that it contains some charcoal "to sweeten the stomach" and some licorice "to soothe the throat."

*Says a current Burma-Shave sign: "Although we've sold six million others, we still can't sell those cough-drop brothers."

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