Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 154, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1910 — Growth of the Soda Water Habit [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Growth of the Soda Water Habit

HE girl behind the soda fountain has come into her own. If it’s a representative of the other sex who juggles with the fizzy B water, he’s a sovereign and a white jacket and apron are his robes of state. For soda water has reached one of the very highest > notches alongside wheat and * automobiles

and hash and beer in the scale of life’s necessities. This is true all over the broad land from New York as far ■west as Reno, Nev., or even farther west to Osekuewe, Cal. Ice cream soda has been placed upon a marble pedestal and we are all bowed down In worship—old men, co-eds, stereotypers, summery girls, middle-aged ladies and David Belasco. Every day, summer and winter, we shove our nickel over the slab and murmur humbly that a destiny would be unfulfilled unless we had a ‘ raspberry phosphate" or a “pistachio royal sundae,” with green trimmings. And all this means things In cold, comparative figures that stick in your brain and make you think of economy and the increased price of living, the poor children starving in the slums and other disturbing things when you're going to turn into the corner drug or fruit store for one of them banana frappes, the very latest thing for 15 cents. But here’s what the figures show: That ten billions of nickels are spent every year at soda fountains in this country, and as tßere are only a billion nickels in circulation, it is plain to be seen that each one of them would have to make ten trips to the soda fountain if only nickels were used. That the nation’s expenditure for soda water and carbonated drinks this year is estimated at $500,000,000. It makes It all the more appalling when you think that that is half a billion dol-

lars, which would buy fifty-five Dreadnoughts, and is three times the value of the yearly output of automobiles and would pay the debts of all the American churches four times over and would defray the university expenses of half a million students and is more than double the combined yearly cost of the army and navy. Wow! The amount of soda water consumed yearly is estimated at 479,062,500 gallons, which is dispensed from 120,000 fountains. The average price of a fountain is $2,000, so you get a total investment of $240,000,000. And in these days the soda fountain is busy summer and winter. From year's end to year’s end the hiss and jingle of the soda fountain in Uncle Sam’s domain never ceases. The time was when for half the year the fountain was about as idle as the straw hat and the parasol. Public fancy has changed all that, and now the dispenser of fizzing sweetness works nearly as hard in January as In the dog days. Not that he hands out hot drinks only in blizzard temperature; far from it Soda fountain drinks tickle the palates of the countless numbers the year round, and thus It happens that the disher—the handy little tool that soda fountain attendants have for scooping up the cream—never gets a vacation. Besides the direct profits, the soda fountains bring Into the drug stores people who buy medicines, soap perfumery, toilet articles, etc. The cost of the fountain itself is far from representing the entire outlay. While in a small establishment the druggist finds it economical to buy his soda and cream, in a large one he makes it himself, and therefore buys carbonators, freezers syrup percolators and other apparatus. Minor accessories, too, must be provided.