y 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.

[Illustration: 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 Sao 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 Sao Paulo coffee men founded the _Sociedade
Promotora da Defesa do cafe_ (Society to Promote the Defense of Coffee),
and persuaded their state legislature to pass a law taxing