10 cents a bag. The various parties to the agreement posted
$500 checks each as forfeits, not to violate the price as fixed. After
one year, a check was cashed; but the principal claimed his lapse was
clerical and not in violation of the agreement. However, as a result of
the argument that followed, the organization was disbanded.

[Illustration: MEMBERS OF THE ORGANIZATION CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL
COFFEE ROASTERS ASSOCIATION, ST. LOUIS, MAY 26, 1911

Reading from left to right: W.B. Johnson, St. Louis; W.T. Jones, New
Orleans; George Schulte, St. Louis; C.F. Blanke, St. Louis; Ben Casanas,
New Orleans; Carl Stoffregen, St. Louis; Edward D. Hanly, Kansas City;
H.C. Grote, St. Louis; James Menown, St. Louis; Frank P. Atha, Kansas
City; Henry Petring, St. Louis; J.M. McFadden, Dubuque, Iowa; Joseph
Maury, Memphis; T.F. Halligan, Davenport; F.J. Ach, Dayton; Carl Brand,
Cleveland; Wm. Fisher, St. Louis; M.H. Gasser, Toledo; Julius J.
Schotten, St. Louis; E.W. Bockman, Paducah, Ky.; Louis Christopherson,
St. Louis; Felix Coste, St. Louis; W.E. Tone, Des Moines; Robert Meyer,
St. Louis; Fred Roth, St. Louis; M.E. Smith. St. Louis; J.B.
Dubrouilett, St. Louis; Floyd Norwine, St. Louis]

As early as 1900, leaders of the trade's best thought began to urge the
need of a national organization among coffee roasters.

As a result of informal meetings between men like Robert M. Forbes,
Julius J. Schotten, Robert Meyer, and Messrs. Roth and Homeyer, around
the luncheon table in St. Louis, to discuss trade abuses and bring about
better trade co-operation, the subject of a St. Louis organization of
coffee roasters began to be agitated about 1906. It was not until four
years later, however, that the idea took definite form.

On September 14, 1910, the Traffic Association of St. Louis Coffee
Importers was organized, starting out with a membership of ten firms,
its chief object being to obtain an adjustment of freight rates to and
from St. Louis as advantageous as those prevailing for Chicago and New
York.

This association--of which Robert Meyer was the first president, and
H.L. Homeyer, vice-president, J.S. Hartman, secretary, and G.H. Petring,
treasurer--was the forerunner of the National Coffee Roasters Traffic
and Pure Food Association organized in 1911 and now known as the
National Coffee Roasters Association.

At the organization meeting of the national association twenty-six
coffee-roasting establishments in the Mississi