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The Chocolate King
Philanthropist and Candy Maker Milton Hershey Believed in Three
Things: Chocolate, Children and Cigars
by W. Greg Rothman
The terms "industrial
magnate" and "factory town" conjure up turn-of-the century names like
Mellon, Carnegie and Rockefeller, and images of opulent living
contrasted to the miserable working conditions of the era. Yet one man
of that time who fit the broader stereotype behaved differently than
his wealthy contemporaries.
Milton Snavely Hershey, commonly referred to as "The Chocolate King,"
was born in 1857 in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and raised among the
"Plain People" of the Mennonite faith. Hershey was to chocolate what
Henry Ford was tothe automobile, and he can rightfully be called the
founder of the American chocolate industry. Today, the Hershey empire
in southeastern Pennsylvania includes a school, university medical
center, amusement park, museum, zoo, semiprofessional hockey team,
hotel, two world-class golf courses and the world's largest
manufacturer of chocolate. The town of Hershey itself is a legacy to a
very successful man who provided for his workers. It stemmed rom his
desire to create a kind of paradise that met all his factory workers'
needs.
Milton Hershey had three lifelong passions--chocolate, children and
cigars. Though it is not clear when he began smoking cigars, it was in
his hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that he first became known
for them. He purchased his preferred Golden Lion brand in the DeMuth
Tobacco Store, which is still in operation. Lyman Windolph, a friend
of Hershey's from Lancaster, said, "He was one of the biggest
smokers I ever knew. I never saw him without a cigar. He must have had
a wonderful constitution." Indeed he did; Hershey smoked eight to 10
cigars a day until his death in 1945 at the age of 88.
Hershey's passion for cigars was matched by his love
for children. Having come from a broken household and unable to have
children with his wife, he founded a school for disadvantaged youth
that aimed to provide a solid education in a warm, reassuring
atmosphere. The school flourishes to this day, thanks to the $60
million Hershey put in trust for it.
Hershey began life as the only son of an unlikely and
ultimately incompatible couple, Henry Hershey and Fanny Snavely. Henry
was an unreliable but innovative father who loved books and spent his
life wandering, enthralled with the new. His life was filled with
ideas, many of which came to pass, though not by his hand. Henry
Hershey's life was marked by failure and a lack of perseverance.
Fanny, on the other hand, was a forceful,
hardworking, some would say humorless woman who one day was left with
no one but Milton to whom to dedicate her life. Henry left her when
Milton was young; their daughter, Serena, died at the age of
four. Fanny believed, like her fellow Mennonites, that working hard
represented devotion to God and that wealth was a sign of God's
grace. To his benefit and perhaps unwittingly, Milton united these
disparate strains and became both innovative and hardworking.
For a time, the Hersheys traveled where Henry's
wanderings took them, which meant that Milton's education was
sporadic. He did not do well in school, nor did he enjoy it. After the
fourth grade, with encouragement from his book-suspicious mother,
Milton left school. His distaste for reading and writing left him
essentially illiterate and left the world without a
personal written record of his life or beliefs. However, his life,
full of deeds, serves as a text for what was important to
Hershey. Ronald D. Glosser, president and chief executive officer for
the Hershey Trust Co., calls Milton Hershey "a common man with an
uncommon touch."
After a four-year apprenticeship to Lancaster
confectioner Joseph Royer, Milton was encouraged to go out on his
own. His Aunt Mattie provided $150 in venture capital. On June 1,
1876, as America prepared for its centennial celebration, the
18-year-old Hershey opened his first candy business, choosing
Philadelphia over Lancaster. He set up shop in a little brick house at
935 Spring Garden Street. M.S., as he was called, worked all night
making candy that he sold by day, with his mother and aunt often
laboring by his side. Despite his hard work and the success of the
penny candy, called French Secrets (a message was wrapped with the
candy), it was not enough to pay his expenses. Sugar dealers were
unwilling to give him credit and the price of cane was high. (This
experience forged in Hershey a lifelong concern about the cost of
sugar cane.) After seven struggling years, and in debt to his
relatives, he closed his shop.
Hershey moved to Denver, where his father was working
in the silver mines. He found a job with another candy maker, where he
learned the priceless secret of mixing fresh milk into caramels, which
extended the shelf life and enhanced the flavor of the candy. From
Denver, Hershey moved briefly to Chicago with his father, where he
found too much competition in the industry. He also tried New Orleans,
but discovered that it would be too expensive to move his candy-making
machines from Philadelphia. Concluding that it would be cheaper to
open a shop in New York City, Hershey moved there and began working at
Huyler's, a well-known confectioner. Every evening he made batches of
taffy in his landlady's kitchen. He put the wrapped taffy pieces in a
basket and sold them on the streets. His mother and Aunt Mattie again
arrived to help with the business.
Hershey decided to take a risk and acquire cough drop
machinery on credit. Though he learned the manufacturing steps that he
would later use to mass-produce chocolate (which up until then had
been a handmade luxury item), the cough drop business failed; he had
only enough money to send his mother and aunt home. When he later
returned to Lancaster, his uncles (and former patrons) refused to
give him any more money or a place to stay. His friend and former
employee, William "Lebbie" Lebkicher, took him in and paid for the
shipping of his machinery. (Years later, at Lebkicher's funeral,
Hershey said, "We just buried the best friend I ever had.")
With five failures behind him and out of money (a
self-described "unbroken string of failures"), Hershey could easily
have given up. But his lifelong affinity for sweets, coupled with his
persevering nature, caused him to press on.
He tried again in his native countryside of
Lancaster. Here, he finally had his first success, "Crystal A
Caramels," in 1886. His luck had turned when a mysterious British
importer placed a large order and Hershey persuaded a skeptical local
bank to loan him the money to fill it. By the 1890s, Hershey's
caramels company had made him a millionaire. His factory covered a
Lancaster city block. Hershey's only advertising was the product
itself: "Give them quality," he would say. "That's the best
advertising in the world."
In 1899, a group of competing caramel manufacturers
approached Hershey about creating a broad alliance to take control of
the industry. While he had no interest in merging, Hershey had become
increasingly interested in chocolate and offered to sell his company,
which he did the following year for a million dollars, sagaciously
retaining the rights to make his chocolate.
Hershey invested all the profits from the sale
to expand his chocolate making, saying, "I'll stake everything on
chocolate." He confided in friends, "Caramels are just a fad. The
chocolate market will be a permanent one."
While Hershey was on the verge of success in
revolutionizing the chocolate industry, his personal life was less
sweet. Often lonely, with few friends, the 41-year-old Hershey seemed
destined to remain the eternal bachelor. Hershey reportedly looked in
the mirror one day and said: "M.S., you're a damned fool, a diamond
covered fop in a loud suit." But shortly after, his luck changed when
he met and fell in love with the beautiful Catherine Elizabeth
"Kitty" Sweeney of Jamestown, New York. Sweeney, a 25-year-old from an
Irish Catholic family of modest means, was gay and witty, with a
disarming smile and bright blue eyes. The two were married in the
rectory at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York City in May 1898.
Unlike her husband, Kitty was full of joie de
vivre. Hershey was raised by a woman whose view of the world did not
easily include this refreshing quality of indulgence. Indeed, he may
never have encountered such spirit until meeting Kitty. Predictably,
she received a cool reception from Fanny, who asked upon meeting her,
"Were you ever on the stage?"
In 1903, the couple returned to Hershey's birthplace
of Derry Township, 13 miles east of Harrisburg, where Hershey, his
business prospering, set out to build the ideal town for his factory
workers. He included every amenity, creating what could be called a
"New Jerusalem," with perfectly executed streets, parks, homes, rail
service, trolley lines--even an amusement park. This unprecedented
endeavor found his contemporaries, even associates, unfavorably
dumbstruck at Hershey's gargantuan vision and "wasted" money. But
Hershey's life was ruled by the long-instilled Biblical maxim of doing
unto others as you would have them do unto you. He believed that there
was a greater good than personal success and comfort.
Success was a new dance for Hershey. When he found
it, he was relentless in retaining it. Democratizing chocolate was not
enough; he continued to perfect production, creating new machines,
from mixing to wrapping. With each new triumph, workers would hear his
voice ring out, "We've got it!" (They would also hear Hershey say,
"Boys, don't rock the boat, row it.")
Industrial success alone was not enough for Kitty,
either. After sadly realizing that they would never have children,
Kitty urged M.S. to create a school for disadvantaged children. In
what they considered the capstone of their lives, the Hersheys founded
The Industrial School on Nov. 15, 1909; it admitted its first pupils,
four orphan boys, the following year, using Hershey's birthplace, The
Homestead, as both home and school.
With his unstable, nomadic childhood and separated
parents, Hershey empathized with orphans. His goal for the school was
to provide for children an opportunity for a quality education, a
wholesome environment and a loving, caring atmosphere. Still thriving
today, the Milton Hershey School has 1,100 students enrolled from
throughout the United States. The central campus encompasses more than
3,000 acres, including farmland, streams, ponds and
woodlands. Ninety-seven student homes are located throughout the
campus, staffed by houseparents whose job is to create stability,
express love, and instill discipline, moral values and a work ethic in
a family atmosphere. The Hershey School Trust, created to preserve
Kitty and Milton's vision, administers their fortune according to
their guidelines. Hershey once said his life would be complete if just
50 young people benefited from his school. Today, the school boasts
7,100 alumni. One former student and employee remarks, "If Hershey
were here today, I would get down on my knees and thank him for the
good he did in my life."
In 1918, Hershey put his $60 million fortune in trust
for the school. The bequest was held in confidence until 1923, when it
was discovered and revealed by The New York Times. Despite his
efforts at altruistic anonymity, Hershey was also known locally for
his generosity. Hershey community archivist Pamela Cassidy notes that
"many who knew Hershey said his essence was evident in his town and
school." He would often sit down with the Derry Township School
District at year's end and write a check to balance its books. The
enormity of his donations contrasts to the $54,000 price tag of his
mansion, "Highpoint," which he had built for himself and
Kitty. Ultimately, after Kitty's death, he even donated Highpoint to
the Hershey Country Club to be used as its clubhouse. While golfers
roamed the dining rooms below, Hershey used three small rooms
upstairs. After he died, his personal effects were auctioned for a
mere $20,000.
If Hershey had one personal indulgence, it was his
cigars. Longtime Hershey associate Henry King noted, "I always admired
the smell of his cigars. When we were at the Mansion, the
butler brought out cigars and Hershey passed them around." James
D. McMahon Jr., curator of collections for the Hershey Museum,
remarks, "People would say that Hershey's home always had the aroma of
cigar smoke." Tom Jones, a graduate of The Industrial School and
lifetime employee of the Hershey Corp., fondly remembers sitting on
Hershey's lap as a boy in the early 1940s. "Hershey always had a cigar
in his mouth," he says.
Some time after the school was created, Kitty took
ill with a rare neurological disease. She grew increasingly weaker as
she fought the illness with traditional and nontraditional
remedies. During her illness, Milton brought roses for her every
day. When she died in 1915 at the age of 42, her nurse reported that
Hershey was "like a madman." For 17 years, he had tasted that
sweetness for which he had longed. Once again, at 58, Hershey became
the austere, duty-driven man of his earlier years. He never remarried.
His attentions now turned toward Cuba. Hershey
traveled there in 1916 with his mother, who eventually maintained an
apartment in Havana. He was enchanted by the country. He strolled
through the streets, viewing the old fortifications of Havana Harbor,
the city wall, the Spanish Cathedral. Here, he also discovered an
avenue for uninterrupted, autonomous sugar production, acquiring
numerous sugar cane plantations and mills. By the time Hershey died,
his company's Cuban operations exceeded 65,000 acres.
Undoubtedly, the time Hershey spent in Cuba enhanced
his passion for cigars. It was here that he switched from his
preferred Golden Lion brand to Cuban Corona-Coronas, smoking eight to
10 a day. Every morning after breakfast he walked to The Sugar House
(his production factory built on a plateau above Santa Cruz del
Norte) smoking a Corona-Corona. There were "No Smoking" signs at the
door and Hershey would put his cigar on the window sill when he
entered. Without fail, the cigar would have disappeared into the hands
of a native by the time he returned.
At first, the Cubans watched Hershey's business
acquisitions with suspicion. He had sugar districts in Central San
Juan Bautista, Central Rosario, Central Carmen, Central San Antonio
and Central Jesus Maria. Hershey opened the Hershey Cuban Railroad and
bought a 100-year-old Spanish hacienda at Rosario for his personal
use. The house was beautifully tiled and furnished and had a 10-acre
garden. Hershey started a school, the Cuban Orphan School, at Central
Rosario, which served the same purpose as his school in
Pennsylvania. He also provided well for his Cuban workers, as he had
for his other employees.
In 1933, at the Presidential Palace in Havana, Cuban
president Gerardo Machado awarded Hershey the country's highest honor
for a non-national, the Grand Cross of the National Order of Carlos
Manuel de Céspedes. In presenting it, Machado said, "With this
medal we give a bit of our soul; with it goes our lasting admiration."
Thomas Cabrerra, the manager of the Hershey Havana
operations, would regularly send his boss boxes of cigars. He arranged
with the cigar manufacturer to have Hershey's picture printed on the
cigar bands. An executive of the Hershey Chocolate Corp., L.W. Majer,
recalls, "He used to serve two kinds of cigars. I heard of an occasion
at the Mansion when the waiter gave Hershey the Coronas, and then
pulled the [box] back and passed the Golden Lions to the rest of the
boys." Hershey purchased his cigars two hundred at a time.
During the early 1900s, cigars were sold around the
town of Hershey with a "Hershey" band. The cigars were produced by
Yorkana Cigar Co. of York, Pennsylvania, and were sold for five or six
cents apiece in the town drugstore, at the golf course and at
Hersheypark. There were also the Hershey Invincible, Hershey Park Golf
Club Special, Hersheytown and Havana Perfecto brands. Until the early
1980s at Hersheypark, the amusement park created by Hershey, cigar
rollers demonstrated their skills at a kiosk in the craft area and
sold the hand-rolled products to park patrons.
Today at The Hotel Hershey, beverage manager Bernie
Strackhouse says Hershey's cigar legacy lives on. "Keeping in the
highest tradition of Hershey, the hotel is a cigar friendly place. In
the Iberian Lounge at the Hotel Hershey, we sell over 100 top-shelf
cigars per week." Strackhouse himself is a cigar connoisseur.
The Hotel Hershey was built during the Great
Depression. Overlooking the town, it is magnificent with its marble
corridors, royal suites, grandiose fountains and botanical
gardens. The gardens overflow with roses, including one created in
Kitty's name. As the rest of the country struggled to find jobs,
Hershey insisted on putting people to work, breaking ground for the
substantial structures of "Chocolatetown, U.S.A." during the depths of
the Depression. In addition to the hotel, Hershey ordered built a
community center, a senior hall (the present Milton Hershey High
School), his administration offices, the Hershey Arena and the
Parkview Golf Course Club House, all constructed between 1929 and
1933. Hershey employees never missed a payday. During the construction
of the hotel, Hershey often ventured out to the job site (he was
always at work before anyone else). On one occasion, the foreman
approached Hershey and proudly reported that a newly acquired machine
was doing the work of 40 men. "Then get rid of it and get those men
back," Hershey commanded.
Hershey continued producing chocolate during the Depression with the
intention of maintaining an affordable product that would brighten a
discouraged country's day. With the onset of the Second World War,
Hershey's staff created non-melting chocolate bars for the military,
called Field Ration "D." The D represented "daily," and as the United
States entered the war, the Hershey Chocolate Factory was making half
a million chocolate bars per day. Arman F. Leo, a highly decorated
veteran and native of Dauphin County, has fond memories of the Ration
"D" bar: "Sitting alone in a foxhole was the best time to eat the 'D'
bar. They seemed to last all night. We gave them out to the children
in Africa, Italy and France. We were greeted like Santa Claus." The
Hershey name and GI goodwill was spread throughout the world by the
Ration "D" bar. Hershey was particularly pleased when the company was
given the Army Navy "E" Production Award from the U.S. Government, the
first of only five such awards.
Nearly a month and a half after Japan's surrender
ended the war, the 88-year-old Hershey died of heart failure on
Oct. 13, 1945. He had enjoyed his cigars until the end.
His nurse, Elizabeth Rupp, said, "During his later years he must
have smoked six to seven Coronas a day." One Hershey intimate
recalled, "He was a great smoker. He smoked eight to ten a day until
he died. Even at the end, when he knew he had a bad heart, he would
smoke four or five a day."
Today, visitors to the town of Hershey are greeted by
the tantalizing smell of fresh milk chocolate being produced in the
heart of town. Chocolate Avenue remains a quiet yet active commercial
main artery, with eclectic architectural tributes to the man who built
it. Since 1963, the street has been lined with lights topped with
large Hershey Kiss replicas. Each year, thousands of eager tourists
make their way through the model factory, "Chocolate World," in
mechanized boats that take them through a pictorial journey of the
chocolate manufacturing process. Throughout the town, the motto
of the Milton Hershey School is repeated: "His deeds are his
monument. His life is our inspiration."
Norman Vincent Peale, visiting the town in 1989 to
give a speech, was touring the Founder's Hall (the Hershey school
auditorium built in 1970) when a teacher asked him if he would take a
minute to address his students. With the life-sized bronze
statue of Hershey with one of his schoolboys as the backdrop, Peale
asked, "How many of you would like to have millions of dollars
someday?" The children all raised their hands high in the air. "And,
how many of you would, 25 years before you die, give it all away to
strangers?" After seeing that not a single hand was raised, Peale
looked over his shoulder and said, "Hershey did just that."
Milton Hershey gave away money as freely as he smoked
cigars. On Sept. 13, 1995, the 138th anniversary of Hershey's birth
(and 50 years after his death), the U.S. Postal Service honored him
with a stamp. More than 5,000 children, alumni, Hershey employees and
admirers joined Postmaster General Marvin Runyon in officially
dedicating the stamp at a ceremony at the Hersheypark Arena. Runyon
said of the honoree, "He possessed the one thing sweeter and more pure
than even his chocolate--a loving heart." The likeness on the stamp of
the walrus-mustached philanthropist was a good one--but it was missing
his trademark cigar.
W. Greg Rothman lives outside of Hershey,
Pennsylvania.
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