Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1895-10-16
CIGARETTE WAR.
Tobacco Manufacturers Driven to
Desperate Measures.
PAPER WEEDS PREMIUMS OFFERED.
The Plug Tobacco Market Has Gone to
Pieees-New Move Intended to Boil
ster 1t Up.

! PoAeS Va ~ pobuOSo Natb ipi WhiNh tut
contestants are just beginning to grid
ON their armor. Judging from the
amount of capital involved and the
great business interests at stake, there
is going to be, within the next year,
an overproduction of these "paper
pipes" that should run down the price
amazingly, if it does not knock the
bottom out of it.
If the present ideas are carried out
there will actually be two cigarettes
in this country six months hence where
there is now one. Already in st.
Louis two colossal new factories for
the making of cigarettes have been
erected and are being fitted out with
the most improved machinery. the
capacity of one typical machine alone
being 10000 an hour.
New York is today one of the great
est cigarette oenters in the
world. Last months returns of this
Internal Revenue District showed that
112. 900, 900 cigarettes were manufao-
tuIed here during that time, an aver
age of little less than 4, 900. 900 cigar
cites day. Yet it is said that each of
the two new factories in st. Louis has
a manufacturing capacity of quite that
number.
The war is thus going to be very
fierce. There have been enormous pro-
fits in the cigarette business in recent
years. the Trust, that makes the greater
part of them, having piled up sur
plus of over $1,000, 900, and large
number of plug tobacco manufacturers
have decided to try their hand at get
ting good slice of the trade. They
are stimulated to this not only through
their wish to make money in new
branch of trade (for them), but also
from desire to retaliate upon the
American Tobacco Company, so they
say, because that corporation is max
ing plug tobacco. and has hit some of
the old established concerns in that
branch of trade very hard.
Nothing is harder than to success
fully establish new brand of cigar
cites. The old established and popular
names have the call every time. and
the row the new manufacturer has to
hoe when he starts out to put fresh
brand on the market is an exceedingly
difficult one.
To get around this obstacle it was
proposed at a meeting of the chief plug
tobacco manufacturers held at the Hol
land House in this city Sept. that
packages of cigarettes in great quanti-
ties should be given away to the retail
ers of plug tobacco. The advantage of
this was seen to be in the "double
header" style of it; it would give the
plug product of the outside manufac.
turers first rate FLIP and recon
mend it especially to the dealer be-
cause he would get fine premium for
buying it, and, second. it would wide
ly spread abroad the use of the new
brand of cigarettes for the reason that
| the dealer, getting them for nothing,
would be only too glad to push them
and sell them widely at an abnormally
low price, or even to give them away
to purchasers of cigars. pipes, smoking
and chewing tobacco of all kinds and
smokers necessaries.
All the manufacturers present at this
meeting approved of the idea, despite
its enormous cost to them, although
they did not come to any formal agree
ment regarding it. Nevertheless, it is
almost positively certain that some,
if not all of them, will start in giving
away cigarettes in great qantities in
order to push their plug trade. 1t was
suggested the other day that good
premium would be 100000 cigarettes
for 100 one-pound boxes of plug to-
bacco.
Scattered through the country, but
mostly in st. Louis. are the great plug
tobacco manufacturers of the United
States. There are at least nine great
firms. And each one of them is going
to start vigorously to manufacture
cigarettes. Profitable cigarette making
is dependent entirely upon the ma.
chimes that are used in it. Consequent.
ly these machines are held in absolute
secrecy. The plug manufacturers
claim that they have bought the
control of valuable improvements il
cigarette making machinery, and car
turn out cigarettes at lower margin
of cost than has hitherto been possible
The contest which has now beer
going on for number of months be
tween the American Tobacco Company
. as a unit and the plug manufacturers
} each one for himself, is an interesting
story.
At first the American Tobacco Com
! pany made no particular effort to pusl
> their operations in plug. The brand
they had bought, were all old. estab
Q lished and popular, and were sure o
5 a ready sale. 1t was not until within
the past year that they began to ente