Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1939-12-24

sion didn't stop us. Right through the
dark years the big chewing gum COM
panies kept declaring dividends. and
by 1897 they had set new all-time
high for production - 500. OOO,OO
worth. This year chewing gum profits
we're up again. 1t is estimated that
the average American chewed 100
wads in the course of the year - which
adds up to more than ten billion chews.
The rest of the world used to be
inclined to sneer at our habit Of gum
chewing. They couldn't see any sense
in it. But most Of them are chewing
now instead of sneering. Some twenty
five years ago an American chewing
gum manufacturer decided to intro
duce his product to Japan. He put on
the kind Of advertising campaign that
he figured would be most effective -
with parades. brass bands, banners
and lecturers. The Japanese were in
trigued but insisted on swallowing the
gum. So the manufacturer hired dem
onstrators to 90 around and show the
customers the art of chewing. That
did the trick. Chewing gam" is very
popular with the Japanese now.
And in France chewing CONNIE"
finds ready market. The World War
was responsible. Our doughboys did
the missionary work. without COM
mercial motives. The war won other
European countries to chewing gum.
too. When some Greeks who had been
in the United States went back home
to join the army, and took their chew
ing gum with them, the appetite for it
spread so fast among their fellow
soldiers that Queen Sophia cabled an
appeal to Greek newspaper in New
York for fresh supplies. An American
firm responded and the Queen sent her
''sincerest thanks" The Greeks have
been chewing ever since
Even the English. who used to be
most scornful. have weakened. In the
London Imperial Institute now is an
exhibit of chewing gum, clarifying the
fact that British Honduras exports
more chicle than any other product
except mahogany. And chewing gum
has been included in the emergency
rations OF the British Royal Air Force.
As matter of fact, so completely
has the world joined us in chewing
that gum wrappers are now printed in
eighteen languages. including Chinese.
To make all the chewing gum that
we use and export. twenty-six Amer
lean manufacturing establishments
employ about $500 people. They use
about Sl5,OOO.OOO worth of chicle,
crudex gum. sugar. corn syrup and
llavorlng each year. and thousands of
dollars worth of electrical energy.
Nobody has ever been able to compute
the amount Of energy used in chewing
it all up.
Most of the chicle comes from
southern Mexico. British Honduras
and Guatemala Chicle is rubberlike
gum obtained by tapping the sapodilla
tree: and it is said that the Mayans
used to chew it before their civilization
was wiped out by the Spanish con-
querors.
But it remained for our American
civilization to make a big business of
chicle. Today the chieleros. who climb
the high trees like monkeys, are the
aristocrats of laborers in their south
ern countries. earning from twenty
five to thirty dollars month.
Even scholarly folk are beginning
to wonder about gum. Last April,
Professor H. l.. Hollingworth of the
psychology department of Barnard
College reported to the psychology
section of the New York Academy of
Science on his investigation into the
Psyche Dynamics of Chewing" For