The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America (53 page)

14
.
Retail Clerks International Advocate
, July–August 1932, 12.

15
. “Labor Moves on the Chains,”
Business Week
, November 3, 1934; “A&P Exodus,”
Time
, November 5, 1934; “Atlantic & Pacific Brothers,”
Time
, November 12, 1934; John Hartford to “Dear Friend,” November 10, 1934, HFF; “‘Out of Cleveland’ Says A&P Head,”
NYT
, October 30, 1934; “A&P Reopens Cleveland Stores,”
Retail Clerks International Advocate
, November–December, 1934, 1.

16
. Brody,
Butcher Workmen
, 137; John A. Hartford to Mr. Connors (unidentified), August 11, 1937, file 157, HFF.

17
. John A. Hartford to Charles Roppelt (store manager, New York), December 31, 1936, file 157, HFF.

18
. Chester Wright’s role was revealed publicly by David A. Munro, publisher of an advertising newsletter called
Space and Time
, in the issue of February 5, 1940, box 37A, WPP; Tr 1,331.

19
. Brody,
Butcher Workmen
, 142; United Grocery Worker “Strike Bulletin,” May 4, 1937, and United Warehouse Workers Union Local 205 National Tea Organization Committee, March 22, 1937, both in Sidney Lens Papers, box 49, CHS. Another CIO union later charged that A&P supervisors were forcing workers to sign cards pledging that they would not join a CIO union; “The Union Organizer,” 1941, United Grocery and Produce Employees Union, Local 329, CIO, in Sidney Lens Papers, box 50, CHS.

20
. Tr 1290; Brody,
Butcher Workmen
, 138–39; “Brief for the United States,” 1056, Danville trial; W. C. Gilbert (acting director, Legislative Reference Service) to Patman, October 28, 1938, box 37(C), WPP; American Federation of Labor,
Report of the Fifty-eighth Annual Convention
, 424, 570; “A&P Signs with Five A.F. of L. Unions in Washington, Chicago,”
WSJ
, November 16, 1938; Roat, “Current Trends in Public Relations,” 515; “A&P and the Unions,”
Space and Time
, box 37(A), WPP;
Retail Clerks International Advocate
, November–December 1938, 10. Among A&P’s opponents were the construction unions, which objected to A&P’s use of non-union construction labor. See
Bricklayer, Mason, and Plasterer
, December 1938, 70.

21
. Tr 14229; “A&P Backs Fight on ‘Hidden Taxes,’”
NYT
, August 12, 1936; “A&P Gives $2,000 to Aid Study of Living Costs,”
WSJ
, August 12, 1938.

22
. Tr 19768; Temporary National Economic Committee, “Problems of the Consumer,” pt. 8 of
Investigation of Concentration of Economic Power
, 3393; Gx 4406, Tr 14763.

23
. “The NCTC News,” November 1938, Dx 859, box 66; Temporary National Economic Committee,
Investigation of Concentration of Economic Power
, 3391. For examples of the National Consumers Tax Commission’s self-promotion, see “Magnate Pays Way for Women to Dig into Civic Tax Spending,”
St. Petersburg
(Fla.)
Evening Independent
, March 29, 1940; “Mrs. S. C. Scott Leads New Unit to Study Taxes,”
Tulia
(Tex.)
Herald
, February 16, 1939; Phillips, “Chain, Voluntary Chain, and Independent Grocery Store Prices, 1938,” 24–29.

24
. “A&P Opens Fight on Chain Tax Bill,”
NYT
, September 15, 1938; “Wide Praise Won by A&P Campaign,”
NYT
, September 18, 1938. According to Byoir, the statement was drafted by himself after fifteen or sixteen meetings with both Hartford brothers, with another five or six meetings to revise the draft statement before its release; Tr 19776.

17: DEFYING DEATH

1
. Patman to Roosevelt, telegram, July 15, 1938; Patman to McIntyre, July 16, 1938; McIntyre to Patman, July 16, 1938; press release, July 16, 1938, all box 77(C), WPP.

2
. Patman to Rayburn, telegram, July 28, 1938; Rayburn to Patman, July 30, 1938; Patman to Martin Dies, August 1, 1938; Ewing Thomason to Patman, August 23, 1938; Patman to Thomason, August 31, 1938; Patman to Ed Gossett, August 31, 1938; Patman to Sam Hanna, October 3, 1938; Patman to Rayburn, October 21, 1938; Patman to J. E. Josey,
Houston Post
, October 22, 1938; Patman to Hanna, October 28, 1938; Bankhead and Rayburn to Patman, January 2, 1939, all box 129(A), WPP; Patman to Frank E. Mortenson (California Retail Druggists’ Association), September 11, 1938, box 37(B), WPP.

3
. “Dies Opens War on Propagandists,”
NYT
, August 4, 1938.

4
. South Trimble (clerk of the House) to Patman, July 29, 1938, box 37(C), WPP; Patman to Walter Rice (attorney, antitrust division), September 29, 1938, and Patman to Roosevelt, November 25, 1938, box 37(B), WPP; Roosevelt to Patman, November 30, 1938, OF 288, FDR; “Colorado No,”
Time
, November 21, 1938.

5
. Patman to “Dear Colleague,” n.d., box 37(B), WPP.

6
. “Charges Half-Truths Used by Proponents of Chain Store Taxes,”
WSJ
, December 31, 1938; “A&P Head Says Chain Stores Face Crossroads in History,”
WSJ
, January 3, 1939; Geo. M. Roberts (superintendent of weights and measures, District of Columbia) to Patman, November 2, 1938, box 37(C), WPP.

7
. Frank Parker Stockbridge, “Battle of the Chains,”
Barron’s
, February 27, 1939; “Brief for the United States,” 1057, 1060, Danville trial; Mark Levy,
Chain Stores: Helpful and Practical Information for a Real Estate Broker
(Chicago, 1940), 62.

8
. Dx 860, box 66; Minsky, “Propaganda Bureaus as ‘News Services,’” 679; “Boomerang,”
Time
, January 30, 1939; “Oppose Patman Chain Store Bill,”
WSJ
, February 4, 1939; Byoir to Early, January 10, 1939, and Early to Byoir, January 13, 1939, Stephen T. Early Papers, box 1, FDR; “Chains Agree to Fight ‘Anti’ Laws Collectively,”
WSJ
, October 17, 1938. The offer to Farley was reported in Ray Tucker’s “National Whirligig” column on April 6, 1939.

9
. “Elliott Roosevelt Got $200,000 from Head of A&P, Lawyer Says, Repaid $4,000,”
NYT
, June 13, 1945.

10
. “Reporting the Matter of the Loan of John A. Hartford to Elliott Roosevelt,” House of Representatives Report No. 1033, 79th Cong., 1st, sess., October 1, 1945, 8; “Gen. Roosevelt Borrowed $600,000,”
NYT
, September 16, 1945. Elliott Roosevelt claimed that his father “never promoted or assisted my personal business affairs”; “Elliott Roosevelt Brands as a Lie Tale That Father Helped in Loans,”
NYT
, August 1, 1945, but he did not deny that President Roosevelt spoke with Hartford about the loan.

11
. “A Loan from the Grocer,”
Time
, June 25, 1945; Jesse Jones,
Fifty Billion Dollars: My Thirteen Years with the RFC
(New York, 1951).

12
. “Scandal or Slander?”
Washington Post
, June 15, 1945; Westbrook Pegler to Patman, August 7, 1945, and Patman to Pegler, August 9, 1945, box 119(A), WPP; Patman to Robert L. Doughton (chairman, Ways and Means Committee), September 29, 1945, box 102(A), WPP.

13
. “Patman Chain Tax Said to Have Only Slight Chance,”
Progressive Grocer
, February 1939, 163; Gerrit Vander Hooning (president, National Association of Retail Grocers) to Roosevelt, February 11, 1939; Early to Vander Hooning, February 17, 1939, PPF 2538, FDR; Patman to Roosevelt, May 11, 1939, box 37(B), WPP; May 22, 1939, address to American Retail Federation, in John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, American Presidency Project,
www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15763
, accessed December 20, 2009; Patman to George Schulte, October 17, 1939, box 37(C), WPP.

14
. “Plan New Anti-chain Campaign,”
Business Week
, July 8, 1939, 30; “Chain-Tax Proposals Killed in 26 States This Year; Levies in 3 Others Were Voided,”
NYT
, July 7, 1939; Lee, “Recent Trends in Chain-Store Tax Legislation”;
Great Atlantic & Pacific v. F.T.C.
, 10 F.2d 673 (3rd Cir., September 22, 1939).

15
. Patman statement, June 7, 1939, box 37(C), WPP; unidentified writer to Mr. Kile, memo, July 16, 1939, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, 76th Cong., Papers Accompanying Specific Bills and Resolutions, RG 233, HR76A-D39, box 395, NARA; Freedom of Opportunity Foundation, “Bulletin,” August 21, 1939, box 37(B), WPP. Ingram and Rao, “Store Wars,” 457–59, point to the diffuse interests of anti-chain campaigners as a source of political weakness.

16
. Patman to “Dear Colleague,” September 15, 1939, box 37(C), WPP; Patman to Schulte, October 17, 1939, box 37(C), WPP; Capper to Stratton Shartel, July 26, 1939, KSHS; Roosevelt to Doughton, memo, November 14, 1939, and Doughton to Roosevelt, November 17, 1939, OF 288, FDR. “I am merely passing this along to you,” Roosevelt wrote to Doughton, marking his thoughts “personal.” “I regret that Mr. Patman thought it was necessary to call the matter of a hearing on his bill to your attention,” Doughton responded.

17
. Feldman, “Legislative Opposition,” 339.

18
.
WSJ
, March 5, 1940; House Committee on Ways and Means, 76th Cong., 3rd sess. ,
Excise Tax on Retail Stores: Hearings Before Subcommittee on H.R. 1, March 17 through May 16, 1940
(Washington, D.C., 1940), 775, 1053, 1060, 1107, 1122, 1127, 1362–68; Ryant, “The South and the Movement Against Chain Stores,” 216–17. See also Caroline F. Ware Papers, box 45, FDR.

19
. Wallace to Doughton, April 2, 1940; Noble to Doughton, May 16, 1940; Ewin L. Davis (chairman, Federal Trade Commission) to Doughton, March 26, 1940, RG 233, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, 76th Cong., box 395, NARA-LA; RG 40, General Records of the Department of Commerce, Records of the Office of the Secretary, Subject Files of Undersecretary of Commerce Edward J. Noble, box 5, NARA-CP; typescript, April 3, 1940, by Weaver Myers, attorney, Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation, RG 56, General Records of the Department of Treasury, Office of Tax Policy, Subject Files, box 13, NARA-CP. The meeting with Arnold is in Patman’s appointment book for 1940, box 1705, WPP; letters to Rayburn, box 3R284, SRP; Brandeis to Patman, April 14, 1940, box 37(B), WPP.

20
. Patman’s addresses on CBS are in box 37(B), WPP; the May 18, 1940, address on NBC Blue is in box 37(A), WPP.

21
. Byoir, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, was so upset by Patman’s statements that he wrote to Roosevelt about it; Byoir to Roosevelt, PPF 2176, FDR. “Dies Group Offers to Hear Byoir Reply,”
NYT
, June 4, 1940; McCormack statement in box 37(B), WPP.

22
. U.S. Bureau of the Census,
Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930 Retail Distribution: Summary for the United States
(Washington, D.C., 1933), 28; U.S. Bureau of the Census
, Census of Business
,
Retail Trade
, vol. 1, pt. 1 (Washington, D.C., 1941), 57; Albright, “Changes in Wholesaling,” 31.

23
. Bruce M. Fowler and William H. Shaw, “Distributive Costs of Consumption Commodities,”
Survey of Current Business
, July 1942, 16.

18: THE FOURTH REVOLUTION

1
. Dx 92, box 68; Dx 135, box 68; Gx 359, Tr 1441. On A&P’s violation in Ohio, see H. L. English (secretary, Ohio Fair Trade Committee, Columbus) to S. H. Tenover (Kroger Grocery and Baking Company, Cincinnati), February 4, 1941, RG 60, General Records of the Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, Enclosures to Classified Subject Files, 1930–87, Class 60 enclosures, box 72, NARA-CP.

2
. “Brass Tacks for the Investor,”
Barron’s
, January 2, 1939, 20; “Income Reported by Corporations,”
NYT
, June 2, 1937.

3
. Adelman,
A&P
, 453; “A&P Goes to the Wars,”
Fortune
, April 1938, 138.

4
. Mark Levy,
Chain Stores: Helpful and Practical Information for a Real Estate Broker
(Chicago, 1940); Dx 383, box 67; Deutsch, “From ‘Wild Animal Stores’ to ‘Women’s Sphere,’” 149; Dx 384, box 67. At the end of 1940, A&P had 1,396 supermarkets, and its total sales at supermarkets in that year were $593.5 million. This yields average annual sales per store of $425,143, or $8,176 per week. However, as 277, or 20 percent, of the stores counted at year-end had been open for less than a full year, average weekly sales were probably considerably higher than these figures suggest. According to figures in Adelman,
A&P
, 447–48, only 72 of the 923 A&P supermarkets functioning in the September–November 1939 period had weekly sales below $5,000, but a majority had sales between $5,000 and $9,999.

5
. Gx 317.

6
. Dx 577a.

7
. “Memorandum of Interviews with Members of United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Association, Chicago, Illinois, January 22 to 25, 1945,” box 66, Danville trial records; Gx 2319, box 66; Dx 612, box 67.

8
. Rentz, “Death of ‘Grandma,’” MS, 60–65; Adelman,
A&P
, 468.

9
. Gx 209; Tr 898.

10
. U.S. Bureau of the Census,
Census of Business
, vol. 1,
Retail Trade
, pt. 1, 817. A&P had 851 self-service stores with sales exceeding $5,000 per week, or $260,000 per year. Adelman,
A&P
, 448–49.

11
. Dx 504, box 66.

12
. Gx 2656, Tr 9556; Gx 3031, Tr 10555; Dx 87, box 68.

13
. Several examples of John Hartford’s correspondence with store managers are in file 157, HFF.

14
. Comment of Central Division president C. A. Brooks, August 25, 1935, Dx 252, box 66; Dx 268, box 66; “Red Circle and Gold Leaf,”
Time
, November 13, 1950.