Old Newspaper Ads For Soda

 The saloon keepers have taken a back seat. The promoters of the soda fountain have backed them off the boards. That is the consensus of sober opinion no joke and the explanation is found in the fact that the thirsty and fever stricken are finding that which the American public always craves – novelty - in the soft drink section of the corner drug stores. Are the soda fountains decreasing the saloon trade? A man who has been in the saloon business thirty five years said unhesitatingly that the soda fountains have kicked a hole in the regular liquor traffic. The drug stores, he said, are providing the novelties and that's what the people seek.The source of a rumor that I've heard even today.

The Salt Lake Herald-Republican. (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, August 26, 1909

Would you take away a woman's character by gossip unless you were SURE of what you were talking about? Have you any more right to attack the character of any article of commerce unless you knew actually – not by hearsay, but by actual proof – that it is what you say it is?

Do you realize that when you say or believe and repeat things about such an article you are unwarrantably robbing the makers of that article of just so much of their just and honest trade? Yet people occasionally (not frequently, because most people are properly informed,) through ignorance or malice say that Coca-Cola contains cocaine. This is absolutely and unequivocally untrue. The reports of world famous chemists, and even of government experts, have disproved this malicious falsehood time after time. Yet dishonest competitors of the Coca-Cola company continue to revive it through the medium of sincere but hysterical or totally ignorant people whom they have used as mouthpieces.

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Coca- Cola Does NOT Contain Cocaine

Why, it is easily shown how ignorantly some of these attacks are made when the mouthpieces speak or write of the beverage as C-o-c-o-a Cola instead of C-O-C-A Cola. When anyone writes, prints or tells you that Coca-Cola is a harmful, drug-habit-forming, or dangerous beverage for young or old, you can put it down right then and there as a falsehood arising from wicked maliciousness or absolute ignorance.

If you have an opportunity, tell them to have Coca-Cola analyzed by any honest, COMPETENT chemist, then to submit this analysis to any honest, capable physician and get his statement as to the wholesomeness of Coca-Cola. Then let him send to the Coca-Cola company in Atlanta, Ga. And get (free) copies of analysis made by chemists who know as much in a minute as Coca-Cola's detractors know in a year – chemists who are scattered in cities from the Atlantic to the Pacific and are famous from their scientific attainments. Then when they've spread these facts before them, tell them they ought to go out into the highways and byways and frankly acknowledge their mistake and then apologize to the Coca-Cola company for filching their character.

Other Old Soda Ads

The Old Hires Rootbeer Ad above, appeared in 1897 and made some claims about being not only refreshing, but healthy as well! The fine print:  This delicious temperance beverage is a hot weather requisite of which every home should have a good supple. When heat and humidity make the earth almost uninhabitable, a cold, sparkling, effervescent glass of Hires Rootbeer will satisfy your thirst, refresh and strengthen you. It keeps the blood pure and cool, the stomach in a normal condition. It is pre-eminently the best drink for children because of its health-giving properties. It is of the greatest benefit to the wearied housewife, invigorating to the man who has worked all day, delightful to a wheelman at the end of a run. You can't have an over-supply of Hires Rootbeer. A package makes five gallons, beware of imitation.