Business: Slow Smoke

One night last week the small ballroom of Manhattan's Hotel Pennsylvania oozed cigar smoke at every crack. Cigar makers, wholesalers and dealers were gathered to ponder the plight of the U. S. cigar. As they all well knew, production had fallen from the all-time high of 8,304,000,000 cigars in 1920 to 4,344,700,000 in 1933. Even with the recent rise of the 5ยข cigar, production last year was only 4,763,900,000. The cigar men had gathered to hear Joseph Kolodny, onetime chairman of the NRA code authority for the wholesale tobacco trade, outline plans for saving the cigar. Apparently attached to New Deal...

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