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Highly controversial, however, the Anti-Sweet campaign provoked fevered controversy. Candy men (through Candy Weekly, a trade paper) compared the campaign to "a thief in the night," flayed the substitution of "a poisonous alkaloid" for "a nourishing food." Advertising men (through Advertising & Selling, a trade paper) discussed Good Testimonials v. Bad Testimonials, thought that Bad Testimonials were wrecking public confidence in advertising. Utah's Senator Reed Smoot (long interested in beet sugar & its tariff) said that there had not been such an orgy of buncombe since public opinion rose in its might and smote the drug traffic. He proposed that tobacco should be included in the Food & Drug Act and that food and drug advertising be subjected to the regulations prevailing with regard to labels.
In September 1929, the Anti-Sweet campaign was succeeded by a series built around the line An Ancient Prejudice Has Been Removed. The ancient prejudice was the idea that cigarets were bad for the throat; the removal had been accomplished by Lucky Strike's special process —toasting. Recently and currently, however, Luckies have gone back to a more moderate treatment of the slenderness theme, but now are anti-fat rather than anti-sweet. Current Lucky advertisements, illustrated with pictures of single-chinned people throwing double-chinned shadows, urge readers to "Avoid That Future Shadow" by refraining from overindulgence. Copy says: "We do not represent that smoking Lucky Strike Cigarettes will bring modern figures or cause the reduction of flesh." There are no testimonials in the current campaign.
Corporation presidents do not usually conceive their companies' advertising campaigns, but no usual president is George Washington Hill of American Tobacco. The Reach for a Lucky idea came to him, he says, when he chanced to see a stout woman eating a sweet while next to her was a slender girl smoking a cigaret. During the height of the anti-sweet controversy he maintained that his campaign was really helping candy sales by focussing so many millions of minds on the subject of candy. Energetic, strong minded, Mr. Hill personally supervises many branches of his business, even to passing upon the program of the Lucky Strike radio orchestra. His other hobbies include horses, paintings, oriental rugs. Many of the paintings and rugs were destroyed early this year when Percival Hill, 6, shortcircuited the Christmas tree's wiring, set fire to the Hills' White Plains home, of which only the walls were left standing.