Taxes paid by Smith Brothers—
Federal income tax. Federal excess profits tax. Poughkeepsie city tax. Dutchess County tax. State tax—New York. Automobile license taxes. Federal oil tax. Telephone tax. Check tax. Federal capital stock tax. New York State franchise tax. Michigan City, Ind., tax. County tax at Michigan City. State tax—Indiana. Federal gasoline tax. New York gasoline tax. Telegraph tax. Tax for code administration. Processing taxes on sugar, wheat, corn, pork, cotton, peanuts. State of Indiana foreign corporation registration tax. State of Indiana tax on gross receipts. State of Oregon tax on gross receipts. State of Washington tax on gross receipts. We Do Our Part.
This sign appeared last week in the decorous window of a decorous restaurant on the main street, opposite the court house, at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. Inside, a passage between a candy counter and a soda fountain leads back to a big, oak-paneled room which has been little changed since it was built in 1865. In this restaurant proper on hot days Vassar College girls, who like the place in spite of the fact that the proprietors only lately allowed them to smoke, are cooled by some 20 large fans whirling slowly overhead. These two-bladed affairs are propelled by an old-fashioned maze of ropes and pulleys, wonderfully intertwined and all leading mysteriously off to some master mechanism outside the room.
Everyone knows Smith Brothers Cough Drops and the bearded brothers "Trade" and "Mark." And most Hudson River Valley dwellers know the Poughkeepsie restaurant in which the first batch of cough drops was brewed and which is still run as a sentimental gesture by "Trade's" descendants. James Smith moved from Canada to Poughkeepsie in 1847, set up a restaurant. Legend has it that a peddler came to the door one day with the recipe for some cough drops which James admired. At any rate he began brewing 5-pound lots of the drops in his restaurant kitchen, sending his beardless sons William (Trade) and Andrew (Mark) out to peddle them on Poughkeepsie streets.
Slowly the fame of the cough drops spread up & down the valley. In time James died. William and Andrew, grown to hairy manhood, stamped their faces on cough drop cartons now spreading by thousands throughout the land. Profits on the cough drops have never been revealed, for Smith Brothers Cough Drops has remained a Smith family business. But a large plant at Poughkeepsie and another at Michigan City, Ind. can turn out 60 tons of drops per day and its yearly advertising bill runs into the hundreds of thousands.
William's son Arthur, now over 70, is inactive president of the company, devoting most of his attention to the restaurant. Arthur's fortyish sons William and Robert run the business, live modestly in Poughkeepsie, detest publicity. Last week they were acutely embarrassed at the attention their tax sign had drawn. Poughkeepsie and Dutchess County are ardently Republican but not four miles up the river lives a great and neighborly Democrat by the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.