Spectator's Journal
"Spectator's Journal" - the years pass and as it rejects many of its own children, but the attraction remains. Michael Walzer is a thoughtful man, but when he mentions socialism I hear echoes of the Montanist...
...George V...
...The taste may not be what it was before 1959, but then neither is the nation...
...Schlitz now runs a weak third in the industry, with an output considerably less than half of Anheuser-Busch's...
...Unfortunately, neither Schlitz nor the nation held up as one might have expected...
...Even so, by now we have surely dentified what should be the national ]rink for America in the 1980s...
...Once the Antitrust Division of the FTC decides that Schlitz is a failing enterprise, anothe'r brewer could take over the firm without fearing the antitrust laws...
...work out either...
...For several years it held up absolutely but declined relatively, remaining a solid second until 1977...
...Indeed, the analogy is worth pursuing...
...The words which best sum up his vision are, I am afraid, Waizer's own when he considers the neoconservatives: "The search is powerfully motivated and often eloquently expressed, but I do not see how it can succeed...
...Schlitz stays in business independently, mainly because nobody appears willing to merge with it...
...In an effort to reverse its steady loss of customers, Schlitz adopted a campaign featuring boxers and other heavy types snarling at the prospect of someone's "taking their gusto away...
...Schlitz remained the dominant American brewer until 1958, when it was dethroned by AnheuserBusch...
...Economic history teaches us that once something starts to decline, ks downward movement is usually relentless...
...This was thought in the advertising industry to amount to a threat: "Drink Schlitz or I'll kill you...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 1980 41 At this point it is probably best not :o pursue the analogy any further...
...They probably were...
...On Gusto Back in the 1950s, when all seemed to be going well for America, the largest-selling beer in America was Schlitz...
...Finally, its advertising went stale...
...Our underhanded efforts in support of leaders like the Shah of Iran and Anastasio Somoza didn't...
...Hilton...
...Its output has fallen, and the company has had to sell its best brewery (in Syracuse, New York) to AnheuserBusch...
...In Vietnam our highly capital-intensive military was supposed to win a quick victory...
...This approximately marks the beginning of America's decline, although following the analogy Schlitz should have dropped out of first place precisely on January 1, 1959, when Castro took control of Cuba--but then, analogies are never perfect...
...Lift one to celebrate America's fortunes...
...For this reason a l o n e , Radic.al Principles should be widely read by those who have left the Left...
...What went wrong...
...It is Schlitz...
...Finally, our threats have proved an absolute disaster, producing the reverse of our intentions in Iran and elsewhere...
...Walzer has a keen eye for what ails the American polity, and while that eye may distort, that distortion reveals much about men, their politics, and their ideals...
...But in 1976, even its output began to decline...
...One doesn't know how far to push analogies, of course, but it's true that Schlitz lost Hawaii...
...With its crisp, lightly hopped flavor and especially good aftertaste, it seemed the sort of brew that one could easily imagine thriving forever...
...In 1979 it lost over $50 million...
...Schlitz proved no exception...
...America fared little better during the same period...
...Schlitz then engaged in some underhanded marketing practices that were subsequently brought into the courts...
...Michael Walzer is a thoughtful man, but when he mentions socialism I hear echoes of the Montanist Tertullian maintaining his faith before the Platonic rationalists in the early days of the Church: "Credo quia absurdum" ("I believe because it is absurd...
...Unfortunately, it didn't work against an opponent willing to wage laborintensive warfare and do a slow job of that...
...Most important, Schlitz ruined its quality by investing a lot of capital in a fast brewing process: The traditional flavor that was advertised as "just the kissofthe hops" was replaced by a new one that tasted as if the hops were poured in from a bottle...
...After buying the Hawaiian Brewing Company, whose Primo Beer had dominated the island market for decades, Schlitz managed to lose that market to Olympia and others, eventually closing its failing Honolulu brewery and withdrawing to the mainland to produce Primo...
Vol. 13 • November 1980 • No. 11
