God's Capitalist: Asa Candler of Coca-Cola. By Kathryn W. Kemp. (
A simple headache doesn't usually lead onto a fortune, but
it did for Asa Candler. In the spring of 1888, Candler, who suffered from
frequent headaches, was told to try a concoction invented by fellow Atlanta pharmacist,
John S. Pemberton, called "Coca-Cola." "The headache went away
and commercial curiosity took its place." Candler soon invested in
Pemberton's business. Eventually, he came to control the company and
transformed the drugstore formulation into perhaps the best-known and most
popular drink in the world after water.
Candler's life story is a
true Southern success story, as he rose from
This blending of business acumen and religious zeal that
Kemp highlights in Candler's life was not unique to him. It is a characteristic
found in the biographies of many of the leading American businessmen of that
gilded age, though Kemp doesn't note this broader pattern of which Candler was
only one example. Candler, like many late nineteenth and early twentieth
century business leaders, was keen on his duty of Christian stewardship. As his
brother Warren noted, "The ability to make money is a gift of God just as
any other sort of talent; and it must be consecrated to the service of
God." John D. Rockefeller had argued much the same thing. Kemp's title
could apply to many other business figures of that age. While some have seen
this aspect of that era's business leaders as "a crude rationalization for
greed," Kemp argues in the book that Candler was sincere in his motives
and pro-vides numerous examples as evidence, such as his assisting
The book's title explains the theme Kemp tries to weave through the book— that Candler's business success was intwined with a moral and religious underpinning, that the opportunity for the former followed the zeal of the latter.
Though usually portrayed in this book as a shrewd
businessman, Kemp misses the one big blunder of Candler's Coca-Cola career, his
decision in 1899 to sell the rights to bottle the drink to a pair of
Chattanooga men for a dollar. Candler had no time or faith in the bottling
business, but it was to prove the most lucrative part of the Coke industry and
did more than anything to make Coca-Cola the international beverage of an
international company. His successors in the company must have cursed him as
they spend decades and millions of dollars to recover what he so causally gave
away. [For more on the bottling deal, see this reviewer's article
“Bottling Gold:
One of the problems in researching the lives of nineteenth century business figures was their preference for secrecy in their dealings. Candler, like many others, rid himself of many of his most personal business papers, so that it is difficult to have a complete picture of the entrepreneur. Kemp has, however, made a thorough examination of what has survived, including accessing the Coca-Cola Company archives, which is usually difficult to obtain. For so prominent a figure, Candler has-been the subject of only one previous biography written by his son Charles Howard Candler and published in 1950. While lacking the personal insights of the son's book, Kemp's work sets Asa Candler's life in the broader context of his time and gives us a more critical and balanced view of the man, especially of the last sad decade of Candler’s life when he lost his beloved wife, had his children sell the Coca-Cola Company out from under him, experienced two scandalous romances with younger women, and suffered a stroke that left him in a coma for the last three years of his life. His son’s book passes only lightly over these last sad years. Kemp has produced a significant account of a significant Southern and national business leader that has been long overdue.
Ned L. Irwin