Monopoly Challenged

Neither dour Depression nor fickle Fashion have been able to halt the steady upward trend of U. S. cigaret consumption. Proud are U. S. cigaret-makers of last year's 120,000,000,000 production record. And also satisfied with the record is a potent French industry, the industry which turns out little strips of cigaret paper three inches long and one and one-half inches wide. For all U. S. cigarets are wrapped in paper imported from France.

But last week the French cigaret paper industry was beginning to worry about something. Two young U. S. paper men, Brothers Louis and William Schweitzer, stand ready to challenge France's old monopoly. In Elizabeth, N. J. they have a factory ready to turn out cigaret paper. They even have the word of Jean de Montgolfier, leading cigaret paper manufacturer of France, that their product is superior to his. And no light thing is praise from a de Montgolfier. More than 700 years ago a de Montgolfier went crusading, was captured and taught the art of papermaking by the Saracens. Ever since his return to France, his family has been in paper.

The Schweitzer brothers are the third generation of a paper family. Grandfather Joseph Schweitzer used to live in Odessa, imported paper from France. His son. Peter Joseph Schweitzer, emigrated to the U. S., set up an importing business, later acquired a mill in France. William and Louis Schweitzer went to the University of Maine, majored in paper engineering, also worked in France. In a mill at Jersey City they make carbon paper and the thin tissue which radio manufacturers need for insulation. Their factory at Elizabeth was acquired in 1929. equipped for the manufacture of cigaret paper. Their method is modern, but essentially the same as that in France. Rags are washed and beaten, transformed into paper to which calcium carbonate is added to aid combustion. Many of the mechanical features in their factory have been invented by Louis Schweitzer.

At present the Schweitzer factory is idling along, turning out only enough wrappers to satisfy the curiosity or needs of small cigaret manufacturers. But the plant is so geared that at a moment's notice it can be whipped into quantity production, to shatter the French monopoly.

The Schweitzers know that at least one big stumbling block stands in the way of this development. All French merchants know and bank on the U. S. fondness for imported things. In the highly competitive U. S. cigaret field, it will take a daring company to buy cigaret paper from the Schweitzer's Elizabeth mill, although many buy from their French mill. For. should it become known that the paper of a leading brand was made in a new U. S. factory, it is easy to visualize the other brands proclaiming the fact that they use "only the finest imported wrappers, made by a process centuries old."

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