The Most Wonderful Endorsement?

 Sousa regularly enjoyed a good cigar, but in 1912 a friend introduced him to Tuxedo Tobacco, and he added the pipe to his smoking repertoire. He also began showing up in advertisements for that brand in newspapers around the country. Here, for example, is what appeared in the September 6, 1912 edition of the St. Joseph News Press Gazette:

Magazines were in on this as well, as seen here, a few weeks later:

As the ad put it, "The live, virile men who make this country what it is, recognize the relaxation from nervous and mental strain, the restfulness - that comes from smoking Tuxedo Tobacco." 

For the next year, that brand was being endorsed by such "live, virile men" as athletes, trapshooters, authors, explorers, millionaires, and even opera singers! Check this out, from the January 29, 1914 edition of The Evening Journal, out of Wilmington, Delaware:

Wow. Who knew that smoking a pipe could help you in your singing career?!

Not surprisingly, by early 1914, newspapers featured such headlines as this one, from the February 16, 1914 edition of The Evening Mail, out of Stockton, California:

A year later, Tuxedo Tobacco went back to featuring Sousa on his own to sell their product, as seen here in the January 14, 1915 edition of The Kenosha [Wisconsin] Evening News (and, once again, the touted benefits of smoking a pipe are truly amazing!):

But then Tuxedo Tobacco, or Sousa, or both, pulled off something almost unbelievable, leading to "The Most Wonderful Endorsement Ever Given Any Product." This headline began appearing on the back covers of popular magazines in late 1915, and eventually made it into newspapers as well, as seen here in the December 29, 1915 edition of The North Adams [MA] Transcript:

The key paragraph says this: "Mr. Sousa has been a smoker of Tuxedo Tobacco for years. Recently, at the Panama-Pacific Exposition [in San Francisco, where his band played from May 22 through July 23, 1915], a newspaper representative made the discovery that every member of Sousa's Band is also a Tuxedo smoker!"

Now, what are the chances of that?! Or is the truth being stretched a bit here? Well, the ad goes on to say, "Whereupon, the following endorsement of Tuxedo was gladly given and signed by Mr. Sousa and the sixty-six members of his Band. Read it - as sure-fire and convincing as a Sousa March. . . . No other product has ever received such a remarkable endorsement as this."

And here are those sixty-six signatures - a real rarity, identifying every member of the band on that cross-country tour, which started on April 5 and ended on September 26, as well as the instrument they were playing (the list varies in how it is edited on each version of the ad, but here are the four columns put together) :

Of course, of greatest interest to me are the six bass players, who appear in the list as follows:

1. "John M. Kuhn, Sousaphone" (third from the top)
2. "Arthur Storch, Tubaist" (ninth from the top)
3. "J. W. Richardson, Sousa Phone" (twelfth from the top)
4. "O. R. Cott, Tuba" (eighteenth from the top)
5. "Oscar S. Peterson, Tuba" (twenty-first from the top)
6. "Emil M. Weber, Tuba" (thirteenth from the bottom)

There are a number of things worth noting here:

• To my knowledge, the bass section had never been that large before, featuring six players. And given the players, the section must have sounded awesome!
• Kuhn, according to one report, was discovered by Sousa at the Panama-Pacific Exposition, and added to the band at that time. I'm still trying to confirm that, but at the very least, we know he hadn't played with Sousa prior to the 1915 cross-country tour.
• This is also the first time we see two Sousaphones in the band instead of just one. By late 1921, Sousa went with all Sousaphones for his bass section.
• Note that Kuhn calls his instrument a "Sousaphone," and Richardson, a "Sousa Phone." Either way, the "S" is capitalized, which makes sense, given that the name is based on a person, "Sousa."
• Note also that Storch refers to himself as a "Tubaist." I've found this term used of a tuba player as early as 1871, although it is no longer used today, as we've gone with "Tubist."
• Emil M. Weber was the father of both Herbert Weber, who played Sousaphone with Sousa in 1924 and 1926, and Albert Weber, who played Sousaphone with Sousa in 1926.

Okay, put all of that in your pipe and smoke it! (Sorry, I couldn't resist!)

[Special thanks to Doug Yeo who shared the band ad with me earlier today, which really intrigued me, resulting in the post above!]