Milton Hershey Book hits stores tomorrow...

Joel Berg of the Patriot News called me the other day to get my take on the new book by Michael D'Antonio on Milton S. Hershey. I wrote a 4,000 word biography on Mr. Hershey in the Winter 1996/1997 issue of Cigar Aficionado.

I received an advance copy this morning and have been speed-reading for a review. The author is a Pulitzer Price winner who has authored five other books. The book clearly reveals "new" stories about Milton Hershey gleened from secondary sources and the Hershey Archives.

However, the book is like the crazy custom I recently read about in Dillsburg. A local candy shop sells chocolate covered pickels on New Year's Eve. The indepth research of Milton Hershey is the chocolate on the outside. Revelations about Hershey's gambling; his wife's affliction with syphilis; references to drinking alcohol during Prohibition; and Milton's missing out on the premiere of The Birth of a Nation; are the sour, center of the pickle.

Maybe I haven't read enough, but I didn't find many references to Milton's habit of smoking 8 to 10 cigars a day. He also wasn't that tall, perhaps illiterate, and from a broken home. Worst of all... he failed in business in Lancaster, Philadelphia, Denver, New York, Colorado.

I guess smut sells, but D'Antonio should know something about Central Pennsylvania and our relationship with Milton Hershey. We could care less about the warts. None of us are perfect. Milton Hershey's legacy is seen in the town, the company, and the school.

The world needs more Milton S. Hershey's...warts and all.