Books: Prince of Hucksters

TAKEN AT THE FLOOD (368 pp.)—John Gunther—Harper ($5).

One day, when the officials of the American Tobacco Co. panicked in the midst of a minor crisis, the president of the Lord & Thomas Advertising Agency rose from his hospital bed in Baltimore and journeyed to New York to attend an emergency meeting. After he straightened things out, Albert Davis Lasker turned to the other conferees and announced: "Gentlemen, I have done all I can for you. Good day, because I must return to Johns Hopkins now and continue my nervous breakdown."

Patternmaker. For lesser men, the hectic pace of Albert Lasker's life would have led to worse things than an interruptible nervous breakdown. In his 44 years with Lord & Thomas (most of them as sole owner), Lasker dominated U.S. advertising and cut the pattern for its grey flannel suit. Under his influence the public was introduced to irium and Amos 'n' Andy, to Kleenex, four-door sedans and soap operas. Yet Lasker was all but invisible: almost nothing was written about him, and two blocks off Madison Avenue his name is still virtually unknown. In this fine and affectionate biography John Gunther has gone far to display Lasker for the first time.

As a boy in Galveston, Texas, Lasker was off and running before he was in his first pair of long pants. He attracted national attention as a cub reporter of 16 when he got an exclusive interview with Eugene V. Debs, the labor leader and Socialist presidential candidate. Learning that Debs, just out of prison (for contempt of court), was hiding in a house near Galveston, Lasker borrowed a Western Union messenger's uniform and delivered a wire to the stormy labor leader: I AM NOT A MESSENGER BOY. I AM A YOUNG NEWSPAPER REPORTER. YOU HAVE TO GIVE A FIRST INTERVIEW TO SOMEBODY. WHY DON'T YOU GIVE IT TO ME? IT WILL START ME ON MY CAREER. Vastly amused, Debs granted the interview, and Lasker's career moved into high gear. At 18, he went to Chicago to work for $10 a week as an ad salesman for Lord & Thomas. At 35, he owned L. & T. and several million dollars to boot.

Love That Lucky. Lasker responded with singular skill to the fierce competition of advertising. When the J. Walter Thompson Agency recommended Woodbury's soap for "The Skin You Love to Touch," Lasker fired back, on Palmolive's behalf, with "That School Girl Complexion." Working in double harness with the eccentric George Washington Hill, president of American Tobacco, Lasker converted Lucky Strikes from a chewing tobacco into the nation's leading cigarette. Cannily observing that women might be persuaded that smoking was not only decent but glamorous, Lasker assaulted the feminine market with a series of glowing testimonials from opera divas and movie queens. Luckies' sales zoomed 312% in one year.