Volume 28, No. 14                                                        
April 13, 2003

 Behind the Chocolate Bars

   Not even the world’s most famous candy makers could sugarcoat the truth about their family problems.  This is the story of the prodigal son, without the happy ending.

   By the 1930s, Frank Mars was a wealthy man thanks to his invention of Snickers, Milky Way and The Three Musketeers.  But with the continent struggling through the Depression, the candy bar king declined the advice of his son, Forrest, who was anxious to expand the company.  “I wanted to conquer the world,” Forrest explained years later.  Chafing under his father’s authority, the upstart demanded a third of the company’s assets, threatening to walk away if he didn’t get what he wanted.  He didn’t, so he did, but with $50,000 from his dad.

   Soon after, Frank Mars died of kidney failure.  His will gave control of the company to his wife, Ethel, with a stipulation that, upon her death, half her shares would go to Forrest, who didn’t even attend his father’s funeral.

   The bitter son eventually moved to Switzerland where he took factory jobs with Tobler and Nestle, to learn all he could about chocolate.  “They didn’t know who I was,” he said.  “They didn’t ask.  They didn’t care.”  Armed with his new knowledge, he moved to London in 1933 where he reformulated his father’s Milky Way recipe to suit English tastes.  He sold the product as “Mars bars”.  By 1939, he had Britain’s third largest candy company.

   Not satisfied, he moved back to the States to make a candy-coated chocolate similar to something he’d seen in Spain.  Since sugar and cocoa were rationed because of the war, he struck a deal with the president of Hershey’s Chocolate, offering to give a vice president position to the executive’s nephew, Bruce Murrie.  “We’ll call the candies M&Ms, for Mars and Murrie,” he said.

   Once Mars had what he wanted, he forced out his business partner.  But there was still one score to settle.  When Ethel Mars died in 1945, the resentful stepson got half her shares.  Selfishly, he spent the next 19 years battling executives for sole control, which he finally won in 1964.  He ruled his new empire ruthlessly, tyrannizing workers and his three children. Eventually, the billionaire lived reclusively above his office, using a two-way mirror to watch employees who called him “the phantom of the candy company” until he died in 1995.

   It’s easy to look down our saintly noses at such callous, unbecoming conduct, until we twig to the fact that we each mirror Mars and his story of ambition, bitterness and betrayal.  Which of us hasn’t defied the wisdom or timing of our Father, anxious to conquer the world in our own way?  Don’t we all resent the authority of the Lord when He chooses not to follow our advice or agenda?  
 
  To one degree or another, we turn away from God out of disappointment, pride or sheer impatience, deciding we can make it on our own.  Snatching up what our Father gives, as if he owes us, we try to work things out in a world that doesn’t know or care who we are.  And why should it when we don’t know, ourselves?

   Before long, we learn you can go far if you cater to the tastes of the culture, dispensing moral confections instead of unpopular convictions, especially when ambition is unchecked by Christian character and accountability.  So lots of us spurn our inheritance and expend our energies on the building of our own little empire, heedless of who or what we have to use. We gladly exchange control of the soul for sole control while our Father grieves.
 
  Forrest Mars built a prison of pride and independence.  He spent his life behind bars of chocolate that kept him in his self-constructed cell until — in the end — he won, but lost everything.  Don’t make the same mistake. Focus on the zealous, inexhaustible patience of God seen in the story of the prodigal:   “While he was still a long distance away, his father saw him coming.  Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20)

   Staying close to our Father is the first step in conquering the world. Life doesn’t get any sweeter than that.

By Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the Followers of Christ congregation in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.  Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications.  To subscribe, contact sgamble@bfree.on.ca