BY DANIEL VICTOR
Of The Patriot-News
Even 62 years after his death, Milton Snavely Hershey has an opinion on everything.
The name and vision of The Hershey Co.’s founder is invoked in arguments over the future of the company, zoning changes and Internet message board etiquette. To get to the crux of the issues, residents often ask: What would Milton do?
“Milton still really matters a lot,” said Michael D’Antonio, author of “Hershey: Milton S. Hershey’s Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire and Utopian Dreams.”
“I don’t know if there are many places in America that you can find a founder so many years after his death that would be so alive in people’s minds and hearts.”
His name has been especially tied to The Hershey Co.’s plans to lay off as many as 3,000 workers while building a plant in Mexico. Locals fear the possibility of the plant at 19 E. Chocolate Ave., the one that emits a chocolate aroma through Hershey, shutting down or losing jobs.
Among the questions asked at a public rally last month: Where is the loyalty to Milton Hershey’s legacy? Will the dream of Milton Hershey die at the hands of Hershey Co. CEO Richard Lenny?
“I met Mr. Hershey, and Lenny could never stand on the same podium as that man,” Ralph Hetrick said at the rally.
So, if he were alive today, what would Milton Hershey say?
“I’m not sure we can say we know what Milton Hershey would do today,” said Tom Winpenny, a history professor at Elizabethtown College who has written papers and articles on the candymaker.
“It’s hard to compare 1905 with 2007. Anybody would make some adjustments to globalization, and I’m sure he would have made some.”
“I think if he had lived through the evolution of American business, he would understand the company’s approach and probably see it as inevitable,” D’Antonio said.
Milton Hershey’s rock star status lingers in his namesake village partly because his influence didn’t stop when he died in 1945.
The trust he left to educate underprivileged children has ballooned to several billion dollars, and the Milton Hershey School in Derry Twp. is increasing to a record-high enrollment of 1,700.
The trust gave $50 million to build the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, which employs thousands of people. Large swaths of land controlled by the trust have resisted the development of strip malls and hotels.
Hershey created jobs outside the United States. He poured money into sugar operations in Cuba, hoping to create a similar town there.
It was an era of civic concern when Milton Hershey ran the company, D’Antonio said, and “thinking people tended to dwell on the meaning of community.”
It was almost automatic for him to devote himself to others, he said.
The first chocolate plant in Hershey opened in 1905, soon to be followed by a post office, general store, barbershop, theater and boarding house for employees, according to the Derry Twp. Historical Society.
A park, which would later become Hersheypark, was created in 1907 as a place for employees to relax; the park and the iconic Hershey Kiss are celebrating their 100th anniversary this year.
Milton Hershey signed a Deed of Trust in 1909 to create a home for orphaned boys, which later became the Milton Hershey School. The development of the town continued through the Great Depression and after Milton Hershey died in 1945.
“Although townspeople felt a deep sense of loss, many knew that they had been well provided for, and life would always be good in Hershey,” wrote Millie Landis Coyle on the Derry Twp. Historical Society Web site.
The town existed mostly to serve the needs of the company employees until the 1960s, said Pam Whitenack, director of the Hershey Community Archives.
Around that time, the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center opened and tourism took off. A junior college that provided free education to Derry Twp. residents from 1938 to 1965 was a factor in the town’s growth, Whitenack said.
“In one perspective, Milton Hershey was about change,” she said. “He also really valued his employees and recognized their importance, and really felt that there was a very strong social contract between the company and the employee.”
Kathleen Lewis, vice president of the Derry Twp. Historical Society, said the company is no longer as paternalistic as it once was, but the area’s identity is still based on it.
“Since the very beginning, the town and the company were very close, and in fact everything that went on here was very intertwined,” she said. “That has changed somewhat, but I think people try to hold on to that feeling because they feel Mr. Hershey did a wonderful thing here.”
Staff writer Monica Von Dobeneck contributed to this report.