Grocery Pioneer Dies At 83 Schwegmann Built Empire 03-07-1995 Times Picayune ************************************************* Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ John Gerald Schwegmann, the son of a 9th Ward grocer who became a local pioneer in the development of the modern supermarket, died Monday at Touro Infirmary. He was 83. He had been in poor health for several years after suffering a series of strokes, corporate spokeswoman Sue Burge said. Mr. Schwegmann, who was born above his father's small grocery store at Burgundy and Piety streets, joined with two brothers in 1946 to open the first Schwegmann Brothers Giant Super Market at Elysian Fields and St. Claude avenues. By the time of his death, the empire, now known as Schwegmann Giant Super Markets, had grown to 18 stores with 5,000 employees, and his surname had become synonymous in New Orleans with the massive modern supermarket that sells everything from gourmet food to garden supplies. "He was the first person to take us past the mom-and-pop business into the supermarket business," said his son, John F. Schwegmann, the privately held stores' chief executive officer since 1979. Although his principal activity was marketing groceries, Mr. Schwegmann also was intensely involved in politics. He spent 12 years in the Legislature and nearly five years on the state Public Service Commission, and he ran for governor in 1971. Mr. Schwegmann used his positions as an elected official and a businessman to speak loudly on such diverse issues as price- fixing, the Pentagon Papers, taxes and the Superdome. He espoused his opinions in mini-editorials that were part of his newspaper ads, and he had the names of candidates he supported printed on the supermarket chain's shopping bags. Two members of his family have demonstrated the same interest in government service: Lt. Gov. Melinda Schwegmann, his daughter- in-law, and John F. Schwegmann, a member of the state Public Service Commission. "Everything he's touched has turned to money," said Saul Stone, one of Mr. Schwegmann's attorneys, in a 1979 interview. "He's some lucky kind of guy." Mr. Schwegmann was born Aug. 14, 1911, above Schwegmann's Grocery and Bar, which his German-born grandfather founded in 1869. The store was later commemorated by Schwegmann's Old Piety & Burgundy Whiskey. He recalled that the store "in the early years had no heat in the winter, and the front doors . . . were always open, allowing the cold wind to blow in." "If the clerks complained, they were told the heat would make them drowsy and that it would take the bloom off the fruits and vegetables, even though (olive oil) was freezing and breaking on the shelves. However, the real reason for keeping the doors open was to show that the store was open and ready for business." Mr. Schwegmann's education was limited to grammar school, a year of high school at Holy Cross and six months at Soule College. After working for the U.S. Post Office and as a salesman for a margarine manufacturer, he got a job with Canal Bank & Trust Co., which closed in 1933. He worked in real estate until 1939, when he joined his father's store. In that store, the Schwegmanns introduced New Orleanians to self-service shopping, a novelty that eventually became an ordinary feature of American life, largely dooming the smaller stores in which proprietors filled each customer's order. "Some of the old-time customers were very put out about it and asked, 'Where is the counter where I can get waited on?' " Mr. Schwegmann said years later. "My father said, 'Here is a basket. Shop for yourself.' "One customer replied, 'If you think I am going to run all around this puzzle garden, you are out of your mind. I will stay right here and get served.' My father took the basket, went around the shelves and filled her order. When he added it up, he used the old prices in the days of service, which were 10 percent higher. "She said, 'You are not charging me 10 percent more. I will go and pick up my own groceries,' and that was the beginning of Schwegmann's self-service stores." On Aug. 23, 1946, John G. Schwegmann and his brothers, Anthony and Paul, opened the first supermarket in the family chain. "In just two years, he was a big success," Saul Stone said in the 1979 interview. "The best way to success was volume with a low markup. He said he would rather make $100 off $1,000 in sales than make $50 on $100 sales." "There are richer and smarter people in the world than I am, but they're no better," Mr. Schwegmann said in an interview a generation after he opened his first supermarket. "We're all selling something to someone else. . . . I never look down; I always look up." He also founded Schwegmann Bank & Trust Co., later bought by Jefferson Guaranty Bank. In 1948, Mr. Schwegmann entered a new field of activity: litigation. The Legislature had passed a law requiring a minimum markup on alcoholic beverages at all levels of the merchandising chain. The grocer, convinced stores should be able to set their own prices, volunteered to be a guinea pig in a test case opposing the law, and Stone agreed to represent him. "That made him a litigator," Stone said. "He liked it. He wanted to fight." The state Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional. Mr. Schwegmann's next fight was against the state's fair-trade law, which let manufacturers set retail prices for an entire area by entering into a contract with just one retailer in that region. The crusade was successful in federal district court, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation's highest tribunal did not declare the law unconstitutional, Stone said, but it did rule that merchants could not be forced to charge certain prices. "The next move was to get the state's fair-trade law thrown out," Stone said. "It was. A second law was passed, but the state Supreme Court threw it out in 1965." Perhaps Mr. Schwegmann's best-remembered fight was his battle against milk price-fixing. It pitted him against first the state agriculture commissioner and later the state Milk Commission, which could set milk prices at the processing and retail levels, said Michael R. Fontham, one of Mr. Schwegmann's attorneys. The federal suit, which grew out of Mr. Schwegmann's attempts to import cheaper out-of-state milk, was in litigation for eight years, Fontham said. Finally, a three-judge panel said Mr. Schwegmann could not be barred from buying cheaper milk. After that, the state eliminated the Milk Commission. It was replaced in 1975 by the Dairy Stabilization Board, which can prescribe a minimum price processors must pay to farmers. One out-of-state company from which Mr. Schwegmann bought milk was Dairy Fresh Corp., an Alabama company with a processing plant in Hattiesburg, Miss. State health officials tried to impound the milk, Fontham said, "but eventually, he was able to bring it in." Such battles were "just altruistic," Stone said. "He favored unrestricted, free competition. It's principle, nothing personal with it. He had nothing to gain at all." Mr. Schwegmann's last court battle involved a $30 million suit filed in 1979 by Mary Ann Blackledge, a former clerk in a Schwegmann's store, who claimed she and the supermarket magnate had lived as husband and wife for 12 years. She said $30 million was her share of the wealth they accumulated while they were together. In 1982, state District Judge Frank V. Zaccaria ruled that Blackledge could not file such a suit unless she had a written contract. He said she could sue to recover money she might have spent in business relationships with Mr. Schwegmann, but she didn't file such a suit. Mr. Schwegmann's political career began in 1955 with an unsuccessful race for a Jefferson Parish seat in the state Senate. After an unsuccessful campaign in 1959 for the Jefferson Parish presidency, he won a seat in the state House in 1961. Seven years later, he was elected to the state Senate, and in 1975, he was elected to the Public Service Commission. After suffering strokes in 1977 and 1978, he resigned from the commission in October 1980. His son was elected to the same seat seven months later. In the Legislature, Mr. Schwegmann declared his independence early and acquired the reputation of a maverick. Because of his crusades and feuds, he failed to get many of his bills passed. In a 1962 speech, he said, "How can you win with a stacked house? I came out fighting, and at least I was loyal to the people." Mr. Schwegmann became a persistent critic of the administrations of Govs. Jimmie Davis and John McKeithen, and he acquired a wide variety of enemies. Former Mayor Moon Landrieu once said Mr. Schwegmann was "so poorly informed on the governmental process you have to excuse him on the basis of ignorance." In the Legislature, Mr. Schwegmann voted against such measures as pay raises for public officials and tax increases. He also opposed building the Superdome with state bonds. The original estimate of the stadium's cost was $35 million, but years before it was finished, Mr. Schwegmann predicted it would cost between $150 million and $200 million. The final cost was $179 million. The Superdome was one of McKeithen's pet projects, and he tried to use his charm to win Mr. Schwegmann over to his side. During one exchange, McKeithen said, "Now, John's going to be reasonable about this. After all, we can help him. John, what can we do for you?" "Governor, you can't do nothin' for me," Mr. Schwegmann replied. Survivors include two sons, John F. Schwegmann and Guy G. Schwegmann; a daughter, Margie Schwegmann-Brown; a brother, Anthony Schwegmann; a sister, Marguerite Barrios; and three grandchildren. A Mass will be said Wednesday at noon at Holy Trinity Church, 721 St. Ferdinand St. Visitation will be today from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd. Burial will be in Metairie Cemetery.