How Candy and Halloween Became Best Friends

To sum up a needlessly long piece: manufactured candy became an institution in the 1970s amid fears of homemade sweets being unsafe.

In Romania we have a night for carolers in early December. It's a similar idea to trick-or-trearing on Halloween. I'm not sure what it's like now, but nuts, fruit and coins were still common when I was growing up there in the late 80s.

Did the candy companies secretly own stock in the poison, razor blade & stick-pin companies? That could actually be a fun parallel universe conspiracy theory story for the Onion.

If you're curious about 'Candy Day' (as I was), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetest_Day

"...declaration of a Candy Day throughout the United States by candy manufacturers on October 8, 1922."

Similar story for Valentine's Day in Japan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentines_Day#Japan

I'd like sources. This article, while believable and fascinating, provided no evidence of its claims.

(Which is about what it aimed to accomplish.)

Did it actually make any claims?

It seemed to me that it answered the question "When?" and completely sidestepped "How?", in any real terms.

This isn't that useful an article without explaining how trick-or-treating started.