Выражение встречается в следующем контексте:

A new development soon made things worse. Prohibition laws against alcohol soon turned many of the poorer blacks in the South into cocaine addicts. The sensationalist press picked up on this, and wild stories started making the rounds, many of them vehemently anti-Coca-Cola. To make matters worse a similar raciallycharged backlash erupted against kola as well. As a result strident calls were being made to stop the sale of Coca-Cola.
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Woodruff's attempts to make the independent bottlers accept lower syrup prices backfired as he was soon thrown vehement objections and slapped a lawsuit. To make matters worse, the company had insisted on maintaining a horrendously expensive 60-day stockpile of sugar only to find that the price of sugar had dropped almost overnight.

и т.п.

Заранее спасибо

до скорых!