Read Ebook: The Great American Fraud The Patent Medicine Evil by Adams Samuel Hopkins

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EXAMPLE OF WHAT MR. CHENEY CALLS "SHIFTING THE RESPONSIBILITY."

This letter was sent by the publishers of one of the leading newspapers of Wisconsin to Senator Noble of that state. It illustrates the method adopted by the patent-medicine makers to compel the newspapers In each state to do their lobbying for them. Senator Noble introduced a bill requiring patent-medicine manufacturers to state on their labels the percentage of various poisons which every bottle might contain. Senator Noble and a few others fought valiantly for their bill throughout the whole of the last session of the Wisconsin Legislature, but were defeated by the united action of the newspaper publishers, who, as this letter shows, exerted pressure of every kind, Including threats, to compel members of the Legislature to vote against the bill.

In discussing this plan for a legislative bureau, another member told what in his estimation was needed. "The trouble," said he--I quote from the minutes--"the trouble we will have in attempting to buy legislation--supposing we should attempt it--is that we will never know what we are buying until we get through. We may have paid the wrong man, and the bill is passed and we are out. It is not a safe proposition, if we consider it legitimate, which we do not."

True, it is not legitimate, but the main point is, it's not safe; that's the thing to be considered.

The patent-medicine man continued to elaborate on the plans proposed by Dr. Pierce: "It would not be a safe proposition at all. What this association should have... is a regularly established bureau.... We should have all possible information on tap, and we should have a list of the members of the legislature of every state. We should have a list of the most influential men that control them, or that can influence them.... For instance, if in the state of Ohio a bill comes up that is adverse to us, turn to the books, find out who are members of the legislature there, who are the publishers of the papers in the state, where they are located, which are the Republican and which the Democratic papers.... It will take money, but if the money is rightly spent, it will be the best investment ever made."

The Trust's Club for Legislators.

That is about as comprehensive, as frankly impudent a scheme of controlling legislation as it is possible to imagine. The plan was put in the form of a resolution, and the resolution was passed. And so the Proprietary Association of America maintains a lawyer in Chicago, and a permanent secretary, office and staff. In every state it maintains an agent whose business it is to watch during the session of the Legislature each day's batch of new bills, and whenever a bill affecting patent medicines shows its head to telegraph the bill, verbatim, to headquarters. There some scores of printed copies of the bill are made, and a copy is sent to every member of the association--to the Peruna people, to Dr. Pierce at Buffalo, to Kilmer at Birmingham, to Cheney at Toledo, to the Pinkham people at Lynn, and to all the others. Thereon each manufacturer looks up the list of papers in the threatened state with which he has the contracts described above. And to each newspaper he sends a peremptory telegram calling the publisher's attention to the obligations of his contract, and commanding him to go to work to defeat the anti-patent-medicine bill. In practice, this organization works with smooth perfection and well-oiled accuracy to defeat the public health legislation which is introduced by boards of health in over a score of states every year. To illustrate, let me describe as typical the history of the public health bills which were introduced and defeated in Massachusetts last year. I have already mentioned them as showing how the newspapers, obeying that part of their contract which requires them to print nothing harmful to patent medicines, refused to print any account of the exposures which were made by several members of the Legislature during the debate of the bill. I wish here to describe their obedience to that other clause of the contract, in living up to which they printed scores of bitterly partisan editorials against the public health bill, and against its authors personally; threatened with political death those members of the Legislature who were disposed to vote in favor of it, and even, in the persons of editors and owners, went up to the State House and lobbied personally against the bill. And since I have already told of Mr. Cheney's author-ship of the scheme, I will here reproduce, as typical of all the others , the letter which Mr. Cheney himself on the 14th day of February sent to all the newspapers in Massachusetts with which he has lobbying contracts--practically every newspaper in the state:

"Toledo, Ohio, Feb. 14, 1905.

"Gentlemen:

"Should House bills Nos. 829, 30, 607, 724, or Senate bill No. 185 become laws, it will force us to discontinue advertising in your state. Your prompt attention regarding this bill we believe would be of mutual benefit.

"We would respectfully refer you to the contract which we have with you.

"Respectfully,

"Cheney Medicine Company."

Now here is the fruit which that letter bore: a strong editorial against the anti-patent-medicine bill, denouncing it and its author in the most vituperative language, a marked copy of which was sent to every member of the Massachusetts Legislature. But this was not all that this one zealous publisher did; he sent telegrams to a number of members, and a personal letter to the representative of his district calling on that member not only to vote, but to use his influence against the bill, on the pain of forfeiting the paper's favor.

Now this seems to me a shameful thing--that a Massachusetts newspaper, of apparent dignity and outward high standing, should jump to the cracking of the whip of a nostrum-maker in Ohio; that honest and well-meaning members of the Massachusetts Legislature, whom all the money of Rockefeller could not buy, who obey only the one thing which they look on as the expression of the public opinion of their constituents, the united voice of the press of their district--that these men should unknowingly cast their votes at the dictate of a nostrum-maker in Ohio, who, if he should deliver his command personally and directly, instead of through a newspaper supine enough to let him control it for a hundred dollars a year, would be scorned and flouted.

Any self-respecting newspaper must be humiliated by the attitude of the patent-medicine association. They don't ASK the newspapers to do it--they ORDER it done. Read again Mr. Cheney's account of his plan, note the half-contemptuous attitude toward the newspapers. And read again Mr. Cheney's curt letter to the Massachusetts papers; Observe the threat, just sufficiently veiled to make it more of a threat; and the formal order from a superior to a clerk: "We would respectfully refer you to the contract which we have with you."

Is it to be doubted that Dr. Pierce reported this exception to his fellow patent-medicine men, that they might make note of the offending paper, and bear it in mind when they made their contracts the following year? There are other cases which show what happens to the newspaper which offends the patent-medicine men. I am fortunate enough to be able to describe the following incident in the language of the man who wielded the club, as he told the story with much pride to his fellow patent-medicine men at their annual meeting:

"'Gentlemen--Inclosed we hand you a copy of matter which is appearing in the Cleveland papers. It is detrimental to the drug business to have this matter agitated in a sensational way.

In behalf of the trade we would ask you to use your influence with the papers in Cleveland to discontinue this unnecessary publicity, and if you feel you can do so, we would like to have you wire the business managers of the Cleveland papers to discontinue their sensational drug articles, as it is proving very injurious to your business. Respectfully, E. R. Cooper.'

"Because of that letter which we sent out, the Cleveland Press received inside of forty-eight hours telegrams from six manufacturers canceling thousands of dollars' worth of advertising and causing a consequent dearth of sensational matter along drug lines. It resulted in a loss to one paper alone of over eighteen thousand dollars in advertising. Gentlemen, when you touch a man's pocket, you touch him where he lives; that principle is true of the newspaper editor or the retail druggist, and goes through all business."

The Trust's Club for Newspapers.

That is the account of how the patent-medicine man used his club on the newspaper head, told in the patent-medicine man's own words, as he described it to his fellows. Is it pleasant reading for self-respecting newspaper men--the exultant air of those last sentences, and the worldly wisdom: "When you touch a man's pocket you touch him where he lives; that principle is true of the newspaper editor..."?

"'Office Schipps-McRae Press Association.

"'Mr. E. R. Cooper, Cleveland, Ohio:

"'I am sure that in the future nothing will appear in the Cleveland Press detrimental to your interests.

"'Yours truly,

"'F. J. Carlisle.'"

This incident was told, in the exact words above quoted, at the nineteenth annual meeting of the Proprietary Association of America.

I could, if space permitted, quote many other telegrams and letters from the Kilmer's Swamp Root makers, from the Piso's Cure people, from all the large patent-medicine manufacturers. The same thing that happened in Massachusetts happened last year in New Hampshire, in Wisconsin, in Utah, in more than fifteen states. In Wisconsin the response by the newspapers to the command of the patent-medicine people was even more humiliating than in Massachusetts. Not only did individual newspapers work against the formula bill; there is a "Wisconsin Press Association," which includes the owners and editors of most of the newspapers of the state. That association held a meeting and passed resolutions, "that we are opposed to said bill... providing that hereafter all patent medicine sold in this state shall have the formula thereof printed on their labels," and "Resolved, That the association appoint a committee of five publishers to oppose the passage of the measure." And in this same state the larger dailies in the cities took it on themselves to drum up the smaller country papers and get them to write editorials opposed to the formula bill. Nor was even this the measure of their activity in response to the command of the patent medicine association. I am able to give the letter which is here reproduced . It was sent by the publisher of one of the largest daily papers in Wisconsin to the state senator who introduced the bill. In one western state, a board of health officer made a number of analyses of patent medicines, and tried to have the analyses made public, that the people of his state might be warned. "Only one newspaper in the state," he says in a personal letter, "was willing to print results of these analyses, and this paper refused them after two publications in which a list of about ten was published.

In New Hampshire--but space forbids. Happily there Is a little silver in the situation. The legislature of North Dakota last year passed, and the governor signed a bill requiring that patent-medicine bottles shall have printed on their labels the percentage of alcohol or of morphin or various other poisons which the medicine contains. That was the first success in a fight which the public health authorities have waged in twenty states each year for twenty years. In North Dakota the patent-medicine people conducted the fight with their usual weapons, the ones described above. But the newspapers, be it said to their everlasting credit, refused to fall in line to the threats of the patent-medicine association. And I account for that fact in this way: North Dakota is wholly a "country" community.

It has no city of over 20,000, and but one over 5,000. The press of the state, therefore, consists of very small papers, weeklies, in which the ownership and active management all lie with one man. The editorial conscience and the business manager's enterprise lie under one hat. With them the patent-medicine scheme was not so successful as with the more elaborately organized newspapers of older and more populous states.

Just now is the North Dakota editor's time of trial. The law went into effect July 1. The patent-medicine association, at their annual meeting in May, voted to withdraw all their advertising from all the papers in that state. This loss of revenue, they argued self-righteously, would be a warning to the newspapers of other states. Likewise it would be a lesson to the newspapers of North Dakota. At the next session of the legislature they will seek to have the label bill repealed, and they count on the newspapers, chastened by a lean year, to help them. For the independence they have shown in the past, and for the courage they will be called on to show in the future, therefore, let the newspapers of North Dakota know that they have the respect and admiration of all decent people.

"What is to be done about it?" is the question that follows exposure of organized rascality. In few cases is the remedy so plain as here. For the past, the newspapers, in spite of these plain contracts of silence, must be acquitted of any very grave complicity. The very existence of the machine that uses and directs them has been a carefully guarded secret. For the future, be it understood that any newspaper which carries a patent-medicine advertisement knows what it is doing. The obligations of the contract are now public property. And one thing more, when next a member of a state legislature arises and states, as I have so often heard: "Gentlemen, this label bill seems right to me, but I can not support it; the united press of my district is opposed to it"--when that happens, let every one understand the wires that have moved "the united press of my district."

The Following are Extracts and Abstracts from Various Articles in the Ladies Home Journal?

A PECULIAR "ETC."

A great show of frankness was recently made by a certain "patent medicine." The makers advertised that they had concluded to take the public into their confidence, and that thereafter they would print a formula of the medicine on each bottle manufactured.

"There is nothing secretive about our medicine," was the cry. "We have nothing to hide. Here is the formula. Show it to your physician."

Then comes the formula: This herb and that herb, this ingredient and that ingredient, and the formula winds up, "etc." All good, old-fashioned, well recognized drugs were those which were mentioned--all except the "etc."

A certain Board of Pharmacy had never heard of a drug called "etc.," and so made up Its mind to find out.

PATENT MEDICINE CONCERNS AND LETTER BROKERS.

One of the most disgusting and disgraceful features of the patent medicine business is the marketing of letters sent by patients to patent medicine firms. Correspondence is solicited by these firms under the seal of sacred confidence. When the concern is unable to do further business with a patient it disposes of the patient's correspondence to a letter-broker, who, in turn, disposes of it to other patent medicine concerns at the rate of half a cent, for each letter.

An advertisement showing how the names to orders sent to "Patent Medicine" concerns are offered for sale or rent to be used by others.

Yet we are told how "Sacredly Confidential" these letters are regarded and held.

Says Mr. Sullivan: "One of these brokers assured me he could give me 'choice lots' of 'medical female letters'... Let me now give you, from the printed lists of these 'letter brokers' some idea of the way in which these 'sacredly confidential' letters are hawked about the country. Here are a few samples, all that are really printable:

"'55,000 Female Complaint Letters' Is the sum total of one Item, and the list gives the names of the "medicine company" or the "medical institute" to whom they were addressed. Here is a barter, then, in 55,000 letters of a private nature, each one of which, the writer was told, and had a right to expect, would be regarded as sacredly confidential by the "doctor" or concern to whom she had been deluded into telling her private ailments. Yet here they are for half a cent each!

"Another batch of some 47,000 letters addressed to five 'doctors' and 'institutes' is emphasized because they were all written by women! A third batch is:

"'44,000 Bust Developer Letters'--letters which one man in a "patent medicine" concern told me were "the richest sort of reading you could get hold of."

"A still further lot offers: '40,000 Women's Regulator Letters'--letters which in their context any woman can naturally imagine would be of the most delicate nature. Still, the fact remains, here thy are for sale."

Is not this contemptible?

In the same article Mr. Sullivan exposes the inhuman greed of patent medicine concerns that turn into cold cash the letters of patients afflicted with the most vital diseases.

To quote Mr. Sullivan again: "All these are made the subject of public barter. Here are offered for sale, for example: 7,000 Paralysis Letters; 9,000 Narcotic Letters; 52,000 Consumption Letters; 3,000 Cancer Letters, and even 65,000 Deaf Letters. Of diseases of the most private nature one is offered here nearly one hundred thousand letters--letters the very classification of which makes a sensitive person shudder."

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