The Great American Fraud: The Patent Medicine EvilAdams, Samuel Hopkins
Science
The Great American Fraud: The Patent Medicine Evil
Adams, Samuel Hopkins
Patent medicines; Quacks and quackery
"We have had a good deal of difficulty in the last few years with the
different legislatures of the different states.... I believe I have a
plan whereby we will have no difficulty whatever with these people. I
have used it in my business for two years and know it is a practical
thing.... I, inside of the last two years, have made contracts with
between fifteen and sixteen thousand newspapers, and never had but one
man refuse to sign the contract, and my saying to him that I could not
sign a contract without this clause in it he readily signed it. My point
is merely to shift the responsibility. We to-day have the responsibility
on our shoulders. As you all know, there is hardly a year but we have
had a lobbyist in the different state legislatures--one year in New
York, one year in New Jersey, and so on." (Read that frank confession
twice--note the bland matter-of-factness of it.) "There has been a
constant fear that something would come up, so I had this clause in my
contract added. This is what I have in every contract I make: 'It is
hereby agreed that should your state, or the United States Government,
pass any law that would interfere with or restrict the sale of
proprietary medicines, this contract shall become void.'... In the
state of Illinois a few years ago they wanted to assess me three hundred
dollars. I thought I had a better plan than this, so I wrote to about
forty papers and merely said: 'Please look at your contract with me and
take note that if this law passes you and I must stop doing business,
and my contracts cease.'" The next week every one of them had an article,
and Mr. Man had to go....
I read this to Dr. Pierce some days ago and he was very much taken up
with it. I have carried this through and know it is a success. I know
the papers will accept it. Here is a thing that costs us nothing. We
are guaranteed against the $75,000 loss for nothing. It throws the
responsibility on the newspapers.... I have my contracts printed and
I have this printed in red type, right square across the contract, so
there can be absolutely no mistake, and the newspaper man can not say
to me, 'I did not see it.' He did see it and knows what he is doing. It
seems to me it is a point worth every man's attention.... I think this
is pretty near a sure thing.
[IMAGE ==>] {080}
THIS IS THE FORM OF CONTRACT--SEE (A) (B) (C)--THAT MUZZLES THE PRESS OF
THE UNITED STATES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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