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 I 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 by 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
of the whole matter upon our shoulders....
"There? has been 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, his 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.... 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."
To illustrate: There are 739 publications in your State--619 of these
are dailies and weeklies. Out of this number we are advertising in over
500, at an annual expenditure of $8,000 per year (estimated). We make a
three-year contract with all of them, and, therefore, our liabilities in
your State are $24,000, providing, of course, all these contracts were
made at the same date. Should these contracts all be made this fall
and your State should pass a law this winter (three months later)
prohibiting the sale of our goods, there would be virtually a loss to us
of $24,000. Therefore, for a business precaution to guard against just
such conditions, we add the red paragraph referred to in Collier's.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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