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 {088}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 (all the other large
patent-medicine concerns sent similar letters and telegrams), 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.
"Publishers
"----- Mass.
"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."
And the threat is not an empty one. The newspaper which refuses to
aid the patent-medicine people is marked. Some time ago Dr. V. Mott
{089}Pierce of Buffalo was chairman of what is called the "Committee on
Legislation" of the Proprietary Association of America. He was giving
his annual report to the association. "We are happy to say," said
he, "that though over a dozen bills were before the different State
Legislatures last winter and spring, yet we have succeeded in defeating
all the bills which were prejudicial to proprietary interests without
the use of money, and through the vigorous co-operation and aid of the
publishers. January 23 your committee sent out letters to the principal
publications in New York asking their aid against this measure. It is
hardly necessary to state that the publishers of New York responded
generously against these harmful measures. The only small exception was
the _Evening Star_ of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., the publisher of which, in a
very discourteous letter, refused to assist us in any way."
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:
"Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Proprietary Association," said Mr.
Cooper, "I desire to present to you a situation which I think it is
incumbent on manufacturers generally to pay some attention to--namely,
the publication of sensational drug news which appears from time to time
in the leading papers of the country.... There are, no doubt, many of
you in the room, at least a dozen, who are familiar with the sensational
articles that appeared in the Cleveland _Press_. Gentlemen, this is a
question that appeals to you as a matter of business.... The Cleveland
Press indulged in a tirade against the so-called 'drug trust.'... (the
'drug trust' is the same organization of patent-medicine men--including
Pierce, Pinkham, Peruna, Kilmer and all the well-known ones--which I
have referred to as the patent-medicine association. Its official name
is the Proprietary Association of America.) "I sent out the following
letter to fifteen manufacturers" (of patent medicines):
"'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 {090}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..."?
But the worst of this incident has not yet been told. There remains the
account of how the offending newspaper, in the language of the bully,
"ate dirt". The Cleveland _Press_ is one of a syndicate of newspapers,
all under Mr. McRae's ownership--but I will use Mr. Cooper's own words:
"We not only reached the Cleveland _Press_ by the movement taken up
in that way, but went further, for the Cleveland _Press_ is one of a
syndicate of newspapers known as the Scripps-McRae League, from whom
this explanation is self-explanatory:
"'Office Schipps-McRae Press Association.
"'Mr. E. R. Cooper, Cleveland, Ohio:
"'Mr. McRae arrived in New York the latter part of last week after a
three months' trip to Egypt. I took up the matter of the recent cut-rate
articles which appeared in the Cleveland _Press_ with him, and to-day
received the following telegram from him from Cincinnati: 'Scripps-McRae
papers will contain no more such as Cleveland _Press_ published
concerning the medicine trust--M. A. McRae.'
"'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 [see page 86]. {086} It was sent by the publisher
of one of the largest daily papers in Wisconsin to the state senator
who {091}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." {092}
The Following are Extracts and Abstracts from Various Articles in the
Ladies Home Journal?