Cleanse Thyself

Posted on by The TellAllmarketing Blog

By Ray Schultz

Suffering from cancer or leukemia? Had a stroke or two? Don’t despair, friend. You can reverse these illnesses with a common syrup: a miracle cure that can also help you rebound from heart attacks, diabetes and everything else right down to post-nasal drip.

So said a classic direct mail piece that promoted a “nine-day inner cleansing and blood wash.” It was sent some years ago by the brilliant copywriter Eugene Schwartz.

How could he get away with this baloney without bringing the Federal Trade Commission down on his head?

It’s simple. Gene never offered the actual products: Rather, he peddled a book that told about them. And under the so-called Mirror Image rule, you can’t get in trouble for selling a book as long as your marketing copy accurately describes what’s in the volume.

Granted, he didn’t mention the book until the second-to-last paragraph in the four-page letter signed by one I.E. Gaumont. And he qualified the offering with this notice on the bottom of the very first page:

“The statements contained in this book express the opinions of the author, who is not a medical doctor.” Who knows if he was forced into including that?

Gene Schwartz has been dead for over 20 years, but there is much to learn from his copywriting approach: it wasn’t wordsmithing, but vision, to steal a phrase from the late Andi Emerson.

Mind you, Gene believed in naturalistic healing, claiming that it helped him recover from his own stroke in 1978. And his “authors” were real people, who believed in the cures they were hyping.

Who was Gene Schwartz? The six-foot-four legend from Montana was known as much for his art collection and service on museum boards as he was for his direct mail copy. (Click here for his bio). But he was one of the greatest copywriters who ever lived. And here he is at his best. (There’s a bad visual of the letter at the bottom).

Health Researcher Claims

“YOU CAN CURE ALMOST ANY DISEASE PERMANENTLY AND BY YOURSELF

RIGHT IN YOUR OWN HOME ‘THE NATURAL WAY’ WAY” with the “Miraculous” healing Power of internal Baths:

Painlessly! Without Drugs or Costly, Medical Treatments! You’ll Never have a sick day, he says!

Dear Friend:

I want to tell you about a mighty and powerful weapon for healing and warding off disease: THE “MIRACULOUS” HEALING POWER OF internal BATHS! It’s all part of my 9-day Inner Cleansing and Blood Washing method!

I feel it is my duty as a humanitarian to pass on my life changing discovery of the NINE-DAY INNER CLEANSING AND BLOOD WASH FOR RENEWED YOUTHFULNESS AND HEALTH TO those unfortunate people suffering from disease!

Internal Baths are fabulous! They are the most powerful weapons against obesity and produce “impossible” cures at times. No dangerous drugs or injections with their serious side effects. No costly medical treatments or tedious regimes No pains. This system can be life-saving when illness strikes, even help you survive heart attacks!

*With the “magic” healing power of Internal Baths, you’ll never have a sick day in your life – when used with the NINE-Day CLEANSING AND Blood WASH! Patients who have recovered completely from illness after using this 9-day method swear by it! It will conquer disease in almost all cases, and free your body of accumulated poisons that make you sick, in only 9 days!

Here’s what happens during the 9 days of cleansing:

*It will rid your body of poisonous wastes (toxins) that have accumulated and formed a lining around your intestinal wall – causing disease

*It will reverse the aging process, and increase your longevity by 20 years!

*It will reduce your weight without dieting or the use of drugs – and keep you slim during your lifetime!

*It is a positive way to avoid ever having a heart attack. It may keep you alive even if you’ve had a heart attack or stroke!

*It will heal arthritis if not in the advanced stages!

*It will lessen the intake of insulin by diabetics!

*It will restore masculine vigor and put energy back in your sex life!

*It will overcome low blood sugar!

*It will aid in normalizing high blood sugar!

*It will overcome post nasal drip!

*It will overcome an urge to urinate too frequently

…and still that’s just the beginning!

SECRET DISCOVERY REVEALED!

At this writing, I am 84 years young. When I first began my investigations, I was in a state of broken health. I suffered from bronchitis, shortness of breath, sinusitis, gastritis, acidosis, high blood pressure, constipation, chronic fatigue, backache, obesity, and hay fever. Then, about 35 years ago I discovered the NINE-DAY CLEANSING AND BLOOD WASH!

Today, at 84, I am a well preserved individual, hale and hearty, mind sharp as a razor and productive. I am erect in stature, with a youthful 34-inch waist, a full crop of silver-white hair an no wrinkles on my face.

My wife, Connie, at the young age of 70 “going on 50,” hasn’t been to a medical doctor in about 20 years. I did not have occasion to see a doctor until I was 65 when I thought it best to start having check-ups. I’ve only had one brief illness in 3 years.

What is the secret!

Inner cleansing! You see, my studies revealed to me that many illnesses seem connected with cell stagnation. If your nose is “stuffed up” or congested, or if you experience congestion in your throat or chest, it indicates that there is an accumulation of stagnant matter within you…sinus trouble, bronchitis, asthma, or colitis, is the result of stagnation. So are arthritis and skin eruptions.

All this can be prevented by giving the body an opportunity to cleanse and purify itself, and then rebuilding the body and its cells with proper nourishment.

FOUR NATURAL BLOOD WASHING FOODS WITH HEALING POWER!

During the 9 “Cleansing Days,” you’ll be eating certain foods I recommend. During this time, you will also begin the action which will effect a good, thorough wash of your bloodstream. You’ll simply begin to sip certain fresh juices.

What are these foods? There are several, but during my years of research. I have singled out FOUR NATURAL BLOOD-WASHING FOODS WITH HEALING POWER that play an important part in healing, curing, and preventing disease.

You may be skeptical, but remember, the NINE-DAY Inner Cleansing and Blood Wash which I take yearly, has warded off common ailments and most pernicious diseases. It has kept me in the best of health throughout the years..and I am 84. If I merely told you the names of these foods you might not be impressed. But wait till you see what doctors, nutritionists, scientists, researchers, an users themselves say!

BLOOD WASHING FOOD #1: NATURE’S CURATIVE WONDER FOOD!

One of these foods, a common syrup, is in my opinion, an Unheralded Cancer Fighter. I believe it will not only close the door on cancer in general, but is especially helpful in cases of leukemia, strokes, ulcers, arthritis, varicose veins, and menopause 

*James P. was in a state of broken health, unable to do even the lightest work. He was suffering from a growth in the bowels, blocked bronchial tubes, constipation, indigestion, pyorrhea, sinus trouble, and weak nerves. In addition, he was losing weight, and his hair and turned white – despite medical treatment. On hearing of a remarkable cure with this syrup, he decided to try it himself. And not only did the growth in his bowels disappear, together with all the other troubles, but his hair actually regained its original color (he was over 60 at the time). 

Others, apparently, have had the same remarkable results, including a man with a fibroid growth of the tongue, and another with cancer of the knee. Reputedly, tumors in various parts of the body have withered away without any other measures than taking this syrup. (No cancer cure is claimed, and reputable medical help is advised, of course, in all cases.)

*A “MIRACLE RECOVERY” FROM TWO STROKES! It is widely thought that when a person has had two strokes the third will be fatal – and yet it need not be so. Mr. K., an elderly man, had had two strokes and was completely paralyzed on one side. He then tried this syrup. The result was that he recovered the use of all his limbs and became completely fit, much to the astonishment of his doctor.

*SPECTACULAR CURES OF ARTHRITIS! Elaine B., 60, had severe arthritis in her knees and hip joints. She was in a great deal of pain and was unable to walk without assistance. Finally, she tried this syrup. One week later, she could swing her legs and flex her knees painlessly! Mr. J., an elderly man, could barely hobble with canes. After using this syrup for four weeks, he threw away his canes!

This common syrup can be obtained at any health food store or supermarket at negligible cost. There is nothing like it for prevention of these diseases I always take my quota of this syrup every day. I strongly recommend that you do the same. It’s a must! Several men who had been denied driver’s licenses because of heart trouble were put on treatment with this syrup. After six weeks they got their licenses. A woman afflicted with recurrent heart attacks took this syrup and the attacks subsided!

BLOOD WASHING FOOD #2: A WONDER BEVERAGE!

It has been said that there are a number of ailments that will automatically disappear after taking this beverage in a certain manner. It is made of the most health-giving fruit that exists.

It has been said that there are a number of ailments that will automatically disappear after taking this beverage in a certain manner. It is made of the most health-giving fruit that exists.

Reduction of weight without dieting will be achieved permanently if this beverage is taken a few times a day. It will burn up the surplus fat. It retards the onset of old age…renders the urine normal thus counteracting a too-frequent urge to urinate)…it promotes digestion because it is very much like a digestive juice! 

Observers have been quite astonished to see how forgetfulness in old people partially or wholly disappears through the practice of taking this beverage. Excessive bleeding can be reduced to a minimum in the case of an operation, and the healing process greatly quickened, if the patient takes this beverage. In cases of frequent nose-bleeding due to some unknown cause, a drink of this beverage with each meal will soon put a stop to the trouble. Sore throats – even of the streptococcus type – can be cured with astonishing rapidity, often in one day, by taking this beverage as a gargle. Tickling coughs and laryngitis will rapidly disappear. It regulates menstruation and is very beneficial to women. Belching can be cured or greatly lessened by taking this beverage.

BLOOD WASHING FOOD #3: A FOOD FOR HEALING!

Here is another syrup that is a most effective remedy for insomnia, emphysema, shortness of breath, sinusitis, asthma, and chronic fatigue. Combined with a certain beverage I tell you about it, it is most beneficial to those suffering from various heart troubles, hay fever, colitis, arthritis, neuritis, and many other common ailments. It is a natural laxative, and one of nature’s most powerful germ killers.

Russian medico-scientists have shown that it will cure a condition as serious as gastric ulcers. One doctor wrote: “In heart weakness I have (this syrup) to have a marked effect in reviving heart action and keeping the patients alive.”

BLOOD WASHING FOOD #4: A 3,000-YEAR-OLD MIRACLE MEDICINE!

This vegetable is the oldest known “home remedy.” It has long been used to rid the body of parasites and in the healing of disease. According to an old news item, “in test tube experiments Virile bacilli that can be killed only after hours of boiling in water die, after one hour of exposure to (this vegetable).”

This vegetable’s almost miraculous antiseptic power is an aid of high blood pressure, asthma, emphysema, colds, gas, gall stones, bronchitis, infections, hardening of the arteries, mucus, elimination, sinus trouble, and many other maladies. It has been widely used in restoring masculine vigor. It clears the blood of excess sugar as effectively as an oral drug. It has remarkable preventive powers and healing powers and offers protection against heart disease.

POWERFUL WEAPONS YOU CAN USE TO OVERCOME MAJOR DISEASES!

The diligent use of these 4 foods, with their extensive curative properties, healing powers, and remarkable preventive powers, will aid tremendously in “healing the body” in my opinion. They are all part of my NINE-DAY INNER CLEANSING AND BLOOD WASH FOR RENEWED YOUTHFULNESS AND HEALTH!

SEND TODAY FOR FREE TRIAL COPY!

Mail the enclosed card for your FREE trial copy. You have 15 days to discover all the incredible health-building secrets that will bring amazing youthfulness to your body: honor the invoice for four easy payments $6.98 pus applicable state tax, postage handling – or return the book and owe nothing.

 Sincerely yours

 I.E. Gaumont

 REWARD BOOKS

Health & Self Improvement

 IMPORTANT NOTICE [appearing at bottom of first page of letter):

The statements contained in this book express the opinions of the author, who is not a medical doctor. These opinions may, in certain cases, be contrary to those of the medial professions, and are based on experiences which may not be representative of results that can be expected for others. The publisher suggests that you do not attempt to make a self-diagnosis based on the symptoms referred to. Many of those symptoms can be caused be more than one condition, and these conditions cannot be self-diagnosed by the lay person. Where cancer may be involved, early diagnosis and treatment may be critical. In all cases, early diagnosis and treatment by a competent medical practitioner is advisable and, in some case, may be essential.schwartz letter

Golden Cities

Posted on by The TellAllmarketing Blog

By Ray Schultz

Geographic segmentation was no big thing fifty years ago. What was new was the ability to tailor the copy to the area. Take this direct mailing done by Time magazine.

The letters contained a sort of glorified Johnson Box at the top, printed in gold, asking questions that concerned the reader’s city. Below that box, they were the same.

Here are two samples. One focuses on Boston, the other on Cleveland. I assume that other cities were also targeted, but I only have these two letters.

To put things in context, these pieces were dated Feb. 17, 1964 ten days after the Beatles arrived in America and eight days before Cassius Clay, soon to be Muhammad Ali, won the heavyweight championship. Lyndon Johnson had been president for three months in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, and later that year would win a full term by beating Barry Goldwater.

The envelopes were postmarked Lincoln, Nebraska and were identified in the Time archive by the cities to which they were going.

Did the computer play a role in this direct mail campaign? Hard to say. Time Inc did conduct personalized computer mailings to doctors that very year, but it was a long time before this became a regular practice.

Let’s start with the Boston version. Is there anyone there who remembers these worries? Old-timers will recall that the MBTA was called the M.T.A. in those days.

Who will be Ted Kennedy’s opponent in the Senate contest? / What is the outlook for Boston’s tax rate? / When will we have an answer to the nagging on-street parking problem—are theft-proof meters the solution? / Why should the M.T.A. be extended to the South Shore? / Where will the Celtics finish the season? / How corrupt is Massachusetts—and can the crime commission do anything to correct it?

 Now here’s the Cleveland variation.

Who will be Ohio’s favorite son at the Democratic National Convention? / What are the prospects for this year’s Cleveland Indians team? / When did the term “diffusion” come up in connection with school integration? / Where is the first apartment building in Erieview to be erected?  / Why are Shaker Heights residents protesting the proposed construction of the Clark Freeway? / How does Senator Stephen Young feel about John Glenn’s 1960 voting record?

What follows is the body of the direct mail letter, which was identical in each case:

February 17, 1964

Dear Reader: 

Questions like these, of largely local interest illustrate something that’s also true of national or international issues. It’s essential to have more than just a few raw facts; it’s important to know the background.

These same questions also help show why, in reporting the news from every field, TIME has always done something more than give a plain recital of the facts. Naturally it starts of with the eyewitness story; but when the event is big news, the eyewitness may be standing too close to get the full significance. TIME stands back, examines the causes, digs out other pertinent facts, relates it to other events. TIME also knows the personalities involved.

As a way of following the news, TIME makes sense – because it makes sense of the news.  

It’s not just the international news that you find all the more understandable. To give a few examples from other fields – if a report on a dramatic discovery takes you beyond the door that’s just been unlocked, you’re beginning to understand the real meaning of the discovery itself. Events in Washington can be better judged if the issues are clearly spelled out. Explore, instead of just recount, new developments in education and you od justice to their fundamental importance.

In TIME’s other news departments also, even in the briefest reports, you find you get more out of the news, because TIME looks at sit with a penetrating, appraising eye.

It’s the reason why many leaders in business and the professions in communities across the country vote TIME their favorite magazine the most important magazine in the U.S. today. TIME reports with the intelligence, accuracy, and consciousness that the leadership community needs and demands.

If, so far, you’ve only read an occasional copy of TIME, we hope you’ll take advantage of an invitation we offer here and now to read TIME regularly at a special introductory rate. Return the card and we’ll send you

20 weeks of TIME For $1.97 (that’s only 10 cents a copy).

No need to sign or check it. Just drop it in the mail – today.

Cordially,

Putney Westerfield

Circulation Director

DEAR FRIEND: The Rascals, Rogues and Roues Who Made American Junk Mail Chapter 3: ‘We Accidentally Met With Your Address…’

Posted on by The TellAllmarketing Blog

By Ray Schultz

History doesn’t tell us much about A. Paisley. All we know is that he lived in Gloucester, Mass., and that a letter was sent to him there in 1837. When Paisley opened the “envelope,” a folded-over sheet sealed by a red-wax wafer, he found a promotion from Sylvester’s Exchange & Commission of New York.

“I beg leave to submit to your attention to the annexed – Our brilliant Schemes to be drawn in the month of March either of which professes attractions far superior to any Scheme yet laid before you,” announced the handwritten note. “Early notice is thus given that my most distant correspondents may not be disappointed.”

Behold an early example of junk mail. Like today’s ad letters, it was full of hype, promising that the advertused lotteries were ““beautiful, grand, splendid and brilliant.” It even had what is now called a privacy policy: “All communications strictly confidential.”

In 1827, Congress passed a law prohibiting local postmasters from working as lottery agents—no longer could they dispense handbills in return for a percentage of the sales. So the lottery barons started mailing directly to the rubes; by 1830, if you believe the later claims, they even had an agency in New York to facilitate this “circular advertising.”

So great was the moral outcry against lotteries that most northern states gave up theirs. But tickets for border and Southern state lotteries were sold in shops and by mail by firms like Wood, Eddy & Co., of Wilmington; Egerton & Bros. of Baltimore; and the combine of Archibald McIntyre and John Barentse Yates, of New York. And these men decided that they had to educate their customers on how to buy by mail. Egerton & Bros. explained that “we invariably answer letters by return mail, enclosing the Tickets in a proper envelope, observing the strictest confidence and after the Drawing is over we send the Official Printed Drawing, duly certified to by the State Officer, and Managers with a written explanation of the result.” Smallwood Co. promised that its tickets would be returned in “strong safety envelopes.”

The average person learned that he had mail when he saw his name in a newspaper listing. Or he found out when he visited the post office, usually part of a dark general store with tools and bacon hanging from the ceiling. Then he had to pay for the letter.

Most mail was dropped into the system without postage; the recipient had to pay, and few did. Why would they? Some unpaid letters were sent as jokes—the victim would pay 25 cents for an envelope full of manure. General Zachary Taylor refused to pay for the letter informing him he had been nominated for the Presidency of the United States. Even the lottery companies wouldn’t pay: “No unpaid letters received in our office,” B.B. Mars & Co. of Baltimore warned customers:

This changed when Congress passed the Postal Reform Act of 1855. Magazines and newspapers excepted, senders now had to pay in advance. And the lottery operators were happy to inform people about it. “From and after 1st April 1855, prepayment, either by stamps, stamped envelope, or in money, is compulsory,” Emory & Co. advised its customers. With this system in place, the lottery promoters papered the country with offers, almost all containing an apology:

“Trusting you will not find us intrusive…”

“We crave your indulgence for intruding on your valuable time…”

“We accidentally met with your address…”

Chapter 4: Gospel Mail

DEAR FRIEND: The Rascals, Rogues and Roues Who Made American Junk Mail, Chapter 11: The Crooked Road to the End

Posted on by The TellAllmarketing Blog

By Ray Schultz

Flush with success, J.M. Pattee decided he needed a vacation, so he took his family to Saratoga Springs, a resort almost 200 miles north of New York City. But it was bad timing: He was going out one morning when he saw Anthony Comstock coming up the steps.

Pattee panicked and ran, not knowing that Comstock was there only to give a speech. But the vice crusader had spotted him. “He is a remarkably nervous man, and seems to be always in fear; having at times a wild, frightened look, as though he expected to be arrested every moment,” Comstock observed.

And Comstock did want to arrest Pattee. He next confronted his prey at the Simpson & Co. Brokerage in New York. A side door opened, and Comstock saw “a little gray-haired old man with gold spectacles on, bob out, and then instantly dodge back into the dark room, and attempt to quietly close the door, as to attract no attention.”

Pattee “reached out his hand to shake hands, and becoming very much excited, repeated over and over again, how glad he was to see me, stuttering out, ‘Well—I—am—devilish—glad to see you.’” In Comstock’s account, Pattee denied that he had any business in the office. “Well, well, I only have an office room here,” he allegedly said. Comstock entered a back room, and saw several employees stuffing envelopes.

Meanwhile, Pattee was indicted in Wyoming for sending false advertisements from the territory for the Seminole Gold and Silver Company. His lawyer, a former U.S. attorney named Col. George Bliss, described his client as a “man of wealth and reputation,” and made the incredible lying claim that Pattee had never been in Wyoming. Pattee escaped extradition.

Frustrated, Comstock staged another raid against Pattee’s brother-in-law Nate Read (“American, Protestant, Married, Swindler”), seizing over a million names and addresses. Bliss got them returned to Pattee, and soon Read was sending letters to that list from Canada.

These pieces described the Royal New Brunswick Popular Monthly Gift Soiree as “the only legal Gift Drawing in the whole Dominion of Canada.” And they claimed that “hundreds of clerks, working-men, merchants and farmers have paid off a mortgage on a house or farm—may have added to his mercantile stock or bank account—may have settled a number of old debts or refurnished his house, making happy and comfortable his family—all through a lucky ticket bought from us,”

This was rubbish, Comstock knew, but he was powerless to stop it. Instead, he took to vilifying Pattee in books like Frauds Exposed. “I have yet to find the first person who ever received one dollar from him in return for money sent,” he wrote.

Pattee, though, was getting tired of the chase. In 1880, beset by legal bills, he sold or lost his house in New York, and started residing in hotels in the east 40’s. Nate Read was arrested in Canada in 1884 and promptly jumped bail to the U.S.

What became of the man who had discovered the most basic law of junk mail, that a person who had fallen for one scheme was ripe for another? Pattee moved to St. Louis, and set up an office on Olive St. But his business was short-lived, for he died in 1888 at age 64 of “softening of the brain.” Thanks to his various scams, though, he left his wife an estate of comfortable proportions.

And Comstock? By the time he died in 1915, he was widely viewed as a crank and an enemy of the First Amendment. “The fight for the young!” Heyward Broun wrote. “The phrase was always on Comstock’s lips…But, with the passing years, may it not have become a formula with which he sustained himself, unconscious that its relation to his work was growing increasingly remote?”

Comstock had changed in one respect. When younger, he had railed against direct mail. Under his leadership, though, the Society for the Prevention of Vice sent it to ask for “sympathy, co-operation, and such financial assistance as you may be disposed to give.”

But some things remained the same. In 1906, 38 years after their first encounter, Comstock again arrested the pornographer Charles Conroy. The ledger tells it all: age 66, Irish Cath., Scheme to defraud by mail. Tombs in default of $2,500 bail.

Chapter 12: Montgomery Ward Raises The Barn

 

DEAR FRIEND: The Rascals, Rogues And Roues Who Made American Junk Mail Chapter 1: Crooked Colonials

Posted on by The TellAllmarketing Blog

By Ray Schultz

It started when the country was thinly settled, with only a few towns scattered along the coast. Most mail arrived by ship, and was dumped on tables in taverns, where anyone could read it. Colonists who needed goods had to ride miles through the mud to buy them. Or, they could order them by mail from England, a proccess that took months.

But one sharp operator, the Philadelphia printer Benjamin Franklin, found a way around this. Franklin sold products from his general store by mail through his newspaper: the Gazette (“The widow READ…continues to make and sell her well-known ointment for the ITCH”), and he published a mail order book catalog,, promising “the same justice as if present.”

Then, having proven that the local postmaster kept bad book books, Franklin was given his job, and later named co-postmaster of all the Colonies. In that role, he improved delivery, ensuring better service and profits for the Crown. But he didn’t do it out of altruism, nor for the Crown. Rather, the job “facilitated the correspondence that improvd my newspaper, increas’d the number demanded, as well as the advertisements inserts, so that it came to afford me a comfortable income.”

Franklin also started a lottery, the main way of financing roads and buildings in Colonial America. Washington ran one, so did Jefferson, and they were “fostered by Christian communities”—even the clergy played them. But there soon were too many, and the amateurs in charge were unable to cope with this market reality. So they hired promoters, and asked them to “advertise in the Papers, and have Hand bills struck off, and dispersed thro your neighborhood.”

They shouldn’t have asked. These promoters started papering the cities with handbills, caring little if some ended up floating in rivers, and even less if the pieces contained a grain of truth. Whereas early lottery handbills specified the precise number of blanks (losing tickets), the new ones vowed that there were “not two Blanks to a Prize.”

Outright lying wasn’t their only innovation. Soon, they had country postmasters tacking handbills on their walls. Trapped in some backwater, the postmaster would receive a letter and a packet of handbills from a faraway company. This practice started in the 1700s and lasted well into the next century.

“For the information of your place and vicinity, I have taken the liberty of enclosing a few Bills showing the present very interesting and brilliant situation of the Grand State Lottery of Maryland, of which only one drawing now remains to complete,” J.I. Cohen, Jr. of Baltimore wrote to postmasters in 1824. Many postmasters tacked the enclosed handbills on the wall or handed them out to townspeople, in return for a percentage on the tickets sold.

In 1825, Allen’s Lucky Office of New York put out a handbill saying that that a $25,000 lottery jackpot had been shared by “a patriotic soldier who had lost a leg in the service of his country.” In many towns, rubes who fell for a line like this could buy lottery tickets from the postmaster. But Allen’s Lucky Office invited direct contact: “Orders from the Country, (post paid) promptly attended to.” In this way it would get the names of customers. And it could mail them over and over without anyone knowing.

Chapter 2: Of Honesty And Virtue

 

DEAR FRIEND: The Rascals, Rogues and Roues Who Made American Junk Mail, Chapter 8: The Pride Of Park Row

Posted on by The TellAllmarketing Blog

By Ray Schultz

J. M. Pattee left Omaha for good—some say he was run out—in the summer of 1873. The Nebraska legislature had outlawed lotteries, effective Sept. 1, so he regrouped in New York, where he owned a brownstone near Central Park.

Not a man of idle nature, as one reporter put it, he ran a few scams in the city, then made his way to  Laramie and ingratiated himself with the right people. The Wyoming legislature passed a bill granting him a ten-year lottery license that could never be altered, and Pattee acted on it before the governor could sign it (which he never did).

It didn’t matter. The so-called Wyoming Lottery would operate entirely by mail. And Pattee could get away with it,for lawmakers had failed to keep lotteries like his out of the postal system.

Congress had tried in 1865 with a law defining “nonmailable matter”—everything from explosives to lottery materials. But it failed to specify letters or circulars, and what it meant the courts could never figure out.

Realizing their error, the lawmakers attempted  to clarify things in 1868 by prohibiting the mailing of “any letters or circulars concerning lotteries, so-called gift concerts, or other similar enterprises.” But this bill, too, was flawed in that it failed to set penalties for disobeying it.

In 1872, trying one more time, they forbade the mailing of “any letters or circulars concerning illegal lotteries, so-called gift concerts, or other similar enterprises, offering prizes, or concerning schemes devised and intended to deceive and defraud the public for the purpose of obtaining money under false pretenses.”

The blunder this time was that they had added the word “illegal.” How could a lottery chartered by a state or an institution be considered illegal?

Pattee knew that they would get it right sooner or later, and he knew he had to move beyond lotteries. He had doubtless heard of E.C. Allen, of Augusta, Maine, who in 1869 started Peoples’ Literary Companion, a paper filled with stories, homilies, recipes, songs and advertisements.

Other publishers followed Allen’s lead. A fellow Augustan named P.O. Vickery started Fireside Visitor, and W.W. Gannett followed with Comfort. Mailed to farmers whether they wanted them or not, these mail order papers were “the great business of the city, completely overshadowing everything else,” wrote Frank A. Munsey.

Pattee could do the arithmetic as well as anyone. He created The Times Illustrated, a promotional vehicle for the Wyoming Lottery. The cost was defrayed, in part, by paid advertisements for Red Cloud’s Great Indian Blood Purifier and other patent medicines.

He followed it with The Laramie News, in which he described Laramie and the local mining deposits: “There are within a hundred miles of Laramie City a hundred miles in length of gulches which will pay an average of five dollars per day in gold, for every day’s labor, and they can be worked with very little outlay of capital.”

Thus he sharpened his pen for a new venture—and just in time. On July 12, 1876, Congress enacted a new bill, dropping the term “illegal” when describing lotteries. Now it was unlawful to send any sort of lottery letter.

This bill turned out to be as hollow as the previous ones, but that wasn’t clear at first. Pattee cancelled his next lottery mailing, saying “times have been hard,” and accelerated a plan he apparently already had: He prepared a letter for fools who had won his previous lotteries and were now on his sucker’s list.

“On account of the new Postal law and the penalty for sending letters concerning lotteries through the mails, I have been obliged to make some other arrangement to pay off the small prizes of $1 and 50 cents as it would cost the party receiving them more than the amount to pay the express charges,” Pattee wrote under his own name.

Instead, he awarded shares in “one of the most extensive gold mines on this continent.” Additional shares could be had for $2 apiece.

“It is the richest gold mining country in the world,” Pattee wrote. “For miles away up in the heights of those tremendous elevations in the Big Horn Mountains glisten rich veins of gold quartz that run in golden ribbons at close intervals across their breasts. Some specimens of gold quartz have been found which assayed $47,000 to the ton—a mountain of gold ore.”

Pattee’s own employees turned against him. They sent a mailing to his “winner’s” list, offering for one dollar “a most complete exposure of this ‘arch swindler’s’ manner of defrauding the public during the past years.” They added that he planned to “foist upon those who have won good prizes in his last drawings, amongst whom we see your name, certain stock certificates…instead of the money they have RIGHTFULLY WON.”

The master returned to New York, where there was less danger of getting shot. He now worked only through designated criminals who would take the fall if there was trouble. One was N. Sherman Read, a tiny man known to friends as Nate. Pattee was married to Read’s sister Eunice, and they had often summered at Read’s resorts in New Jersey.  In 1876, now working for his brother-in-law, Read opened a lottery office on Nassau St. near Park Row.

Flanked on one side by City Hall, Park Row was home to newspapers and advertising agencies–and dozens of lottery shops. “Entering the office of any one of these so-called firms, the inquirer finds himself surrounded on all sides by a ground-glass partition,” a reporter wrote. And each one had a “hard-featured man peering through a wire netting under the sign ‘Cashier.’”

These offices also sent quantities of junk mail. The city’s best printers and engravers were two blocks south on Maiden Lane, and the largest post office in the country, a five-story granite block known as the Whale, stood on the triangular lot bordered by Park Row and Broadway.

Pattee made full use of these facilities, not only for his lotteries but for schemes like the Bullion Gold Mining Co. and Carburrus Gold Mining Company.

He also got to know his fellow mail fraud artists. Ellis and William Elias were driven out of Cincinnati for swindling, then made a fortune in New York running “dollar stores”—stores in which the shopper never knew what he was buying. They enjoyed a “very unenviable reputation,” the New York Times wrote.

The brothers operated a mail room in which men and girls sat at two rows of tables shaped in the letter “L,” addressing envelopes. Also to be found there was H.P. Jones, a former post office employee who was “discharged from P.O. for NY for embezzlement or helping himself to other peoples’ money.” A handwritten note signed by him was sent to 140,000 people in the fall of 1878:

“Dear Sir:

“A cousin of mine bearing the same name as yours, after the war was over, left his Regiment and I have not heard from him since. Now I do not know whether you are the same person or not but you can tell as soon as you see my signature to this letter.”

The note continued that a contest was about to be held, and that if the recipient agreed it would be rigged in his favor. Why this largesse? “I am sure that if a large prize was drawn by you and shown around that thousands of tickets could be sold in your County.”

A series of followup letters persuaded the sucker to pay $8 apiece for lottery tickets—a seemingly paltry sum by today’s standards—but the letters cost only a penny apiece to mail, and not much more to print. The Eliases had discovered the immutable law of junk mail—that a profit could be made even after expenses and the pilfering of cash-filled envelopes by postal workers.

Anyway, it was not their only business. They also ran several “stores,” including a jewelry store on Broadway and 21st St. (above which was their mail room). Their flagship was the Centre, a large outlet at 22nd St. and Broadway, in which they displayed gold and silver jewelry in cases. It operated on the same marketing principles as the junk mail business.

The Eliases promised in circulars that they could deliver “the most valuable articles to the purchaser at the same price as those of less cost,” but what they really offered was a lottery. The customers bought tickets in sealed envelopes from a cashier, who sat hidden in a teller’s cage. Most opened the envelopes to find that they had won cheap merchandise.

Operating on the border of legality, the pair had to pay occasional modest fines. But they “reaped a rich harvest from their numerous enterprises,” the New York Times reported. Ellis Elias alone had $300,000 in assets, including a country estate and $3,000 worth of trotting horses.

“A man who came in contact with the senior member of the Elias firm used to tell of seeing him exhibit a roll containing sixty one thousand dollar bills, one day, and when putting it back in his pocket heard him remark, pleasantly, that that was some that came in after he had got done expecting to make any money,” wrote George Rowell, whose ad agency was located at 41 Park Row.

Pattee could admire these accomplishments. And though they were competitors, he started working with Eliases on a matter that would benefit them both: The trading of names and addresses.

There was at this time no mailing list business per se. Some frauds wrote to small-town postmasters offering a dollar for the names of “all men (no women) as herein provided, who are permanent residents and who receive mail at your office.” Others asked customers for the names of their friends. “Any person, who will send us the Address of ten persons of their acquaintance, we will send free post-paid, a beautiful Chromo for their trouble, and Wholesale Price-list of Jewelry,” the City Novelty Co. promised in 1873.

Still another way was to copy names out of a city directory. But this was too much work for the average fraud—an easier method was to sell or rent names from each other. Pattee had 300,000, and he turned an unknown number of them over to the Eliases for a consideration.

This bartering of names quickly grew into a business. L’Orient Chemical Company of Bristol, Rhode Island, offered its letters to all comers in 1875.

By this time, using his list, Pattee had broadened his product offering. First, he went into stock brokerage with a Louisiana criminal named J.F. Barrett, using Andrew Simpson, his Maiden Lane printing foreman, as a front man. They mailed a newspaper called The New York Stock Exchange.

Next was an outfit called Heath & Co., The office was located a few doors away from a legitimate brokerage—Wm. Heath & Co. Victims received stock certificates and regular reports on how their investments were soaring, but requests to redeem the stock were never answered.

Then Pattee unveiled his masterpiece—the Silver Mountain Mining Co. For this, he hired a former postal agent named William R. McCall, who had also worked for the Eliases.

“Persons who invest a few dollars to develop the Mine may realize a fortune,” said the prospectus, which featured a map marked in several places by the word “ore.”

What they got, though, were regular reports and requests for more money to keep the mine running. Said one: “The Indians made their appearance last week, but have all but disappeared.”

It was the summer of Custer’s last stand and the lead-up to Hayes-Tilden presidential contest. The Brooklyn Bridge was being built—the noise could be heard on Park Row. And Pattee, like many other businessmen, coped with problems beyond his control. The Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroads stopped hauling mail cars because the post office had reduced their compensation by 10%. Then there was a nationwide rail strike. Meanwhile, he feuded with the Eliases. None of it stopped him from reaching the “zenith of his prosperity.”

But he was being watched.

Chapter 9: The Vice Crusader

DEAR FRIEND: The Rascals, Rogues and Roues Who Made American Junk Mail, Chapter 7: Ode To A Crook

Posted on by The TellAllmarketing Blog

By Ray Schultz

James Monroe Pattee was “a diamond in the rough, as sharp as pointed steel and as far seeing as the wisest of ancient seers.” That was his opinion, anyway. To others, he was nothing but a common swindler.

Born in New Hampshire in 1823, Pattee grew up on a farm, but he “injured himself by over exertion so as to unfit him for manual labor.” From there, the path led straight to mail fraud.

At 30, having run a “writing school” in Boston, Pattee headed west and created land promotions that were “too sharp to be honest.” In 1866 he ran his first lottery for the Nevada City, California school system, raising $500 for the schools and one can only guess how much for himself.

But there was a more promising locale. Two days before delivering the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln was asked to decide the eastern terminal of the transcontinental railroad: The choices were Omaha, on the West bank of the Missouri River, and Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the East. Lincoln allegedly pointed to Council Blufs on a map, and said, “I’ve got a quarter-section of land right across there, and if I fix it there they will say that I have done it to benefit my land. But I will fix it there anyhow.”

It was the wrong choice. The developer, Thomas C. Durant had no desire to build a bridge across the Missouri, so he pretended to misunderstand, and the terminal was built in Omaha after Lincoln’s demise By 1871, the town had a roundhouse and a pork-packing plan, but it didn’t have a library, and Pattee, who had last visited Omaha in 1854, when there were “few residents of European ancestry,” decided to get it one: with a lottery. “I pledge my honor as a man that I have done everything in my power to build up such a library that the people of this city may hereafter remember and respect me,” he told the crowd prior to the drawing..

Those poor fools. The drawing went on for days, and the grand prize was won by a bookeeper in Boston, whose existence was never proven. But Omaha finally had a library—of sorts—over L.B. Williams’ dry goods store. “For this beneficient gift, our children and our children’s children will call him blessed forever,” one resident wrote, neglecting to mention that few people used it.

More to the point, people wondered how much Pattee had skimmed off the top, and they asked similar questions after his next two lotteries: For a Catholic hospital and the unbuilt Nebraska State Orphan Asylum.

Pattee promised that the latter scheme had been approved by the “highest authority of the State and best business men.” But the city clerk J.M. McCune wrote to an inquirer that the city councilmen had “no connection whatever with the scheme to which you refer, and do not countenance anything of a like character.” The Omaha Republican denounced the “Pattee lottery swindles,” although it was still accepting Pattee’s advertising money.

For the Orphan Asylum drawing, Pattee staged gala prize drawing at Redick”s Opera House, a building he owned, with music by the Germania band. And he was joined onstage by some of the city’s finest men as such things went in Omaha, like Judge John R. Porter, a double-chinned man with a balding head and a sour expression, who swore in the officials.

Pattee, then around 50, was a thin man “of common size and ordinary mould,” with neatly combed gray hair and a salt-and-pepper beard. “Look at him and you see nothing wonderful,” said a biographical sketch. But he knew how to work a crowd.

“I have only to say to you this morning that as there are a large number of prizes, as time is precious, as people all over the country are waiting anxiously to hear the flash of lightning over the telegraph wires, that speechmaking will be short,” he said. “I have the pleasure of announcing to you that notwithstanding the false stories that have been put forth, that I have succeeded, and am able to go forward and fulfill my contract with every patron and purchaser of tickets.”

That, of course, was a matter of opinion. The lottery drawing over, the $75,000 grand prize supposedly won by a man in Iowa, Pattee left town. He was planning to visit his children at school in Heidelberg, he said. But first he had some business in Leavenworth, Kansas, and one can guess what it was: Levenworth was about to start a “Grand Gift Concert” to raise money for a juvenile reform school.

But the Lottery King was in for a surprise. A warrant from Omaha caught up with him there, and he was returned to Nebraska and hauled before the very man who had sworn in the officials at the drawing: Judge Porter. Then the tedious process got underway.

Pattee’s own clerk charged that he had sold “duplicate and in some cases, even triplicate tickets,” including identical booklets to two men in Nevada. And other evidence was introduced.

Not to worry—Pattee could afford the best lawyers. He was free on bond within minutes, and out of town within hours. But he clearly decided it was time to revaluate his business plan.

Fortunately, Pattee had built a mailing list with hundreds of thousands of names—of suckers and of people who had done as instructed in the ads: “For balance of Prises send for Circular.” To these souls he now sent a steady stream of mail.

In Omaha, he had delivered these letters to the post office in a storeroom on 15th St., and from there they were carted to the Union Pacific terminal on 10th. Next, they were loaded into mail cars, and transported west through the Platte River Valley, or east over the new Missouri River Bridge.

Some went to cities, and were delivered to private mailboxes by uniformed postmen. Others found their way to rural general stores. These audiences were separated by geography, economics and way of life, but they shared one thing: That they wanted something for nothing. Pattee gave them nothing for something. “The people wanted to be humbugged and it was my business to do it,” he said.

Chapter 8: The Pride Of Park Row

 

DEAR FRIEND: The Rascals, Rogues and Roues Who Made American Junk Mail, Chapter 12: Montgomery Ward Raises the Barn

Posted on by The TellAllmarketing Blog

By Ray Schultz

Of all of our myths, none is more cherished than the one that life was wonderful for settlers on the Great Plains. They had land, thanks to the Homestead Act of 1862, and that’s all they needed (that and pianos for sing-alongs).

But it wasn’t so. Some lived in hovels, not in the Victorian homes we envision. The conditions were harsh, the weather terrifying. Worse, the farmers had little human contact. Some had hallucinations, others committed suicide. This was powerfully captured by Willa Cather in My Antonia. “I knew it was homesickness that had killed Mr. Shimerda,” the narrator writes. His exhausted spirit was “tired of cold and crowding and the struggle with the ever-falling snow.”

But what of those who did survive? They worked their farms. And when they needed seeds, tools, clothes or even coffee, they went miles to general stores which also served as post offices. And there they were gouged.

In 1872, 40 Midwestern farmers received what probably was the first piece of direct mail they’d ever seen. If the store owners had any idea what it was, they may not have handed it over—it threatened their interests. Not that there was any secret about it: It was headlined: “Grangers supplied by the Cheapest Cash House in America.”

“At the Earnest Solicitation of Many Granges we have consented to open a House devoted to furnishing Farmers and Mechanics throughout the Northwest with all kinds of Merchandise at Wholesale prices. Few indeed realize the extent to which the cost of living in this country is increased by the expense incidental to the distribution of goods under the older methods in vogue.” Attached was a price sheet, listing various staples.

The farmers could be forgiven for thinking it was too good to be true. But it was on the level. The letter had been sent from Chicago by a 39 year-old entrepreneur named Aaron Montgomery Ward. And whatever it lacked in style, it made up in sincerity. Ward was one of the first consumerists. He wanted to help the farmer (and, of course, make a small profit for himself).

Born in New Jersey in 1843, Ward grew up in Michigan, worked in factories and a general store, then held a series of sales jobs. At age 22, he was hired by the Marshall Fields department store in Chicago. Fields had a lucrative side business, selling merchandise wholesale to general stores by mail. Ward was handed this plum, and he came to know farmers and how badly they were robbed by almost everyone they did business with.

Ward had an epiphany: he envisioned a department store by mail. He bought some wholesale merchandise, lost it in the Chicago Fire of 1871, then started over. Scoffers ridiculed him for thinking that products could be sold sight unseen, and that women in particular would forego “the pleasurable excitement of shopping.”

But Ward knew better, and he had an advantage that even Marshal Fields lacked: He had the National Grange, the farmer’s organization, in his pocket. The Grange let him use its name and membership list, and Ward got himself appointed as purchasing agent for the Illinois Grange, which enabled him to get better prices for himself.

Of course, the Grange connection gave Ward something just as precious: access to the farmers. Attending their monthly meetings, Grangers were likely to find that the entertainment of the evening was a mustachioed figure—Ward himself. He assured the farmers that the pictures and words in his catalog were accurate; to prove it, he displayed the goods. There was one more thing: he gave a money-back guarantee.

In two years, Ward moved from a single sheet to a 32-page catalog that offered “notions, hose and gloves, hat trimmings, toilet goods, letter paper, needles, cutlery, jewelry and watches, fans and parasols, stereoscopes and albums, trunks and traveling bags, harness, Grange regalia, goods, clothing, hats and caps, boots and shoes,” according to Ward Catalogue No. 11, from 1874. And in time, he published his “big” books, omnibus catalogs that carried everything from underwear to stoves.

As time went on, Ward mailed also almanacs and tiny pocket catalogs, like one titled “4 Ways to get a copy of Montgomery Ward & Co’s Big Catalogue No. 73,” circa 1904. This was a form of prospecting: It was too expensive to mail the big book to non-customers or people who had not showed an interest.

“The average farmer feels like spending when, after he has sold his stock or grain and paid up his taxes, he finds a good fat roll still in his pockets,” Ward wrote. “If the mail order man’s literature is on the spot at the time, ten to one he will reap the benefit.”

Some operators encouraged the farmers themselves to try their hand at starting a mail order business. They offered products that a person might sell from his kitchen table—books like, “Why God Lets the Devil Exist.”

By 1888, Ward had a rival for the title of the farmer’s savior: Richard Sears. But Sears didn’t see himself as anyone’s savior. He was a hustler, one in a line. His father James had gone to California for the Gold rush of 1849, and came back broke. Sears went to work at 16 to help support his family, and eventually became a station manager for the Minneapolis St. Louis Railroad. He came upon a carton of watches refused by a local jewelry store, and sold them for a $2 markup to agents along the line. And he went on from there.

There was one major difference between Ward and Sears. Ward built his business with “missionary fervor and a deep desire to help each customer. Sears did it as an opportunist—for money, excitement and the joy of selling,” wrote the renowned mail order historian Cecil Hoge.

And yet, “as the firm grew, Sears made a special effort to keep the personal touch,” Daniel J. Boorstin wrote. “For some time, even after the typewriter had come into general use, letters sent out by the company were handwritten out of respect for the feelings of the farm clientele who were sometimes offended to receive a letter that was ‘machine-made.’”

Sears sent personal letters, like this one to J.W. Bull, of West Virginia, on March 24, 1894:

Dear Sir:

About three weeks ago we sent out a special offer, offering as a present a $100.00 organ to the first one to order our $5.95 watch, and a $50.00 gold filled watch, as a present, to the first order received from each state. Up to the present time we have received no order from your state, so we write you confidentially under two cent stamp. If you will fill out the enclosed order blank immediately and send to us, with $5.95 for watch described, we will see that you get “at least” a very nice present at once.

As for Ward, he was not only a consumerist, he was an environmentalist. In 1890, he sued the city of Chicago for allowing its lakefront to be defiled with scaffolding and garbage.

Did the Ward and Sears catalogs really change the way people shopped? Oh, yes: the Main St. general stores were driven out of business, and the owners hated the men who had done this to them. O.E. McIntyre later joked, “I’m working for Sears, but don’t tell my mom—she thinks I’m playing piano in a call house.”

Chapter 13: The Confederate Croupiers

The Ten Girl Company

Posted on by The TellAllmarketing Blog

By Ray Schultz

At a time when most firms would not even hire female secretaries, women were sending direct mail—in some cases to survive. The proof is these letters mailed around the turn of the 20th Century.

In Chicago, a group called The Ten Girl Company sent “Gold Plated Handy Pins” to individuals, relying on an honor system for payment.

THE TEN GIRL COMPANY greets you and sends you with this letter six pair of their Gold Plated Handy Pins. The price we have made is 30 cents for the six pair and we hope that you can use them at that price, which is a great deal less than the stores are asking for them.

The Ten pointed out that we are not objects of charity, but have to make a living and our little company of girls, has not enough capital to sell their goods in a regular way.

 We hope you will enclose three 10 cent pieces in the stamped envelope and mail it; if not, please be kind enough to put in the pins and return them. You don’t even need to write your name on the envelope, as the number tells us who pays for the pins.

 Begging your pardon for troubling you and thanking you in advance for your kindness, we remain,

 Yours for business, THE TEN GIRL COMPANY (1900)

 P.S. We hope you will let us hear from you promptly, for if you don’t, we cannot send out any more pins.

Some of our feminine pioneers were mendicants: They sent letters asking for small sums of money, usually quarters or other coins. But others had burgeoning little businesses.

Beulah Hubbard, of Passaic, New Jersey, mailed cards offering silk ties. The cards, featuring her photo, stated, How Would You Like to Earn Your Own Living at My Age?

If you had to, I suppose you would do just as I am doing—GET busy.

 “I am selling Neck Ties for my living and I want to supply You. I can supply you almost any color or combination of colors—Try me. Or will send Ladies Jabot if you prefer.

 If, when you get my tie, you don’t say it is as good a bargain as you ever saw at form 50 cents to $1.00, return the tie and I will send back your money.

I honestly believe you can sell lots of these Ties at from 50c to $1.00.

 $3.00 a dozen is my price to agents, prepaid.

 Second Fold Here….(triangle) last fold here…Put 25 cents here I NEED THE MONEY

 YOU’LL TRUST ME—WON’T YOU?

 You use ties every day. I can’t convey an adequate idea of just how pretty my ties are. A picture won’t bring out the delicate colorings nor the silky texture, so I say, if you are not in every way pleased, I will return your money. I can furnish Ladies Jabots if you prefer. Say which.

Then there were letters with serious propositions. This one, dated July 8, 1892, is from the Women’s Land Syndicate:

Dear Friend:

 The enclosed circular we trust will explain our plans and prospects fully. In it we have endeavored to show facts as they now exist on which we base our opinion that south Waukegan will have a population of at least 50,000, and when that point is reached our lots which cost the Syndicate $500,000 will be worth from three and one half to four million dollars.

 That our Profit-Sharing Investment Bonds are considered an exceptionally profitable investment is evidence by the large number being sold to some of the most prominent financiers in the country. A Wall Street (New York) banker has made his wife a present of one hundred of them and we could name a dozen other less prominent bankers that have purchased for their wives.

 You will notice in our circular what Mr. Jas. B. Hobbs, one of Chicago’s prominent bankers, has to say about us. Also Gen. Singleton, a man who has made more than a million dollars out of his shrewd investments.

 We are W.C.T.U. women, some of us having labored for years in the cause. We know these Bonds are sure to prove very profitable and therefore we naturally prefer to have them owned as far as possible by white ribboners.

 It is now evident that all our bonds will be sold before August 1st, so this will be your last opportunity to secure one or more in case you desire to do so.

You should therefore write us at once stating the exact number of Bonds you would like, enclosing a small deposit, and we ail reserve them for you until you can arrange to make the payment. They are $10 each and are sold only to women.

 As this will probably be our last announcement before the Bonds are all sold, we wish to say we are greatly indebted to the Union Signal for its generous aid, and to the many temperance workers who are assisting us all over the country.

 Thanking you in anticipation of an immediate reply, stating the number of Bonds you will want, if any, we are,

 Yours very truly…

 

The Vice Crusader

Posted on by The TellAllmarketing Blog

By Ray Schultz

Manhattanites were awakened on Friday, March 9, 1877 by the sounds of rain, gale-force wind and breaking glass. But that was nothing compared to the storm that hit N. Sherman Read around noon: His office door slammed open, and police and federal marshals came in, led by the bull-like vice crusader Anthony Comstock.

Comstock looked at the envelopes being addressed. Just as he thought—the Wyoming Lottery. He ordered his men to ransack the place. Within an hour, Read and two assistants were seated in the 26th Precinct, watching as a score of other lottery operators were brought in. Police followed with dripping boxes of envelopes and circulars.

Before he could interrogate the prisoners, Comstock had to deal with jurisdictional problems, the kind of thing he often overlooked in his zeal. But he finally started asking questions. Just what were they up to? And what was their link to the man who controlled “the bogus lottery and mining schemes that are now being advertised through this country and Canada”—the one known as J.M. Pattee?

Never heard of him, the suspects said. But Comstock had.

Comstock, like Pattee, grew up on a New England farm, but emerged with a different world view. Pattee exploited human weakness, Comstock refused to tolerate it even when it was legal. At 17, he broke into a tavern, “opened the faucets and drained off on to the floor every drop of liquor in the place.”

His life had not been a happy one. His mother died when he was 10—there would be no more warm cherry pie following all-day church services on Sunday—and his brother Samuel was killed at Gettysburg. Anthony enlisted to take his place, and returned from the war, in which he distinguished himself (when he wasn’t lecturing his fellow soldiers on morals), to face another setback: His father had lost the family farm.

Comstock moved to Manhattan and took a job as a dry goods clerk, living like many single men in rooming houses. There he noticed something that almost drove him to tears: His fellow boarders were fond of “obscene pictures and literature.”

Oh, the shame. Comstock found out where these books were sold, a basement on Warren St., and went there to buy one himself. This act of entrapment completed, he alerted police, who somehow found the time to deal with this offense while people were being murdered in the street, and they arrested the seller: Charles Conroy.

Not much came of it. But Comstock instigated other arrests, and in this way made a name for himself. In 1872, with the help of wealthy moralists, he was named secretary of the newly formed YMCA Committee for the Suppression of Vice, and started keeping a ledger.

When Conroy was arrested for the second time, Comstock recorded his age (36), his ancestry (Irish), his religion (Catholic), his education (Common), his offense (obscene books and circulars) and the disposition of his case (“Through mismanagement of Police & ignorance of law he was discharged”).

Nothing was too trivial for his notice: He even lashed out at 16 year-old John Gordon (“education poor”): “As some 40 ladies were leaving the Harlem boat at Fulton Market slip, this scoundrel jumped up on the fish crates lying on slip and made a gross exhibition of himself.”

But there were more important things in the offing–like a proposed measure to ban obscenity from the mails. This bill was delayed because Congress was mired in a growing national scandal–-Credit Mobilier, the financing arm of the Union Pacific, had bribed several Congressmen, and they had winked at cost overruns. Some of the people associated with it, like Durant, were well-known in Omaha when Pattee was running lotteries there.

Comstock refused to accept this delay. He went to Washington, and toured Congressional offices with his collection of mail order erotica. Historians disagree on his impact, but on March 2, the House passed the bill later known as the Comstock Act, and weeks later Comstock was appointed as an unpaid special agent of the post office.

Now empowered by a badge, Comstock took it upon himself to decide what obscenity was, and he saw it in everything from birth control literature to fine art; Madame Restell, the famed midwife and procurer, committed suicide after her brutal encounter with him.

But his most consistent target was Charles Conroy, who in Newark in 1874, found himself being collared by the vice crusader for the third time.

The pornographer couldn’t take any more. “While whining in pathetic tones, Conroy plunged his dirk into my face, severing four arteries,” wrote Comstock, who completed the arrest at gunpoint, and then was guided home by “the same One who has ever kept me.”

Wearing muttonchop whiskers to disguise the scar tissue, Comstock took to entrapping malefactors by mail. For example, he would request a catalog of birth control devices, then arrest the sender when it arrived. But the joke was on him: These same concerns rented his name out, and the mailbox he used was now stuffed with junk mail.

Comstock correctly concluded that anyone who replied to an advertisement “is liable to have a large circle of correspondents. The name once obtained must go the round of the fraternity, and, when thus used, is either kept for a new scheme by the same fraud or else sold to another one of the brotherhood.”

But there was a more egregious fraud going on, and Comstock was urged to fight it by an unlikely supporter. The New York Times, which had condemned his practice of entrapping people, now recanted. “If Anthony Comstock’s decoy system of obtaining evidence is ever justifiable, it is so when employed against the thieving lottery concerns,” it said in an editorial.

The call to duty had been sounded. And Comstock, who professed to live by the Talmudic saying, “Where no man is, be thou a man,” was ready. He nabbed several felons on this rainy March day. But where was the mastermind himself? Comstock was aware of Pattee’s existence, as shown by that night’s ledger entry:

“John M. Pattee.

Age: 55.

Nationality: American`

Religion: Protestant.

Education: Common

Married

Children: 4”

What did it mean? He summed it up in one line:

“The aliases and fraudulent schemes of this man are almost legion.”

Epilogue:

The next chapter was more about Pattee (whom Comstock was never able to nail) than it was about Comstock. But it ended on this note:

By the time he died in 1915, Comstock was widely viewed as a crank and an enemy of the First Amendment. “The fight for the young!” Heyward Broun wrote. “The phrase was always on Comstock’s lips…But, with the passing years, may it not have become a formula with which he sustained himself, unconscious that its relation to his work was growing increasingly remote?”

Comstock had changed in one respect. When younger, he had railed against direct mail. Under his leadership, though, the Society for the Prevention of Vice sent junk mail to donors, asking for “sympathy, co-operation, and such financial assistance as you may be disposed to give.”

But some things remained the same. In 1906, 38 years after their first encounter, Comstock again arrested the pornographer Charles Conroy. The ledger tells it all: age 66, Irish Cath., Scheme to defraud by mail. Tombs in default of $2,500 bail.

(From Dear Friend, The Rascals, Rogues and Roues Who Made American Junk Mail, Copyright 2016 by Ray Schultz)