A Congressional committee, probing, in 1847-1848, into frauds in the sale of drugs found that there was scarcely a wholesale or retail druggist who was not consciously selling spurious drugs which were a menace to human life. Dr. M. J. Bailey, United States Examiner of Drugs at the New York Custom House, was one of the many expert witnesses who testified. "More than one-half of many of the most important chemical and medicinal preparations," Dr. Bailey stated, "together with large quantities of crude drugs, come to us so much adulterated as to render them not only worthless as a medicine, but often dangerous." These drugs were sold throughout the United States at high prices. [Footnote: Report of Select Committee on the Importation of Drugs. House Reports, Thirtieth Congress, First Session, 1847-48, Report No. 664:9. In a previous chapter, other extracts from this report have been given showing in detail what many of these fraudulent practices were.] There is not a single record of any criminal action pressed against those who profited from selling this poisonous stuff.
The manufacture and sale of patent medicines were attended with the grossest frauds. At that time, to a much greater extent than now, the newspapers profited more (comparatively) from the publication of patent medicine advertisements; and even after a Congressional committee had fully investigated and exposed the nature of these nostrums, the newspapers continued publishing the alluring and fraudulent advertisements.
After showing at great length the deceptive and dangerous ingredients used in a large number of patent medicines, the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives went on in its report of February 6, 1849: "The public prints, without exception, published these promises and commendations. The annual [advertising] fee for publishing Brandeth's pills has amounted to $100,000. Morrison paid more than twice as much for the advertisement of his never-dying hygiene." The committee described how Morrison's nostrums often contained powerful poisons, and then continued: "Morrison is forgotten, and Brandeth is on the high road to the same distinction. T. W. Conway, from the lowest obscurity, became worth millions from the sale of his nostrums, and rode in triumph through the streets of Boston in his coach and six. A stable boy in New York was enrolled among the wealthiest in Philadelphia by the sale of a panacea which contains both mercury and arsenic. Innumerable similar cases can be adduced." [Footnote: Report No. 52. Reports of Committees, Thirtieth Congress, Second Sess., i: 31.] Not a few multimillionaire families of to-day derive their wealth from the enormous profits made by their fathers and grandfathers from the manufacture and sale of these poisonous medicines.
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SUCCESS AS GOULD LEARNED IT.
The frauds among merchants and manufacturers reached far more comprehensive and permeating proportions. In periods of peace these fraudulent methods were nauseating enough, but in times of war they were inexpressibly repellant and ghastly. During the Mexican War the Northern shoe manufacturers dumped upon the army shoes which were of so inferior a make that they could not be sold in the private market, and these shoes were found to be so absolutely worthless that it is on record that the American army in Mexico threw them away upon the sands in disgust. But it was during the Civil War that Northern capitalists of every kind coined fortunes from the national disasters, and from the blood of the very armies fighting for their interests shown how Commodore Vanderbilt and other shipping merchants fraudulently sold or leased to the Government for exorbitant sums, ships for the transportation of soldiers—ships so decayed or otherwise unseaworthy, that they had to be condemned. In those chapters such facts were given as applied mainly to Vanderbilt; in truth, however, they constituted but a mere part of the gory narrative. While Vanderbilt, as the Government agent, was leasing or buying rotten ships, and making millions of dollars in loot by collusion, the most conspicuous and respectable shipping merchants of the time were unloading their old hulks upon the Government at extortionate prices.
One of the most ultra-respectable merchants of the time, ranked of high commercial standing and austere social prestige, was, for instance, Marshall O. Roberts. This was the identical Roberts so deeply involved in the great mail-subsidy frauds. This was also the same sanctimonious Roberts, who, as has been brought out in the chapters on the Astor fortune, joined with John Jacob Astor and others in signing a testimonial certifying to the honesty of the Tweed Regime. A select Congressional committee, inquiring into Government contracts in 1862-63, brought forth volumes of facts that amazed and sickened a committee accustomed to ordinary political corruption. Here is a sample of the testimony: Samuel Churchman, a Government vessel expert engaged by Welles, Secretary of the Navy, told in detail how Roberts and other merchants and capitalists had contrived to palm off rotten ships on the Government; and, in his further examination on January 3, 1863, Churchman was asked:
Q. Did Roberts sell or chatter any other boats to the Government?
A. Yes, sir. He sold the Winfield Scott and the Union to the
Government.
Q. For how much?