press. They did so and on the profits of the sales of such medi-
cines were founded some of the large fortunes of later years.
Some of the concoctions of this period were simply colored water
and were absolutely harmless; but others contained absolute
poisons. The injurious effect of such widespread doping was
checked by threatened legislation by various States. In this way
the worst of the positively injurious "remedies" were eliminated
from the advertising columns, but the press, not only in the
rural sections, but also in the cities, continued its partnership
in dosing the American people. Many newspaper men actually
wrote the advertisements; for instance, Henry Jarvis Raymond,
who later became the distinguished founder of The New York
Times, increased his income by writing daily advertisements of
medicinal pills for a quack doctor for which he received a re-
muneration of fifty cents for each piece of copy.
As late as 1881 Charles Dudley Warner complained that the newspaper columns "outshine the shelves of the druggist in the display of proprietary medicines." Many excellent newspapers, for thirty years after this remark, continued to be, so far as the advertising columns were concerned, directories of patent medi- cines until Samuel Hopkins Adams, in a series of articles in Collier 1 s Weekly, entitled "The Great American Fraud," exposed the chicanery of patent medicine manufacturers and the worth- lessness of many of their concoctions.
FEDERAL SUPERVISION ADVOCATED
By a ruling of the Postmaster-General, Amos Kendall, in 1835, the coaches having mail contracts were not permitted to carry passengers on their Western trips until provision was made for all the mail matter addressed to the West. Similar restrictions were placed upon the mail routes along the Atlantic seaboard. When the newspapers in the North began to advocate the aboli- tion of slavery it raised a howl of protest in the South. Charles- ton, in South Carolina, particularly objected to the circulation of such newspapers. The postmaster in that city held such news- papers in his office pending instructions from the Postmaster- General. The latter side-stepped the question by saying that he had no legal authority to issue instructions on this technical
