service was performed by the Chaplain,
the Rev. Edward Everett Hale. This is a name well-known in American
letters, as in American religious life; it was borne by a benevolent
old gentleman, a Unitarian and a liberal, who organized "Lend-a-Hand
Clubs" and such like amiabilities. "Do You Love This Old Man?" the
signs in the street-cars used to ask when I was a boy; and I promptly
answered "Yes"--for my mother took the "Ladies' Home Journal", and I
swallowed the sentimental dish-water set out for me. But when I read
the Rev. Edward's funeral oration over the Irrev. Mark, I loved
neither of them any longer. "This whole-souled child of God," cried
the Rev. Edward, "who believed in success, and knew how to succeed by
using the infinite powers!" You perceive that the Chaplain of the
Millionaires' Club agrees with this book, that the "infinite powers"
in America are the powers that prey!

#The Great American Fraud#

Among the most loathesome products of our native commercial greed is
the patent medicine industry, "The Great American Fraud," as its
historian has called it. In 1907 this historian wrote:

Gullible America will spend this year some seventy-five
millions of dollars in the purchase of patent medicines. In
consideration of this sum it will swallow huge quantities of
alcohol, an appalling amount of opiates and narcotics, a
wide assortment of varied drugs ranging from powerful and
dangerous heart depressants to insidious liver stimulants;
and, far in excess of all other ingredients, undiluted
fraud. For fraud, exploited by the skillfullest of
advertising bunco men, is the basis of the trade.

One by one Mr. Adams tells about these medical fakes: habit-forming
laxatives, head-ache powders full of acetanilid, soothing-syrups and
catarrh-cures full of opium and cocaine, cock-tails subtly disguised
as "bitters", "sarsaparillas", and "tonics". He shows how the fake
testimonials are made up and exploited; how the confidential letters,
telling the secret troubles of men and women, are collected by tens
and hundreds of thousands and advertised and sold--so that the victim,
as he begins to lose faith in one fake, finds another at hand, fully
informed as to his weakness. He quotes the amazing "Red Clause" in the
contracts which the patent-medicine makers have with thousands of
daily and weekly papers, whereby the makers are able to control the
press of the country and prevent le