Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We mentioned today's subject
Speaker 1: in our recent episode on Emil Kua, and at the
Speaker 1: time I said he was on my shortlist because he
Speaker 1: was fascinating and who That's the truth. Evrgil Neil's life
Speaker 1: was such a wild ride that it sounds fictional. I
Speaker 1: was trying to describe it to a friend of mine
Speaker 1: last night while we were talking, and he was like, wait,
Speaker 1: is this all the same guy? And I was like, yeah.
Speaker 1: His career had this seemingly bright start as a writer
Speaker 1: of accounting and banking textbooks that were very well regarded
Speaker 1: and used for decades because of how good they were,
Speaker 1: and then his life took some very wild turns into hypnotism,
Speaker 1: patent medicine, and fraud as well as an odd success.
Speaker 1: He is not a rags to riches story. He is
Speaker 1: a swindler and flim flamman to riches story. Although he
Speaker 1: was plagued with the accusations of all kinds of crimes
Speaker 1: throughout his life, including collaborating with an enemy during wartime.
Speaker 1: So we're going to tackle e. Virgil Neil today and
Speaker 1: next episode because there's a lot to get through. It
Speaker 1: is a lot. We'll start with how youing. Virgil Neil
Speaker 1: was born in Georgetown, Missouri, to Armistead Arthur and Ellen Neil.
Speaker 1: That was in September of eighteen sixty eight. His birthplace
Speaker 1: is frequently listed as Sedalia, Missouri. Georgetown is a smaller
Speaker 1: municipality that's just a few miles north of Sedalia. While
Speaker 1: Neil would later in his life claim that he had
Speaker 1: been born into a poor farming family, his father was
Speaker 1: actually a school teacher. They did own farmland, but that
Speaker 1: was not really the source of their income. Yeah, his
Speaker 1: dad was a really well respected teacher. While Neil's earliest
Speaker 1: years aren't particularly well documented, which isn't that odd for
Speaker 1: somebody in his place in life, he did, we know,
Speaker 1: enter a two year business school program at Central Business
Speaker 1: College in Sidelia at the age of twenty. He went
Speaker 1: this route instead of attending a traditional university. Even before
Speaker 1: he graduated from the school, which happened in eighteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: he was already working there, teaching courses like penmanship and
Speaker 1: mental arithmetic. Basically how to do sums and ledgers in
Speaker 1: your head. Biographer Mary Schaeffer Conroy theorized in her biography
Speaker 1: about Neil that this arrangement may have been a deal
Speaker 1: that the school made with him to make paying for
Speaker 1: his courses more viable. After he graduated, he continued to
Speaker 1: work at the business school. Neil would later claim that
Speaker 1: he devised an arithmetic program that was taught to students
Speaker 1: so that they could quit we make calculations in their heads.
Speaker 1: The school did taut a program like that in their
Speaker 1: marketing materials over the years, but whether or not he
Speaker 1: was the originator of it is not substantiated one way
Speaker 1: or the other. From Sedalia, Neil moved on to Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: He claimed to have worked at the Pierce College of
Speaker 1: Business in Pennsylvania Briefly. There's not substantiation for that either. Next,
Speaker 1: he moved on to Rochester, New York, and he worked
Speaker 1: at a textbook company there, and as part of his assignments,
Speaker 1: he wrote the book Modern Banking and Bank Accounting. His
Speaker 1: company sold the rights to the book to the American
Speaker 1: Book Company, and Neil is said to have made a
Speaker 1: significant amount of money in that deal. American Book Company
Speaker 1: published the material as two separate books, Modern Illustrative Banking
Speaker 1: and Modern Illustrative Bookkeeping. He earned royalties on those two
Speaker 1: titles for the rest of his life. The books are
Speaker 1: really quite practical. They represent a shift in the way
Speaker 1: that such concepts were taught to offer students a model
Speaker 1: of real business practices to work through so that they
Speaker 1: could understand the real world applications of their business education.
Speaker 1: Modern Illustrative Banking walks readers through the process of running
Speaker 1: a bank. Per its opening pages, the book quote is
Speaker 1: designed to reproduce as nearly as possible the practical workings
Speaker 1: of a national bank. This came with sample documents and
Speaker 1: transactions quote to cover, in abbreviated form two days business
Speaker 1: of the First National Bank, Rochester, New York. During the
Speaker 1: first day, all of the business forms of the bank
Speaker 1: are handled by the student, but during the second day
Speaker 1: the business forms are dispensed with, and only the entries
Speaker 1: to the various transactions are recorded. Historical data for them
Speaker 1: being furnished in the text just for the purposes of
Speaker 1: explaining my understanding. This isn't a course that you would
Speaker 1: take in two days. It just is broken out as
Speaker 1: though it is covering two days worth of business FYI.
Speaker 1: It breaks down what duties are done by various positions
Speaker 1: at the bank, and then at the end of these
Speaker 1: two days worth of sample business quote, dividends are declared,
Speaker 1: statements made, and the books closed. Modern Illustrative Bookkeeping opens
Speaker 1: with the promise that it offers readers a new practical
Speaker 1: approach to the topic instead of the ways the bookkeeping
Speaker 1: has been taught up to that point. Quote. This book
Speaker 1: is designed to teach bookkeeping as it is practiced by
Speaker 1: the best business houses. We have no apology to offer
Speaker 1: for the innovations in methods or the deviation from the
Speaker 1: school forms of balance sheets, statements, loss and gain accounts,
Speaker 1: et cetera. We believe the time has arrived when all
Speaker 1: progressive teachers will welcome practical business methods, even though they
Speaker 1: supplant long cherished school forms and practices. The book is
Speaker 1: pretty solid in its information. It basically lays out a
Speaker 1: two book system, one the journal day book to record
Speaker 1: transactions as they take place, and then the other the
Speaker 1: ledger into which those transactions are recorded as sorted into
Speaker 1: the accounts. The whole thing emphasizes checking and rechecking your
Speaker 1: arithmetic to make sure your books are accurate. Next, after
Speaker 1: his success in these books, Neil decided that he would
Speaker 1: actually like to have his own publishing house, and he
Speaker 1: set one up in Rochester, New York. This was a
Speaker 1: case where he didn't look for writers to create new works,
Speaker 1: nor did he write anything himself during this time, but
Speaker 1: he sure did publish a lot. He looked for material
Speaker 1: that was out of copyright, and particularly poetry, and he
Speaker 1: just republished that with no author to pay. His publishing company,
Speaker 1: which was pretty much just him, kept all of the
Speaker 1: money from sales. On June fifteenth, eighteen ninety three, as
Speaker 1: publishing success was making him a nice amount of money,
Speaker 1: Neil married a young woman named Molly Hurd. He was
Speaker 1: also developing a growing interest in hypnotism during this time,
Speaker 1: and he started studying it in earnest by the mid
Speaker 1: eighteen nineties. Some accounts say that he became interested in
Speaker 1: this after seeing a stage hypnotist. That's not really something
Speaker 1: that can be verified, but there really would have been
Speaker 1: plenty of opportunities for him to have been exposed to
Speaker 1: this concept at the end of the nineteenth century in
Speaker 1: the US. We've talked about this recently on the show.
Speaker 1: This was a period when mysticism of any kind was
Speaker 1: becoming very popular, and it turned out that after learning
Speaker 1: the tricks of the trade, he was pretty good at
Speaker 1: hypnotizing people. Was also during this time that a name
Speaker 1: we mentioned in our Emil Kua episode emerged, and that
Speaker 1: was Exlamotte Sage. Sage was a stage name that Neil
Speaker 1: assumed to advertise himself as an expert hypnotist toward the
Speaker 1: United States on bookings as Xenophon Lamont Sage, assisted by
Speaker 1: Olga Helen Sage, who was of course his wife Molly.
Speaker 1: The two of them were frequently booked in various vaudeville theaters,
Speaker 1: and it turned out that Exlamant Sage was pretty good
Speaker 1: at bringing in the ticket sales. Hypnotism paid better than
Speaker 1: any position that business school had ever prepared Neil for,
Speaker 1: and seeing that the demand for hypnotism material was high,
Speaker 1: Neil leaned back into his publishing experience and wrote a
Speaker 1: correspondence course under that name called The Philosophy of Personal Influence.
Speaker 1: He also wrote a book called Hypnotism As It Is
Speaker 1: a Book for Everybody, which we talked about quite a
Speaker 1: bit in the Koua episode. These works were published at
Speaker 1: Neil's latest company, he started so many. The New York
Speaker 1: Institute of Science and the works of Exlamant Sage were
Speaker 1: wildly popular. An account of Neil's life that was written
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties estimated that the New York Institute
Speaker 1: of Science made one point five million dollars from sales
Speaker 1: of books and hypnotism courses, all of which were shipped
Speaker 1: directly to customers' homes. That business model of direct sales
Speaker 1: eventually got the company and Neil into a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1: The US Postal Service went after them for mail fraud because,
Speaker 1: among other things, he was teaching palmistry, and the company
Speaker 1: had to shudder. Coming up, we'll talk about a strange
Speaker 1: business arrangement that E. Virgil Neil established in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds, But first will pause or a sponsor break.
Speaker 1: Starting in nineteen oh three, the E. Virgil Neil and
Speaker 1: Company banking firm and the Columbia Scientific Academy, where Neil
Speaker 1: was a board member, kind of up the whole thing.
Speaker 1: We're both operating out of the same offices at nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty one Broadway that was in the area west of
Speaker 1: Central Park where the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts now sits.
Speaker 1: And that combination of businesses seemed like an odd arrangement
Speaker 1: to members of the press. The New York Sun on
Speaker 1: March third, nineteen o three ran a piece titled Here's
Speaker 1: a hypnotic Bank, psychotelepathy, and a loan shop in one office.
Speaker 1: That article describes how a British journalist had been investigating
Speaker 1: the Columbia Scientific Academy and had come away declaring it
Speaker 1: to be part of quote, the American Magnetic and Psychic
Speaker 1: Force swindle. When this journalist had tried to cancel an
Speaker 1: order from the Academy and have his name removed from
Speaker 1: all future distribution lists, he got a letter signed by R. F.
Speaker 1: Robertson psych DCD, which read, in part quote, when I
Speaker 1: got your letter, I was attracted by your handwriting, like
Speaker 1: the educated eye of an artist who sees in a
Speaker 1: rough piece of marble an angel. My I caught in
Speaker 1: your handwriting at a glance, a whole life pictured vividly
Speaker 1: before me. There was so much history in your handwriting,
Speaker 1: so much undeveloped power and latent energy and talent, that
Speaker 1: I could not destroy the letter without writing and extending
Speaker 1: my previous offer. The letter continues to talk about the
Speaker 1: journalist's handwriting, calling it quote one of the strongest I
Speaker 1: have ever seen, and accusing the journalist of having quote
Speaker 1: neglected the development of those God given faculties. However, that
Speaker 1: lied dormant in every individual until brought to light and cultivated.
Speaker 1: The letter even claims that a special meeting of the
Speaker 1: board of the Columbia Scientific Academy was called to discuss
Speaker 1: this promising handwriting and make its writer a special offer
Speaker 1: on one of their courses. So when a reporter from
Speaker 1: the New York Sun read about all of this in
Speaker 1: the British periodical Truth, he decided to go to the
Speaker 1: academy offices and see exactly what was going on. When
Speaker 1: he got there, he asked for mister Robertson and was
Speaker 1: presented with someone by that name, And when he started
Speaker 1: asking questions about that letter that had been republished in Truth,
Speaker 1: he suddenly got passed off to Evirgil Neil, and Neil
Speaker 1: was surprisingly frank in some of his answers to the
Speaker 1: questions this journalist posed, which he later almost certainly probably
Speaker 1: wished he had not been. He was asked about the
Speaker 1: claim that the board of directors had met to discuss
Speaker 1: this amazing handwriting on a canceled order. Neil told the
Speaker 1: reporter that was actually, quote, a form of advertising, you know.
Speaker 1: When he was questioned about who Robertson was and what
Speaker 1: the credential site dc D ment, he was told that
Speaker 1: Robertson was a banker who got a Doctor of Psychology
Speaker 1: from Iowa College, which accounted for the first D, and
Speaker 1: that the CD that followed stood for character delineator, a
Speaker 1: degree that Neil claimed Robertson got from the American College
Speaker 1: of Sciences in Philadelphia. Neil did not elaborate on what
Speaker 1: that degree would actually involve. My research of that phrase
Speaker 1: only connects it to data set sequences and computer science
Speaker 1: should not have existed in nineteen oh three, so it
Speaker 1: seems to have been, you know, kind of one of
Speaker 1: those it will sound good and no one will know
Speaker 1: how to even question me about it kind of phrases.
Speaker 1: The Columbia Scientific Academy, which former banker Robertson was president of,
Speaker 1: offered correspondence courses in the art of what it called
Speaker 1: chi magie or chi magi I don't know, which encompassed
Speaker 1: a variety of skills, including character reading. When the reporter
Speaker 1: asked about the bank located at the same age. Neil's
Speaker 1: initial response was, quote, how did you know about the bank?
Speaker 1: Maybe not media savvy yet at that stage of his cow.
Speaker 1: Then he told the reporter that it was a private bank,
Speaker 1: not a public bank, and that as such it did
Speaker 1: not have to adhere to national laws, only to state laws,
Speaker 1: and that those were quote a little more lax. He
Speaker 1: also explained that because the bank's customers were mostly people
Speaker 1: and institutions who wanted short term loans, that only made
Speaker 1: about five thousand dollars a year. The masterful part of
Speaker 1: the way this article was written is the way that
Speaker 1: the reporter kind of connects the dots between these two
Speaker 1: seemingly oddly paired businesses operating out of the same offices
Speaker 1: without ever like saying, hey, this is obviously wacky and fraudulent.
Speaker 1: It states at one point, quote to show how nicely
Speaker 1: the chi magic end of the Columbia Scientific Academy dovetails
Speaker 1: with the banking end, and how harmoniously finance and the
Speaker 1: occult might be blended, the literature of the institution has
Speaker 1: just let himself loose. In one of the pamphlets, here's
Speaker 1: what it says. If you have not the money it
Speaker 1: will pay you to borrow the money if you invest
Speaker 1: in our course of instruction and master our course and
Speaker 1: follow its teachings. It is probably the last dollar you
Speaker 1: will ever find it necessary to borrow as long as
Speaker 1: you live. So the article doesn't state whether there is
Speaker 1: any kind of direction or suggestion for the reader of
Speaker 1: such advertisement to borrow from the E. Virgil Neil and
Speaker 1: Company Bank. But even if it didn't, a bank that
Speaker 1: specialized in short term loans also housing a business with
Speaker 1: dubious claims that encourages people to take out such loans
Speaker 1: pretty dicey at best. But though the copy definitely leads
Speaker 1: the reader to consider that problem. As I said before,
Speaker 1: the write up in the Sun is very careful not
Speaker 1: to explicitly state that these two businesses are connected. The
Speaker 1: next day, The New York Sun ran an article with
Speaker 1: the headline Worried about Neil and Company depositors You see
Speaker 1: don't like hypnotism in banking. And in this article, the
Speaker 1: paper shared a phone call that Neil had made to
Speaker 1: the paper in which he blamed the paper for causing
Speaker 1: him problems. He stated on the phone quote that article
Speaker 1: printed in This Morning Sun about the bank has caused
Speaker 1: the bank some annoyance. Some of our depositors have been
Speaker 1: around this morning to find out what it all meant.
Speaker 1: They were uneasy, you see, about the money they had
Speaker 1: on deposit with us, and were inclined at first to
Speaker 1: withdraw their accounts. I told them it was all a
Speaker 1: mistake about the bank, and that I'd like to have
Speaker 1: the Sun do something about it. When contacted for more
Speaker 1: information on what he wanted the paper to do, Neil
Speaker 1: said that quote, it was wrong to mix up the
Speaker 1: bank with the academy. There's no connection between the two.
Speaker 1: He was adamant that Robertson wasn't involved in the bank
Speaker 1: at all, and that the academy didn't teach hypnotism, but
Speaker 1: only included literature about hypnotism as an extra with its
Speaker 1: regular courses. He went on to say that he had
Speaker 1: a report made by commercial credit reporting agency RG Dunn
Speaker 1: in Company that indicated that the banking concern was sound
Speaker 1: and above board. When The Sun contacted the State Superintendent
Speaker 1: of Banks, Frederick D. Kilburn, he said that the State
Speaker 1: Bank Department had quote no jurisdiction over such concerns as
Speaker 1: the banking house of E. Virgil Neil and Company, so
Speaker 1: far as an illegal supervision of such concerns goes, there
Speaker 1: is none. They can run their business like a grocery store.
Speaker 1: So even though Neil admitted to the reporter that the
Speaker 1: company lied to people as a form of bad advertising,
Speaker 1: and even though there was an obvious shady connection between
Speaker 1: these two business entities, there were just never any real
Speaker 1: repercussions for this, aside from some of the banks customers
Speaker 1: getting worried and maybe closing their accounts. Columbia Scientific Academy
Speaker 1: and many other shady businesses continued for Neil, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk more about that after we hear from the sponsors.
Speaker 1: To keep stuff you missed in history class going, following
Speaker 1: newspaper mentions of Neil and the Columbia Scientific Academy in
Speaker 1: the first years of the twentieth century offers a wild
Speaker 1: breadcrumb trail of shady dealings. Just four days after Neil's
Speaker 1: interaction with The Sun, advertisements for the Columbia Scientific Academy
Speaker 1: seemed to explode in number in papers across the country.
Speaker 1: And the copy is so obviously dis one that appeared
Speaker 1: in the San Francisco Examiner is designed to look like
Speaker 1: a regular article, and its titled personal magnetism. It's subheaders
Speaker 1: taut how this is something that prominent men used to
Speaker 1: gain influence, and how a reporter stumbled across secret methods
Speaker 1: to quote, charm and fascinate the human mind. And it
Speaker 1: also notes that this information came from high priests of
Speaker 1: the occult who had kept the secrets for years. That ad,
Speaker 1: which again was disguised as an article, says that quote,
Speaker 1: one of the leading colleges of the city of New
Speaker 1: York had spent five thousand dollars having ten thousand copies
Speaker 1: of a book titled The Secret of Power, printed in
Speaker 1: accordance with the author's wishes to be given away for free.
Speaker 1: If you sent your name an address to the Columbia
Speaker 1: Scientific Academy. The write up said, you could get your
Speaker 1: free copy in the mail, and in it you could
Speaker 1: quote develop a wonderfully magnetic person personality and learn how
Speaker 1: to read the character's secrets and loves of others in
Speaker 1: a few days study. That study would be done at home,
Speaker 1: and then you could use your new knowledge to get quote,
Speaker 1: lucrative employment or an advance on your salary, or you
Speaker 1: could just gain friendship and influence, all without anybody being
Speaker 1: any The wiser about you being in control of their behavior.
Speaker 1: There are several testimonials from alleged satisfied customers included in
Speaker 1: this ad. They included all the hallmarks of like modern
Speaker 1: infomercial sales. One from a man named Fred Perkins reads quote,
Speaker 1: I have been in great demand since I read the
Speaker 1: work of the Columbia Scientific Academy. People are amazed and
Speaker 1: mystified at the things I do. I believe I could
Speaker 1: make twenty five dollars per day reading character alone if
Speaker 1: I were to charge for my services. If anyone would
Speaker 1: have told me I would receive so much wonderful information,
Speaker 1: I would have thought him crazy. The ad then closes
Speaker 1: by asking that only people who are really interested in
Speaker 1: this information request a copy, since there is a limited
Speaker 1: supply of them. This free giveaway, of course, was a
Speaker 1: way for the Academy to build up its mailing list
Speaker 1: and then start sending these interested people literature about their
Speaker 1: courses to lure them into spending their money, just the
Speaker 1: way that British journalist was told his handwriting was fascinating
Speaker 1: and evidence to person with incredible untapped power. We can
Speaker 1: help you unleash that power if you just send us
Speaker 1: some cash. There is another interesting exchange in that initial
Speaker 1: write up in The Sun from March fourth. The report
Speaker 1: that Neil produced to show that the banking firm was
Speaker 1: above board also mentioned his involvement in another business, National
Speaker 1: Protective Association of the United States. When questioned about that one,
Speaker 1: Neil said that it was an insurance company and that
Speaker 1: he was no longer connected with it. It was still
Speaker 1: operating at the time the reporter spoke with E. Virgil Neil,
Speaker 1: and it was headquartered in the very same building as
Speaker 1: the banking house of E. Virgil Neil and Company and
Speaker 1: the Columbia Scientific Academy. Though Neil acted nonchalant in this
Speaker 1: exchange between him and the reporter and kind of like
Speaker 1: he had forgotten that company was under the same roof.
Speaker 1: It's a weird detail. This isn't necessarily like a breadcrumb
Speaker 1: to connect the dots, but it offers up another piece
Speaker 1: of evidence that he seemed to be constantly on the
Speaker 1: move from career to career, starting up sort of a
Speaker 1: shell game of businesses, always looking for the next way
Speaker 1: to make a buck, often by trading on the hopes
Speaker 1: of naivete or of his potential customers. He had been
Speaker 1: dodging negative attention just enough to stay out of trouble.
Speaker 1: But his next venture found itself in the spotlight, and
Speaker 1: a huge scandal broke that implicated a lot of people,
Speaker 1: many of them very well respected. While Neil faced a
Speaker 1: number of legal problems all through his life because of
Speaker 1: his business dealings, he was also sued for more personal reasons.
Speaker 1: In nineteen oh four, he was sued by a man
Speaker 1: named John Showerman for using his influence to cause Missus
Speaker 1: Showerman to abandon her husband. It's unclear how or if
Speaker 1: that legal action was resolved, but it is evidence that E.
Speaker 1: Virgil Neil was kind of perpetually in hot water. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and reading sort of the longish biography that exists about him,
Speaker 1: I couldn't even include all the ones there's like. Oh,
Speaker 1: and then he got sued for swindling a widow out
Speaker 1: of her money, like on a kind of more one
Speaker 1: to one swindle basis, rather than setting up a whole company.
Speaker 1: And there were a lot of instances like that. Apparently
Speaker 1: also a bit of a womanizer, so that caused him
Speaker 1: some problems. But undaunted by all of the legal attention
Speaker 1: he frequently got, Neil started other questionable businesses, but one,
Speaker 1: the New York Institute of Physicians and Surgeons, was one
Speaker 1: that he eventually tried to distance himself from when it
Speaker 1: got in trouble with authorities. The man who was really
Speaker 1: the driver of that business was Neil's colleague, Thomas F. Adkin.
Speaker 1: They had worked on a lot of these kind of
Speaker 1: bizarre business schemes together. The main product of this entity
Speaker 1: that it sold was something called videopathy. Ads for viteopathy
Speaker 1: are wild, and they were laid out again to look
Speaker 1: like articles with titles like a Message to the Sick.
Speaker 1: The claim was that Adkin could cure people of all
Speaker 1: manner of infirmities and even bring them back from the
Speaker 1: brink of death. It was free to get a consultation
Speaker 1: and then, according to their ads quote, charges for treatment
Speaker 1: are moderate. There was even a mail order option if
Speaker 1: you couldn't get to Adkin in person. There were some
Speaker 1: basic pieces of medical advice involved in the information they
Speaker 1: would give out. Some medications were issued, There were dietary
Speaker 1: guidelines that they gave to people to follow, but that
Speaker 1: all seems pretty benign. There were, however, a lot of
Speaker 1: really dubious elements to videopathy. One write up claimed that
Speaker 1: the in home treatment involved taking some sort of tonic
Speaker 1: and then staring into the eyes of a photograph of
Speaker 1: one of the company's doctors who was scheduled to concentrate
Speaker 1: on you at the exact same time. There was a
Speaker 1: letter that the company sent out to patients that offers
Speaker 1: instructions and what sounds a lot like auto suggestion, which
Speaker 1: we talked about in the KOA episode. It told patients
Speaker 1: to think very hard about getting well. It diverbally speak
Speaker 1: phrases that supported that idea. When Adkins and Neil were
Speaker 1: charged with fraud, Neil's counsel made clear during the hearing
Speaker 1: that videopathy was entirely the work of Adkin, not him.
Speaker 1: A fraud order shut down the New York Institute of
Speaker 1: Physicians and Surgeons on August second, nineteen oh five, and E.
Speaker 1: Virgil Neil kind of emerged relatively unscathed. That next venture
Speaker 1: was a company called Force of Life Chemical Company, although
Speaker 1: it was often shortened to just Force of Life Company.
Speaker 1: In January nineteen oh six, headlines started hitting the papers
Speaker 1: like claimed to raise the dead and Roosevelt causes the
Speaker 1: rests in big medical scandal and gigantic swindle probably bared.
Speaker 1: All of these were about the Force of Life Company.
Speaker 1: And here's what happened. An advertisement for Force of Life
Speaker 1: crossed the desk of President Theodore Roosevelt. It read, in
Speaker 1: part quote, in the glare of a midnight light bending
Speaker 1: over his crucible and retorts, Doctor William Wallace Hadley cried, triumphantly,
Speaker 1: I have it he had succeeded in making a rare
Speaker 1: chemical combination of concentrated extracts, which might truly be called
Speaker 1: liquid life. There it was, glimmering in its sheen of ruby, read,
Speaker 1: while the retort itself seemed to quiver and vibrate, as
Speaker 1: if in the effort of restraining the tremendous dynamic force
Speaker 1: it held. There was less than the force of life,
Speaker 1: the power that makes men live and think. Without this
Speaker 1: subtle essence in your system, death would occur before you
Speaker 1: could read three of these lines. With it in sufficient quantity,
Speaker 1: you can combat any disease. To discover and make the
Speaker 1: vital principle of life has been the dream of the
Speaker 1: chemist and the goal of the medical professor of all ages.
Speaker 1: In addition to that ad, a letter was also mailed
Speaker 1: out by the company to prospective customers, presumably from a
Speaker 1: mailing list gathered up in one of their many other
Speaker 1: little industries, and it read quote doctor Hadley's modest art
Speaker 1: by his mysterious control over disease and death. Doctor Wallace Hadley,
Speaker 1: the eminent thomaturgic panopathist of this city, has made the
Speaker 1: human heart beat again in the body of a woman
Speaker 1: rescued from the grave. And as a result of his
Speaker 1: successful experiment, he makes the startling statement that no disease
Speaker 1: should cause death. He claims to have discovered the vital
Speaker 1: principle of life itself, the dynamic force that creates and
Speaker 1: maintains existence. He seems to have absolute control over human
Speaker 1: life and the diseases that attack it. These materials, which
Speaker 1: intimated that death could be thwarted by less than, offered
Speaker 1: to shipboarders anywhere in the US. And it had been
Speaker 1: sent to the President after it had been received by
Speaker 1: a woman from Springfield, Missouri, and President Roosevelt forwarded it
Speaker 1: to the Postmaster General, George Bruce Cordial, you who open
Speaker 1: an investigation. By the way, less than might sound familiar
Speaker 1: because it's used in all kinds of products. It's kind
Speaker 1: of an umbrella term under which a variety of fatty
Speaker 1: substances from both animal and plant sources are grouped. The
Speaker 1: defining characteristic of less than is that it attracts both
Speaker 1: bats and water, so it's really effective. It's smoothing out
Speaker 1: the texture of foods and acting as an emulsifier. Less
Speaker 1: Than is also taken as a supplement. It's used in
Speaker 1: cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. It is definitely not the Elixir of Life.
Speaker 1: Its discoverer, though, is on Holly's episode shortlist. Sure is,
Speaker 1: it's another French scientist trying to space them out. I swear.
Speaker 1: Investigators quickly uncovered more problematic evidence. In this case, they
Speaker 1: set up a sting of sorts by writing to Force
Speaker 1: of Life posing as patients. One such fake patient was
Speaker 1: named Lucille Hoffmann, and she wrote to the company that
Speaker 1: she was twenty two and she wrote this sort of
Speaker 1: plaintive letter where she shared very personal information about herself
Speaker 1: and her health struggles. And at first she got pretty
Speaker 1: standard replies about various things she could do to improve
Speaker 1: her health. But when she wrote back again she is
Speaker 1: not a real person. When she wrote back that she
Speaker 1: was not getting any better, she was asked to submit
Speaker 1: a blood sample and The investigator that was working this
Speaker 1: case sent in a bottle of blood from a horse,
Speaker 1: and he received a reply that Lucille was sadly dealing
Speaker 1: with an array of medical ailments, some quite serious. This
Speaker 1: investigator actually said jokingly in his testimony about all of
Speaker 1: this that the prognosis was so bad that he felt
Speaker 1: sorry for the horse. There was also what was alleged
Speaker 1: to be a personal message from doctor Wallace Hadley to
Speaker 1: this woman that read quote, I cure disease. I combat
Speaker 1: any and all maladies, make hopeless invalids well, I unclasp
Speaker 1: the remorseless fingers of death. I stop the rush with
Speaker 1: which Father time hurries you to the grave. Another faux
Speaker 1: patient created by postal investigators that kind of went through
Speaker 1: this same process got a slightly different but similar note
Speaker 1: which invoked the Bible by quoting Matthew eleven twenty eight.
Speaker 1: It read, do not be skeptical, have confidence in me.
Speaker 1: Be sure as I am that I can cure disease.
Speaker 1: Come ye who are heavy laden, and I will give
Speaker 1: you rest. Reverently I repeat the words, and sacredly will
Speaker 1: I fulfill the trust put in me by the great Healer.
Speaker 1: I can say no more that seems like a fun
Speaker 1: place to stop for the day, although we will be
Speaker 1: saying a whole lot more about this case and E.
Speaker 1: Virgil Neil next time. Oh, E Virgil Neil, you're cracking
Speaker 1: me up. Baby. I honestly loved doing this research, but
Speaker 1: right now I'm gonna love listener mail, kay, because it
Speaker 1: involves nothing flim flammy, one of my favorite things, which
Speaker 1: is sewing, and a particularly delightful project. This is from
Speaker 1: our listener Katie, who we read an email from not
Speaker 1: that long ago, but it's an update on what's been
Speaker 1: going on with her project. She had sent in an
Speaker 1: email that included some Han and Mansion embroidery that I
Speaker 1: was very excited about. Katie writes, High, Holly and Tracy,
Speaker 1: y'all were pretty intrigued with my Han and Mansion embroidery
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago. It isn't abandoned, but this
Speaker 1: is the sewing that was occupying me recently. My ten
Speaker 1: year old daughter, whose name I'm not going to say
Speaker 1: just because she's very young, is portraying Abigail Adams for
Speaker 1: Living History at our small classical school tonight. The whole
Speaker 1: ensemble having made a Muslim first easily took me upwards
Speaker 1: of forty hours. She picked the fabric, which I think
Speaker 1: is gorgeous. Fifth grader's portray American history figures up to
Speaker 1: roughly eighteen twenty, and six graders portray anyone. From then on,
Speaker 1: I've been visiting the classes before they choose their subjects
Speaker 1: with lists of less obvious figures as suggestions. And yes,
Speaker 1: many of the people on my suggestion list are people
Speaker 1: I have heard about on your show. Among others, tonight
Speaker 1: we have fifth graders as Patrick, Henry, Sybil Luddington to Squantum,
Speaker 1: and someone's own ancestors named Nancy Hart. Six grade choices
Speaker 1: among others are Frederick Douglass, Ted Williams, Sonora Webster Carver,
Speaker 1: and Henry Ford. Past years have seen Maria Talchief, Milton Hershey,
Speaker 1: Juliet Child, John Marr, and Alvin York. Anyway, thanks again,
Speaker 1: and hope you'd like to see the sewing. This dress
Speaker 1: turned out so pretty and so sweet, and I just
Speaker 1: love it. I am so delighted and I can't even imagine,
Speaker 1: like how joyous it must be. Listen, when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, before I was good enough to sew my
Speaker 1: own clothes, it was always really delightful when I got
Speaker 1: to pick the fabric for something. So it shows on
Speaker 1: your beautiful daughter's face how much she loves that fabric.
Speaker 1: I love that fabric. She looks phenomenal. So congratulations. I
Speaker 1: love this. I love this so much of everything about it.
Speaker 1: Give me all the cute historical costumes on kids. Who
Speaker 1: doesn't want to learn about history by dressing up like it?
Speaker 1: That was the best part. I just had such a
Speaker 1: weird flashback to an awkward moment in seventh grade that
Speaker 1: did not come up in my head until just this moment.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about it on behind the scenes anyway. Thank
Speaker 1: you for writing and sharing that beautiful picture with us,
Speaker 1: and you're adorable letter, and I just love how you're
Speaker 1: helping people learn about history this way. I'm now thinking
Speaker 1: about the thing and I can't stop laughing. If you
Speaker 1: would like to write to us, you can do so
Speaker 1: at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Our show notes
Speaker 1: for this week's episodes, and all of our episodes are
Speaker 1: connected to those episodes. If you go to missed inhistory
Speaker 1: dot com and just look at the information underneath any
Speaker 1: different track listing. If you want to subscribe to the podcast,
Speaker 1: and you have it. You can do that on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.