Part
1 / Part 2
Many readers
of my books and magazines of the past have asked me how it is possible
for the Drug Trust to prevent the printing of news about drugless cures,
to exaggerate the efficacy of drugs, to falsify the record in the serum
field and to send out the garbled press stories at will.
I do not
blame the average publisher for this as much as I blame the "system",
which was created and developed even before Upton Sinclair wrote his
famous book on the press and press associations called "The Brass
Check". Many times I've heard bewildered citizens say "you
can only believe 50% of what you read in the newspapers."
I've heard
others go beyond that and say that you can't believe 25% of what you
read in a Hearst paper or 5% of what you read in a Communist sheet -
Marshall Field's papers, the former Stern papers, the present New York
Post, Compass and Daily Worker.
It is the
average American newspaper and the way it is taken for a ride by the
Drug Trust that we are dealing with in this chapter. So don't blame
the publisher. Much less should you blame the reporter or editor if
your paper lets you down as they did, say, on the Columbus polio story
(described in this book) and on many other such items which never saw
the light of day.
Many years
ago a high-pressure and high-powered advertising agent named J. Walter
Thompson began the system of influencing news media thru huge advertising
appropriations. Mr. Thompson tied himself up with the Rockefeller interestsand
the Morgan interests.These two financial behemoths controlled so many
companies between them that the Thompson Company, with the founder long
since passed away to his celestial reward (if any), now has the most
stupendous business of any advertising agency in the world.
Standard
Advertising Register for 1948 showed this firm having 95 large industrial
accounts. Any agency having half a dozen considers itself lucky and
well-to-do. To handle this business the J. Walter Thompson Companyhas
eight branch offices in the United States and eighteen in foreign countries
- branches in nearly all lands where Standard Oil's derricks rise.
Included
in these accounts are - just to mention a few:
|
Lever
Brothers
|
$18,686,329
|
|
Ford
Motors
|
$11,242,212
|
|
Kaiser-Frazer
Motors
|
$05,048,934
|
|
Libby,
McNeill & Libby
|
$04,180,338
|
|
Standard
Brands
|
$03,962,493
|
|
Radio
Corporation of America
|
$03,755,902
|
|
Nash-Kelvinator
|
$03,721,529
|
|
Eastman-Kodak
|
$01,861,398
|
|
Shell
Oil
|
$01,221,183
|
|
Pan
American World Airways
|
$01,027,569
|
|
Johns-Manville
|
$00,955,398
|
Because
appropriations-advertising of manufactured products nationally has reached
an aggregate of a billion and a half, a number of other agencies are
now participating in the business of the Rockefeller Empire, and of
what is left of the Morgan Empire since J.P. (the last) died.
A recent
compilation by the magazine ADVERTISING AGE showed that the larger companies
expended in 1948 for newspaper, radio and magazine advertising the aggregate
sum of $1,104,224,347. For many years it has been estimated that the
Rockefeller-Morgan interests controlled about 80% of this business.
This control
is vested partly in those companies owned wholly or in part by the Money
Trust, which also has its headquarters in Rockefeller Center. An even
larger part of this control is represented in the hundreds of large
corporations and combines that have to go, from time to time, for financing
to the Chase National Bank, Guaranty Trust, National City and other
banking houses controlled by or closely affiliated with the Rockefellers.
This huge
advertising figure (over a billion and a tenth) is only part of the
story, but it is the only complete figures we can put our fingers on.
It is broken down as follows:
- $389,261,000
to the larger of our 1,873 daily newspapers;
- $430,573,399
to 97 national magazines;
- $
46,709,683 to six magazine sections for Sunday newspapers;
- $
38,684,523 to 50 farm publications;
- $198,995,742
to network radio stations.
This does
not take into account the hundreds of non-network (independent) radio
stations in the country, nor any of the 10,056 weekly newspapers, very
few of which lack a quota of national advertising accounts. A conservative
estimate of the total sets it at around $1,500,000,000.
Eighty
percent of this will add up to 1,200 million advertising dollars annually
which apparently are controlled from Rockefeller Center by the owners
of the Drug Trust, the Steel Trust, the Oil Trust, the Power Trust,
the Utilities Trust, the Metals Trust, and hundreds of other powerful
combinations in restraint of free enterprise.
The American
Thought Controllers pay plenty of attention to the weekly newspaper.
I well remember 15 years ago when I was running a county seat newspaper
in Maryland, contiguous to the nation's capital. The metropolitan power
company serving my community used to run a quarter of a page advertisement
every week. They paid promptly and well, and this account took quite
a lot of the worry off my shoulders when the bills came due.
One day
we took up the cudgels for some of our readers who were being given
poor service and insulting treatment from the power company. It was
our first experience in the realm of Hell breaking loose. The issue
was in the mails only a few hours when the telephone rang and I received
the dressing-down of my life from the advertising agency which handled
the power company's account.
Briefly
and plainly they told me that any more such "stepping out of line"
would result in the immediate cancellation of this contract, as well
as that of the telephone company.
I still
remember what a tremendous let-down this was for me; how it opened my
eyes to the meaning of a Free Press; how I then and there decided to
get out of the newspaper business; how I began to seek a buyer and finally
sold out at the best figure I could get and, of course, at a huge loss.
When I
realize that this is what every newspaper owner is up against, and that
where I had only a few thousands tied up most daily newspaper publishers
count their investments in the millions, I really feel sorry for them.
That is, all except the worms, of which the newspaper business has its
share.
Now that
I have made it clear how the Rockefeller interests handle the various
media of public information, I am going to give a list of the 25 largest
advertisers in the country and the amounts they expend with the various
media. I am then going to show you how Rockefeller Center controls each
and every one of these concerns through what is called interlocking
directorates. You have already seen how the well-trained (in Rockefeller
methods) You have already seen how the well-trained (in Rockefeller
methods) advertising agencies can handle "properly" so many
newspapers, magazines and radio stations.
Here are
the Big Twenty-Five of American Business:
|
Proctor
and Gamble
|
$34,993,341
|
|
General
Motors
|
$27,086,514
|
|
Colgate-Palmolive-Peet
|
$18,773,213
|
|
Lever
Brothers
|
$18,686,329
|
|
General
Foods
|
$17,303,872
|
|
General
Electric
|
$15,058,018
|
|
Sterling
Drug
|
$13,624,287
|
|
General
Mills
|
$12,098,061
|
|
Swift
& Company
|
$11,355,551
|
|
Reynolds
Tobacco
|
$11,271,136
|
|
Seagram
|
$11,009,967
|
|
Ford
Motors
|
$11,242,252
|
|
Gillette
Razor
|
$
9,497,820
|
|
Liggett
& Meyers Tobacco
|
$
9,243,336
|
|
Campbell
Soup
|
$
8,992,115
|
|
Chrysler
Motors
|
$
7,633,735
|
|
American
Home Products
|
$
7,695,340
|
|
American
Tobacco
|
$
7,479,755
|
|
Philco
Radio
|
$
6,992,155
|
|
Westinghouse
Electric
|
$
6,756,016
|
|
Miles
Laboratories
|
$
6,410,513
|
|
National
Dairy Products
|
$
6,839,995
|
|
Bristol-Meyers
|
$
5,703,862
|
|
Kaiser-Frazer
Motors
|
$
5,048,934
|
|
Borden's
Milk
|
$00,179,664
|
Of these
top-flight advertisers, Lever Brothers, Sterling Drug, American Home
Products and Miles Laboratories manufacture drugs and proprietary medicines.
Borden's Milk and National Dairy Products are the two largest units
of the milk trust, and the greatest beneficiaries of the pasteurization
racket. This pasteurization racket is so lucrative that NDP can pay
its president (L. A. Von Bomel) $150,000 a year for doing nothing much
except going around and registering horror at the thought of anyone
drinking raw milk.
No one
claims that Rockefeller owns any of these companies outright except
Sterling Drug. But that the House of R has large stock holdings in most
of them is attested by the personnel of the several directorates. When
a Financial King invests in an enterprise he always arranges to have
a stooge sitting on the board of directors.