These shores have seen multitudes of bunco
artists and hoaxers, or as we would say today, con men. Just think of all the verbs we have for
cheating or swindling: bamboozle, hoodwink, humbug, hornswaggle, flimflam,
diddle, fleece, con, gyp, sting, chisel – and probably lots more that escape me
now. And New York, being a mecca for
hustlers, has had more than its share of flimflam artists. Here, as I see it, are their five steps to
sure success:
1.
Find something
that vast numbers of people need, or think they need.
2.
Offer a product
or service to satisfy that need.
3.
Through grandiose
speeches and gestures, whip the people’s interest up to a fever pitch.
4.
Get their money.
5.
Satisfy their
need, if you can. But above all, get
their money.
Now let’s see these
principles in action.
1. Find something that vast numbers of people
need, or think they need.
Nineteenth-century Americans, like most
people then and now, craved health and well-being. But the medicine of that time had little to
offer beyond tender loving care (tlc). There was a vaccine for smallpox and quinine for malaria, but not much
else. Which left the field wide open for
patent medicine men and their nostrums.
2. Offer a product or service to satisfy that
need.
Let’s have a look at New York City in the
1860s. EXTRACT OF BUCHU said
handbills distributed throughout the city. EXTRACT
OF BUCHU leaped off the signs of sandwichmen marching
up and down Broadway, or off big-print posters on the sides of horsecars, or
asbestos curtains in theaters, or piles of bricks at construction sites, or
booths in public lavatories. Or, more
genteelly, off the pages of such popular publications as Godey’s Lady's Book and Harper’s
Weekly. Or, less genteelly, off the
soaring basalt cliffs of the Jersey Palisades, greeting the gaze of passengers on the steamboats plying the Hudson. And with the completion of the first
transcontinental railroad in 1869, EXTRACT OF
BUCHU adorned the telegraph
poles along the line, and appeared on seemingly inaccessible sides of mountains
in the towering Rockies and Sierras, to the surprise and instruction – or
outrage – of travelers by rail.
And what did Extract of Buchu do? Said an ad of the time, it
· Cures Gravel
· Cures diseases of the bladder
· Cures diseases of the kidney
· Cures dropsy
· Cures general weakness
· Cures all diseases arising from exposure
To which was added JOY
TO THE AFFLICTED, and a list of symptoms that
included dimness of vision, languor, temporary suffusion, loss of sight, etc.,
which, if untreated, could result in insanity and consumption. But there was hope:
With woful measures, wan Despair,
Low, sullen sounds of grief beguiled,
HELMBOLD’S EXTRACT OF BUCHU gives
Health and vigor to the frame,
And bloom to the pallid cheek.
And all this for only $1 a
bottle, or six for $5, deliverable to any address.
 |
Another ad called Helmbold a “Practical
and Analytical Chemist” and showed Hottentots gathering buchu leaves in huge
bundles addressed to the doctor in New York.
Another praised the Extract as standing “like the Doric column … simple,
pure, and majestic, having fact for its basis, induction for its pillar, and
truth alone for its capital.”
What,
in fact, was this Extract of Buchu, and who was Henry T. Helmbold?
 |
| Agathosma betulina |
The Extract was made of the leaves of the
exotic buchu plant (yes, it really exists: Agathosma
betulina), plus cubebs (also known as Java pepper), licorice, caramel,
molasses, and a dash of peppermint.
Buchu was a plant growing in South Africa among the Hottentots, who had
long used it as a medicine and cosmetic, rubbing the powdered leaves on their
skin to impart a fragrance akin to peppermint.
It had reached this country by 1840 and was listed in the Pharmacopeia as a stimulant producing
diuresis (in other words, it helped you urinate).
 |
| Helmbold |
Henry T. Helmbold had begun his business
career in his native Philadelphia as a retail druggist without even a degree in
pharmacy and with capital, so he later said, of fifty cents. His life changed one day in 1850 when, at age
24, he discovered buchu and, in a fit of inspiration, began producing his
extract in a rented basement. Advertising
in local newspapers, he was immediately and even wildly successful and in 1863
transferred his genial presence from the City of Brotherly Love to the
turbulent, growing, and infinitely exciting city of New York.
3. Through grandiose speeches and gestures, whip
the people’s interest up to a fever pitch.
Let us join the crowds on busy Broadway on
a morning in the late 1860s. Among the
flux of carriages, drays, stages, express trucks piled high with luggage, lager
beer wagons, and milk carts with clattering cans, there suddenly appears a handsome
barouche ornamented in gold and pulled by three high-stepping horses in tandem,
the head of each adorned with violets.
Suddenly, at a command from the black coachman, the horses rear up on
their hind legs together, a stunning sight to see. Then, as the shiny black carriage approaches
a palatial establishment at 594 Broadway, where crowds are waiting to witness
its arrival, the barouche comes to a halt, and from its depths, attended by
footmen in livery, steps a small, fashionably dressed man with a lustrous black
beard and topped by a dark silk hat.
Nervous and energetic, he walks briskly toward the huge glass doors of
no. 594, which open as if by magic to admit him to its sumptuous depths. Henry T. Helmbold, king of the patent
medicine men, has arrived at his Temple of Pharmacy.
Yes, an obviously grandiose gesture, well
calculated to seize the public’s attention.
But inside the spacious, high-ceilinged store the royal progress continues. Passing uniformed clerks at their counters
and attendants and bookkeepers and managers who greet him deferentially, the
sovereign of the Temple of Pharmacy proceeds to the back of the store and a
small private office with a sign above the glass door announcing SANCTUM
SANCTORUM, inside which his desk awaits him, and a bust of himself in an exotic wood. The door closes, silence; inside,
the doctor is communing with his Muse, or whatever source inspires him in his
tireless promotion of Extract of Buchu.
 |
| Helmbold's pharmacy at 594 Broadway. |
Always in pursuit of the grandiose, Dr.
Helmbold (a self-imposed title) had spent a fortune building his Temple of
Pharmacy, installing sarcophagus soda
fountains, floor-to-ceiling mirrors, monogrammed gas globes, marble floors with
his initials inlaid in brass, perfume-dispensing fountains, and canaries singing
in their cages. Atop the roof was a
full-rigged ship, supposedly Helmbold’s own yacht dismantled and reassembled
there, but in fact a dummy with masts, spars, and rigging.
So “buchuful” an edifice on Broadway drew
multitudes of citizens, among them such luminaries as Boss Tweed, robber barons
Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, Commodore
Vanderbilt (the richest man in America, known endearingly as “Old Sixty
Millions”), John Jacob Astor III (there was a slew of moneyed Astors), and New York Herald publisher
James Gordon Bennett. Sightseers from
the hinterland made a point of visiting the emporium, hoping as much to get a
glimpse of the doctor himself as to revel in the luxury of his establishment. In short, he dazzled the city and the nation.
4. Get their money.
He did, and in no small amount, for at the
peak of his career he is said to have been earning a million dollars a year,
and by 1869 he was spending $500,000 a year on advertising. He lived in a residence at 156 West 14th
Street (though some sources say Fifth Avenue), where his entertainments of the press and drug trade were catered by
Delmonico’s. His stable at 142 West 17th
Street housed from 18 to 20 carriage and saddle horses, all Kentucky-bred.
In
1868 Helmbold bought a summer residence in Long Branch, the nation’s summer
capital frequented in season by President Ulysses S. Grant himself and members
of his cabinet, and other stellar figures from the worlds of politics and
finance. Thereafter, the doctor’s elegant
four-in-hand was at times graced by the cigar-smoking President himself. But Helmbold also built a whole row of
business houses on Ocean Avenue and Broadway, following which that location
became known as Helmbold’s Block. All in
all, then, his was the life of a multimillionaire typical of the Gilded Age,
but more flamboyant.
5. Satisfy their need, if you can. But above all, get their money.
Yes, he got their money, but did he
satisfy their need? Of course not, no
more than any patent medicine man ever did.
In a signed affidavit he swore that his extract contained no narcotic,
no mercury, or any other injurious drug, being purely vegetable in
content. So no one got genteelly high on
his product, as they did on some other nostrums with a significant alcoholic
content. But even if buchu and cubebs
had the medicinal value that tradition assigned them, there is no reason to
think that Helmbold’s Extract of Buchu was in any way beneficial. It did no harm, but neither did it do any
good, except to Helmbold’s bank
account.
So much for Helmbold the con man, but
there is more to his story. One senses
in his flamboyance, his grandiose gestures and fanatical promotion of his extract, a certain compulsiveness, even an obsession. He became an alcoholic, though apparently a
binge drinker who between bouts was rational and sane. In 1871 he took his wife and children on a
tour of Europe and the Orient, and in Paris on July 4, 1872, he invited all
Americans in the city to be his guest at a reception said to have cost $19,000
for wine, flowers, and other incidentals.
Among the guests on that occasion was the Shah of Persia, who came to
pay his respects. But his lavish
spending was accompanied by increasingly eccentric behavior and, finally,
irrational outbursts of rage over the slightest trifles, and even an attempt to
kill his wife. As a result, the seer of buchu was confined to an insane asylum.
Meanwhile back in America
there was an attempt by his brother Albert L. Helmbold to get possession of his
business. What exactly happened is
unclear, but on September 13, 1872, the free-spending Henry T. Helmbold was
declared bankrupt, and the Temple of Pharmacy was padlocked. In the words of an associate, Helmbold was
“often crazy drunk,” and as a result he was declared insane and confined to an
asylum, first in Paris and then, when he managed to return to this country,
over here. His brother Albert brought
suit, claiming title to and use of the Extract, and furthermore alleging that
Henry was a lunatic. But in 1877 the
Supreme Court of New York State denied Albert’s claim and found no hard
evidence of Henry’s insanity. In that
same year of 1877 Henry, now at liberty, published a book entitled Am I a Lunatic? Or, Dr. Henry T. Helmbold’s
Exposure of His Personal Experience in the Lunatic Asylums of Europe and
America. But the New York Times of May 2, 1878, announced
in bold letters
HELMBOLD AGAIN RAVING; HE IS
ATTACKED BY DELIRIUM TREMENS
IN A STRAIT-JACKET AND STRAPPED
TO A BED IN BELLEVUE HOSPITAL.
Obviously, Helmbold’s path back to
sobriety was a long and tortuous one
with many relapses – seven, according to an associate – during which he
was given to grandiose delusions, including the intention to get himself
nominated as a candidate for President to run again Ulysses S. Grant. But in 1881, when he was confined to a
hospital in Norristown, Pennsylvania, his wife assured the court that he was
perfectly sane and anxious to return to his family, having long abstained from
alcohol and promised never to drink again.
In time, he was released.
Even his end is a bit of a mystery. According to associates, he died on September
12, 1892, at his home in Long Branch.
But a New York Times article
of October 25 announced that he had died suddenly the day before in New
Jersey’s State Asylum for the Insane, and that his body was at an undertaker’s
establishment awaiting the orders of his family, who so far had failed to
respond to the telegraphic notice. All
in all, an enigmatic and grandiose existence, hard to match except on the stage
or in a madhouse. But a forgotten
one. I have found no mention of him in The Encyclopedia of New York or Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, both of them voluminous sources.
Should one include among the bunco artists
and con men of nineteenth-century America the railroad men who, even as
Helmbold was touting his Extract of Buchu, were busy promoting their
enterprises? Wall Street was usually
where these schemes were hatched, but they inspired hopes and visions
everywhere. Let’s see how the promise of
a railroad affected one small community some fifty miles north of New York
City. Here the emphasis will be, not on
the often nameless promoters, but on the community itself, as recorded in old
issues of the Putnam County Courier.
1. Find something that vast numbers of people
need, or think they need.
In the mid-nineteenth century the village
of Carmel, the county seat of Putnam County since the county's creation in 1812, found
itself in the sorry state of being connected to the outside world only by stage
lines, whereas the upstart village of Brewster, a mere five miles away, had
mushroomed out of nowhere with the coming of the New York & Harlem Railroad
in 1849, when a depot was built on the site. Shrewd local speculators had bought up farmland, and on those lands houses, stores, and factories had sprung up, all made possible by the
village’s connection by rail to that metropolis some fifty miles to the south. In that exuberant age when the
completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 had spawned a host of
railroad projects in the distant and desolate West, how could the citizens of
Carmel not dream also of a railroad to connect them with the rest of the
nation, and most specifically with the city of New York? Here then was a potent need waiting to be
fulfilled.
2. Offer a product or service to satisfy that
need.
In 1869 word came that something called
the New York & Boston Railroad was projecting a line from New York City
north to Carmel and then to Brewster, where it would connect with the New York
& Harlem line. This, citizens
were told, was a grandiose plan conceived by some “big-brained men” who “meant business.” Monkey business? No, real business, as was explained in detail
to a meeting of citizens in a hotel at nearby Lake Mahopac, another community
to be served by the railroad. There, on
August 14, four directors of the railroad described the projected route and
invited subscriptions of stock. The
chairman of the meeting was the Reverend William S. Clapp, a respected Baptist
minister and the most prominent clergyman in the county, while financier Daniel
Drew, the local boy who had made good on Wall Street, was in attendance and informed
the railroad that it could run through any of his farms in the area free of
charge. No one present doubted the
success of the enterprise.
The question now was whether or not other
landowners would follow Daniel Drew’s example and give the railroad right of
way across their land, for if they failed to do so, the hoped-for railroad
might bypass Carmel altogether – the fear that always haunted communities
yearning for a railroad. But soon the Putnam County Courier could report that
seven-eighths of the local landowners along the route had given their land to
the company, prompting the paper to announce, “Such liberality is without
precedent in the history of railroads.”
3. Through grandiose speeches and gestures, whip
the people’s interest up to a fever pitch.
The railroad men had no need of the
grandiose gestures of Helmbold, for the mere promise of a rail connection to
the outside world dazzled the good folk of Carmel, who whipped themselves up to
a fever pitch. Prominent in the campaign
was the Courier itself.
4. Get their money.
The railroad’s demands were
substantial. It required no less than
$100,000, a sum to be raised by subscriptions of stock. Nearly half that amount had been raised by
mid-November 1869, when meetings of citizens were being held nightly, and
committees named to urge immediate action by those interested. If the railroad was to pass through Carmel,
the full sum had to be obtained, and obtained quickly; another $37,000 was
needed, and yet some big local property owners were holding back. “Now or never!” declared the Courier.
Then, on November 24, another meeting of citizens was held in a
Carmel hotel, and a resolution was passed to pay the railroad the amount
subscribed in 10% installments, each when another tenth of the work had been
completed, an arrangement that suggests that the citizens’ enthusiasm was being
seasoned with a touch of practicality, or even canniness. Fortunately, the
railroad agreed.
5. Satisfy their need, if you can. But above all, get their money.
Early in 1870 engineers appeared in the
vicinity of Carmel to make a final survey of the route. Then, on February 14, ground was broken for
the line in spite of a pelting rain.
Flags flew along the main thoroughfare and from the dome of the Ladies
Seminary, and church bells rang. Rain or
no rain, a procession marching to the site included the Carmel Brass Band,
clergy, orators, journalists, company officers, engineers and their
instruments, stockholders and citizens, and railroad laborers with picks and
shovels. After a solemn prayer, the
Reverend Clapp was chosen by unanimous vote to break ground and remove the
first shovelful of earth. The Reverend,
a hefty gentleman with a bushy walrus mustache, was more than up to the job, following
which the meeting was adjourned to his elegant carriage house, where food was
provided to all, as well as speeches by the Reverend and others. Finally, the soggy participants gave three
cheers for the New York & Boston Railroad.
Clearly, Carmel’s dream was coming true.
The Courier
of September 10, 1870, reported that 80% of the railroad was now completed
in Putnam County, but on November 25, 1871, a whole year later, it could only
report that work was continuing, with the new line due to commence operation
the following summer. Meanwhile the
railroad was undergoing a bewildering series of name changes, becoming the New
York, Boston & Northern Railway in November 1872, and then the New York,
Boston & Montreal Railway in January 1873. Happily, the Courier of May 4,
1872, quoted an ad from the New York
Commercial Advertiser of April 26 reporting that work on the line to
Montreal was under way, despite opposite from Commodore Vanderbilt, aka Old
Eighty Millions, who wanted no competition for his New York Central line. “These are indeed gigantic schemes,” said the
Commercial Advertiser, “but they are
no grander than the times demand…. Only
a little longer can an old fogy generation seal up this metropolis…. It is manifest destiny – you cannot dam up
the Bosphorus – you cannot dam up the Empire City.” So little Carmel would be linked not only to
New York City but also to distant Montreal; manifest destiny indeed.
 |
| What the citizens of Carmel longed for and finally got. |
Work on the railroad suffered a long
interruption when winter came, but construction resumed in May 1873. On the morning of September 4 the shrill
whistle of a locomotive was heard for the first time in Carmel, as a train
arrived from Brewster, signaling the completion not of the whole line, but of
the all-important segment linking Brewster and Carmel. A direct connection between Carmel and all
other important points on the line was expected by the summer of 1874, at which
point manifest destiny would finally be fulfilled.
Alas, destiny received a rude jolt in
September 1873, when failures on Wall Street precipitated a financial
convulsion that would come to be known as the Panic of 1873. Stocks plunged, trust officers vanished into
fairyland, bankruptcies multiplied, factories shut down, railroads failed,
thousands were thrown out of work, and the whole nation was plunged into a
six-year depression. By late November
the Courier reported that all work on
the almost completed railroad had
ceased, with hopes that the suspension was temporary. But when, in August 1874, the railroad’s
treasurer came to Carmel and announced that work would resume shortly, the Courier confessed to a faint memory of
having heard this before. More rumors
followed, and more reorganizations. In
1877 the New York, Boston & Montreal Railway became the New York,
Westchester & Putnam Railway, the grandiose project of reaching Montreal
having mysteriously disappeared.
Whatever its name, the long-promised and much-delayed railroad finally
opened on December 23, 1880, with the first train carrying six passengers and
thirty-nine cans of milk – a modest enough achievement for a line once
projected to reach all the way to Canada.
Still, Carmel at last had its rail connection, a mere thirty-one years
after Brewster got the same. Destiny
had, after a fashion, been achieved.
For a while. When, in the 1970s, I began researching a
biography of Daniel Drew and needed to consult county records and the Putnam County Courier in Carmel, no
railroad could take me there. Instead, I
had to take the Harlem line to Brewster and then continue to Carmel by
taxi. How could this be? The answer became apparent when, at 5 p.m.,
having finished my day’s research in Carmel, I was ready to taxi back to
Brewster, and witnessed in the center of Carmel a traffic jam every bit as bad
as traffic jams in New York. The
automobile had long since supplanted the railroad.
Should the “big-brained men” who promised
a rail connection to Carmel and hit its citizens for thousands of dollars be
classified as bunco artists and con men?
No, they really meant to build their railroad, and that railroad, when
it finally began operation, was a tangible thing of iron and steel. This, I suspect, was the case with most
railroad promoters of those giddy times prior to the Panic of 1873, even if no
track was ever laid. If they were con
men, they were conning not just the public but themselves, and that’s the worst kind of con there is.
And
who are the bunco artists of today? Your
guess is as good as mine. Off the top of
my head I propose the following:
1.
Hedge fund
managers
2.
Big Pharma
3.
The military
industrial complex
4.
Psychiatrists
5.
Politicians
#2 and #4 often work together, inventing
all kinds of new syndromes that #2 can allegedly treat. As for #3, all these wars that never seem to
end. And for #5, conning the public –
and sometimes oneself – is an inherent part of the game. Am I being cynical? No, just realistic. And what are our needs that these good folk
promise to fulfill? Wealth, health,
security, a better life. We will always
crave these things, and someone will always be on hand to promise them. And rarely, very rarely, someone will
actually deliver.
A New York vignette: Last Sunday, as I was lunching in a little
Indian restaurant on Bleecker Street, out the window I could see these
establishments across the street:
· Caliente Cab Co. / Tequila Bar
· Kumo Sushi
· Fish / Raw Bar / Fish
· John’s Pizzeria / Since 1929
· Ramen Thukpa
The cab company is, of
course, a Mexican bar. The first four
are juxtaposed along Bleecker. Ramen
Thukpa, visible in the distance across Seventh Avenue, was for me a mystery at
the time, but now, thanks to quickie online research, I know it to be a
Japanese and Tibetan restaurant. Once
again, diversity.
And that is truly New York.
One more touch of New York: As I looked out the window while lunching, a
panhandler stationed himself on the sidewalk outside. He was a bearded older man in a jacket and
jeans, wearing a tassel-topped knit cap that said NEW YORK. He accosted
passersby while flaunting a sign:
VET NEEDS FOOD
AND BUS FARE
HOME
I DON’T TALK
DC
And he didn’t talk, though
anyone who gave him some spare change was greeted with a smile and a
thumbs-up. At one point he noticed me
watching from the restaurant and gave me also a smile and a thumbs-up. I was going to give him something when I
left, but by then he had disappeared.
There was a time when, like most people, I would have walked past
without acknowledging him, but in my old age I’ve gotten soft; I’m now more
likely to give than not to give, and to add a friendly “hello” as well. But this is New York, so I’ll probably never
see him again. He looked authentic; I
hope he’ll get some food and get home.
WBAI and WNYC: As followers of this blog know, I listen to
both these listener-supported radio stations.
WBAI, having just failed to meet its goal in a fund drive, has immediately
launched another fund drive – which is almost without precedent. Soon it will have fund drives going year
round, without interruption. They are,
of course, desperate. Their loyal base
of contributors is shrinking, and they’re constantly changing programs to hook
more listeners, but so far it doesn’t seem to be working. Some of the changes are good, but when you
tune in, you have no idea what you’ll hear.
Last night I encountered a spiel for “neuro design engineering” and
“transitional hypnosis.” For a
contribution of $150 you could be instructed in these mysteries, which will
change your life. In fact, you will be
certified in them and can start your own consulting business charging $150 an
hour. Some of those participating have
already snagged their first clients at that princely hourly sum – hurrah! Which reminds me of those online ministerial
schools that will give you a quickie ministerial degree allowing you to claim
all the benefits of clergy – and there are many, including tax breaks – allowed
by law. When I’d heard enough of this
exuberant spiel, I switched to WNYC, which is offering a series of very moving
reminiscences by family members and significant others of all the pedestrians
who died recently in traffic accidents in the city. My personal conclusion: score one, and a big
one, for WNYC.
Coming soon: Sotheby’s and Christie’s and Bunny and Andy, and Who Goes to Jail and Who Doesn't.
©
2014 Clifford Browder
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