WHOSE

CAMPAIGN?

For many years Bernarr Macfadden and his retinue have been entertaining the public with a diverting, if slightly incredible series of tableaux, richly furnished with all of the grotesqueries of some medieval peep-show.

ONE is not the only publication to turn a spotlight on these vivid characters. In its issue of August 22, 1953, our distinguished colleague The New Yorker gave a delightful account of an episode from the recent mayoralty campaign in New York City, telling of a visit to the Macfadden campaign headquarters in the Hotel Woodstock. The reporter there encountered the worthy Dr. Mathews himself, who said,

"I am Dr. A. G. Mathews, the noted research expert,

I have been associated with Bernarr Macfadden for eighteen years, and during that time I have attained a certain fame of my own by exposing the dreadful fact that the jails and mental hospitals of this country are crowded to the rafters with innocent people who have been railroaded into them by unscrupulous doctors and district attorneys of unspeakable venality-

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Now that he had an audience he might have gone on indefinitely, but it was Macfadden who really was the political candidate, wasn't it? Despite valiant attempts to assume a more suitable public relations stance and hew strictly to the line of politics, Dr. Mathews apparently could not long keep away from that most interesting of topics, Dr. Mathews. Somehow, things got out of hand again.

"I myself was in Florida at that time, though on another matter, trying to secure the indictment of a sheriff, a district attorney, and a judge," Dr. Mathews said. "The run-around I—”

We will never know what revelations might have come out of this verbal autobiography, which gave promise of rising to some great climax, for again there was rude interruption. But don't sell Dr. Mathews short you can't keep a good man down.

-

"I believe I forgot to tell you that I am the author of that popular book, "Take It Easy," Dr. Mathews said. "A delightful—”

Here, we entirely lose his voice. Perhaps it is still talking, talking, talking...

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