Newspapers Hoaxed

Newspapers throughout the country, including The New York Times of Jan. 31, 1924, gave publicity recently to the announcement that one Pierson Worrall Banning of Los Angeles had been awarded -L-2,500 as the Major Award of the Benjamin Franklin Fund for a book on Mental and Spiritual Healing. The announcement also said that Charles P. Steinmetz got the second award of -L-1,000 for a privately published treatise The Nervous System as a Conductor of Electrical Energy and that a minor award had gone to a Japanese living in Tokyo. It was said that Banning's book had been submitted for the award by "Dr. Franklin C. Wells, Medical Director of the Equitable Life Insurance Co."

The Journal of the American Medical Association, after an investigation "does not hesitate to express the opinion that the so-called Benjamin Franklin Fund does not exist and that the alleged major award to Banning is as big a hoax as the resurrection stunt at the Albany County Hospital." The latter allusion refers to a former incident in which Banning was involved. During the summer of 1923 newspaper editors received four typewritten pages, legal size, purporting to come from the Albany Chamber of Commerce. It dealt with the "most remarkable case in modern medical science" that had recently happened" at the County Hospital at Albany." The story was to the effect that "Dr. J. T. Everheart," who was in charge of the County Hospital at Albany had just announced that one, Margaret Cooper who died in the hospital had been brought to life by a Mrs. Elizabeth Smith. Mrs. Smith's stunt in producing the resurrection had been performed after reading Banning's book. The Chamber of Commerce of Albany repudiated the report and characterized it as "semi-malicious publicity matter." Investigation showed that there exists no such person as Dr. J. T. Everheart.

Incidentally, all involved in the present story with the exception of Banning are dead, except the Japanese in Tokyo who cannot be located.