Excerpts from The Official History of Chiropractic in Texas
By Dr. Walter R. Rhodes
Published by Texas Chiropractic Association, 303 International Life Building, Austin, TX 78701.As authorized by the various Boards of Directors of the Texas Chiropractic Association from 1958 to 1977, the idea first being presented to the board by E. L. Bauknight in 1958.
These excerpts are presented for educational purposes.
A wagon wheel running a bit wide on the axle attracts attention the other three do not. It may squeak and wobble or may quietly leave a distinctive track, but it can never be doubted that it deserves – yea, requires – extra attention.
The profession of chiropractic has had men who rode a little wide on the axle. Some have gotten the attention they deserved while still living, but others have not.
The Boone brothers, Roy and Oliver, were certainly among the attention getters. But they were as different as night and day except in one respect: they each had what can only be called “personality plus.”
Dr. Clyde W. Bennett, now practicing in Littlefield, Texas, married Dr. Oliver Boone’s daughter but his memories of Oliver are warm far beyond family ties.
Oliver, it seems, had a love in his heart for Lubbock’s Texas Tech, now a giant among Texas’ educational institutions, but then a small, struggling school which constantly needed help from the local Chamber of Commerce, the Kiwanis Clubs, and other civic organizations. Oliver, usually working through one of these groups, put on magic shows to aid and publicize the college.
But they weren’t ordinary shows as one might expect from amateur magicians because Dr. Boone, although he maintained amateur status, was extraordinary in his performance, rating very high among professional magicians.
He was usually billed as an escape artist, freeing himself from handcuffs, locked trunks, chained-up boxes, and restraining clothing. But his really exciting act began when he got out his pistol and began shooting spots off playing cards – which were being held in someone’s hands a few yards away. And he shot objects off the tops of their heads, and he did other remarkable exhibitions of marksmanship – all the while facing away from his targets. He sometimes used mirrors to sight with but on other occasions looked back over his shoulder as he blasted away.
Dr. Sam Daniel of Stephenville, Texas, described another of Boone’s acts in which he drove an automobile, blindfolded, from Ft. Worth’s downtown courthouse on a route leading far out Hemphill St. to the south edge of town, a distance of several miles.
The blindfold had been put on securely by several leading citizens of Ft. Worth who had been very careful to leave him no more than breathing space and then rode in the open car with him, filled with amazement the whole journey.
People placed objects in the roadway, while others laid down in the street as Boone slowly weaved his way among them, missing them all, and observing stop signs and red lights along the way. It was quite a feat and received widespread publicity in what is now the metroplex of Texas.
Boone traveled widely in this capacity as volunteer goodwill man for Texas Tech but he also, of course, spread an equal amount of good will on behalf of the chiropractic profession merely because he was one.
He loved people and people loved him. Dr. Bennett relates that it was quite an experience to be with Dr. Boone as he went down the street, greeting most everyone he saw by name and enquiring about them and their interests. Even his competitors in the medical world respected him, according to Dr. Daniel, and frequently sent him patients, especially for the surgical technique on hemorrhoids which Boone had developed and reqularly practiced in his Lubbock office.
In addition, Dr. Boone preached for the Church of Christ, mostly serving small congregations which couldn’t afford a regular minister, and was widely known in the capacity over a large part of West Texas until his death at age 64 in 1949.
Dr. Roy Boone was Oliver’s alcoholic brother. And he left a wide track too. Roy practiced for a short while in Lubbock with his brother but was farmed out temporarily to another West Texas office when his drinking problem became impossible to keep from patients.
He finally returned to Stephenville and, later, to Ft. Worth in which places he practiced most of his active years. (It was to Dr. Roy Boone’s office, far out on S. Hemphill St., that Oliver had driven the car blindfolded during the Ft. Worth exhibition.)
Roy had lost a hand in an automobile accident, which occurred when he was drunk. The loss of the hand disturbed him greatly and he went to visit Dr. Willard Carver in Oklahoma City to discuss the future. Carver assured him he could adjust with one hand as well as two, perhaps better if he applied himself. Roy, encouraged, developed techniques which are still fondly remember today by residents of Stephenville and Ft. Worth any years after his death.
This being remembered respectfully is an interesting thing in its own right. Few alcoholics are remembered with a great sense of loss but, for a certainty, Dr. Roy Boone was a well loved individual after his death and, even more unusual, was well respected even during the throes of his alcoholic hey days.
When Roy was drunk he was a fighter indeed. On one occasion in Lubbock, he was arrested for public drunkenness – but not before injuring one of the arresting officers.
The next day he learned of his deed, asked to see the officer and apologized for the trouble he had caused. He invited the man into his cell, examined and treated him and made friends with him. Upon release he soon began treating several members of the police department and a few of the local officials, especially Judge George Berry who was counted as a close friend. The Judge was an ex-legislator and counselor for the American Legion, among his other activities, and he credited Roy with keeping him from being a permanent cripple.
When Roy went on a drinking binge in Stephenville and had been jailed, his patients often went there for treatment as soon as he had sobered up, or asked the sheriff to release him early because they needed his services. Such requests were usually well considered because he also regularly treated the sheriff’s wife and constantly bragged on her biscuits, she being the cook for the jail, and claimed they were the best biscuits in Erath County, and he ought to know, he would laughingly confirm, since he had eaten so many of them.
He drove the biggest Hudson automobile he could buy and had a special trunk built on. The big prestigious cars were status symbols and advertising in those days, and became especially effective when he put two spare tires on the back which increased its already considerable length. He was definitely a standout in Erath County. But he really didn’t need the car. He practiced in Ft. Worth’s Worth Building for several years and is remembered affectionately by Lloyd Ellis, the postman who delivered Boone’s mail. Ellis remembered taking Boone home in order to sober him up many times when the Ellis family needed treatment. This was in 1927-28 and Ellis spoke of Boone with great admiration as he was reacting the incident shortly before his death at the age of 86.
While the political struggles for recognition in the legislature of Texas were beginning and being guided by men more or less in the professional limelight, Dr. Harvey H. Kennedy of Longview, Dr. Walter Fischer of Temple, Drs. Charles and Lee Lemly of Waco, and many others being examples, there was a rather quiet process going on which ultimately made legislative success a viable possibility.
This process was the gaining of respectability for the chiropractic profession. It would not have been easy under the best of circumstances but when the medical fraternity, with its attendant prestige and sophistication, spent a large amount of time and money shouting quack, charlatan and unscientific ignoramuses, then the process took longer.
While professional results in the form of satisfied patients played a large part in this process, we must also pause to give credit to the activities of outstanding chiropractors outside their offices who contributed mightily to this public acceptance which was so desperately needed to be seen by the legislators before they would dare cast the votes the chiropractors wanted. No right thinking legislator would risk his future by affirming an unpopular cause, and even if the chiropractic lobbyists were articulate and convincing to the legislator himself, it still would make no difference if the people in the district he represented objected.
This needed base of respect and support came, of course, from patients, patient’s families and friends but, by itself, that number would never be enough.
There had to be warmth, approval, and support from great masses of voters, many of whom had never been to a chiropractor’s office for professional services.
Dr. Oliver Boone gained much support of this type by his activities as a preacher in West Texas. Dr. C. W. Bennett relates that Oliver was widely known because of his preaching regularly over many years. The respect he indirectly gained for the profession must have been considerable although it would forever remain an immeasurable factor. And however one cares to explain it, Dr. Roy Boone also was a powerful force for acceptance in those years.
Meanwhile Dr. H. O. Green, formerly an instructor at the Texas Chiropractic College in San Antonio, who was let go because the school had fallen on hard financial times following the 1929 Wall Street crash, went into practice in Bonham, Texas.
Over the next 18 years, in addition to his practice, he also preached for the Church of Christ, occupying the pulpit at Shannon, northeast of Sherman for twelve years, at Ivanhoe two years, at Lemasco two years and Trenton for ten months and at several other congregations for variable periods of time.
Dr. J. R. Drain, in first the Methodist and later the Baptist church, and Homer Utz, both of San Antonio, were known as regular and staunch in their religion. Dr. H. E. Turley and Dr. Herb Turley also of San Antonio and both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, commonly called Mormons, were known far and wide in their group. Dr. H E. Weiser first worked as a Methodist and later joined the Presbyterian church with his wife. In Abilene Dr. Ralph E. Perkins was regularly preaching for the Baptist church – and the influence of such chiropractors was steadily growing.
Perkins, practicing in Herford, had established, a chiropractic college there also but sent the students to other schools and sold the equipment when he decided to enter the ministry, earning the Th.B. and the B. R. E. degrees from the Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth.
He labored as a military chaplain for a time, then served several churches and practices over the next few years, finally settling in Abilene with Hardin Simmons University from which he resigned when he went into full time practice and part time pastoring again.
Other names in this honorable list will include Dr. Dr. J. P. Dale of Fredericksburg and Dr. Crawford of Lewisville.
Perhaps the most outstanding in this category would be Dr. Raymond R. Rhodes of Ft. Worth, Texas, who preached for the Church of Christ in the North Central area of Texas for more than 25 years both before and after his graduation from Carver Chiropractic College.
Dr. Rhodes had one unusual record in that he preached for 728 consecutive Sundays; remarkable chiefly because he did not preach for one congregation but for many, usually confining his work, as did Dr. H. O. Green, to those congregations which could not afford a full time preacher. His influence ranged from Waco in the south, to Myrtle Springs and Canton in the east, Bovina in the west, and Frederick, Oklahoma to the north.
In Tarrant, Somerville, and Johnson counties there were very few Churches of Christ which had not heard him preach on numerous occasions and all, of course, knew he made his living from his chiropractic practice. He often drove 200 to 350 miles on Sundays, then back to work Monday morning.
To properly appreciate his influence one must consider the number of people who knew him and still remember him as a preacher, a kind human being and a chiropractor in Rhome, Boyd, Bedrid, Highland Park, Roanoke, Riverside, Brazos, Nemo, Bono, Briar, Azle, Myrtle Springs, Canton, Glen Rose, Alvarado, Cleburne, Joshua, Cresol, Fall Creek, twenty or more congregations in metropolitan Ft. Worth, two in Grand Prairie, three or more in Arlington, and others too numerous to mention or too distant in the memory to remember.
He died on April 28, 1973, on a Saturday evening, having taught his regular adult class the preceding Sunday at Roanoke, some 25 miles distant. For several months he had found it necessary to carry portable oxygen to be able to make the journey but the people of Roanoke wouldn’t have dreamed of having any one else for a teacher as long as he was alive. Byron Nelson, of golfing fame, rearranged a busy schedule to show his respect by being a pallbearer at his funeral. His traditions were to be carried on in both fields although he didn’t know it at the time of his death. One son, Walter, became a chiropractor, another, Dale, went into the ministry in 1978, several years after his father’s death.
Another man who contributed to the growing influence of chiropractic was Dr. George S. Cotton of Temple who followed the usual route for a while, then nosed ahead in a very unique manner.
Dr. Cotton, graduating from Texas Chiropractic College in 1926, put in 50 years of practice in Temple. He has maintained a large practice – as have Drs. Walter and A. M. Fischer – in one of the largest medical centers of Texas, Temple being the home of the famed Scott and White Hospital, with little or no friction of note with the local medical doctors.
Activity by Dr. Cotton as a member of the local school board, the Temple Chamber of Commerce and the First Methodist Church provided him with personal acquaintances with his competitors in which the early potential frictions soon disappeared.
Two ladies helped him build his reputation locally. Mrs. Alma Bennet, then Alma Hallmark, had bowel and kidney failure so severe she was judged by her treating M.D. to be far along toward death: so far along as a matter of fact, that he didn’t even care when the family suggested a chiropractor.
This condescending attitude made Dr. Cotton so furious he worked with uncommon fervency and along with the family, had greater gratitude when Alma began to recover. She still lives in Lubbock and occasionally contacts Dr. Cotton, now retired and mostly disabled, just to keep up old acquaintances.
The other lady, a Bohemian named Mrs. Nebealek, was given up to die by the Scott and White Hospital staff doctors and she also came to Dr. Cotton and managed a spectacular recovery – which again helped his local reputation among doctors and laity alike.
But the Dr. Cotton developed another talent: his sense of smell and ability to discern scents. His perfuming hobby soon won him world renown. He could make the finest perfumes known to womankind – a feat very few people in the entire world can accomplish.
His raw materials such as tree saps, flower extracts, roots, essences and oils were purchased from India, London, Devonshire, New York and other places the world over. The trick is in combining these pure ingredients in a pleasing way and then being able to duplicate it.
It was a time consuming and expensive hobby because the costly ingredients would have to be mixed, trial and error fashion, until he got the fragrance wanted in final form. Those familiar with perfumes will respond with delight to the names of Texas Belle, Shalimar, Christmas Night, Midnight Kiss and others, some of which were his original creations. Joy, originated by Mr. Papou of Paris, can now be acquired only from him, but Joy was created regularly by Dr. Cotton for many years. At $160.00 per ounce it is the world’s most expensive perfume.
The perfume mixtures are secret in the sense that the creator is the only one who knows the exact ingredients and the precise amounts. Only an elite few persons have the talent to take a perfume and separate its ingredients through the delicate sense of smell, and then reconstruct it by determining the relative amounts of each.
In addition to all this attention, and for an entirely different reason, the Cultural Arts Center of Temple has a library named after Dr. Cotton. He and his wife donated 1500 volumes, after assisting in its establishment, and it was named as a memorial to them in behalf of the people of Temple.
But these were not the only ways the chiropractors began distinguishing themselves. While chiropractors all over the state were being arrested by the dozens in 1937, Dr. F. F. Breazeale was elected mayor of Wink, Texas, besting the incumbent mayor by a healthy majority.
Dr. L. C. Renken, still practicing at age 78 in Miles, Texas, has relinquished that city’s reins as Mayor after holding the office for 7 years, but he keeps his hand in political things, still serving in his second term as Justice of the Peace. Dr. T. O. Davis of Liberty was named city councilman in 1940; Dr. R. G. Piner of Greenville was the first Texas chiropractor to be elected to the State Legislature – the same man who was jailed in June, 1937, on the usual charge.
These men all contributed to the success of chiropractic generally, and specifically to the future successes in the legislature, even though few, except Piner, ever spent time in Austin other than as an ordinary tourist. They were the oil on troubled waters and they, and other men like them, made it all possible.
But there are at least two more men who rode wide on the axle, and are more difficult to classify. One was belligerent, abrasive and enthusiastic Dr. David B. Teems, the Osage Indian who wasn’t happy if things were too peaceful. The other was Dr. H. C. Allison who couldn’t tolerate peace at all.
It was Teems who first interested Dr. M. L. Stanphill in chiropractic. Stanphill’s wife had been sickly for many years, probably with tuberculosis, and no medical procedure was helping her.
When Stanphill took his wife to Dr. Teems he accepted her case and said he’d already had eighteen cases of practicing medicine without a license filed against him and one more indictment couldn’t make a whole lot of difference. He said he sure would give it a try and he felt like he could help her some. And he did.
She soon became able to get up and around a bit and this was such an impressive improvement she made here husband promise to study chiropractic, which he later did in spite of great personal hardship. His wife died soon afterward but the Stanphills she left behind were destined to be strong forces for chiropractic in north Texas.
Dr. Stanphill relates that Dr. Teems had only the simplest equipment, actually homemade adjusting tables, in his office, which was a large two story house, where he and assistants, Drs. White and Dowdy, maintained a large practice.
One of his practices attracting the most attention was his habit of hiring chauffeurs to drive the two huge Packard limousines in which his patients were picked up and delivered. The luxury cars also met the Sherman interurbans regularly with free transportation for Teem’s patients, a practice assuredly not missed by the local medical doctors.
In May, 1916, Holland’s magazine reported that Dr. Teems had been charged with murder as well as practicing medicine without a license when one of his patients died. The article seemed fairly objective until the editors were taken to task by Dr. C. D. McKinney of Dallas in a letter dated May 12, 1916. He told them that the 16 month old child who died had previously been given up to die by her attending physicians.
The parents then sought out Dr. Teems who also offered no hope but agreed to do all he could if they would sign a paper releasing him of responsibility no matter what the outcome. They did sign it and Teems did all he could, but to no avail.
And the charges, Dr McKinney pointedly reminded them, were filed several months after the child’s burial.
The county attorney visited Teems about that time and told him the charges against him would be dropped if he left Texas, otherwise he’d send him to prison. Teems decided discretion was better than valor, Dr. Stanphill relates, and left for Springdale, Arkansas for a while but soon returned.
Teems was once pelted with eggs while walking the streets of Sherman, an event recalled by his sister-in-law, Mrs Lizzie Frazzle. She couldn’t remember the immediate reason for such emotional turmoil but thought the incident might have been connected with one of his several trials.
Dr. H. O. Green remembers Teems as an agitator, a man who, if left alone by the medical doctors, was soon needling them in the most abrasive possible way. Green said he must have spent half his time under indictment, on trial, or in prison. He was known to have adjusting tables set up in the jail. But at least one other good thing came from his rash mannerisms: Dr. David Hestand. Dr. David M. Hestand, M.D., graduate of Baylor Medical School, was neither friend nor admirer of Teems, but his sister was dying of tuberculosis and nothing being done by his colleagues or himself was making any progress on her behalf.
Dr. Teems name kept coming up. Teems kept making claims, almost daring Hestand to bring his sister in for chiropractic treatment. One can easily appreciate apprehension on the part of Dr. Hestand – Dr. Teems also recommended the memorable mixture of snuff and onions as a cure for syphilitic sores.
Finally it came to a challenge. Dr. Hestand brought his sister in for treatment but faith was certainly lacking. He said that if she got well he’d become a chiropractor and one would suspect he said it with great sarcasm. But she did improve and Dr. Hestand did keep his challenge.
His sister was so improved and Dr. Hestand so impressed that he soon entered the Carver Chiropractic College in Oklahoma City, graduated from an abbreviated 6 months’ courses (because of his medical background) and practiced – and was a staunch supporter of chiropractic – along with the practice of medicine all the rest of his days.
Dr. Hestand, after graduation from Carver Chiropractic College, first returned to Sherman but his former colleagues in medicine made life so uncomfortable he soon went to Houston where he specialized in the treatment of malignancies. He was frequently called by the chiropractors as an expert witness in trials around the state, and was often a lecturer at chiropractic gatherings. He spoke at the 1937 Chiropractic Convention in Galveston on, “Symptoms and Diagnosis of Cancer in Early Stages."
Teems was almost certainly the first chiropractor in North Texas and may have been the first in Texas, although that is unlikely because Palmer graduates were almost certain to have drifted down earlier. He was a Carver Chiropractic College graduate and a classmate of Dr. Clyde Keeler of Dallas, one of the most respected chiropractors in Texas. Dr. Keeler enrolled in college in March, 1908 and Dr. Teems may have been an upper classman. The exact year of his arrival in Texas is difficult to pinpoint although it was before 1907 because Dr. Joe Busby of Abilene gives Teems credit for interesting him in the new profession. He was then in Sherman. When Teems left Sherman his practice was taken over by Dr. E. F. Capshaw, a 1906 Carver graduate who had practiced a while in El Reno, Oklahoma.
His legacy was a difficult act to follow. The Drs. Stanphill, three of them, found the elected officials’ mode to be against chiropractors in the area and the Capshaws, Dr. E. F. and Dr. R. E., and were faced with 21 indictments and several trials before they were able to work and live in peace.
Dr. M. L. Stanphill was threatened by local officials on several occasions before he finally convinced them to leave him alone. He and his sons, Dr. A. L. Stanphill of Sherman and Dr. V. C. Stanphill of Denison (among other chiropractors) have finally put the track of Dr. David B. Teems far behind.
Periodic waves of arrests and trials were more the rule than the exception in the 1920s and 1930s and the scenes ranged from Wichita Falls, El Paso, the Valley area, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, and the border between Texas and Oklahoma at Sherman–Denison. But there was an oasis of good will in central Texas which was a blessing indeed. Centering perhaps in Stephenville, where the only arrests were of Dr. Roy Boone, because of his drunken sprees, and enveloping Miles, Hamilton, Smithville, LaGrange and extending into Ft. Worth, the good will for chiropractors has been a remarkable trait.
Local elected officials in Stephenville, Hamilton and Smithville for example, were known to have refused to cooperate with the Texas Rangers when one assigned that duty came to make arrests in cooperation with local medical authorities.
There was only one section of the area that chiropractors would consider prone to injustice or harassment and that was Cleburne, the scene of at least three trials. The reasons for all the peace and good will are probably as complimentary to the medical, legal, and business fraternities as to the chiropractors themselves.
There was one well publicized exception in Ft. Worth, however, and he paled all the rest of the rough edged, controversial men. He was the angry one among chiropractors, Dr. H. C. Allison, who seemed to antagonize everyone with a uniform personality which always invited a fight.
His story ended on Saturday, April 24, 1976, in Rio Vista, Texas, south of Cleburne when his son John Henry Allison, shot him in the side and killed him with several witnesses looking on, after Allison had sprayed his wife, son and daughter-in-law with a chemical deterrent during an argument over the removal of personal effects. The Allison’s were divorcing and the judge had directed him and his wife, Ella Mae, to divide their personal property. Death, more than likely, brought the first peace Allison had known since infancy.
One of his first acquaintances with the courts came in the 1920s when he was hauled into Federal Court, Charged with violating the Mann Act and bigamy. In court he confessed that he had brought a girl under 18 from Oklahoma to Ft. Worth and married her although both he and the girl knew he was already married. Allison claimed the girl’s father had threatened to kill him if he didn’t marry her, a story which must have been believed by the judge because the marriage was annulled and Allison fined $100.00.
Dr. Allison was successful at stirring strife and controversy in almost every possible human endeavor – certainly all those in which he was involved. In 1946 he was convicted of passing hot checks; that same year he ran for the U.S. Congress from the 12th district of Texas.
While campaigning at Texas Christian University he and Mr. Joe Hopkins disagreed over discourteous names Allison called Latin Americans in his publications and his speeches and Hopkins was soon bloody after being hit on the head with a hammer. Allison claimed that six witnesses saw him protect himself from a man with a knife but Hopkins denied any such thing, saying that he was vocally defending his wife’s image, she being Latin American, and he knew nothing of any knife.
Allison lost the congressional election but in 1954 ran for governor of Texas. Denying he was either liberal or conservative, he ran as an “H. C. Allison Democrat” and said he was a retired chiropractor and sanitarium operator. The voters, including especially the chiropractors sighed with relief when he lost that election too.
In Smithfield he involved himself heavily in local politics and wrote an article in 1958 about James J. Gray, the Fire Marshall, which soon resulted in his indictment on criminal libel charges by a grand jury in Tarrant County.
He was charged by indignant election officials of North Richland Hills in 1961 of casting two votes in a special senatorial election. Allison told the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, “I don’t remember voting twice. It sure was a mistake if I did."
Marriages to Allison were no more peaceful than political. Lucille, his wife in 1944, claimed in her divorce petition that he had done violence to her. The next year, 1945, Lucille filed assault charges against her former husband, claiming he had knocked her into a bathtub and tried to smother her. He was acquitted of that charge by a jury.
He then married Ella Mae with about the same result. He was charged by her with holding her captive against her will in his sanatorium following her divorce petition in 1948 and before the divorce action was heard in court.
Those court records also indicate that the judge ordered Allison to show cause why the couple’s 1 1/2 year old son, John, shouldn’t be given into the custody of his mother. The outcome of that court action isn’t known, but it was Ella Mae with whom he was arguing once again on the same subject in April, 1976, and it was the same John who shot and killed his father that day in Rio Vista about 17 1/2 years later.
His professional relationships with the medical profession were about what one could reasonably expect under the circumstances: turmoil.
In the 1920-1930 era he was charged with practicing medicine without a license several times. The charges so enraged Allison that he sued the Texas Medical Association for $50,000 for malicious prosecution but the suit was dismissed.
He carried the constitutionality of the Medical Practice Act of Texas to the U. S. Supreme Court for a test, after being convicted under its provisions in 1933. He had been found guilty of practicing medicine without a license and the judge fined him $50.00 and sentenced him to 30 minutes in jail – a minimum sentence.
Bitterly angered he took to the necessary lower appeals court, which upheld the judge’s verdict, and finally to the Supreme Court of the U. S. which upheld the medical licensing act by declining to act on Allison’s suit. He continued to be tried on the same basis, being charged, as an example, on four occasions in November, 1937.
Back in 1931 Allison’s wife, Lucille, refused to let Ft. Worth’s E. M. Dagger School health officials vaccinate her daughter, Charlotte. She fought several losing battles over that issue and unsuccessfully sued the city of Ft. Worth four times over related issues, until a judge finally and wearily refused to grant her claims any official recognition in his court.
Allison wrote a newspaper column in the 1930s entitled “The Spinal Column” and in it he specifically named local medical doctors and said severely uncomplimentary things about them. The results was a series of criminal libel actions.
The U. S. Government, in 1933, charged Allison with operating an unlicensed radio station and he, as operator of Station KYRO was found guilty in Federal Court.
These were the major items that got the publicity and court actions. It makes one wonder about the myriad events in his daily life and how hot and turbulent they must have been.
Allison served in World War I and saw action overseas with the 36th Division, a note that causes some reflection and makes one wonder if, somehow, he hadn’t played a significant role in starting it.
But the chiropractors in Ft. Worth have one memory of Allison that stands over all others. It has often been rumored that Allison owed Amon Carter, the publisher of the Ft. Worth Star Telegram, a large sum of money he refused to pay. Carter, according to the rumor, was supposed to have been so indignant that he ordered the Star-Telegram to refuse any chiropractic oriented stories.
That particular story cannot be verified because the principals concerned are dead, but it was known to be very hard, if not impossible, to get bona-fide chiropractic news in the Star-Telegram for many years. And no chiropractor really blamed Amon Carter; he only shared a very ordinary feeling.
Allison makes the chiropractors appreciate even more the H. O. Greens, the M. L. Gambrells, the R. C. Hoyles, the F. L. Cullens, the J. O. Davises, the J. E. Bormerts, the K. C. Robinsons, the Ralph Perkns, the R. R. Rhodes, the Oliver Boones, the Homer Utzs, the Douglas Rays, the James Drains, the Henry Turleys, the Buddy Weirs, the Julius Troilos, the J. Stanley Wrights, the R. E. Hartongs, the J. R. Loftins, the V. C. Stanphills, the Cottons, the Gurdens, the Harpers, the Daniels, the Bennetts, and those others who were more profitably inclined toward peace.
But, by golly, they all rode wide on the axle.
