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.
D. D. Palmer had a strong sense of personal ownership concerning anything chiropractic but his always erratic feelings of responsibility became even less reliable with the passage of time and circumstances. He established schools at the drop of a hat and taught until he wanted to move on, issuing “diplomas” with no particular set of standards except his own at the moment. ...
The personal ownership that had once been his for a short time in 1895-1898 was now gone forever. It’s really a compliment of the first order to him to realize that his idea was bigger than any one man, including himself, and it had grown into a profession needing increasing teaching, regulation and intense research that could be given only by greater numbers of applied minds. This was 1913, only a bare two years away from the first state licensing laws in Arkansas, Kansas and Iowa ….
He had founded a school in Santa Barbara, California, then left it to establish another in San Diego, where he conducted his practice in conjunction with it, as was his custom. He had established a string of schools along the Pacific Coast, abandoning them when the notion struck to move on. While in San Diego he decided to make a tour of the Mississippi Valley an included a stop at Oklahoma City where he resumed friendship with Willard Carver whom he had not seen for about six years – since the time in Medford, Oklahoma, when he spent the night discussing the breakup between he and B. J.
It was the 6th of May, 1913, when Carver invited D. D. Palmer to become a guest lecturer at the Carver Chiropractic College and instructed the entire faculty to attend each lecture and show him and Mrs. Palmer every honor possible….
D. D. gave four or five well attended lectures over the next two weeks. Then some rather astounding news reached Carver: D. D. Palmer was soliciting students for himself from prospective students who had come to consider enrollment in the Carver Chiropractic College.
An investigation conducted by the manager of the college disclosed two young prospective students had been approached by Palmer on a downtown street corner in Oklahoma City and offered 20 written lectures and a diploma for $50.00. They had refused the offer and were on their way home, convinced that chiropractic had little to offer if it came so cheaply, when the business manager persuaded them that the Carver Chiropractic College had no part in such offers.
The two youngsters then duly enrolled in the college, were later graduated and both practiced for many years in California: Their names were Dr. James White and Dr. A. F. McNown.
D. D. was quickly confronted in the matter by an angry Willard Carver and was asked to leave the campus immediately. By the next day D. D. was headed north for Davenport and the Palmer School of Chiropractic where he was soon employed as an instructor for the balance of the summer.
There is the temptation to assume father and son had agreed to let bygones be bygones – and they may have – but the good times didn’t last very long.
One of the customs established by the Palmer School of Chiropractic back in 1906 was the annual August homecoming gathering which assembled machines and floats before the main school building and left the grounds to proceed into the business district of Davenport as a parade.
Dr. B. J. Palmer’s REO roadster was the lead vehicle for the August, 1913 parade but just as the event started D. D. appeared out front with a huge U. S. Flag and proceeded to lead the parade on foot, a move which infuriated B. J.
Carver, who was present at the event, said he saw B. J. accelerate the car toward D. D. but was not standing where he could see the car actually hit or miss him; but certain witnesses said the car struck him and knocked him into the curb. Other witnesses said it did not, that he jumped and fell.
D. D. Palmer told Carver, who came upon the scened in a few seconds, that the car did hit him and injured him severely, from which wounds, Carver writes, D.D. said he never expected to recover. D. D. went home immediately and when Carver went to see and examine him later in the day, D.D. had already departed for San Diego by train.
Mrs. D. D. Palmer, who was his fourth wife, Molly, later reported to Carver that he was in delirium before reaching San Diego and never really came out of it before his death October 21, 1913. She also reported that his last days were filled with complaints and ravings against his son, B. J.
The event, as might be expected, created a sensation among the ranks of the chiropractic profession. B. J. was subjected to a considerable harassment by the local authorities over it but there was such a profusion of contradicting eye-witness’ statements that no meaningful prosecution – or defense – ever occurred although it was repeatedly brought to the grand jury.
But all remaining semblance of decent human dignity between B. J. and Willard Carver then disappeared. There hadn’t been much for some time anyway, but the gloves were completely off now. They wrote letters to and about each other that give no cause for pride. Over the years they would meet many more times in behalf of college organizations and through efforts to sustain national chiropractic organizations but rarely cooperated in any endeavor and were never again cordial.
From 1913 to 1943 they had no good feelings and usually managed to champion the opposing sides on every issue. But in 1943 they had one more agreement and, ironically enough, it concerned Texas history. B. J. and the International Chiropractic Association, and some of its members in Texas, were the prime movers and shakers in getting Texas’ new chiropractic licensing law declared unconstitutional, and Dr. Willard Carver was a cash contributor to the cause.*
Meanwhile, the Texas Chiropractic College steadily put out well trained students but their graduates were not as politically oriented as the graduates of Carver Chiropractic College or Palmer Chiropractic School. They eventually became numerically superior and when Dr. Wm. D. Harper, Jr., began teaching neurology and stressing science rather then personalities or politics he found a fertile field both in students and graduate seminars for practicing doctors, and his physiologic teachings now have a greater influence in Texas than those of probably any other single individual; but Carver’s and B. J.’s political philosophies still dominated in the political arena.
It seems so strange that all three of the early leaders of chiropractic died disillusioned and embittered. It didn’t have to be so; they accomplished great things. Each had tremendous talents and each had thousands of men and women who justifiably admired them for services rendered. But they didn’t see it that way.
* EDITORS NOTE: The need to have this first law declared unconstitutional was because the medical association had attached a number of amendments to the bill that would have hamstrung meaningful chiropractic professional development and practice.
