John Brinkley's broadcasts in the 1920s provided one of the first benchmark tests of the power of the federal government to control radio. A medical quack who used radio to promote his fraudulent products, Brinkley was forced off the air in the United States, only to continue his popular programs from a Mexican station for another decade.

Origins

     Born in North Carolina, John Richard Brinkley came to Mil­ ford, Kansas, a town of several hundred persons, after World War I in response to an ad for a town doctor. He had graduated from the Eclectic Medical University of Kansas City and   the Kansas City College of Medicine and Surgery. Dr. Morris Fishbein, head of the American Medical Association at the time, labeled both schools "diploma mills."

     Brinkley began broadcasting in 1923 and quickly made his KFKB (Kansas First, Kansas Best) one of the most popular stations in Kansas and the Midwest. In addition to the station, Brinkley owned the Brinkley Hospital and the Brinkley Pharmaceutical Association. Three times each day for an hour or more, Brinkley hosted a program, Medical Question Box, over KFKB. During the program he answered letters from listeners and prescribed cures for their ailments, generally advising them to use Brinkley pharmaceutical medicines. These talks included his now-notorious claims to restore potency in men by grafting live tissue from goats.

     Over-the-air prescriptions brought Brinkley between $15,000 and $20,000 each month. Brinkley and his staff performed thousands of "goat gland" operations at fees ranging from $250 to $i,500. Brinkley made himself popular by distributing large amounts of money to the town and financing building projects that employed residents. Among his projects were a large sanitarium and the Brinkley Methodist Memorial Church.

Landmark Legal Case

  Complaints from the medical establishment against "radio quacks" reached the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) in 1929 and focused attention on the hazards to public health of these broadcasts. Although the FRC initially ruled that it had no authority to act under the Radio Act of 1927, by early 1930 commissioners changed their minds. Fearing negative consequences of widespread dispersal of questionable medical information, the commission decided it could determine whether programs were in the public interest, convenience, or necessity.

In hearings in 1930, the commissioners noted that KFKB carried Brinkley's talks and Brinkley Hospital programming about 3 hours out of each 15-hour broadcast day. Other station programs included music, lectures, weather broadcasts, political discussions, baseball reports, and coverage of national events. They also noted that Brinkley's Medical Question Box contained material of a possibly sexual nature, bordering on indecency. Under the Radio Act, the FRC could revoke a license for obscene, indecent, or profane broadcasts. After the hearings, the FRC refused to renew Brinkley's license on the ground that the station was being operated for his personal and financial interest and not in the public interest. Brinkley appealed.

The Court of Appeals upheld the FRC on 2 February 1931. The court ruled that KFKB was operated solely for Brinkley's personal interest and that the Medical Question Box was "inimical" to public health and safety, as it was devoted to "diagnosing and prescribing treatments of cases from symptoms given in letters" written by patients he had never seen. The court held that in license renewal, an important consideration was past performance. The court noted that censorship was not involved, because the FRC did not subject Brinkley's broadcasts to scrutiny prior to release, but the court added that the commission had a right to note a station's past conduct.

The Kansas Medical Board revoked Brinkley's medical license for "unprofessional conduct." Afterward, he ran for governor of Kansas in both 1930 and 1932 and nearly won as a write-in candidate. Although interested in the governorship itself, Brinkley undoubtedly also wanted the right to choose members of the State Board of Medical Examiners, which had revoked his license. Meanwhile, he headed to Texas and Mexico, where he continued his broadcasts.

Broadcasting from Mexico

  In 1931 Mexican authorities banned his physical entry, but by using Mexican citizens as a front Brinkley was able to erect a station in Villa Acuna, Coahuila, Mexico, opposite his new hometown of Del Rio, Texas. Using telephone hookups from his home in Del Rio, he began broadcasting from station XER in October. Again, he gave medical advice over the airwaves and answered letters sent to his Medical Question B'ox. He directed people to contact his hospital in Milford, Kansas, for further treatment. Broadcasting at 50,000 watts on 735 kilocycles, XER drowned out U.S. stations close to it on the dial and interfered with CKAC in Montreal, Canada.

Protests came from Mexican citizens and focused on station employees, who were all U.S. citizens, and broadcasts, which were rarely in Spanish. Criticism of this "Yankee imperialism" grew, as did complaints by U.S. officials, until the Mexican government forced Brinkley to close XER by mid-1934. Brin­ kley then continued his broadcasts by purchasing broadcast time over XEPN in Piedras Negras, Mexico, and using telephone hookups to both Mexico and Abilene, Kansas, from Del Rio, Texas. Other broadcasts were carried through a studio at Eagle Pass, Texas, just across the Rio Grande from Piedras Negras.

Mexico, meanwhile, promulgated a set of regulations for Mexican broadcasters that eliminated a number of conflicts with U.S. broadcasters. Commercial stations could be licensed only to Mexicans, had to be operated by Mexicans, and had to employ a staff comprising no less than So percent Mexican citizens. All advertising rates had to be approved by Mexico's Department of Commerce, and all medical advertising had to receive approval of the Minister of Health. All programs were to be in Spanish, unless the station received special permission from the government. These laws were aimed not only at Brin­ kley but also at the radio mystics, astrologers, and fortune tellers who transferred their activities to stations south of the border when FRC pressure halted such broadcasts in the United States.

In January 1935 Brinkley was charged with violating Section 325(6) of the newly passed Communications Act of 1934. This provision made it illegal to maintain, use, or locate a studio or apparatus in the United States for the purpose of transmitting sound waves electrically to a radio station in a foreign country for rebroadcast back to the United States without first securing a permit from the Federal Communications Commission. Brinkley, however, continued to sidestep the law for five more years until the Mexican government finally forced him off the air in 1940 with the signing of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement.

Demise

In 1941 Brinkley suffered a series of heart attacks, and one of his legs was amputated. By then, his fortune had disappeared, and he was forced to declare bankruptcy. He was also charged with mail fraud, but he never came to trial, as he died in San Antonio, Texas, on 26 May 1942.

Brinkley's widespread popularity was abundantly evident in his two campaigns to become governor of Kansas, as well as in the large audiences for his Kansas and later Mexican radio stations. His importance to radio history hinges on the FRC and Court of Appeals decisions denying KFKB's license renewal on the basis of his past programming record and how it compared to the public interest, convenience, or necessity measure of the 1927 Radio Act. The court decision was the first judicial affirmation of the FR C's right to make such decisions.