This is the man for whom Wilshire Boulevard, in Los Angeles, is named. The Monty Python line, "Zany Marxist Tycoon", describes this eccentric well. He ran for Congress in New York State as a Socialist candidate in 1904 - this Columbia
cylinder dates from that campaign - and the rhetoric in this speech hasn't aged a day since then. He later parlayed some cheap land in Los Angeles into a decent fortune (he was a Socialist, not a Communist). He also marketed an electromagnetic
healing device called the "I-On-A-Co". (The American Artifacts web site has an interesting write-up on this device and its successor, the "Theronoid".)
