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Baker cast himself as a common folks crusader battling against big business, big government, and big medicine. Like his contemporary John Brinkley, the infamous "goat gland" doctor from Kansas, Baker manipulated rural anxieties during the Great Depression, public uncertainty with organized medicine, and the lack of oversight of early radio.

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Born in Muscatine, Iowa, Baker first demonstrated business savvy as a vaudeville performer. Returning to Muscatine in , Baker marketed his patented air calliaphone, a portable calliope for carnivals and outdoor advertisers. The operation soon expanded into a mail order business peddling everything from overalls to coffee. Baker even promoted an art correspondence school, despite his confession that he "couldn't paint to save his life.

With its lineup of live music, agricultural reports, and Baker's own colorful broadcasts, KTNT became popular among rural midwesterners, many of whom flocked to Muscatine on summer Sundays to picnic outside the KTNT studio, enjoy the carnival atmosphere, and see Baker, clad in his trademark white suit with lavender tie. Baker gained further clout when he broadcast on behalf of Herbert Hoover 's presidential campaign.

Hoover later repaid Baker by pressing a golden key from the White House, ceremoniously starting publication of Baker's newspaper, the Midwest Free Press. In Baker's tabloid magazine, TNT, published a sensational story touting an unconventional cancer treatment.

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Months later Baker opened his own cancer hospital in Muscatine, staffed by a collection of chiropractors, naturopaths, and diploma mill M. A former employee later testified that Baker's panacea was nothing more than a mixture of clover, corn silk, watermelon seed, and water. Although lacking medical training, Baker directed patients' treatment and warned the public of the dangers of vaccinations, aluminum utensils, and greedy allopathic physicians.

During the spring of , Baker's crusade against preventive medicine helped to incite a rebellion in eastern Iowa known as the Cow War. His broadcasts and editorials encouraged farmer to resist state veterinarians' efforts to enforce mandatory bovine tuberculosis testing—a ruse, Baker charged, for meatpackers to acquire cheap beef. When the standoff escalated into outbursts of barnyard violence, Governor Dan Turner called out the state militia to squelch the rebellion.

Baker's medical demagoguery baited his critics into action.