Dope Is Most Destructive and Most Prevalent Vice In U.S.A.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18889, 12 October 1929, Page 19 (Supplement)

Dope Is Most Destructive and Most Prevalent Vice In U.S.A.

Written for the “ Star ” by ROSE L. O'SULLIVAN.

The United States of America, next to China and India, is the largest per capita user of Drugs in the world. Crime costs the United States ten billion dollars yearly, and fifty per cent of that sum is due directly to drug addiction.

THERE are a million dope fiends in the United States. Tens of thousands of them are young girls and boys. They are willing, even eager—if deprived of their drugs—to barter their honour, their souls, their very bodies, for one or two tiny grains of the stuff that is smuggled into the country by the ton. Before I became one of the few women detectives assigned to work with narcotic squads, I thought that the only drug addicts in the United States were wrinkled old Chinese who smoked opium pipes, or a few wretches seeking solace in their declining years. Now I know that dope is like a vicious, deadly spider spinning its web to entrap new victims in high places as well as low.

In the course of my investigations I have found that dope is just as like ly to enslave some beautiful young girl or clean-cut young man as anyone else. Among the addicts who take their shots either in pills or powders or with the hypodermic needle or smoking the opium pipe are stenographers, shop girls, dancers, actresses and actors, society women, eminent professional men, girls of the gutter, gangsters— In fact, women and men of all ages in nearly every walk of life. There are thousands upon thousands yf them everywhere—the dream hunters. I doubt if there is a city with a population of a few hundred or more that doesn't include a surprisingly large and ever-increasing number of dope slaves.

Nearly all of us know the tragedy of Wallace Reid, the idol of the films, who became a dope addict, and died while trying to fight off the chains of dope slavery. Dope ruined his life—rilled him.

The public is infrequently informed of such tragedy in the lives of celebrities, and now ard then learns the terrible secret of the dope-ruled W2 of some well-known percorag... Lut for every such case that reaches public knowledge we on the inside know of hundreds and thousands in nearly every community who are just as dreadfully entrapped by that most devilish of all vices. But the stories of the unknowns are seldom revealed.

I am going to tell you some of the heretofore untold tales of beautiful young things whose lives have been made living dp' through the medium af narcotic drugs. But first I will give you a bird’s-

eye-view of the enormity of the dope traffic. Bootleggers are harmless beings when compared with dope smugglers.

One single aeroplane can bring a trunk load—a million dollars' worth—of dope across the borders without any great difficulty. To handle this same value of product a booze speculator would need ships, trains, a fleet of lorries and huge storehouses. A dope peddler can carry in his pockets dope worth more than truck loads of booze. And he, therefore, has a correspondingly small chance of being apprehended by the authorities. Dope is contantly being smuggled into the United States and distributed by nation-wide dope rings of wealthy men. Colonel L. G. Nott, chief of the Federal Narcotic Bureau, recently informed congressmen that in one single shipment two tons of opium and 61.600 ounces of morphine were smuggled into this country and distributed to dealers and addicts.

Dope is smuggled in by the ton, and is sold to the addict by the ounce or the grain, and often is diluted—the price ranging from 20 dollars to 50 dollars an ounce. And a confirmed addict will steal or kill to get the price of a fraction of an ounce of the stuff

But that may be a misleading picture as it presents only the aftermath. It is rare that addiction occurs through viciousness except in the underworld—and the underworld is largely populated by boys and girls—men and women—who have been dragged there by their addiction to dope. The chief causes of addiction are unskilled medical treatment, in which some one in pain is given narcotic relief too steadily, momentary recklessness of young people, use of narcotics to gain relief from terrible chronic pains by persons who are unaware of the dreadful habit-forming nature of the stuff, and solicitation by peddlers or friends. I have found that at first the new addict will hide the secret, but soon seeks to lure others into the trap from which there is seldom any escape. Less than three months is required to form the habit. And within that short period or soon thereafter the victim is on the road to ruin.

Wives become unfit to remain in their homes, girls without funds become unfit for association with their former friends. These girls and youths and others then drift to the underworld for more ready contact with peddlers and the numerous questionable means of securing funds with which to secure more of the dope which they crave.

Some few weeks ago the newspapers carried accounts of the conviction of “ Mother ” Honan, of Chicago. The papers revealed that she had kept a half-dozen young girls in dope slavery to peddle narcotics. But behind the meagre Press accounts is the tragedy of Dolly Nillis—at least that’s what she called herself while slaving for Mother Honan.

I had met Dolly once, less than a 3 r ear earlier at a rather fashionable dance in an exclusive club in Chicago. When first I met her I mentally catalogued her as one of the finest specimens of young womanhood I had ever seen. Here was a grace indescribable and she was formed like a dream of loveliness; her very presence radiated splendid health and vitality. When I saw her just before the triple raid which resulted in the arrest of Mother Honan and her six girls, including Dolly, the girl was simply a wreck. She walked with a slouch, her cheeks shone pallid where they escaped from a too heavy application of rouge, her eyes were dulled. Entirely missing was the proud tilt of her head. Dolly’s clothes hung on her too thin frame like rags. Her fingernails were dirty. She needed a wave, a massage and a manicure—a complete laundering. She was dirty. And she looked tough. She was tough. She was a dope head and a peddler. All in less than a year.

I found her in an alley-way. That was when I was loitering in the neighbourhood of the three apartments which Mother Honan kept for her girls. She had them separated to confuse authorities who might investigate. In these apartments the girls would dispense the narcotics Mother Honan furnished. In return the girls were given a daily allowance of dope for which their nerves yearned. If business was poor they would go on to the streets and peddle the stuff there. They had no difficulty in spotting addicts—dope brands its victims clearly for those who are in the know.

As I said, Dolly was in the alley. She was dickering with two vile-looking fellows from a nearby speakeasy. They were trying to argue her down, but in a whining voice she held out for the set price, which then was thirty dollars an ounce, the price having been forced down by recent shipments of the stuff into Chicago. She got her price. I learned later she feared to take less. One of the addicts addressed her rudely when she passed the stuff over. Men have been killed for saying lesser things than that to women. But Dollv only sniffed, shrugged her shoulders, and slouched out to the street. She didn’t care about insults, she didn’t care about her appearance, she didn’t care about anything—except more of the stuff that had made her that way. I strolled up to her, took her arm. She made a half-hearted effort to pull free and swung about to face me “What do you want?” she whined sullenly. ‘ I haven’t done anything.” “You’ve only made a dope fiend out of yourself—that’s all,” I returned. “ What’s it to you anyhow ? ” she demanded, again trying to break from my grip. I told her then that I knew who she was and her defiance deserted her. I told her I wanted her to come with me to my apartment, that I wanted to

talk with her, for her own sake. Instantly she was on the alert, afraid of anything or any one who might separate her from her source of dope supply. “ Say, who’re you, anyhow? I remember meeting you; but who are you and what do you want with me?” “ I’m with the Narcotic Squad,” I told her. “And I’m going to take you with me. I want you to talk.” “ Can’t get anything out of me,” she protested. “ I don’t want to have anything to do with you.” “ You can’t escape that,” I insisted. “ If you don’t come to my apartment I’ll take you to Headquarters—and you won’t get any more stuff. If I wanted to make trouble for you I’d have taken in those two addicts who just got some stuff off you. You’re a dope peddler—don’t you realise that? Come along and talk or you’ll go where there isn't any dope.” ' Without further ado, she swung into step with me, and after a while she was telling me her story. “ I was too popular,” she began. “ There were too many parties. One night—l never did drink much, '-ou know, but one night we had some terrible stuff. The next morning, when I had slept it off a bit, I had a raging headache. Our family physician prescribed some powders, but they didn’t do any good.

“ Then Harry came—l was engaged to him, you know. He took me out in his car to a speakeasy. He said he would fix me up. It was dynamite—heroin.

“ Well, we kept running around night after night, and every time I got fogged out Harry would 4 fix me up.’ He fixed me, all right. Look at me—look ac me now! ”

Dolly became frantic. She hadn’t had a shot for quite a while. I let her take stuff, and she felt better. Then she went on, with me prompting her now and then.

“ I didn’t realise what the stuff could do. It was wonderful at first, but I kept needing more—and more. After a few weeks I was crazy for it. I found out that some others in the crowd used dynamite, too. We used to throw dynamite parties. They were terrible, I guess, but I don’t care any more. We’d all hopped up-; and then we found that sometimes Harry would invite men to the parties who weren’t 4 on the stuff’ (addicts). “ After a while I found out that Harry made a business of peddling the stuff to me and others. At first it made me mad I told him I wouldn’t marry a dope peddler, and he laughed at me Said he wouldn’t marry any addict living, and I guess I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t much care so long as hfe supplied me with the stuff. I just simply had to have it or go crazy. “ But one night, when we were all at a dynamite party, he tried to palm me off on a strange man. I never went in for that kind of thing, and I broke with Harry. He laughed at me and went away.

“ I couldn’t let my folk know about it all, so I just dropped out of sight. That was three months ago. “My money began to give out, and then a peddler robbed me. I went to him for more stuff, and he wouldn’t give it to me. He sent me to Mother

Here she hesitated. “To Mother Honan?” I prompted. “I know all

“ What did she make you do—the she-devil?”

“ Oh, she’s not so bad. She always keeps me in the stuff, and I peddle it for her. There’s five other girls like me.”

Little by little I drew other information from her—the information that resulted in the arrest of Mother Honan and the dopa slaves. I had asked Dolly what she intended to do about herself, and she had said she wouldn’t do anying but go on peddling dope for Mother Honan so long as the old girl kept her supplied with narcotics. Because of the information Dolly had given—the arrest of Mother Honan leading to the nabbing of higher-ups in the dope ring—l was able to keep her out of the Courts. I broke the terrible news to her parents, and they now have her under guard in a hospital which specialises in the care of addicts. Perhaps she will win out, but I doubt it. If this sophisticated city girl had been easily trapped because she was unaware that the dope habit could be formed so quickly and so unbreakably, what chance did a country girl like Beatrice Gates have? Beatrice—Beach, she called herself—was nineteen years old when I became interested in her case.

She was born on a farm near a little lowa town, and finally got a job in the town while she was going to high school. She didn’t have much money to dress with, and didn’t have much fun in school. And always while she was being left out of the nicer parties or watching the others dance she would be dreaming of other things. Beach told me that she dreamed of leaving that little town and going to Chicago, where she could earn money enough to have nice clothes and fun like other girls had. Her family had never taken any interest in her, and had been glad when she left the farm to go to high school. She knew they wouldn't miss her particularly. So Beach did what thousands of other girls have done. She saved every penny she possibly could out of a meagre salary tending the cigar counter in a little hotel.

She turned down two men who, on separate occasions, offered to drive* her to Chicago in their cars. Finally, however, the day came when she had saved the railway fare and a few dollars beside. She made the break that she thought would bring her happiness. I want you to understand that when Beach reached the city she was just eighteen years old, and a good girl. She had a perfectly natural longing for happiness, and the thrills of a city larger than she had ever known. But if she had left a friendless village she found the city evtfn more cold. For a few days she did nothing but haunt the shopping districts looking eagerly into the windows or watching big motor-cars filled with carefree youngsters, roll by. She got one jot for a time and managed to acquire n cheap little outfit of modest clothes That is, they would have looked cheap tc almost anyone, but to her they were simply wonderful. Now she was ready for the good times of which she had dreamed. She went to a dance hall and met a

few bc>3 r s there, but she didn’t like them. When for the fourth time she refused to go to an apartment for a party, one of the boys got angry. “Aw, snap out of it,” he snarled, ‘‘you smalltown Dora. I can’t waste my time on a flat tyre.”

She never saw that young man again, but his words hurt.

Fred Jennison was the boy who finally picked her off. He asked her to go out to a party with him. They left the dance floor and outside he called a taxicab.

Beach was thrilled. Never before had a man ever thought to get a taxi for her. They went for a joyride. After her first fear of Fred wore off she really began to enjoy herself and snuggled down beside him. He carelessly put his arm around her and didn’t mind because she was getting the first taste of the happiness she had dreamed about and longed for with all her heart.

Fred kissed her. She clung to him. He told her he would show her a regular time. She didn’t know what he meant. But she soon found out. Fred drew a pistol and held up the cabdriver. He shot the cabby, took his cash, and hurried away with Beach, who was too frightened to do anything. When she baulked at running away, Fred told her she would be arrested if she were caught now. She then ran with him\ Soon they were in another taxi.

Frightened by the things that had happened, Beach wanted to leave Fred He laughed at her. She complained that her head ached—it really did. He said he would fix her up. He stopped the cab by an office building. He said he would be back in a minute. There was Beach’s chance. But she didn’t take it. She didn’t even know where she was, and had no money She waited.

Within a minute or two, Fred was back. He gave her a tablet he said he had secured from a doctor friend; laughed when she hesitated to take it, jollied her, told her of the fun they were going to have together now that they had found each other. When he kidded that way she forgot about what he had done only a few minutes before. She took the tablet not knowing that it contained drugs. Beach dimly remembered leaving the cab and entering another car driven by some one Fred knew. She realised that something was wrong, but couldn’t collect her faculties sufficiently to protest. She had been doped. She didn’t recall much about the ride. Three days later she found that she was being detained in an old farm-house which she learned later was situated down in the direction of Hurley, Wisconsin Many a white slave trail has led in that direction. The details of what followed are not pretty. Beach told her experiences to me in order to get revenge on Fred, whom we had captured months later. They told her that Fred had informed them that she was a little bit queer and sometimes forgot that they had been married back in Chicago. For one day Beach reallv believed that she might have married Fred while under the influence of drugs. Then the keepers and Fred dropped all pretence and laughed at her. Thev forced her to take dope. She was kept as a prisoner, her mind beclouded for more than

two months. Frequently Fred came to see her. She didn’t recall all that happened. Many things occurred. By the time she had been kept on that farm for three months, she didn’t want to leave. The dope habit had her in its clutches. Every tiny nerve in her body inflicted torture if she deprived her system of the dope to which it had become accustomed. She began to have other visitors than Fred—many visitors. She didn’t protest when she found that after every protest she was refused the narcotic she craved and couldn’t get, except through Fred or the man and woman in charge of the place. Other girls, three of them—in the farmhouse wouldn’t give her the stuff. They told her that they would be cut off from it entirely if they gave her any. After six months on the "farm,” Beach accompanied Fred to Milwaukee and did everything he told her to do for him and his friends. Then he took her to Chicago, and it was there that I came on the scene. We got her in a raid aimed to nab Fred, deprive him of the stuff and force him to reveal his sources of supply. Beach, who by this time had come to know others in the underworld who could supply her with dope, told all she knew about Fred, and he was sent over the road to the big house. And Beach ? I don’t know what became of her, but I can guess. She was put in a place for a cure and disappeared from there. She has gone back to the stuff. I doubt if there is one single iota of hope for h'er. These cases of dope-wrecked girls are but typical of thousands upon thousands of others. There is only one road open to dope-users, and that is a downward road. Girls who become addicts are virtually hopelessly lost to accepted society, because they become degraded in nearly every way in their mad hunt for more of the stuff that has robbed them of all will-power. The increasing dope traffic is far more vital in its way than bootlegging; its effects are more deadly than the effects of booze ever were.

The menace of the poppy is not being entirely overlooked. Congress is investigating; but how slowly investigations progress. The State of New York is investigating and doing some acting. When Arnold Rothstein was murdered, a sweeping inquiry revealed that he had been at the top of not only a national, but an international, dope ring. Names and records found in the effects of the slain gambler led to numerous arrests and the seizure of millions of dollars’ worth of dope. The names involved gangsters and girls; businessmen and show girls; professional men and society women; people high and people low in life. All were involved in handling, and nearly all in the use of narcotic drugs. Congress has been asked to appropriate 200,00(1 dollars for sterner measures of suppressing the use of narcotic drugs. As one famous editorial writer put it: "Thus Washington goes dragonhunting with pop-guns,” for there are only about five hundred investigators to trace the sources of dope supplies for one million addicts. And. remembering the cases of Wally

Reid, Dolly Nillis, Mother Honan and Beatrice Gates, and the million others, it should be remembered that when the miserable narcotic drug victim cries for help, no one can help him. ' Not one in twenty-five thousand can escape the clutches of dope slavery by the use of will-power. Only strength applied from without, confinement, deprivation and long months and years of upbuilding can help, and then the help is not necessarily effective, for what the addict craves above all, with a craving that cannot be conquered, is more of the dope poison that destroys first the will power and then the honour. (Anglo-American N.S. Copyright.)