Washington Confidential 17 – Mortimer · Verses Across
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Washington Confidential 17Part 2 · KICKING THE GONG AROUND
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Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Washington Confidential 17
Part 2 · KICKING THE GONG AROUND
MortimerEnglish
It may be news that widespread addiction to narcotics is a comparatively recent American manifestation. Long after the turn of the century, a few trickles supplied pig-tailed Chinamen, despondent prostitutes, ex-cons who had picked up the habit in stir and a few rich fools who would try anything for a bang. Juvenile use was unheard of. Marijuana was unknown outside pad-parties in the Harlem jungles and among a thin fringe of Mexicans. The Harrison Narcotics Law, first federal recognition of the existence of such an evil, is only 35 years old.
We are solemnly convinced that the great growth of this plague in the past 20 years has been parallel to the spread of Communism in our country. And it has not been confined to our country.
Estimates by the Narcotic Control Section of the United Nations, that one of every ten people on earth uses habit-forming drugs in some manner or form, are borne out in this country, where the evil is prevalent in all sections. It is the greatest tangible menace facing us. And dope addiction, on the rise, can be traced definitely to Soviet Russia.
It has long been a tactic of nations bound on enslaving others to deaden the ambitions and energies of their victims with dope.
Examples of this stretch back to the dawn of written history. In the last century, British imperialists introduced the habit into China to control that nation. Nazi Germany flooded Poland and Czechoslovakia. Japan built huge narcotics factories in Manchuria to weaken the Chinese opposition. Russia is doing more of it now. Raw stuff pours in from Mediterranean ports. It originates in lands behind the Iron Curtain. Its importation into the United States serves Russia twofold--prostrates a prospective enemy and gets its hands on needed American exchange to be used for propaganda purposes and payment of undercover agents here. International bank drafts could be traced.
One courier can carry $1,000,000 worth of uncut dope on his person.
There are many points of community interest between the Reds and that other great international conspiracy, the Mafia, which controls the sale of drugs in America. The Commies will team up with anyone who will promote civil disorder or do their dirty work. The Mafia is interested in making a dishonest dollar and will work with any partner.
The center of the narcotics industry in the United States is in the district of former left-wing Congressman Vito Marcantonio, in East Harlem. During the days of his ascendancy, American Labor Party district leaders were able to supply police protection through alliances with both Tammany Hall and anti-Tammany Mayor LaGuardia.
Generally untrumpeted was the fact that when the infamous Charles “Lucky” Luciano was ordered deported from Cuba, the titular head of the Cuban Communist Party offered him sanctuary and appeared as his counsel.
A study of the Congressional Record will show that most of the bills and measures designed to weaken the enforcement of the Narcotics Act have been introduced by left-wingers and fellow-travelers. Many pink lawyers represent the underworld combine.
One of the most startling tieups was seen in the recent flooding of this country with cocaine. The Bureau of Narcotics had all but eliminated this devastating drug. There had been none here for 20 years. Cocaine for American consumption comes from Peru, where the coca leaves grow. A couple of years ago an Agrarian Communist group called the Apristas took over that country briefly. Seventeen cocaine factories were constructed in Lima, eleven licensed by the local Red government, and the others ran with the knowledge and connivance of the authorities. Their entire produce was routed to the United States. Coincident with saturation of this country with cocaine, which sank in price to as low as $1.50 a capsule, America went through its greatest crime wave.
When Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger traced the source of the deadly narcotic to Peru, the New Deal State Department refused to intervene, as it was required to do by the international treaties which outlawed the traffic. The reason for this failure, amounting to criminal negligence, was that we could not interfere in Latin American affairs. The cash for the cocaine was being used to foster Communism in South America.
Last year the Reds were kicked out of Peru by what Washington pinkos still refer to as “the oligarchy,” who immediately thereafter closed the coke factories. Since then, this traffic has almost dried up in the United States.
Likewise the administration has failed to inform the American public that the Permanent Central Opium Board in Geneva, Switzerland, has branded Soviet Russia and several Iron Curtain countries as palpable violators of international treaties and UN conventions regarding the control of narcotics.
You will probably learn here for the first time that the following governments, in addition to Russia, were named as treaty-violators for failure to meet their obligations: Red China, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
Among others who failed to cooperate were Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Liberia, the African Negro republic in which Negro slavery is still practiced.
Narcotic conditions in the capital are shameful. This is no fault of the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics, whose fighting chief, Commissioner Anslinger, is handcuffed by red tape, apathy and a penurious budget. The Bureau has a personnel of less than 180 for office and field work throughout the world. Its annual budget is less than $2,000,000. This is a drip in an ocean, yet Anslinger must cope with the deadliest evil known to man, backed by a huge and wealthy underworld organization controlling tens of thousands of peddlers, sluggers and killers, and owning billions of dollars.
That the unsung agents of this Treasury bureau have done as well as they have is a miracle. They could do better, especially in Washington, if they had the cooperation of the judiciary. They haven’t.
You can buy reefers on any corner in Black Town or in front of any high school in the District. You can purchase hard stuff at dozens of corners, of which we can name many and will note some. This disgrace indicts judges in the courts of the District of Columbia. All are federal, not elected, but appointed by the President. This goes for the Municipal Court bench, which sits for six years, as well as the District Court, appointed for life.
Every judge appointed in the last 18 years was put on the bench during a Democratic administration. More than 95 per cent are Democrats. Few are Washingtonians. With few exceptions, these judges are divided into two classes: Those representing the big-city bosses and gangs, and radicals named to appease bigger and redder radicals. The former, obviously, are expected to be lenient to law-breakers protected by the organized underworld. The latter, mostly fuzzy-minded intellectuals, do not believe in punishment, especially when the evildoer is a Negro or of any minority race. They can’t find wrong in any man. They believe criminals are mishandled wards of society.
The Washington field office of the Bureau of Narcotics--with only three or four agents--arrests dope peddlers as fast as they can be found and turns up enough evidence to secure convictions. But the courts almost uniformly issue suspended sentences or small fines.
The stench was so bad, dope peddlers were selling the contraband across the street from the White House, at the eastern end of Lafayette Square. The great brains regarded the venomous situation without qualms. What’s a little dope among dopes?
In desperation, Anslinger removed every agent--including one of his best men, former agent-in-charge Roy Morrison--from the city of Washington. He felt it was needless to risk his men’s lives to get evidence against junk peddlers who were sure to keep out of jail because of a fix or muddle-headedness. Thereafter, for a short time, no effort was made to enforce the narcotics laws in the District. Conditions got so bad, even the judges knew they must cooperate to avoid a national blow-up. After Anslinger restored the agents, the judges began meting out stiff sentences. But the heat soon came off and they are back at their old habits.
An example of what often happens when a dope peddler is arrested in the District is the case of William Potts, indicted on 14 counts arising from the sale and possession of heroin. On the day set for trial, an essential witness of the government could not be found. The court was so informed. The judge turned to the counsel for defense and asked if he was ready for the trial. Defense counsel was, but the U.S. Attorney said he was not, because of the witness’s absence. Thereupon the court asked if the defendant would waive a jury trial. He did. Immediately and without the pretense of trial, the court ruled. “I find the defendant not guilty.”
William P. Estoffery came into court with a record of ten specific narcotics convictions, but the United States District Court gave him eight months to three years, which meant he could be back on the street in three months. One of his previous convictions was for possession of counterfeit prescription blanks.
Here is another sample of the judicial road-blocks erected against enforcement officers who arrest dope peddlers in the capital:
Constitutional rights to privacy also give a defendant protection from illegal police raids on homes other than his own, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled recently.
The court made the ruling in reversing the conviction of Jesse W. Jeffers, Jr., on narcotics dealing charges.
Jeffers, 27, Negro, was found guilty in Judge Alexander Holtzoff’s court on testimony that police, without a search warrant, raided a room at the Dunbar Hotel and found 19 bottles of cocaine he allegedly had hidden there.
Jeffers lived elsewhere in the hotel, but the room was rented by relatives of his.
Setting a rare principle of law, the Appeals Court held evidence of the cocaine cache should have been excluded from the case because the police raid was illegal. It pointed out the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment specifically bans illegal searches of a defendant’s home, and said the principle should be enlarged to cover illegal raids on “premises that were not his.”
Judge E. Barrett Prettyman, in a dissent from the majority opinion, said “I do not see how an individual’s rights can be invaded by Government seizure of ... unstamped narcotics, not on the individual’s person or premises.”
He emphasized the case “is important in the enforcement of the narcotics laws.”
The curious part of the whole affair is that the defendant admitted the untaxed, unstamped dope was his. In fact, he demanded its return from the government.
In another of its feats of legal legerdemain, beyond the poor reasoning of a couple of reporters who didn’t graduate from Harvard Law, the august court said to the defendant in effect: “Possession of dope is illegal, so you can’t have it back, though you didn’t commit any crime when you had it before.”
Try and figure that one out.
Shortly thereafter the Appeals Court again overruled the same judge in another narcotics case and ordered a new trial for Clarence Butler on the grounds that Holtzoff’s “facial expressions” were prejudicial.
An official memorandum of the United States Treasury Department sets out facts as follows:
Since early in 1946, the Bureau has experienced repeated delay in obtaining prosecution of its cases in the District of Columbia. In numerous trials where out-of-town agents were witnesses the Bureau had to bear the expense of bringing them to Washington for testimony. Repeatedly, after the agents arrived, the hearings were continued. The Bureau could not stand this gaff and had to “stop narcotic enforcement in the District of Columbia.”
Dope cannot be manufactured locally. The Washington wholesalers must get their supplies from the international monopoly. The general practice in other cities is for the organization to deliver the wholesale lots to localities where they are to be consumed, but in the case of Washington the wholesale jobbers go to the distribution depots in other cities and pick up carload lots.
All narcotics in the United States are controlled at the top by a tight ring of evil men who, in turn, issue state and territorial rights to middlemen. Washington merchants are ordered to make their purchases in New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, but mainly in New York.
Marijuana is brought up directly from Mexico, but much inferior quality reefer seed is planted on farms between Washington and Baltimore and in Virginia.
The local dope set-up is largely controlled by Negroes, though Chinese also are active in the trade and have become more so since the Communists took over China. The two tongs frequently import their own. At this writing Red China has 500 tons of opium for sale abroad. This is equal to the world requirements for medical and scientific needs for more than a year. Chiang Kai-shek prohibited the production in China in 1934. The Communists have revived Jehol and Manchurian opium cultivation, and are reopening Tientsin dens. The tongs have not been adhering of late to the agreement which limited them to noncompetitive sales. Both are selling pin yen (opium) and bok for (heroin). Police believe the recent but short-lived tong wars on the West Coast were attributable to breaches of the basic compromise, plus efforts of Chinese Communists to take over the tong dope distribution machinery.
Occasionally, when sources of supply are temporarily cut off, or when the Italians are able to offer a more favorable price, the Chinese Syndicates send a man to buy directly from the Mafia. This dope is stored in a warehouse near 108th Street and 2nd Avenue, New York City, in Marcantonio’s bailiwick.
Another difficulty in narcotics enforcement, not even whispered about in Washington, is the leakage from diplomatic sources. It is politic for the Bureau to deny this is so, because nothing can be done about it. But huge amounts of concentrated dope come in envoys’ sealed pouches. There is, as everyone in Washington knows, a lively racket in the diplomatic corps in black market money. No easier method of acquiring dollars is possible than through sale of dope. Some of this contraband is used by members of the embassy staffs, themselves. In some Near Eastern and Oriental countries, a daily intake of narcotics is considered as normal as our use of coffee and tobacco. Many Latin Americans are slaves to marijuana, especially in the eating form, not otherwise available in the States. Some of this, which doesn’t find its way into the channels of trade, is presented by the diplomats to their American friends.
This will be denied, too, but ranking members of the diplomatic corps who are narcotic addicts and who can’t get the stuff from other sources have it provided for them by the protocol boys in the State Department, who withdraw it from official government sources.
We were offered reefers by peddlers in the alleys along 4th Street, SW; also at the corner of 7th and T and 7th and O, NW.
In an all-night diner at Vermont and L, frequented by musicians and hep kids, we were offered reefers also.
Hard stuff is obtainable with no trouble from street salesmen in Thomas Circle. In this neighborhood, which is bossed by Attilio Acalotti, you can place a bet on a horse, buy a numbers ticket or get a call girl. The service is performed for you by sidewalk newsboys and pimps on the steps of the National Christian Church.
In recent years, rich white racketeers have gone in for opium smoking themselves. They get it in Chinatown, where a few poppy parlors are in operation. As noted, members of the On Leong Tong deal mostly in opium and the members of Hip Sing in heroin.
Heroin is sold openly on the corner of 5th and H, in the Hip Sing section of Chinatown. To prove this, we became accessories to a violation of the law.
This is how simple the whole transaction was: We were steered to a broken-down wreck named Joe, a well-known dope addict. Despite his habit, Joe is an expert locksmith, a genius at his trade. He can’t work steadily, but so talented is he, the police and other local law enforcement bodies and private detective agencies frequently hire him to pick locks. That’s how he gets the money to support his habit. We gave Joe $6 to buy a deck of heroin and left him on the corner while we drove twenty feet up the block as Joe waited for his contact, across the street from the Gospel Mission.
We walked back and passed Joe as he handed the $6 to a young Chinese, who had appeared out of an area way. Joe said the Chinaman’s name was Benny Wong. This is one of the commonest Chinese names, there may be 500 with it in Washington. While Benny went to get the stuff, Joe sat down on a stoop and fell asleep. He had been loading himself with secanol, a synthetic, to keep his nerve steady until he got the heroin, and he was in a pitiable condition. While Joe slumbered, two metropolitan cops walked by. They thought he was drunk. One went to get the wagon while we talked the other out of pinching our decoy. A few minutes after the cops left, Benny returned with the heroin. That’s all there was to it.
The “hooked” addict’s cost of supporting his “yen” runs from $35 a week up, though if one “has a monkey on his back,” meaning the urge is desperate and irresistible, he will be soaked from $50 to $100 a week. Those who can afford the best stuff or who no longer get a bang out of cheap grades are bled for as much as $500 a week.
When Hyman I. Fischbach, brilliant counsel of the Congressional committee investigating crime and law enforcement in the District of Columbia, queried Assistant Commissioner Harney of the Narcotics Bureau, some startling facts about narcotic addiction were brought out, yet missed by the press and the public. These hitherto unpublished excerpts make interesting reading.
MR. HARNEY. That also depends too on the cost of the drug and the amount of his income. Addicts can get along--during the war we had lots of them who had needle habits. Their intake was probably one-fourth grain or half a grain a day of actual narcotic. The addict might develop until he gets as high as 20, 30, or 40 grains a day, considered a lethal dose for a non-initiated person. They build up resistance power. They get hoggish.
CONGRESSMAN DAVIS. What is that term?
MR. HARNEY. Use a lot of the drug. In days when drugs were freely available that was one reason for institution of cocaine. A man would stupefy himself with narcotics and with cocaine he would get an extra thrill and get out of it and brighten up and keep from going to sleep. The addict may spend $5 or $10 a day in addition to other expenses, and not being able, or disposed to work, usually becomes a thief. He can be a prowler or he might be a pickpocket. Some addicts are very good burglars. He might be a stick-up-man, not often.
A woman will be a prostitute or shoplifter. A man might be a panderer. Many addicts buy in decks, 8 ounces or 2 or 3 ounces. The preaddict would use a few grains. It differs in different localities.
MR. DAVIS. Does the price differ?
MR. HARNEY. Expressed in terms of actual narcotic content for the preaddict it may be $2 or $3 a grain.
MR. FISCHBACH. Mr. Harney, is it your point that an individual otherwise law abiding necessarily turns to petty crime in order to support the addiction?
MR. HARNEY. I would not say necessarily, but it is often apparent. I want to emphasize that addiction, particularly in the past, has been much among the criminal element. A man was down in a dangerous environment before he became addicted; he had to get in that sort of association in contrast to the casual person who might become an addict from medical reasons, but the ordinary addict becomes so by association.
MR. FISCHBACH. Then your point is there is an epidemic effect to it?
MR. HARNEY. We have a rather unusual and alarming situation which developed since the war. It does not quite follow the pattern I set out. My theory used to be that most addicts were old enough to be associated with criminals and get into the underworld with addicts before they themselves became addicts. Today, in certain localities, we have young people, some minors, and the pattern seems to be experimentation in marijuana first. That loses its thrill and those persons become addicts to heroin. Sometimes cocaine comes into the picture.
MR. DAVIS. Is marijuana used as a starter and later other narcotics are used?
MR. HARNEY. I would not say always, but frequently. Young people get into the marijuana atmosphere and you have a field for the cocaine and heroin addicts.
MR. DAVIS. Are they induced to begin with marijuana by purveyors of heroin, cocaine, morphine, and other drugs, to lead them into addiction?
MR. HARNEY. That pattern follows. Later dealers sell all three commodities. Youngsters come into the marijuana smoking atmosphere and soon there is no kick in it, and someone will tell them, “Try this.”
MR. FISCHBACH. Now who is that person?
MR. HARNEY. The peddler, or a cocaine addict, or a heroin addict.
MR. FISCHBACH. I would like to direct the attention of the committee to the case of Charles M. Roberts, alias Jim Yellow, and ask if that case presents some problems which your Bureau experienced in the District with regard to the enforcement of the narcotics law. Present the facts in the case of Jim Roberts, what kind of a person he was, how he lived, what quantity of drugs he had when taken into custody.
MR. HARNEY. Jim Roberts had two convictions for violation of the Federal narcotics laws. He had convictions for other crimes, including charges of assault. We used an agent in an undercover capacity. Roberts lived in a luxuriously furnished apartment. Some of these figures I cite are on his own statement and probably you will allow for bragging, but he had a beautifully carved television set which he claimed cost him a couple thousand dollars, and he drove a new Cadillac. While the officers were in his presence money was handed to him in a paper grocery bag. Roberts referred to a hatchet and said he was waiting to christen it in blood. When the car was seized the hatchet was under the seat of the car. Roberts’ style of living represents big-shot narcotic dealers. It makes a tremendous impression on others who might think of entering the racket.
In addition to users of standard narcotics, many in Washington go in for esoteric kicks. A growing fad in the Negro district is to inhale incense with marijuana added.
Barbiturates are sold without prescription, because the D.C. law has no teeth in it. Some become habituated to these drugs and, instead of being put to sleep by them, get all the wallop out of them that others get from opium. Many drug stores sell nembutals over the counter for 25 cents each. Nembutals are the prostitutes’ favorite. Among initiates they are known as goof balls, or nemies. They grew popular during World War II, when there was a scarcity of narcotics. Most who prefer goof balls to marijuana usually end up on morphine, heroin or cocaine.
Evelyn Walsh McLean’s daughter, who was married to Senator Reynolds, died from an overdose of goof balls.
As elsewhere, reefers are the real menace. This product of the hemp plant is easily available, can be grown anywhere, is cheap, and in some circles is in good repute. There is no such thing as an innocent reefer smoker. Sooner or later, anyone on “muggles” must become a law-breaker to some degree. Peddlers put their heads together, know how badly any customer is hooked. Then they jack up prices to beyond what most people can pay honestly.
All weed-heads are cop-haters. Even in reasonably normal condition they carry a fierce resentment against conventional forces of society.
Reefer smoking is not habitual in the sense that the addict suffers “withdrawal” symptoms, as when he is taken off other stuff. But neither is cocaine habit-forming in that sense. Both work on the emotions. Their use causes a physiological change in the brain. The reefer smoker who gives the stuff up does not turn violently ill. But he doesn’t give it up. He likes its effect and needs its lift to give him courage.
Sooner or later, all reefer smokers go on to cocaine, because the effect is the same as from reefers, a hundredfold. When the bang of the hemp wears off, cocaine is the only thing that can take its place. And because cocaine is so expensive, one must become a criminal to afford its use. And the cocaine gives one the courage to be a criminal.
The subject of tea-hounds brings us quite naturally to our next chapter, juvenile delinquency, in which stimulants are a large factor.
