The Washington times. [volume], March 19, 1922, SUNDAY MORNING, Image 44

About The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
16 the Dish With the Small Anioun
Adult. The Pile of Heroin in ti
D OWN in the furnace room in the base
ment of New Yorks Police Head
quarters the other day stood the
I wous Pqlice Commissioner, Richard Z.
bRight, and Special Deputy Police Com
misoner Carleton Simon. With their feet
an the grimy furnace room floor and their
ames red from the glow of the open fire-box,
the stood and watched more than three
million and, a half dollars' worth of for
bidden drugs thrown in on to the glowing
coals. 0
:!*Am In one fom' or another or chemi
as derivatives of opium made up most of
that valuable but contraband collection. It
represented a little less than a year's accu
mulation of the Narcotic Division of the
New York police force under the command
of'Special Deputy Commissioner Simon.
It the detectives were able to find and
confiscate such a quantity of dope in a
year's time it must, of course, represent
but a small percentage of the actual amount
of forbidden drugs which are brought into
Ne.w York City and consumed in a twelve
uonth. It was a startling evidence of the
widespread use of drugs. and the impres
sive spectacle sobered the faces of Com
missioner Enright and his deputy. and de
termined them to. pursue the wicked traffic
with even greater vigor.
In addition to the assortment of raw
opium, prepared opium, morphine, heroin
cocaine and other contraband drugs there
was an extraordinary assortment of opium
pipes and "hop layouts," hypodermic need
lea and other things used by drug ad
licts. All these were thrown into the fire
box of the furnace
"Well, it is hard to estimate the real
value to the community of what we have
destroye4 here to-day.' said Commissioner
Simon as he tossed the last package of
drugs Into the furnace. "Not all drug ad
dicts are criminals, but most criminals are
drug addicts. We have destroyed enough
drugs to-day to put half of Greater New
York to sleep. No one can say how many
drug-crased criminals and crimes of crafti
ness and violence have been averted by
the seisure and destruction of all this
stuff."
It is the drug that inspires the crafty
schemes in the minds of highwaymen, bur
glars, confidence men and murderers, and
gives them the courage to do their des
perate work. A group of criminals, ,for
instance, will "lie up" for the night in
some hidden den, smoking opium. Out of
the fumes will come an idea for swindling
a rich and innocent widow, perhape, or a
plan for holding up a paymaster or blow
ing a safe.
Then the schemers sleep, dreaming
weird, exotic, blissful dreams, through the
thick murky haze, and in the morning at
least one of the hand will remember the
brilliant idea of the night before.
The idea still seems feasible-but it re
quires courage'-rat like courage-to carry
it out. Normal men-even criminals not
under the influence of drugs-would lack
the nerve to commit the crime. But the
"hop-heads" do not give up; they know
how they can get the nerve. A jab of the
hypodermnic needle, a sniff of cocaine or
heroin-and they are stemulated, madly,
unreasoningly, to the point where nothing
/oan stop them.
UUnder the influence of the 'Irugs petty
thieves shoot their victims, purse snatch
era brutally assault young girls, condidene
men ot only swindle their prey. but eno
Pursuli
Depui
la Enough Heroin to Kill an
e Other Dish Shows How
Much the Conerme~d
Addict la Able to
Take.
Photograph of Part of the Threi
Opium Pipes and Layouts Seizei
son them. Drugs not only stimulate crime,
but Intensify it. And the drug evil is
growing, as the police know. Specific lo
calities may nt realize it, but throughout
the country officers of the law are coming
to recognise the drug traffic as one of the
main roots of the evils with which they a
constantly contend.
Drugs make criminals in more than one
way. Not only does the use of drugs tend
to 'destroy the mental resistance to evil
that is called morals, but drugs seem to
make their victihna insensible to the differ
ence between right and wrong. Drugs
now cost so much money that the addict
is usually compelled to resort to crime in
order to buy them. Many a criminal has
committed his first offense in order to
buy his "dope.' 'Commissioner Simon
says that the average drug fiend pays $5
a day. $35 a week for his supply. He has
arrested addicts who confessed to paying
as high as $16 a day.
in the sixteen months that Dr. Simon
has been in offii4 his Narcotic Division has
made about 4,000 arrests. The record for
this year is well ahead of that for a corres
ponding period last year'which does not
mean that the drug evil is increasing out
of all bounds in New York City, but mere.
ly that the Narcotic Division is increasing.
ly efficient in keeping pace.
Under the State law anyone caught with
drugs illegally in his possession may be
arrested and sent to take "the cure"-a
scientific treatment administered in a
State institution, where the patient is
given diminishing doses of his drug, fed
according to prescribed dietary, and made
to exercise until eventually he has lost the
"habit" and is well ad strong enough
mentally and physiaally to be released.
The cure really cure., but, unfortunately,
underworld vietims return to teirs old
yj olce Comm
eless Attacks
on the DepE
Drug- Craze
.as He Desti
Seized Op~i
Half the Ci
Christmas. Post-Card Showing How a
lnt, a Pr'isowe
by the NeCor oic aeoi
hans n ascits n otn r*so
MIlisougl h cvr and fDl arreWot
of drug usern that Dr. Simon's men get to
the drug peddlers-the men they are really
after. The drug addict tells the police
where he buys his supply, or they shadow
him until they find out for themselves.
Then, pretending to be drug fiends them
selves-every detective in the Narcotic
Division can give an excellent imitation of
a "cokey" or a "hop-head"-they persuade
the peddler to sell them the drug. Then
he is arrested, or his depot raided. It was
the spoils of these raids that went into
the furnace--except for several thousand
dollars' worth still awaiting use as evi
dence in court.
Where does all this drug come from?
The Federal law forbid, its importation
except under bond. The Treasury Depart
ment has a force of men at work to pre
vent it being smuggled in-too small a
force to cover the lengthy borders and sea
coast of the country. Much of it comes
from E~urope. Dr. Simon. who has agents
in England and the Continent, discovered
'recently that the Germans were manufact
uring heroin and cocaine synthetically,
and that they and a Japanese syndicate
were planning to flood the United States
with their products. There is no law in
Germany or Japan to forbid the exporta
tion of narcotics.
A good deal of dope has found its way
to New York recently from Canada, which
in turn got it from Mezico. By the
arrest in New York a few weeks ago of a
Montreal criminal and opium user Dr.
Simon verined informaion comhag to him
from other sources, namely, that the drug
ring in Montreal has been using chorus
girls playing in Montreal to smuggle drugs
over the ,order.
The Montreal band made it a practice
rissioner Sim
6f the Police
i Supply of
Criminals
oys Enough.
um to Put
ty to Sleep
L "Deck" of Hereb Wa Sumggled
In the Tomb.
of Centraband Drugs,
)ivision in the Last Year.
to lure the girls to a certain no
torlous dive which pretended to
be a theatrical club, and by
slipping a drug into their drinks
ebsiaved them. They craved
the drug, after they had been
told what It was that made
their drink so "different," and
they could only get the drug by
4ping the will of the gang. Some
of them were set to work trying
to corrupt customs officers.
others carried supplies of the "Decks
drug boldly away with them the Fl
when their shows left town.
Still others became regular travelling
saleswomen, making the triangular trip
between Montreal, Boston and New York.
The drug wasn concealed in Ingenious ways.
The mysterious deaths of several beau
titel girls In New York recently binge
upon the operations of the Montreal drug
ring, as did the wild flight of an unnamed
woman from Montreal to New York In a
taxi not so long ago-a adventure that
remains a mystery to far.
The drug evil has developed a new derm
of criminal, which Dr. Simon ha. isolaied
and Identified just as a bacteriologist
might Isolate and describe a new germ.
He is the "drug booster," who seldom uus
the drug but persuades others to use It.
He is the missIonary, the advance agent
of the drug ring.
Sometimes he distributes free samples,
sometimes he enslaves a number of girls
and spreads the habit through them all
over a factory or store. He and his assist
ants work on a commission basis. He is
the successor to the cadet or 'procurer of
the whitesiave traficl, for he finds he can
use girls more profitably in peddling drugs
than In other florms of vice. Recently Dr.
Simon has found school children ansamwd
*Ne
Rf &eveals the
Deputy Poece Cm n==j==iom
Meeney DesryigDope
at P.Me. Headqua
ms,New York.
of Heroin Concealed in a Copy of
ew York Board of Health Report.
in this practise; one of the women re
ferred to above had a large clientele in
fashionable hotels and made a specialty
of boosting the drug among college
students.
Etnee ball bh~tnas number taany drug
boosters; others pes as chorus girls. If
thir m'W are of the higher planes
et sesely they seldom fall within the
clutches of the police, because there is
emough mosey available to buy the drug
without resorting to crime. In the last
few weeks, however, CommissIoner 8imon
has ten down some of the peddlers who
supply the upper West, Side, the Murray
Hill section and Fifth avenue with drugs,
and wealthy iwera of narcotics are finding
It more difficult to-get their daily dope.
One of these peddlers had a route as
dedinite as that of a milkman. Begiag
at six every morning he made his seuads
of famissmable aparment houses, leaving
three decks of cocaine here, a phial of
morphine there, half a deon decks of
heroin at the nelt place. Sometimes, his
books showed, he was called on to supply
additional opium or heroin for a "perty,"
just as a catorer might supply dinners
a. a edding. ,It en a tato s e w al=
k T
r Simon and Lieutenant Joseph J.
and Opium Pipes in the Furnace
occasions he actually supplied experts to
"cook" the opium for a patron who wanted
to treat his Sests to a smoke.
The tenseness of modern life, the after
war reactiomn-thess,and many other fae
tors are responsible for the increase in
the drug evil, and it takes steadf. patient
work on (ommissioner Simon's part to
combat it. He himself works with his
men almost every night, sometimes until
daylight, watching suspects, raiding drug
depots or opium dens, questioning prison
erp.
The doctor is .a good example of Com
missioner Enright's policy of placing com
petent civilians in the Police Department.
For many years Dr. Simon was well
known as an alienist and criminologist.
He figured as an expert n the Burts.
Guldensuppe, Morrison and Molineaux
marder trials, and when the murderer
Tapley was hanged in Jersey City some
years ago Dr. Simon received the signals
which, by prearrangement, the murderer
sent until he lost consciousness. The re
su1ts of this experiment did much to
abolish that form of capital punishment in
New Jersey.
It was Dr. Simon who conducted the
principal investigation into the "water
cure" which the army was accused of
practising in the Philippines, and who
made psycholbgical studies of Csolgosa.
President McKinley's assassin. A few
weeks ago the Federal Government sub
poenaed him to act as expert witness at
the trial in Oklahoma City of the man
who gave a hashish cigarette to a police
officer, putting the policeman to sleep and
allowing prisoners to escape. Dr. Simon's
testimony corroborated other evidence and
four men were convicted.
One of the greatest forward steps in the
war on drugs is the founding by Dr.
Simon of a central clearing house for the
photographs and records of drug users and
peddlers. He is in correspondence with
the police authorities in more than 300
cities here and in Europe, and exchanges
with them the dossiers of anyone found
to be engaged in the drug traffic. A few
days ago Dr. Simon's men arrested a Los
Angeles addict who had been in New York
only eight hours.
And along about five o'clock the other
morning the Montreal "hop head" referred
to above was talking to the quiet, kindly
voiced man who seemed to have something
to do with the detectives who had made
the arrest, and yet was not likce them.
"Well," said the "hup bead," "I haven't
been able to do a thing since I landed
here six weeks ago, Haven't made a cent.
Ad I heAr this guy Simon is a tough egg
--you caa't get to him, add his men have
driven moat of the gang out of towny
that's why there's so many of them in
Canada now, and why Junk costs sq much
igore In New York than other places. It's
hard to get, and this guy Simon Is making
it harder all the time."
It was "this guy Simon" to whom the j
"hop head" was speaking, but he never
krnew It