The wageworker. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1904-????, 1909-02-27


Il become penniless-it has
no friends.
Therefore, when the statesmen of
the earth reached the tardy conclusion
that the encouragement Of opium
smoking really did not pay. the gaunt
giant of the poppy fields was ready to
be bowled over, writes Allan l.. Ben
son. At this propitious moment the
United States government, which had
never sought to fatten on the opium
traffic. initiated a worldwide fight
against it.
That was two years ago. China,
which for 700 years had alternately
fought against and wrung revenue
from its greatest national weakness,
rallied for another attack.
First an edict went forth that every
Chinese official who smoked opium
must forthwith cease to do so.
Then the common people of China
We're notified that they, too, must soon
stop. The common people, however
were given ten years in which to taper
Off the habit to the vanishing point.
China also entered into an agree
ment with Great Britain to decrease,
year by year, the area devoted to
poppy culture in China and in India.
OF course one does not need to go
far to find the reason for Americas
opposition to the opium-smoking habit.
AS a people, We do not burn the poppy's
blood, and are not greedy enough to
care to continue to collect the Sc a
pound tax that we have levied on the
opium that the Chinese and the white
degenerates want to smoke. But how
comes 1t that England, which once
fought for opium with her CRIMES and
her fleets is now openly against it?
And how comes 1t that China, whose
public officials have so long fattened
on the taxes wrung from the traffic. is
sitting beside England? Back of these
circumstances is profound economic
fact
This fact is that opium smoking does
not pay. 1t never paid-but shorter
sighted governmental officials long
thought it did. Yet the changed view
has not it's origin in the failure OF
tariffs and imposts of various sorts to
wiring enormous sums from those who
smoke the Oriental pipe. Here is the
real story in three sentences:
Men, to pay taxes, must first be
born.
After birth they must have strength
and industry.
And they must not die until they are
too old to work
Now see what opium does:
In those families where the father
smokes opium the average number O
children is 1.09. The few children wht
are born and who reach maturity are
poor workers. and they die young.
Here is the world crying for eff
ficiency and prodigious production
Here are the great nations scannin,
their budgets and their industries IL
desperate desire to raise the enormous
sums with which to maintain thei
armies, increase their navies and carr,
on their other great governmental &C
tivities. And here is opium palsyin
the hands that could turn many
wheel.
Is 1t any wonder that the popp
fields are giving way to rice, and tina
the American congress has passed
bill excluding smoking-opium? TIL
statesmen of an older school, it is true
would have done otherwise The
would have clutched the penhy-tax an
lost the ultimate dollar But eve
England is no longer so unwise. Ems
land knows that her Dreadnought
were not launched from poppy fields
that they were made possible only b
the well-worked mines and mills an
farms of England. And while she
aware that she could continue to rea
pittance from the peoples. she
now seeking bigger things. She wan
to tax the greater products of vigo
Gus men.
Yet what a fight it has been ft
China to see this happy day when I'll
worlds interest in this matter has b
come like her own! It's fight TIL
began 700 years ago, and it illustrate
as nothing else can, the peculi;
strength and the peculiar weakne
that are inherent in the Chinese cha
acter. 1t also affords one of the fe
illustrations of the superiority of a
tocratic government over popular rul
For while the people of the opiu
habit, always vigorously fought for
even as they are now rioting again
the curtailment of the poppy fields, Il
government has always opposed
precisely as 1t opposes it to-day. Son
times 1t has yielded to exterior fore
and then it has shown its weakne
by impoverishing with taxes tho
whose bodies opium was impoveris
ing.
Opium was unknown In China I'm
the latter part of the twelfth centul
Who brought it there perhaps does n
make SO much difference, since it
there, but the British say the Ara
did. At any rate, the dried juice
the poppy came from some of
eastern Europeans or western Asia