The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1911-05-12


all pleasant. Far from it! Quick after
each period OF intoxication came the
dread OF reaction that calls for more and
always more cacaine. The character
istic physical and moral deterioration
went on rapidly. The victim grew sal
low-faced, sunken-eyed, restless, irrita-
Bile. He lost ambition and persever-
ance. He became liar, wreck, help
less and useless, and within year he
was placed in an asylum.
Notice that all this came TO pass be-
cause a perfectly well-meaning young
man bought at a reputable drug store
in Chicago what was advertised as an
excellent cure for catarrh. And before
he knew what he was doing and taking
he had become coke fend' and his
life was irretrievably ruined.
At Hull House, that haven of good
works in Chicago, I found impressive
confederation of the statement that chill
dren easily fall into the cocaine habit.
DR.. Hamilton, a woman bacteriologist
OF Hull House, made an investigation
among boys and young men in the
neighborhood and found that numbers
OF them were regular users of the drug.
DR.. Hamilton found that the cocaine
habit had spread through one group of
seven boys. The youngest, Willie, was
coming home from school one day when
a negro who offered him sniff Of pow
der, saying it would make him feel
good. Willie shifted the powder and,
as he expressed it, felt like million
aire. The negro sold him what was
lett of the powder in little pill box
for IS or 20 cents, and told the boy he
would be around that corner every even
ing with more Of the stuff. He also
suggested that Willie inform his boy
friends of the wonderful effects OF this
powder. Willie went back to the cor
ner and bought more of the drug. He
wanted to feel like millionaire. He
told his two brothers, young men of II
and Is, and they tried the powder.
One by one four of their friends were
initiated until the group of seven was
formed. All seven became absolutely
demoralized; they quit going to school,
stopped work, stayed away from home
all night, going on regular cocaine de-
bauches and spending as much as 81
in a single day for the drug. When
their money gave out they would pawn
their clothes, they would steal, they
would do anything to get more money
to buy more cocaine.
Through the earnest efforts of the
Hull House people these seven boys
were cured OF the habit. DR.. Hamilton
thinks a cure is possible for the young,
though rarely possible for adults. Even
so, the effects of their long indulgence
in cocaine did them permanent injury.
Their power of resistance was enfeebled
and three of them died of tuberculosis.
1t is a question, too, whether the others
have been quite sound mentally.
I talked with a husband and wife,
both coke fends," whom l found in
filthy howell on Cocaine alley" the
foulest part OF Chicago, and they both
assured me that they thought nothing
of spending 81 or SIS day for dope. "
They might lack food, clothing, warmth,
decency, everything; but without CO.
caine they could not and would not
live. This husband, strange to say,
was a man of intelligence and nice in
stincts. He wore glasses and had a
fine brow. He was a carpenter by trade
able to earn good wages until he got
this habit. His wife, shattered, shriv-
eled, frantic creature (she was on the
verge of the cocaine leaps" }, informed
me with a certain pride that she had
once been famous dancer in the Black
Crook company.
In an adjoining howell was colored
"a tall, 1.-THE, wild-eyed victim, who
said a dollar worth of cocaine was only
enough for few shifts, it would scarcely
last an hour.
Pure cocaine, which is manufactured
freely in various cities, is worth about
"a an ounce. That is what crooked
cocaine merchants pay for it. Then he
retails the drug by the little pink pill
49,, fill ~ the little hlue bottle full