Imperial Valley press., 1914-02-10


of the port for this district.
Recommendations to Washington
for either mounted or automobile
patrol to do duty from San Diego to
Yuma, or imperative request for sub.
stantial increase in both the customs
house and immigration service will
unquestionably follow the inquiry.
Elliott has already made partial
survey of conditions and is familiar
with the fact that $5O0,O0O worth of
the death dealing and misery spread
ing drug is smuggled across the Cali
fornia line each year.
While Elliott's jurisdiction covers
but the customs service, his report
may embrace detailed resume of this
entire situation, the customs house
and immigration inspectors necessar-
lily cooperating now as a result of the
scarcity of border agents in both de-
partments.
Until the probe has been completed,
the government officers are naturally
reticent in discussion of the situation
and possibilities of remedy, preferring
to do their duty to the best of their
ability and leaving the problem of
fully covering the situation up to
Washington.
1t is conceded, however, that with
but seventeen men in both the immi-
grafton and customs services doing
border duty along the Mexican line in
California, the present patrol is but a
pretense and that existing conditions
will continue until the guard is more
than quadrupled.
In addition to this, the present gov
ernment border agents must be
aroused to complete sense of their re
sponsibilities, say those familiar with
the laxity of the patrol, if the easy
access right through the Federal gates
by the smugglers is to be halted.
1 Unlike the smuggleYs of arms and
ammunition out of the United States
into Mexico before the psuedo-em-
barge was forced up, opium smugglers
are, while professionals, found among
all classes; sinugglers of arms usually
are soldiers of fortune who work by
contract with revoutionists.
/ Secret service men could by week S
effort in San Diego and Calexico be
brought in direct touch with the more
prosperous professional opium SNUG
glers and the trail would lead them
to arrests that would undoubtedly
prove a sensation.
/ ChauffeurS who drive taXicabS and
stages across the border and along the
| line between San Diego and CaleXico
know more Of the inside workings of
the smuggling clique than any other
class of men save those who deal di-
rectly with the smugglers.
! Several of these, in conversation
outside San Diego's smartest restau-
rant, declared that the cleverest
opium smuggler on the coast is a
wealthy San Diego man who resides at
one of the city's most exclusive ho-
tells and mingles-with the best, if
somewhat bohemian, society.
Discussion of the wholesale manner
in which the opium traffic is carried
on is common table and curbstone talk
the jest of the subject always is ref
erence to execution of the law.
Use of opium, investigation reveals,
is far less prevalent among the Chi
nese than among foreign visitors to
their resorts and by individual smok-
ers who are least suspected by their
friends of such indulgence. The "hab-
it" has spread from underworld to So
ciety circles and is the living national
menace.
1t is an effort to at least diminish
the illicit traffic by better patrol
ing the border and thus attempt to
halt the inroads the drug is making on
the brain and Drawn of the nation THAI
Collector Elliott will complete his
probe of border conditions and make
his recommendations.
Opium smoking, victims say, usual
| ly begins as joke or desire by the
too sophisticated for something new
to break the monotony of their par
ties" and-doing no harm the first few
times, induces the smokers to believe
themselves immune to the "habit''-
eliminates in physical and mental
ruin.
The day of the Chinatown opium
dive has about passed. Municipal po-
lice regulations against use of the
drug are so much more effective than
Federal laws prohibiting its importa-
ton that the picturesque rendezvouX
of opium victims have been wiped
away.
But a far more serious situation
presents itself in the fact that from
Chinatown, where the drug usually
was confined to the denizens of the
gutter, it has now invaded apartment
houses. hotels and homes of the mid
die and. in many cases, best class.
In calling attention to the necessity
of imperative action on the part of
federal or state government to
prevent smuggling of the drug. Sc
cret service man declared that the
poor can no longer afford to "smoke.'
Prices quoted in Sun Diego for can
of the dope vary from $25 to S27,
profit of more than so per cent. for
the smuggler, whose only duty is to
get the stuff across the line Mexican
opium supply houses are as noted as
the theatres and anybody can pro-
cure the drug -,
Also, American purchasers In the
border and coast cities arc almost as
we'll known to those who come in con-