The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1921-12-02
White CROSS HEAD
DECLARES DOPE EVIL
THREATENS HUMANITY
"SNOW" PARTIES AMONG BOYS
AND GIRLS OF Is AND 16 is
BECOMING COMMON IN CITIES
OF THE NATION,

cannon w. ii. Bliss, of Seattle, pas
tor of Trinity Episcopal Church and
head of the White Cross Society for
the prevention of the narcotic curse
in this state, made one of the most
stirring addresses of the governor:
conference at Seattle last Saturday.
He was repeatedly Interrupted with
applause.
He was introduced by Chairman
Thomas p. Revelle as the man who
had most unselfshly and tirelessl >,
worked, in season and out, just out Of
love for humanity and desire to de-
feat the forces Of evil that would
wreck humanity.
Rev. Mr. Bliss said: After all, this
is not matter for the law enforce
ment officers exclusively, but it is for
the general public to put full force in
to the campaign.
If the public conscience could only
be thoroughly aroused, the matter of
law enforcement would not be the diff
ficult task that it is now. The thing
we have most to combat and the
thing this conference should now set
itself most specifically and particular
ly to combat is the blindness, SEEM
ingly willful blindness to the terrible
menace to society of the drug habit
May | offer these figures for your
consideration? They represent the
importation into the United States OF
crude opium for the three years of
1917, 1918 and 1919, and show the
startling growth of the demand upon
the American drug manufacturing
plants in this country for the finished
"dope," the derivatives of the raw
opirm, which include morphine as
well as the manufactured opium for
smoking purposes that dope users
call "mud."
1917 ............................ 10000 pounds
1918 ...................,........1 100000 pounds
1919 ............................ 1900 pounds
Between the years of 1917 and
1918 the demand for the stuff in
creased nearly 200 per cent; between
1918 and 1919, nearly 430 per cent.
and between 1917 and 1919, more than
1000 per cent. That bears out the
well-known adage of dope peddlers:
"When you make one new customer
he makes six more for you"
Think also of this startling fact:
One ton of morphine is equal to 5OO,-
100000 so-called "shots." How many
billion "shots" are being manu-
factured in the United States every
year?
The United States imports from
thirteen to seventy-two times as
much crude opium as any other nation
in the world. The doctors and den
fists don't use II all. They use very
little of it. The great bulk of it is
exported, later to be smuggled back
into this country.
How many addicts in the United
States? Take the figures of trained
experts, who have given the study of
lifetime to the narcotic evil. The
estimates vary between 100000 and
100000 addicts. Dr. Reidy says l.
9S8,000. Say we have 100000 ad-
diets. That is one person out of every
fifty and it would bear out the esti-
mates of the Seattle police and Dr.
Read, city health officer, which place
the total in Seattle between 5000 and
10000.
Consider also that fully % per cent
of the addicts are always unemploy
ed-hopeless hotces and vagrants.
Consider the effect of the narcotic
evil on your unemployment problem.
At this stage Mr.. Bliss called upon
expert witnesses in the audience to
tell the people how much daily the
average dope fiend required to get
his drug. r. F. Baerman, one of In
spector Hans Damm's chief assistants
in the city antinorcotic service, said
from So to 50 day. Miss Cora West.
superintendent of the Lakeside Hospi-
tai, said from 81 to So a day.
He continued: Suppose we say
that the minimum expenditure of a
dope addict is So & day. Two million
addicts in the United States at SO a
day-that is s6,O0O,00O a day or $2,-
190,000,000 a year, and two billions a
year would pay all the costs of run
ming the United States government
that are not directly attributable to
war.
In Seattle users of the dope will
spend from $4,000 to $4,000 day.
That is from $5,OOO.OOO TO $4,000 900
year and would pay all the expense
of running our city government
Think of such sum going into the
pockets of these ghoulish devils, who