Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-05-17
BY ALMA CHESTNUT.

Cling Only crude opium and coca leaves can
be imported legally and close check is main
tanned on factories and persons licensed to
handle them. Little Of the legal product is
diverted
However. carefully hidden in consignments
billed as furs, nailbrushes, or what have you;
hidden in the legs of chairs inside imported
cheeses, in bales of wool. in the carcasses of
frozen sheep, in false bottoms Of trunks and
secret pockets of barrels; concealed about ships
in life preservers, hollow masts, coal bunkeTs
and thousand and one other places, drugs are
flowing constantly into this country.
Arriving principally at New York, they pass
from hand TO hand, reaching the most distant
towns and hamlets 1t is the job of Federal
narcotic agents to stem the tide.
Under new generalship, It's forces realigned,
the American dope" war went into its fifteenth
year of organized activity in 1880, with
smashing offensive that broke the enemy's lines
in score of cities and netted huge seizures at
ports of entry. The Porter act passed June IA,
$780, created in the Treasury Department a
narcotic bureau designed to operate as a special
unit. Before it had been a branch of the
Prohibition Bureau.
To Harry J. Anslinger, formerly assistant
prohibition commissioner expert in smuggling
and time representative Of the State De-
partment in its foreign service, was handed the
job of recognizing the bureau and directing It's
policies. Last September after a whirlwind
campaign that had smashed more than O dozen
big dope rings and sent prices sky-rocketing,
he was appointed TO the post Of Federal narcotic
commissioner.
A FIGHTER, young and dynamic, Mr. An
\ singer early in June surveyed his field,
counted his resources, and went into battle.
Two hundred and fifty agents comprised his
army" and these, he knew, were pitted against
a cIose-knit organization comprising the
and r{noir1o IN,
the country
Skillful requirements at salient points boil
stored the line, and Roy A. Darling, former
Secret Service man Of varied experience. was
named supervisor of special investigations.
Policies which had prevailed in the old narcotic
division since its inception did a right about
face.
Instead of directing major operations against
the army Of street trafickers, who, arrested,
steadfastly refused to tell where they got their
stuff, the new bureau undertook to trace the
drugs through the peddlers and retailers to
their ultimate source, the international rings of
smugglers and wholesale distributors.
4 AR. ANSLINGER has sought the aid OF
w foreign officials and established CO.
operation with representatives Of the State
Department abroad as well as with the Customs
Bureau.
foreign countries-not an international spy
system in its true sense, for American narcotic
agents do not operate outside of this country
but system of awards for information leading
to seizures.
How well the new policies have worked is
apparent in the results. Unfortunately 1880
figures are not yet available, but the rs cases
OF "furs" taken from the steamer Alesia ON
December contained 1000 pounds of NOR
phine, valued at more than 100000. That
was 60 times as much of this drug as was seized
at ports and borders during all Of 1929.
Two trunk-loads were taken from aboard the
lie de France earlier in the year and trunkful
from the Majestic. Still another huge seizure
was made recently when a customs inspector
found 500 pounds of opium in hollow mast
ON the British freight steamer Raby Castle
And seizures here tell only part OF the story
Huge eonsignments, destined for the United
States, have been tied up in foreign ports
thousands Of mines from their goal