The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-09-08
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER

d. VLS1DnOOh FEOLEh
NEW YORK, Mrs. Roosevelts auto
biography, published several years ago. is one
OF my favorite books and everytime dip into
it I am tantalized by the atmosphere of luxury
pervading the story and the authors iron
reticence concerning the sources of the Delano
fortune.
Now I think I understand.
The old gent, Warren Delano, President
Roosevelts grandfther, was an old time
opium smuggler, a member of something
rather like our own rum row which operated
off the New York coast 4 few years ago.
The ships ran the stuff from India into China,
whose emperor had seen the ravages of the
drug among his people and was trying to saw
them off.
You have to do a great deal of studious
reading to get at the facts, but if you are
patient you find in Lawrence Kearny, sailor
diplomat, written by Carroll Storrs Alden, in
1876, this statement: "In 1884, when Is, War
rem Delano went to Macao. and in the fol-
lowing year, was made a partner in Russell
and Co. He was one among American mer-
chants who, with British merchants, were i'm
prisoned by the Chinese in the walled-n area
of Canton, the event which led to the so-called
opium war.
"Since 1900, traffic in opium was illegal in
China. The Emperor Tao-Kwang directed the
suppression of importation and use under
penalty OF confiscation and death"
Alden was head of the department of English
and history at the U. S. Naval Academy.
Mrs Roosevelt incidentally, mentions vague
ly the fact that Delano lived in China many
years and was member Of Russell and Co..
| Commodore Kearney, the subject of the book,
| served 81 years in our Navy. The Commodore,
in his papers, says Delano was our vice
consul in Canton, and later, says small as
sistance can be had from the commercial
agent of the United States in Canton who is
a member of firm deeply interested in this
nefarious traffic.
In volume called the Clipper Ship Era,
by Arthur H. Clark. who commanded several
ships in the China trade, it is written that the
British had a monopoly until certain American
firms horned in, attracted by the tremendous
profits to be made by the exploitation of the
Chinese addicts. He mentions several ships and
says These vessels, owned by. Russell and
Co., soon controlled the opium trade and be-
came known as opium clippers.
They all made great deal of money for
their owners until they were superseded by
steamers
In another book, called the Opium Clipper,
Basil Lubbock writes that the head partner
of Russell and Co., of which Delano was also
a partner, was directly responsible for practi-
cally all of the American clippers in the opium
| trade
In a pamphlet published in 1858 by Nathan
Allen, called the Opium Trade, there is a
footnote which says, This Russeu and Coz
is the only American firm as far as we can
learn, engaged in the traffic. And what is
the amount of capital invested we have no
means of knowing. The same censures which
are applied to the English should also be melted
out to all Americans engaged in this traffic
In an earlier pamphlet, Allen wrote: There
| is no slavery on earth to be compared with the
bondage into which opium casts its victims.
| There is scarcely one known instance of escape
| from its tolls when once they have fairly en-
veloped a man."
Robert Montgomery Martin, in book called
China, Political and Commercial, published in
1847 describes a rendezvous of more than 80
opium boats at Canton and says at Canton,
the foreign residents, with two or three unin-
fluential exceptions, all identified with the
opium trade" He also says "an American
| firm. Russell and Co., have four (opium
ships) on the coast and three between India
and China under the American flag
| Delano died in 1898, leaving personal estate
of ST 338000. He had married twice and was
the father of nine children, among them, Sarah
Delano, who married James Roosevelt and be-
came the mother Of Franklin D. Roosevelt
AS Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt reveals in her life
story, the family lived richly and without toll
and travelled abroad at will during a period