The New York Times from New York, New York • Page 48

80 THET NEW" YORK TIDIES. SUNDAY. MARCH .12. ,1911, 12 UNCLE AM i 5 Hamilton Wright United States Opium Commissioner. Is 4t year old.

end native of Ohio. He was appointed to his present office July 1, 190S, and wsa American delegate to til International Opium Coramlf-Ion. which met at Shanghai In February. 1 He began his education In Boaton. and was graduated M.

V. with first-class bonore, from McOUl University, la Montreal. In He served there for a year In hospital, then apnt two rears In China and Japan, studying scientific, octal, and economic condition, In Ii7 he received the British, Madlcal Association Studentship for researches on the nervous system, and. elsewhere In Kurope. won high academic honora.

In lono-1903 he served upon a special mission In Further India, studying tropical diseases, especially beri-bert, malaria, and plague. After other official medical ervlca of the htgheat Importance In India ha returned to tha United States In 1903. Since the adjournment of International Opium Commlaalon he has been attached to the Department of State, preparing for the coming conference at The Hague thla Spring. He la the author of many aclentlflc artlclea and mono-grapha on the nerroua system, aocial and economlo problema in the tropica, and on tho hlatory. sociology and econoralca of the opium problem.

By Edward Marshall. READ thla paragraph and gasp. 'Of all the nationa of tha world," Dr. Hamilton Wright, who knowa more of the subject Mian any other living man. told me the ther day.

"the United Statea conaumea S.cst hablt-formlng druga per capita, liplum. the inost pernicious drug known lo humanity, la surrounded, In thla country, with far fewer safeguards than any nation In all Europe fence it with. China now guard It with much greater care than we do; Japan preacrvee her peopie from it more intelligently tBan we do oura, who can buy It. In almost any form. In every tenth one of our drug stores.

Our phyalclana use It recklessly In reme-diea and thua become responsible for making numberleaa 'dope fiend and in uncounted nostrums offered everywhere for aale It flgurea. In hablt-maklng quan-tltlea. without restriction. Even In Rus- ela medical practitioner, recognlalng the great Bydenham'a declaration that without opium their profession would go limping, have guarded It as one might guard a pearl, for use and against abuse. A physician there would no more think of giving It at ordinary time of physical or mental stress than he would think of Jaklng It himself because he had a trifling pain or felt a little worry.

Here physicians often are addicted to the habit, and they continually prescribe opium for Insufficient causea or without any real excuse. The contrast between European and American professional ethics In thla matter la deplorable, and the dark side of the picture la America's. A proportion of our doctors and a much larger ratio of our druggists regard their liberty to proscribe and sell as license to advise and furnish to Its victims the narcotic curse upon demand." Dr. Wright Is energetic, nervous and magnetic; throughout official rlrclca he Is spoken of, in Washington, us "Opium Doctor" Wright, and la proud of it. He lias done more, perhaps, than any other' Li.

man to fight the opium habit In this coun try, and the fruit of his enthusiasm has not been confined to the United States. He Is an Important In a worldwide crusade, and almost from world's end to world's end his fame Is known. Kverywhere Is regarded as the one man living who, through Individual effort along the line which he has chosen, tnaa accomplished most. On the 30th of May, this year, he will be upon the firing line again In still another battle with the evil as and, probably, the chief of the American delegation to the Opium Conference at The HaRue, where, with associates appointed by twelve of the great powers, he will. It is to be devoul'y hoped, give to the world a real solution of this mightiest of lis narcotic problems.

Few people realize how serious Hie plum habit has become In the United States. Ask most men where most opium la used and they will answer, China," without the slightest hesitation; but the fact Is definitely otherwise. Our prr capita consumption equals and probably exceeds that of the Draenn Empire, and there the habit Is Intelligently being killed, while here It is im-i-easlng with so great a speed that we may well stand startled et the contemplation of Its spread. The Story of the Opium Fight. The history of the opium fight forms a queer Illustration of our National blind-Hess to our own faults." Or.

Wright explained to me, and emphasizes our National tendency to see, with an amailng clarity, the alns of others, while remaining blind to our own vk-lousness. The habit lias this Nation In lta grip- to an astonishing extent. Our prisons and our hospltala are full of victims of It, It has robbed ten thousand business men of ntoral sense and made them beasts who prey upon theJr fellows, unidentified' It lias become on of the most fertile causes of unhapplness and sin In the United States. If not that cause which can be charged with more of both than any other. When Champ Clark, before the Ways and Means Committee, asked me what the rftect of the restrictive legislation which favored would be.

I said that It would to drive out of the business net less thon 10 per cent, of all the retail drug gists In Vie count rr. because. In the t'nltt-d Ktatca. at least one druggUt out cf every ten extxts by means of profits front the sale of habit-fomilng drugs, of which, of course, opium and Its derivatives ar moet Important. Most people will, with Mr.

Clark, be much surprised to read this, but It Is less than truth. If tplum were rifchtly safeguarded in the United States far mere than a full tenth of all the drusglats would tie Immediately forced from buslnesa, nnd many, many a complacent doctor, wt.llng to prescribe the drug upon dennusl of acy patient's burtful craving fir It, would find his j. radio, now, really, a mere detail of one vf the world's most vicious habits, dwindling quickly Into nothing. As the result of the illicit traffic in these drugs the pltaramceutlcal profession In this country has loet much of its dignity, and this la fully justified by the medical profesalon must include with- In Its ranks a multitude of arrant knavsn, the greater number of them, themselves the victims of the drug and robbed by It of all sense qf their responsl- Mltty to their patients and society. "Our through these facta, and carelessness, ignorance, and want of oreslght by the Federal Government sid.

too, I think, as the result of mental ad physical exhaustion following the eH war, have become the greatest drug Dr. Hamilton Use fiends In tha world. not excluding th flv. M.li4'd Chinese, vv are nerwujr tu ww. -Plum 1 c', "And no efforts-'.

Opposition to Efforts Oh. yes, very definite efforts been made looking "tdward ad. they will win. but the. 'opposition has been strenuous.

A restryvsbm. pro; posed this Winter, provided for tha regu lation by tha Federal Government i rerr person imponer, druggist, or physician who In any manner handles hablt-formlng drugs, and all sales and transactions In those droits must be recorded and such, records -kat quits open to inspection by the accredited authorities of States apd.tnanJclpali-. ties charged with the enforcement of anU-narcotlo lawa Against ftbls, bill was brought an opposition senungv, aggregated capital of quite $100000.00, and with an annual turnover of af least five times that 'V "And is there, In do other country, -so strong aa opposition to restneuvs measures? 4,1 No other country In tho world, today. Is either faced by such an opium-problem, or finds its efforts to dissolve the one It has so viciouslr opposed. China Is Involved to the extent of annual duties amounting to 16,000.000.

or. ronghly, India's financial interests -Jo not amount to more than 30,000.000 annually, counting tariff and Internal revenue; and counting her Bengal opium monopoly, her Chinese traffic and her excise Income from, the sale of opium' in India. Thera has been talk, lots of It, In thla country. In criticism of the British attitude toward but we might. with much more profit, talk in criticism of our own, for.

In comparison with ours the sins of England are small matters; Theirs are open, ours are hidden. That Is why we hear so much about Great Britain's and so little of our and the hidden vice la ever far more danger-oua than the unconcealed wrongdoing. Has no other country than America a similar problem among druggists aed phytlclans? We Stand Alone In Our Indifference. All have had. but except for us.

they all have brought their evils under sotte control. Canada, for Instance, has passed a splendid law. Germany has good laws, and so have Russia. France, and England. Even the Crown Colony of Hongkong ha a law which puts this tountry to the blush.

I have spoken about Cana da. She has not only cleared her own skirts, but has held an unasked helping)' hand out toward us. Mr. L. Kenxie King has had a bill passed there' which forbids the exportation to this country of opium prepared for smoking, thereby protecting us from smuggle! opium from that direction, almost agahut our will, apparently.

In the past not less than 20.000 pounds. nd probably, quite 30.000 pounds per annum have been smuggled Into the United States across' our northern boundary." And how about our southern border? I know less about the Mexican fron aure that large amounts of opium prepared for smoking are imported into Mexico, and that moet of it la not consumed there. The natural Inference la that it comes across our boundary is rtnuagled but, for one reason or another, we lack detailed knowledge. "That matter win adjust Itself, however. Larger phases of the subject have demanded and are our attention.

There are the' Philippines, for instance. When we found that we had captured, with the Philippines, an opium problem, we set to work to solve tt as intelligently as we could, and. at' first. It was though best to gradually abolish the drug's use there. The Islands needed revenue and needed It acutely, so It was deemed by some if not entirely wise, to countenance restricted sale, beneath a heavy tax.

and use the income for necessary, worthy purposes, such as, I ror instance, schools. But further study proved me trade to be a threat to everything we held of value In the Islands, ao Mr. Taft. who then was Governor, sent out his experts to Investigate through the whole East and come back with full Information and suggestions. This commission also advised gradual abolition of the traffic, not lu Instantaneous prohibition, and, therefore, for a time this was again considered, but It soon became apparent that the measures they suggested were too mild to suit the sentiment of the home people, who protested until Congress passed an act of prohibition at the request of Mr.

Roosevelt and of Mr. Root The Islands in the Grip of Opium. "The vice hsd gained strong foothold WHAT BECOMES OF THE I JitAiKB. scavengers" you might' a can them, or. perhaps, a shorter and uglier word might be preferred.

They are known, anyway, to theatre managers all over the city, and their custom is to nrowl about In aa well-bred fn lon as possible, and annex such goods and chattels as careless members of the' audi- ence may have left The ushers se them and rect-gnlse the type, while the lost and round department holds them the chief thorn In Its official Most theatres are pretty -well assured of the honesty of their staffa Whatever falls Into the hands of ushers and house cleaners, they believe, makes Its way to the box office and then Is transferred, tagged with the place and date of Its finding, to the rooms where lost articles are kept until the owners call or the law decrees tbey may be disposed of. Not only articUa of value but considerable sums of money are handed In to the lost and found department every week, and all that is left behind in the excitement of rushing out to supper or the suburban train would doubtless reach Its owner In due time, were It not for the fact that every theatre audience contains a number of these scavengers for whom no umbrella or pair of opera glasses or even of gloves toq Insignificant And he scavengers sit not necessarily or even often In the cheap seats, but down stairs where the price of a seat sometimes greatly exceeds the value of the article annexed. Not long ago a young lady went to the theatre with a party of friends. She had a brand-new pair ot opera Durln tfu first act a man In the same row of ats got op to leave, and the 'young w'o- Wright, More of i nan tne cVT v' i t- ''T-fe ri HI mill ill Has lataaaasssasgTiB I'mii 1 T- U. S.

Opium Commissioner Hamilto Wright. -r 1:1. l'-. v'. the It.

surely I cattle At present he Is counted in would have Utterly destroyed, their peo It. had been Mr. Tatt's recognition of this, when he wss Governor of Islands which started the whole and Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Taft.

Root, and Mr. Knox all deserve enormous credit for effective work. "Well. Ihls- situation on the islands, with th study It gave rise to. 'led us toward' ''some appreciation of our own domestic faults and earnest efforts to correct them, so, after all, even the worst enemies of the Pacific Islands must acknowledge that they have been beneficial in their general effect on us.

Without the work which their necessities demanded It In doubtful if we would to-day be so nenr to general appreciation of the hold which drugs have taken on us as a nation. Our action In the Islands, too. was destined to prove beneficial, not to us, alone, but to the world at large, for the traffic In the islands waa not only very rapidly suppressed, but the attention of the great community of nations was at tractedt by our discoveries and action, to tne prohiem and, later, to the possibilities of Itf solution." "Did the islands take the prohibition without prMeftr No. prohibition of a vice Is ever taken without Mr. Wright replied.

"Our Government met many difficulties, but by solving them it decreased crjme upon the islands, encouraged thrift and doubtless raised the general intelligence." His general hint of difficulties was confirmed to me, the same day he made it, by an ex-of fleer of Filipino scouts who talked with me about the matter. Hla story is worth interpolation here. Leo Clot worthy, his name is, and his fame la very great. He has traveled far and well and -met many men of many 'kinds. Including cowmen In where he has a ranch and where he learned the Most Missing Articles 1 man' together with the rest of the party, hlm Pass.

She dropped her vIskbh ucbiu mem iu.il, ana as soon aa she sat down stooped to pick them up- Sho qould not find' them, and waited for ths lights to be. turned up before fumbling further. When the lights were turned up 'they revealed no glassea The Pen of, the party got down and looked la the row ahead turned sympathetically 1 exception woman, on whom, tha vengeful eye oft the owner efthegUvsses fastened immediately the next interval 'th exarch was renewed, this time with great undjer the. direction of the young woman who had dropped, them. Even POET-SENDS' HIS 'V .1 1 THAT, voice of -ray sorrows is -load.

-A Rooa, -A -Tli ear-row -that's mind because ofi Kif love 'for? thee; 3 But stalking alone nhe shore 'Vthon hVarest not my cry, Thoa nearest only' the waning wind and the'lilssing sea. 1 Oh hark: to the' cry the are cry. Ing te thee, A Roon. And that wild low moaning thou Opium Commissioner, Says We Drug Per Capita KM one of this country's ablest military writers, experts, critics, but one day at Manila only his keen knowledge of the cow kind counted. Clever Smugglers of Opium.

The Secret Service men were sure that day that on a cattle boat from Hongkong opium was being smuggled, but they could not learn just how. Elaborate search was made without results, but without convincing the officials that they could be wrong In their surmise. Clot-worthy happened to be near and he waa called In consultation. He proceeded to tha ilvlr anA ih. K- came down through the chute from off the ship.

His practiced eye saw something' wrong with one cow's horn, and he had her separated from the herd. Then he studied that queer horn. Investigation showed thst It had been removed, and then, by clever fingers, fitted with an inner thread and screwed in place again after it had been filled with raw opium. And in the herd upon the boat It soon developed that there were a lot of opium-bearing cows. Inr that manner, it was discovered, tremendous, quantities of the drug had been smuggled In.

But to go back to Dr. Wright The almost Instantaneously beneficial effects of our repressive legislation in the Philippines," he continued, "attracted the attention of the Chinese Government The leading Chinese statesmen were de lighted by what they thought our friendly act In the suppression of vice in territory neighboring them. IVw. VA with Yuan Shi men of great breadth of mind and Influence, decided that the! "The results of the Investigation were time had come for. China, also, to take not quite what were expected.

They un-action. For two centuries the vice had covered our relations to the traffic. Yon held her spellbound. Accordingly the Emperor abolished all IhVrlor produotlon of the poppy and ordered the prohibition of opium smoking In all parts of the em- "LOST AND FOUND" Are Cared For by Some Are Stolen. the men In the seats ahead rose, and one or two women joined the hunt In the midst of the excitement the one woman sat calm and unconcerned.

Finally the exasperated girl declared that unless the glasses were found she would call the manager and have him take decisive measares to find them. She bad heard them fall, and she knew they were near. Whereupon tho well-dressed female who had not moved turned her hand. And said, scornfully: "Here-take your glasses." She had had them in her lap under her programme during the entire search. Theatre managers only wish the public would understand that half the things left behind in theatres are taken away by SORROWS TO By 8HAXMAS O'SHEEJU knowest is more than wind! All things are.

gray with ray grief. canst thou not hear and see? Cold winds, gray waves alone thou knowest. deaf and blindly Thine ears hear not ssy plaint A Boon, A Roon. thine eyes See.net my. sorrow in all things, thy Heart being shut to me; If my ljps were at thy cheek, and I waU-ltar.

thou would'st sot hear. ptrsTby a gradual process'extendtng over ten years. His course has been surprisingly effective. The Callins of the Conference. Then It was that Mr.

Rooswvelt, acting through Mr. Root. Invited all the pow ers having possessions in tha East to coma together In a conference looking to tha full suppression of tha traffic in that portion of tho world. That was before ws reaUxed the vast Importance of our great home problem tha mighty problem which we hope during the Impending meeting at Tha Hague to find soma measure to control, j. ti i powers gladly acquiesced In tha idea of tha first great conference1.

France. Russia, Portugal. Holland, Great Britain, and Japan sent delegates. They were naariv ll directlv Interested In the trade. and had watched with Interest our Philippine experiments.

Franca had a large col ony In In which a great of her revenue was drawn from opium, or which the Government had a monopoly of Importation, manufacture, and sale: Holland drew much of her revenue In Sumatra and Java from a similar source; Japan, which had an effective prohibitory law in Japan proper, still derived a large part of her Formosan revenues from the opium trade; China, from tha Internal production of opium and the Importation of tha drug from India, had. it5.000.000, or about $30,000,000, annually to consider; Russia gained no revenue from the trade, and In 1881 had made It contraband; Portugal's colony on the Macao coast subsisted almost wholly on Its opium revenue; In Italy. Austria-Hungary, and Germany the problem had been practically solved or never had existed; Persia had a problem; Turkey, which, had one of great importance, was Invited, but could not accept. The conference was held and stimulated Interest throughout the cations of the earth. We had become leaders In a real world-movement loo'Xlng to a great reform and had Jusi reason to be proud or mis; dui we naa aue i freah from our achievements In the il-jinB constantly, despite the passage of ands, with a feeling that we were-a new aw, and the conUnua, efforU of the righteous crowd, licensed to feel superior, jeiu, and moraiuts to leacn "A little study showed us the gray aangerB gmce 1800 the popuIaUon of folly of our position, for the matter ofthlg country hag gTOwn 1X, pep our own consumption of the drug arose whUe ama2t fflct on and was to some extent Investigated.

our coneumptIon ha, The results appalled ourv delegates. increased 3T.1 per cent." Controlling Vast Peril. "What has been done to check this "It has been said that at that Shang- paatT" hat conference little was accomplished. ur Mr. Wright replied.

That is not true in any sense, but if from the beginning of our Government, nothing more had been ddne by It than legalized the importation into the United the awakening of interest In our own States of smpklng-oplum by the Imposl-great problem It still would have re-1 Uon on ot various import duties, rang-malned among the most Immensely useful from $3 on the pound to twice ss of world-meetings. Tho coming confer- much. Thus, you will observe, we recog-ence Is Its direct outgrowth, and that it as an evil promptly and. quite something, isn't It? Much real good has. as promptly, arranged not to prohibit tt already been achieved.

Great Britain is; but to make a profit out of It Not quite ntin, with in th. mlcrhtv move- i high-minded, possibly, but precisely what ment for control of the vast peril, and has now declsred her firm Intention or abolishing gradually her Indian opium I "And the drug gained in favor with a least one blooiy war, thst Chinese think-traffic and the revenues derived from it. thoughtless people, through their tare- ers all admit that it held that mighty She has indeed, begun upon the work, I lessncss and the venality of those who nation In real thraldom for two centuries. and this Is of enormous moment ss an indication of her earnestness, for the financial problem which the situation offered her was one ot the most difficult which any nation evr has been called opon to solve. She recognizes, though, that the opium traffic, while It is not exactly a parallel to the slave traffic.

Is, after all, analogous to It. and she Is arranging to destroy the one as she destroyed the other. The edict In China abolishing the traffic and the habit In ten aireci outgrow in 01 wic con ICI CI nee and our studies in the Philip pines, and the benefit that nation has derived already is tremendous. Our own avoidance of the creation of a problem in the Philippines similar to England's in India Is a subject for congratulation. And alo as an outgrowth of this conference has come the other movement which is vastly more Important than the one which brought about the conference the movement toward the cleansing of our own household.

Tou see, the whole world had regarded with a shudder Ch'na's flat prostration underneath the curse of the drug habit, and our' shudders were, perhaps, most vigorous of alt Of all those Interested In reforming her we showed, I think, the most acute and busy signs. The Shanghai conference, in 1900, was really designed particularly for study of the dreadful things the Chinese had been doing to themselves with opium. Uncovered Our Relation to the Traffic. see, we had suggested the whole thing, primarily with the Idea of guarding the weak morals of the Chinaman, against his wIL perhaps, and at the expense of the Management but persons having nothing to do with the went off and left the new acquisition un-ataff Just plain amateur pickpockets, der the seat She recovered it in due time. Then the next day some one rings up and since her fellow east siders had lacked asks if such and such an umbrella or fan the rredatory instinct that raarki some of w.

i giasats uas oeen louna. ana wnen iney jearn tnat nooooy bas seen it make unpleasant remarks about the char acter of the employes, which is unfair to a hard-working and. in the main, conscientious-set of persons. The whole lost and found department of a large theatre Is a curious business. People leave odd things behind.

At The New Theatre, after one of the performances, a woman left a hat Tou may wonder how this came to pass, but the explanation la simple. She was as east side woman who, to celebrate the. opening of PLEAD HIS. LOVE If I stood before thee, weeping, thou would'st not seel A Boon. A Boon, my love wilt waken thy soul at last With more than my terrible fervor thou wilt desire me then: wait not till these our bodies are ---beauties withered and But waken now and crown me.

Woman, the King of Ment A Boon: A Gaalle exchunaUsa eSdaar- Beloved!) his own pocket, but It soon developed that we were Importing Into the United States, and legally Importing, in our selfish greed ta fill our own fat purses, undreamed of quantities of. the same drug which we be-Jeved the Chinaman should cease to use. Thus, as an outgrowth of the conference there was begun a movement which has probably been even more Important than th (conference ftself In its results. Starting out to learn the dangers of th foreign opium traffic, we learned that dangers also He in the home trade, and suggested general domestic investigation by the power This was generally agreed to; and the study. It was granted, should Include the study of the morphine nabir, and the vices allied to It.

That this would show us as the world's worst sinners few people, if any, suspected, but this ha proved to be the case. Of all the nations of the world. America consumes most opium. In one form or another. Surprised by these facts asw re and as the nations of the world roust oe.

we now understand our grave delin quency and realise that In some way the evil must be speedily corrected. We are the greediest drug takers In the universe, and have begun to suffer from It, as, of course, was quite Inevitable. We use more smoking opium per annum than six great Kuropeau nations put together, nor Is this detail of our great consumption of the drug a detail of our Chinese problem, tf nowadays we have a Chinese problem. 1 The Chinese may have brought the habit with them to our shores, and many of tho Chinese here undoubtedly use opium, but Its consumption has grown far beyond the wildest estimate of the capacity of our comparatively small Chinese population. At the coming conference tha report Of tha ITnlted Rtntes will of sheer necessity be of the nature of a humiliating confession.

Austria-Hungary, Germany. Holland, and Italy have, all put toirether. a vastly smaller opium consumption than that of the United States, although their total, the United States to propose a further! population Is 155,000,000. against our 000,000. Our Vast Consumption.

Every year we manage to consume 600.000 pounds of the drug, while they. In combination use less than 40,000 pounds. Nor are these startling figures the most startling which we must present before that conference and consider care fully ourselves. Our consumption of this great6st curse which humanity has ever" the- length of proposing that Ws known slnr Kr. i- "id hat we have from time to; i --eu omer nauons tor.

now the greatest of the world's drun takers, and been forced to make acknowledgment of it. but we must now admit. In the forthcoming conference, that our consumption of raw opium la growing twice as fast to-day as grows our population. The drug habit has spread throughout America until it threatens us with very serious disaster. Spreaders of the Vicious Habit.

A dozen mediums have helped to spread it, of which the conscienceless or ignorant physician, the law-defying retail druggist, and the manufacturers of nostrums largely founded on narcotics have been chief. The opium and mor phine habits have become a National curse, and In some way they must certainly be checked, If we wish to maintain our high place among the nations of world and any elevated standard of Intelligence and morality among ourselves. "That, at the-conference, we must confess our vlclousness. we all regret but more acutely still we hope that from that conference we shall bring Ideas which will help us in destruction of the evil. The final movement will quite surely come, I think, through National legislation.

Almost all State Legislatures have passed laws dealing with the subject In one way or another some bad, some good but notwithstanding these the importers and manufacturers of the drug have sold it where they would, to whomsoever wished to buy. They have been conscienceless and greedy and almost wholly unrestrained. The Federal Government must take hold now, and doubtless will, after tho coming conference has added to the aggregate of knowledge of the subject Until the situ- I atlon is made pressing by the scorn of IN THEATRES The New Theatre to the proletariat had proudly purchased head gear which she held to be more appropriate than her customary shawl. Overcome with the emotions evoked bv the "Blue Bird" she Mostly a theatre gets In the lost and found department a large collection of rubbers, umbrellas, opera glassea, fans, and gloves. Just how a woman can forget her gloves Is not apparent but they do, and the long kind, new at that Tbc accusation that women forget things more than men is not borne out in the lost and found departments.

There are many canes, quite as many as fans, and men, quite as often as women, ring up and identify over the telephone something that is theirs and then forget all about sending for It The weather that fills the store room best is that which threatens without storming. umbrellas and rubbers and even extra coats come In at the rate of many a day. "One such threatening day at the matinee at The- New Tbeatra the harvest reaped included- s4x umbrellas, two pairs of rubbers, one pair of opera glasses, two tortoise shell hair pins, three veils, four pocket handkerchiefs, one dress pattern book, bunches of keys, and One pocketbook with $30 In money. This last belonged to a -woman who, tt turned out could 111 afford to lose it Luckily for her It fell Into the hands of one of the ushers. More often than not one of scavengers gets such finds, nations, as It Is sure ta be, after th.

ports are In. It Is not reasonable tal for competent legislation. Mr. Knox Mr. Taft have shown much In for two years have pressed Congress wise laws, but little has been dont i powerful lobby has worked oonsUstl.

against us. and, the toL The Federal Government whj doubtedly, however, eventually have at lta disposal to control the Imports, manufacture, and Inter-State traffic ta habit-making drugs, and then good werk will be quite possible. "We have made ourselves a bit amul ing by the blithe way in whlc- wv a conference to study others' discover through it that we selves the greatest sinners; but vr hiv made good We started the cotfe with the Idea of guarding, morals of our neighbors at the csdhmI of their pocketbooks and comfort. our own it aeems were more in need of conservation than the worst the'ra, hit we have not desertel tne great ment We were Importing In great quaati. tics and consuming reckieasly a form af opium which could not hut debauch tb community.

Prompt Action May Save Vu- "But the minute this as realised Mr. Root urged Congress to pass an act befor. the meeting of the commlssf'm excluding from the Nation all but medicinal opluts, and this was done in February, 1009. 'fall saved our faces and had a beneficial hv fluence upon the work of the commlssli. It showed the powers that we trcant business.

As a result of the deliberations of the conference nine fundamental reso-' lutlons were unanimously pS3tnl con.1 demnatory of the traffic This of Itself was a step forward. Conde-nnatioa tf the drug had In the past been but this one came officially Ucm all the which could act to best advantage, and the way was thus arrived al for conference to conventional the Hhanf-ha! resolutions and the corollaries derives therefrom. JkVe made the proposition In September. lOOti. It was at once accepted, and tha Dutch Government invited us to make Ths Hague our meeting place.

We are promised that all Governments who wllf be reprexented there will heartily co-operate with us In efforts to stamp out this world wide evil, and Great Britain has gone te deal not only with these drugs, but with all others, that are now or msy become a menace, suggesting that these be ataae at least the subjects of Investigation. New Conference Most Powerful. It has been stated that the Shanghai Conference did not accomplish what hsd been expected of It. It should be clearly understood that It was not a conference with full power, but an International mission along the lines ot International commissions at The Hague, rather to study and report than to frame leglsla- tlon. The conference, which la now a sequence, will be composed of delegates wlt full power to sign, ad referendum, aa -agreement to bring the production ani sale of opium and other hablt-formlng drugs under control." It Is a great step forward In the marts of civilisation? One.

Is apt to think one's own work most Important but when It Is remembered that opium Is charged In history with st "'w nitrui, iu a uesree wnicn now nas i that It still holds large populations. eis, come to be appalling. Not only are we I where. In inertia, that, here In the UnlteM States, it has gained a terrifying foot hold which it has been advancing with appalling speed until it threatens to become a drug-Invasion great enough te hamper our triumphant march of pros re ss. one must It seems to me, find the question quite as great as any that the powers have, In the past considered jointly.

If the conference does not disband before it has accomplished all the work It has ta do, then, will I (a sessions greatly help toward temovlng from the shoulders of I humanity one ot the greatest burdens which have ever, by unwisdom, greedy and wickedness, been fastened on tnaa-. kind. And opium Is not the only habit-form- ing drug we are called on to fight. I am not far wrong, in etatlng thst ws have the largest per capita consumption of narcotics and anodynes of any people In the world. Take the question of co- caine, for instance.

It is a generally known fact that during the last twenty years cocaine has been diverted from its original use by the surgeon as a local anaesthetic to pander to the supposed needs of large numbers of our population. It Is estimated, after a wide consultation, that 13.UUO or 20.0U0 ounces of this drug are sufficient to satisfy the demands of surgery in the United Statea To-oay there are manufactured la the United States at least 150,000 ounces of the drug, the larger part of which Is put to ta proper uses. rt is the unanimous' opinion of every State and municipal organisation bavin to do with the enforcement of 8tate aa4f municipal pharmacy laws that ths misuse of cocaine Is a direct Incentive te crime; that It is perhaps of all factor! singular one In augmenting the crifnUuu. ranks. The Illicit use of the drug sV most difficult to cope with, and ths habitual use of it temporarily raUes the power of a criminal to a point where Is resisting arrest there is no hesitatloa te murder.

It is really more sppalllng in Its er feet than any other liablt-formlng drug in use in the United States. In the Soot" the use of cocaine among the lower order of working negroes Is quite common. is current knowledge throughout the South that on many public works, leves and railroad construction, and in working camps where large numbers' negroes congregate, cocaine Is pe. died pretty openly. In all of our large citlea the drug Is compounded with grades of spirit which make a maa-denlng compound.

Inquiries have she that contractors of labor In the South, under the Impression that cocaine -tlma-. lates the negro laborers to a greater output of work, wink at the distribution the drug to them. There is no douB that this drug, perhaps more than ss7 other, is used by those concerned in white slave traffic to corrupt youiuj girls, and that when the habit of usrtl the drug has been established. It Is ft" a short time before such girls fall to the ranks of prostitution. "To Illustrate the insidious spread the cocaine habit you should know th an ever Increasing number of our sailors and soldiers are falling snto the use ef It It was found recently that some the legation guards at Peking tTt caine fiends, and the Chinese Govern m' found it necessary to ask the rwt J.

ers to permit her to prohibit the lmporw tlou. of cocaine -except for medicinal I purposes. India la also threatened 'J" vie -But the United States eminently, the country to which there an abuse of Cocaine. Copyrighted, 1U1. by J-Mar.

iishers Presa; rr.