Chapter III: Part 3

A small paragraph in a New York paper, dated June 12, 1919, reads thus: "Two New Yorkers jailed for smuggling opium. Pleas of guilty to charges of opium smuggling were entered in the Federal Court to-day by Albertus Schneitzer and Maxwell Auerbach, of New York. They were fined $500 each, and sent to Atlanta penitentiary, the former for two years, and the latter for one year. The men were arrested in connection with the seizure of opium on the Canadian border."

We cannot grapple with our problem unless we face the facts; if we ignore the source of supply and distribution, and the reasons for this immense over-production of opium on the part of the British Opium Monopoly. The anti-narcotic laws on our statute books are powerless to protect us. With Canada, a British province, to the north, and all Mexico on the south, what chance have we against such exposure? Of what use to send two smugglers to the penitentiary, when at the Calcutta opium sales, once a month opium is auctioned off under the auspices of the British Government, to be disposed of as the buyers may see fit? Much of it, as we have seen, goes to those helpless states and colonies which have no control over their own affairs, where the opium traffic is conducted under the administration of the alien government. Much of the rest of it goes out for smuggling purposes, to be distributed in devious, roundabout, underhand channels throughout the world. We are coming in for our share in this distribution.

We feel that our country is in grave peril. Our politicians and our diplomats have been too careful all these years, to speak of this business, through fear of offending a powerful nation. But we feel that the time has now come to speak. England has been relying upon our silence to "get away with it." Upon our ignorance, and upon that silence which gives consent. But in this new, changed world, reborn out of the blood and agony of the great war, is it not time to practice some of the decencies which we have proclaimed so loudly? As we have said before, no stronger opponents of this policy are to be found than among a section of the people of England itself. We look to them to join us, in this great issue, and we feel that we shall not look in vain.

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