Adventure Magazine Cover — page 195: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Camp-Fire ladies or gentlemen with unlimited funds at their command, dope traffickers have but one object in view: Profit: Not only do they supply the dope to present addicts, but in order to provide an ever-in- creasing market, they, by united and well-directed efforts, actually, intentionally and with all the vicious aforethought possible, create new addicts and keep them addicts! This attack is largely directed at the youth of our country. Every possible effort is used to pervert the boy or girl of high school age into a potential addict for the coming years. Increasing efforts are being made to enforce the narcotic laws. But these peddlers are so clever and shrewd that the making of a “‘case’’ requires hours, sometimes days, and often even weeks of tireless effort on the part of enforcement officers. Dope is peddled from houses, and under every conceivable blind, such as restaurants, soft drink parlors, shoe- shine stands, taxicabs and from the pockets of street peddlers. Sometimes it will pass through four or five hands in getting from peddler to user. For these reasons it is very difficult to catch the peddler. Some of our outstanding statesmen are endeavor- ing to suppress the growth, output and importation of dope. This means getting right to the source, it is the only way of entirely eliminating the evil. While this highly desirable end is a possibility dur- ing our generation, yet it is years distant. The pres- ent method of tirelessly fighting peddlers, big and little alike, must be kept up. Also, something must be done for the “‘Junker’”’; we can not take away his dope and leave him with a “‘habit.” JUNKERS Now we arrive at the most interesting subject of this little booklet: the narcotic victim, who is known in the underworld, or in the “District,” as a “Dope Fiend” “‘Doper” “Snow Bird” or “Junker.” How do they become drug users? Victims of cir- cumstance; through mental or physical anguish, sor- row, despondency, loneliness, failure, or curiosity; sometimes war victims; sometimes the helpless re- cipients of overdoses through careless prescrip- tions. All these causes sink into insignificance when compared with the tremendous growth in the illegal use of narcotics caused by the deliberate attempt of the Dope Ring to multiply its earnings through in- creasing the number of users. First of all, you are interested in knowing what class of people become addicted to the use of drugs, and second, how they become users. In the introduction to this article it has been stated that no one is exempt. It is altogether possible that the writer or the reader might become en- tangled in the meshes of this monster. It is not true that drug addicts come from the ranks of morally, mentally and physically unfit. On the contrary, sons and daughters of men in high public office, university graduates, boys, girls, young men, young women, men and women of mature years with the blood of noted and noble ancestors in their veins—all are numbered in the one thousand that in a single day will become the slaves and play- things of the demon “DOPE,” finally to go down to an anguished death in some dark hovel of the underworld, and to an unmarked grave. Reports from one city show that 700 new addicts were developed amongst the school children in the 193 second term of the last school year. Here one boy alone made addicts of thirty of his schoolmates! Once a “Habit” is formed, it is not far from the top to the bottom of humanity’s scale. Soon an addict becomes unable to work because of his physi- cal condition. He must have dope; in fact, the aver- age user must have from eight to ten dollars’ worth of dope each day. This is the minimum amount re- quired to prevent suffering. Then how is he to ob- tain money to buy dope? The answer inevitably is, through every crime from panhandling to murder. Police Departments are flooded with requests for protection from the petty thief. Nze-tenths of this petty stealing is done by Dope Addicts! The majority of this num- ber are criminals, not through choice but through necessity. They are unable to work, and they must have Dope, so they would sell their very soul or take your life without consideration, to obtain their required ‘Shot.’ Here ts a habit that can not be stopped by will power alone, like tobacco or liquor, where one suffers only mental discomfort. These addicts suffer real pain— intense, indescribable, excruciating; and physical pain as well as mental! Yes, they can be cured. Cures are being effected now. But facilities are so limited that it is like try- ing to drain the ocean with a tin cup. But we will have more to say about this later. I wish every reader could visit one of these “Hotels” or ‘Flop Houses,” as they are called, where these unfortunates “‘hole in.” These places to lie down cost but fifteen to thirty cents per night. As many as forty cots in one room are occupied mostly by “Junkers.” There is no ventilation—a condi- tion of squalor and filth that beggars description. Bed clothes have apparently never been washed. There are roaches, bedbugs, dirt and filth every- where. The majority of the occupants of these holes are boys in their ’teens or early twenties. Out of 23 questioned in one of these “flop joints,” 14 were from farms or towns of less than 100 inhabitants, and 9 were war victims. It was in a typical “Flop House” that we one night located ‘‘Charlie the Bum,” after a half-hour search. There were some in our party who had heard of Charles O. Fallon, once a man of educa- tion, refinement and culture, but now reduced to the very depths of degradation through the use of Mor- phine. Through no fault of his own he had formed a “habit” and it had robbed him of position, home, wife, children, respectability, character and—well we had better let ‘Charlie’ tell it. At our request he sat down and put on paper his innermost thoughts that night and it tells the story: Up from the misty low lands Where the cotton blooms and grows To the chilly northern country Where even men’s hearts seem froze. Away from the fragrant blue grass Away from the song birds sweet, Up to the snow and the storm clouds Up to the ice and sleet. Gone is my home and kindred Gone is the happy time, Lost in the moiltering city Deep in its sin and crime. MICLOOOK (C@