j -A
VOL. XLI
Donme Harrison, De
troit beauty, from a por
trait painted before
drags marred her.
Aight-
late on which all winds
can play!" Thus Donnie
Harrison described, her
drug-seared soul as she
lay in a New York hos
pital. Bunny Dorel and
her dog were her only
friends
From the Homes of Millionaires,
From the Star s Dressing Room, and
From Silken-Hung Studios Comes
the Pitiful Tale of Shattered
Mind, Will and Health.
T HEY start in a silken-hung studio
in Back Bay. They end in a
shabby lodging room in the south
end. And the wealthy Back Bay girls
themselves, whom I have seen nightly in
luxurious drug haunts, sometimes lose
soul and fortune and become derelicts or
suicides."
This was sobbed out by a woman who
lay on a cot in the Boston City hospital,
between the horrible spasms of Jerking
that are the compensation for hours of
wandering through the shadowy pleas
ures of the poppy trail.
Mrs. Olive Wood, educated, cultured,
determined to devote her life to the serv
ice of humanity as a trained nurse, left
her pleasant home in Orono, Me., for
the wider opportunities of the Massa
chusetts city. But like hundreds of oth
ers she was caught by the deadly lure
of "dope" and many long months of her
life were devoted to acquiring the most
astonishing fund of information ever to
be lodged in one brain concerning the
workings among the wealthy and socially
elect of a big American city of the "Ser
pent of the East."
It was when she was working her way
back to life from an overdose of drugs
that she made public incredibly de
bauched conditions in the city -which al
ways has been considered the hub of
culture. ,
In Los Angeles another woman, young-,,
er, less inhibited by tenets of civilization
than the Boston nurse, but more start
lingly lovely with the olive and black
coloring of Old Mexico, talked through
her cell bars of strange, shivering, ' wlld
' eyed creatures who steal through the
streets of the garden city In search of the
poison tif-t dulls shrieking nerves.
"??hll9 Mrs. Wood told of the serpent
as it winds its coils round the haute
monde of the east, Ruby Ruiz described
the relentless crushing of the under
world of the west.
"When you shoot coke into your body
you feel able to do many things. But
after the first exultation the first
ecstasy of hate and love an awful de
pression follows. You just worry and
worry then. You think of your husband
and your children and your folks every
thing there is to worry about.
"But then you take a shot of 'M.' That
is morphine. And it lifts the depression.
So you see for a real 'hop party you have
tu have both of these drugs and also
some 'marijuana' cigarettes. One of
these, inhaled lingeringly, rouses an ap
petite. Of course it isn't a real appetite,
but it helps you to eat, and you must
have food, especially if the party is an
all-night one.
"Where do these' parties go on? Oh,
at well-known road houses near the city
8nd at certain little hotels that all the
'hops' know."
In Chicago mute testimony to the
strength and venom of the serpent is
given by the white face of Mrs. Doris
Clements Wilson, who was graduated
from Wellesley four years ago. It was
after she had been arrested for shop
lifting that she told of $40,000 dissipated
in the space of 12 short months in pur
chase of drugs, and a final attempt to
steal something that could be turned into
money to buy more.
Out of Denver comes the all but un
believable story of school boys and girls
caught within the coils of the serpent;
pennies and nickles and dimes begged
from unsuspicious parents for the pur
pose of buying a "sniff" or a "card" or
a "shot."
And in New York Broadway still talks
cf Donnie Harrison, pretty and sweet and
19, whose story went to the world as she
lay in Bellevue fighting out of the drowsy
mist of a drug that only recently .was put
in the narcotic class when the law banned
the unrestricted sale of it.
Talented as a dancer, aa actress, a
painter. Donnie sought fortune in the
"Big Town." Back in Detroit, occasion
ally helped by this "girl who despaired,"
lived her father,' her mother and , her
brothers, one, a high school boy, an en
thusiast on electricity and mechanics.' All
had beautiful faith in the girl whom they
believed to be "going it alone and mak
ing good." But she was growing sick of
a city that as she wrote in her diary
"transforms unprotected feminine, souls
into a stringed lute on which all winds
can play."
She had listened to the lying whisper
o the "Serpent of the East." And de
spite the setting of her life luxurious
apartments, champagne, drugs, parties -the
"small town" girl found existence
unendurable, , held fast, as she was, by
those deadly coils.
It was about this time that the most
spectacular raid ever to startle New York
resulted in the arrest of ten Broadway
figures, the confiscating of thousands of
dollars' worth of narcotics of every sort,
opium lay-outs, gold and platinum hypo
dermic needles, and other articles hav
ing to do with the trail of the serpent.
PORTLAND, OREGON, SUNDAY
' '
illiif ' CUsie Loftus, once great' actress,
kf ' " X startled the theatrical world when
t. & ' ' ' - ' -4- arrested in London as she tried to
K Jt-l'A I. " , use a forged prescription.
. I
A hotel that stands within the bright .
light district was all but battered down,
during he raid, and Ralph Oyler, United
States narcotic chief, announced that he
had rounded up the heads of Manhattan's
"drug ring" and destroyed their strong
hold. It was less than a month later, how
ever, that the -theatrical world was
startled by the arrest of John Paul Jones,
the talented actor, following a raid upon
an apartment in a fashionable street
near the Park.
Jones, who appeared prominently in
John Drlnkwater's "Abraham Lincoln,"
and with Alice Brady in "Forever After,"
and who was featured in "The Hand of
the Potter" two years ago when the
Provincetown Players put on that play,
was charged with having caused many
young men and women in Broadway's
gay circles as well as in the Bohemian
haunts of Greenwich Village, to become
addicts. George Tiffany, scion of a
wealthy New York family, recently sent
to Bloomingdale asylum, was said to be
one of Jones' victims. A strikingly beau
tiful brunette who gave the admittedly
MORNING, DECEMBER 31,
Mrs. Effie Pope Hill AJsop, whose
spectacular career, beginning at
17, when she eloped with a 77-year-old
millionqjie'f ell to its
depth recently whiin; she was re
moved to a hospital "dcug shot"
fictitious name of Stella Gordon, was
held at the time of Jones' arrest, which
took place in her apartment. ' '
And perhaps the most unbelievable sit
uation ever to be brought about in this
country is that which sent to the psycho
pathic ward Effie Pope Hill Alsop, one
time of Macon, Ga., who ten years ago
when she was but 17 became the bride
of Edward H. Alsop, then 77, a wealthy
manufacturer of Pittsburg and Washing
ton. , ,
Mrs. Alsop's record at Bellevue hos
pital bore a legend of "alcoholic and drug
poisoning." Alsop divorced her six
years ago.
Still more recently a drug-seared girl
of 24, Catherine McDonald, sat in the
office of Dr. Carleton Simon, New York
special deputy police commissioner, be
fore dawa one morning and told of meet
ing a woman at dance who introduced her
to the "magic needle." The McDonald
girl, a : factory worker, soon found that
the needle stab relieved , the fatigue
caused by her work, which prevented her
dancing at night. The woman intro
ciuced, her to. a . drug vendor, and for
three months she was a faithful cus
tomer. "A girl in a thousand" is the
1923
, way city officials described her after she
had given herself up to be cured.
One of the strangest of London's dope
CIVIL WAR VETERAN IN ARIZONA
DECLARES SHERMAN IS MALIGNED
Famous Epigram, "War Is Hell" and Like Story Comparing State to Lower Regions
Asserted to Be Defamatory of Great Man.
. BY ROBERT S. DOMAN.
OATMAN, Ariz. The G. A. R. has an
active dispute on its hands. Dif
ference of opinion between Native
Sons of Arizona and outsiders from the
neighboring states of Nevada, Utah and
New Mexico have developed and regret
able allegations were made by members
of the G. A. R. concerning their fellow
veterans. .
The , dispute . arose over an alleged
statement by Thomas D. Collins of Mid
dletown, N. Y., which was published by
Frank Strong in the Oatman News. In
his statement Mr. Collins, a civil war vet
eran, said that Sherman did not say "war
is hell," but "war is cruel."
J. E. Shank, flagbearer of the G. A. R.
and author of the brochure on "The Poi
sonous Insects and Reptiles of Arizona,"
came to General Sherman's defense. He
said:
"I hope the telegraphic report from
New York is not true. A persistent at
tempt is being made to defame the name
and to distort the historic words of Gen
eral Sherman in the east, especially down
in Wall street, where the brokers axe
ruining the farmers, destroying our cat
tle business and generally raising hell
throughout this entire, country. (Loud
cheers.)
"This New York business is the sec
ond case wherein General Sherman has
been misquoted and maligned.
"In October, 1880, the Oatman Q. A R.
NO. 53
tragedies was that of Cissie Loftus, once
the idol of American theater-goers, co
star with Irving and Sothern, a shiver
ing, pleading figure before a London bar
of justice. She had been arrested as she
left a drug store and charged with using
a forged prescription for obtaining mor
phine. Word of her arrest ' went out,
bringing to her aid the fashionable-and
the talented of London. Nevertheless,
she was forced to spend the night in jail.
While she shook with outraged nerves in
the courtroom on the day of her trial,
the breathless spectators whispered . of
the days when she was at the height of
her fame as the inimitable Impersonator
of Sarah Bernhardt, Modjeska, 'Yvette
Guilbert.
had its attention called to a similar dis
tortion of General Sherman's words. -
"In that year President Rutherford B.
Hayes came to Arizona, accompanied by
General William T, Sherman. '
"When he came to Maricopa Junction,
liars from New Mexico and other states
said that General Sherman went out on
the platform of the railroad coach and
said: "What a hell of a country!"
"It was stated at that time that Cap
tain W. A. Hancock of Phoenix, replied:
'Why, general, it is not such a bad coun
try. We have to the north a rich agri
cultural valley and the Oatman gold
mines. Possibly Arizona Is a little bit
warm, but all she needs is more water
and better immigration.'
"To which the liars of 40 years ago
state that Sherman replied:
" 'Bah ! . Less heat ! More water !
Better society! That's all hell needs!'
. "Now, I know positively and for a fact
that General Sherman never made any
such - statement," declared Mr. Shank.
"And members of this chapter of the
G. A. R., 'who have now passed away,
could , bear . me out if they were here.
The whole alleged conversation was a
pack of damnable lies made out of whole
cloth and calculated to defame the fair
name of our golden state. General Sher
man was the best friend Arizona ever
had, and I can prove it" (Prolonged a
clause.).