Lowenthal. He wrote the unwieldy book purporting to pulverize the
F.B.I. which sold only 6,000 copies. Almost as many were given away.
Yet no one knows much about him. He is a shadowy figure who thrives
on obscurity, though he has filled public posts of importance. Until
Congressman Dondero, of Michigan, investigated him, his name was
obscure in Washington. Today not ten people in the government know
more about him than the fact that he is frequently more powerful than
the President and the Congress of the United States. This is some
of what Congressman Dondero charged on the floor of the House of
Representatives about Mr. Lowenthal whom he referred to as sinister and
surreptitious:
Like the Communist Party, whose cause he has served so well, he
operates on two levels. One is seemingly respectable; the other
completely underground. He is native-born. His name does not appear in
Who’s Who. To secure even a sketch of his biography has been a task.
Born in Minneapolis in 1888, like many other parlor pinks,
fellow-travelers, Communists and convicted perjurers, he attended
Harvard Law School. In those days he came under the influence of
another man who through the years has manipulated Charlie McCarthys in
Government office. There is a striking kinship between the master,
Justice Felix Frankfurter, and the pupil, Max Lowenthal.
He served as a secretary to Judge Julian M. Mack in New York, then
infiltrated the respectable law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.
After a few years he founded his own firm, Lowenthal, Szold & Brandwen.
Later he secured an appointment as Assistant Secretary of the
President’s Mediation Board in 1917; in 1918 he was in the War
Department; in 1920 he was an Assistant Secretary to the President’s
Industrial Conference. He became executive secretary for the Wickersham
Commission on Law Enforcement, but when he found he could not run it
he resigned. He became research director of the Banking and Currency
Commission, was on the staff of the Senate Committee on Interstate
Commerce, also affiliated with the Board of Economic Welfare.
In Germany, known as general counsel to General Clay, he had as an
assistant George Shaw Wheeler, the American traitor, Communist and
renegade who shocked all America when he denounced the land of his
birth and asked Communist-controlled Czechoslovakia for asylum.
Evidence of his unswerving loyalty to Soviet Russia is clear and
unequivocal. There is an interesting sidelight. The California
authorities raided the office of the Russian-American Industrial Corp.,
whose head, the late Sidney Hillman, had turned on Communism, but his
general counsel still follows the party line.
He was a member of the left-wing National Lawyers Guild, a member of
the National Committee of the International Juridical Association with
Lee Pressman.
Carol Weiss King, who represented more Communists than any other
lawyer, was a law clerk in Lowenthal’s office.
Lowenthal, living in New York, spent much of his time in Washington;
his influence is a menace to the best interests of America--so said
Congressman Dondero.
Don’t kid yourself. The Reds are not on the run in Washington. No
Communist control law means anything if the administration doesn’t want
it enforced. The anemic Security Board appointed by the President to
apply the McCarran Act, loaded down as it is with left-wing apologists,
is the tip-off.
One day after Senator Tydings, who became an ex because he
“white-washed” Owen Lattimore, returned to private life he joined the
law firm of his father-in-law, Joseph E. “Mission to Moscow” Davies. A
senior partner in that firm is Seth Richardson, appointed by Truman to
head the Security Board.
Meanwhile, the rapid expansion of Federal employment has forced the
government to forego the usual pre-job loyalty checks of tens of
thousands of new workers--hundreds of Communists are going on the
payroll and will be there for months, possibly years, until their
backgrounds are delved into.
With a green light, the F.B.I. could break the back of the Communists’
underground. But J. Edgar Hoover cannot make policies. He is just a cop
who has to follow orders. At this writing the orders have not come. The
traitors in Washington are safe. On the other hand, those who testify
against Reds are frequently harassed by Justice Department lawyers.
If this weren’t so ghastly serious, some phases of the great Communist
spy-hunt would be laughable. For instance, there’s the story of
the prominent woman lawyer from New York, retained to represent a
left-winger about to be questioned by a Congressional committee. This
Communist kept his full status well hidden. He couldn’t afford to
hire a lawyer who handled Communist cases. So this portly Portia was
retained. She had no known Red connections.
On her way to Washington she stopped in Baltimore, to confer with
a well-known Communist counsel there, to be briefed. It began as a
business confab. They arranged a follow-up rendezvous in Washington.
The Baltimore attorney’s wife suspected him, followed him to Washington
and caught him in the act with the lady lawyer from New York.
The wife sued for divorce. The co-respondent testified, admitted
intercourse but denied adultery.
“I was raped,” she cried.
Cross-examination:
Q.--Did you have intimate relations with the defendant?
A.--Yes.
Q.--Did you consent?
A.--Yes.
Q.--Then how do you make that out rape?
A.--I found out since that he is a damned Communist!
17. KICKING THE GONG AROUND
It may be news that widespread addiction to narcotics is a
comparatively recent American manifestation. Long after the turn of
the century, a few trickles supplied pig-tailed Chinamen, despondent
prostitutes, ex-cons who had picked up the habit in stir and a few
rich fools who would try anything for a bang. Juvenile use was unheard
of. Marijuana was unknown outside pad-parties in the Harlem jungles
and among a thin fringe of Mexicans. The Harrison Narcotics Law, first
federal recognition of the existence of such an evil, is only 35 years
old.
We are solemnly convinced that the great growth of this plague in the
past 20 years has been parallel to the spread of Communism in our
country. And it has not been confined to our country.
Estimates by the Narcotic Control Section of the United Nations, that
one of every ten people on earth uses habit-forming drugs in some
manner or form, are borne out in this country, where the evil is
prevalent in all sections. It is the greatest tangible menace facing
us. And dope addiction, on the rise, can be traced definitely to Soviet
Russia.
It has long been a tactic of nations bound on enslaving others to
deaden the ambitions and energies of their victims with dope.
Examples of this stretch back to the dawn of written history. In the
last century, British imperialists introduced the habit into China to
control that nation. Nazi Germany flooded Poland and Czechoslovakia.
Japan built huge narcotics factories in Manchuria to weaken the
Chinese opposition. Russia is doing more of it now. Raw stuff pours
in from Mediterranean ports. It originates in lands behind the
Iron Curtain. Its importation into the United States serves Russia
twofold--prostrates a prospective enemy and gets its hands on needed
American exchange to be used for propaganda purposes and payment of
undercover agents here. International bank drafts could be traced.
One courier can carry $1,000,000 worth of uncut dope on his person.
There are many points of community interest between the Reds and that
other great international conspiracy, the Mafia, which controls the
sale of drugs in America. The Commies will team up with anyone who will
promote civil disorder or do their dirty work. The Mafia is interested
in making a dishonest dollar and will work with any partner.
The center of the narcotics industry in the United States is in the
district of former left-wing Congressman Vito Marcantonio, in East
Harlem. During the days of his ascendancy, American Labor Party
district leaders were able to supply police protection through
alliances with both Tammany Hall and anti-Tammany Mayor LaGuardia.
Generally untrumpeted was the fact that when the infamous Charles
“Lucky” Luciano was ordered deported from Cuba, the titular head of the
Cuban Communist Party offered him sanctuary and appeared as his counsel.
A study of the Congressional Record will show that most of the bills
and measures designed to weaken the enforcement of the Narcotics Act
have been introduced by left-wingers and fellow-travelers. Many pink
lawyers represent the underworld combine.
One of the most startling tieups was seen in the recent flooding
of this country with cocaine. The Bureau of Narcotics had all but
eliminated this devastating drug. There had been none here for 20
years. Cocaine for American consumption comes from Peru, where the
coca leaves grow. A couple of years ago an Agrarian Communist group
called the Apristas took over that country briefly. Seventeen cocaine
factories were constructed in Lima, eleven licensed by the local Red
government, and the others ran with the knowledge and connivance of
the authorities. Their entire produce was routed to the United States.
Coincident with saturation of this country with cocaine, which sank in
price to as low as $1.50 a capsule, America went through its greatest
crime wave.
When Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger traced the source of the deadly
narcotic to Peru, the New Deal State Department refused to intervene,
as it was required to do by the international treaties which outlawed
the traffic. The reason for this failure, amounting to criminal
negligence, was that we could not interfere in Latin American affairs.
The cash for the cocaine was being used to foster Communism in South
America.
Last year the Reds were kicked out of Peru by what Washington pinkos
still refer to as “the oligarchy,” who immediately thereafter closed
the coke factories. Since then, this traffic has almost dried up in the
United States.
Likewise the administration has failed to inform the American public
that the Permanent Central Opium Board in Geneva, Switzerland, has
branded Soviet Russia and several Iron Curtain countries as palpable
violators of international treaties and UN conventions regarding the
control of narcotics.
You will probably learn here for the first time that the following
governments, in addition to Russia, were named as treaty-violators for
failure to meet their obligations: Red China, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
Among others who failed to cooperate were Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Oman and
Liberia, the African Negro republic in which Negro slavery is still
practiced.
Narcotic conditions in the capital are shameful. This is no fault
of the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics, whose fighting chief, Commissioner
Anslinger, is handcuffed by red tape, apathy and a penurious budget.
The Bureau has a personnel of less than 180 for office and field work
throughout the world. Its annual budget is less than $2,000,000. This
is a drip in an ocean, yet Anslinger must cope with the deadliest evil
known to man, backed by a huge and wealthy underworld organization
controlling tens of thousands of peddlers, sluggers and killers, and
owning billions of dollars.
That the unsung agents of this Treasury bureau have done as well as
they have is a miracle. They could do better, especially in Washington,
if they had the cooperation of the judiciary. They haven’t.
You can buy reefers on any corner in Black Town or in front of any
high school in the District. You can purchase hard stuff at dozens of
corners, of which we can name many and will note some. This disgrace
indicts judges in the courts of the District of Columbia. All are
federal, not elected, but appointed by the President. This goes for
the Municipal Court bench, which sits for six years, as well as the
District Court, appointed for life.
Every judge appointed in the last 18 years was put on the bench during
a Democratic administration. More than 95 per cent are Democrats. Few
are Washingtonians. With few exceptions, these judges are divided
into two classes: Those representing the big-city bosses and gangs,
and radicals named to appease bigger and redder radicals. The former,
obviously, are expected to be lenient to law-breakers protected by the
organized underworld. The latter, mostly fuzzy-minded intellectuals, do
not believe in punishment, especially when the evildoer is a Negro or
of any minority race. They can’t find wrong in any man. They believe
criminals are mishandled wards of society.
The Washington field office of the Bureau of Narcotics--with only three
or four agents--arrests dope peddlers as fast as they can be found and
turns up enough evidence to secure convictions. But the courts almost
uniformly issue suspended sentences or small fines.
The stench was so bad, dope peddlers were selling the contraband across
the street from the White House, at the eastern end of Lafayette
Square. The great brains regarded the venomous situation without
qualms. What’s a little dope among dopes?
In desperation, Anslinger removed every agent--including one of his
best men, former agent-in-charge Roy Morrison--from the city of
Washington. He felt it was needless to risk his men’s lives to get
evidence against junk peddlers who were sure to keep out of jail
because of a fix or muddle-headedness. Thereafter, for a short time,
no effort was made to enforce the narcotics laws in the District.
Conditions got so bad, even the judges knew they must cooperate to
avoid a national blow-up. After Anslinger restored the agents, the
judges began meting out stiff sentences. But the heat soon came off and
they are back at their old habits.
An example of what often happens when a dope peddler is arrested in the
District is the case of William Potts, indicted on 14 counts arising
from the sale and possession of heroin. On the day set for trial, an
essential witness of the government could not be found. The court was
so informed. The judge turned to the counsel for defense and asked if
he was ready for the trial. Defense counsel was, but the U.S. Attorney
said he was not, because of the witness’s absence. Thereupon the court
asked if the defendant would waive a jury trial. He did. Immediately
and without the pretense of trial, the court ruled. “I find the
defendant not guilty.”
William P. Estoffery came into court with a record of ten specific
narcotics convictions, but the United States District Court gave him
eight months to three years, which meant he could be back on the street
in three months. One of his previous convictions was for possession of
counterfeit prescription blanks.
Here is another sample of the judicial road-blocks erected against
enforcement officers who arrest dope peddlers in the capital:
Constitutional rights to privacy also give a defendant protection from
illegal police raids on homes other than his own, the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled recently.
The court made the ruling in reversing the conviction of Jesse W.
Jeffers, Jr., on narcotics dealing charges.
Jeffers, 27, Negro, was found guilty in Judge Alexander Holtzoff’s
court on testimony that police, without a search warrant, raided a room
at the Dunbar Hotel and found 19 bottles of cocaine he allegedly had
hidden there.
Jeffers lived elsewhere in the hotel, but the room was rented by
relatives of his.
Setting a rare principle of law, the Appeals Court held evidence of
the cocaine cache should have been excluded from the case because the
police raid was illegal. It pointed out the Constitution’s Fourth
Amendment specifically bans illegal searches of a defendant’s home,
and said the principle should be enlarged to cover illegal raids on
“premises that were not his.”
Judge E. Barrett Prettyman, in a dissent from the majority opinion,
said “I do not see how an individual’s rights can be invaded by
Government seizure of ... unstamped narcotics, not on the individual’s
person or premises.”
He emphasized the case “is important in the enforcement of the
narcotics laws.”
The curious part of the whole affair is that the defendant admitted the
untaxed, unstamped dope was his. In fact, he demanded its return from
the government.
In another of its feats of legal legerdemain, beyond the poor reasoning
of a couple of reporters who didn’t graduate from Harvard Law, the
august court said to the defendant in effect: “Possession of dope is
illegal, so you can’t have it back, though you didn’t commit any crime
when you had it before.”
Try and figure that one out.
Shortly thereafter the Appeals Court again overruled the same judge in
another narcotics case and ordered a new trial for Clarence Butler on
the grounds that Holtzoff’s “facial expressions” were prejudicial.
An official memorandum of the United States Treasury Department sets
out facts as follows:
Since early in 1946, the Bureau has experienced repeated delay in
obtaining prosecution of its cases in the District of Columbia. In
numerous trials where out-of-town agents were witnesses the Bureau
had to bear the expense of bringing them to Washington for testimony.
Repeatedly, after the agents arrived, the hearings were continued. The
Bureau could not stand this gaff and had to “stop narcotic enforcement
in the District of Columbia.”
Dope cannot be manufactured locally. The Washington wholesalers must
get their supplies from the international monopoly. The general
practice in other cities is for the organization to deliver the
wholesale lots to localities where they are to be consumed, but in the
case of Washington the wholesale jobbers go to the distribution depots
in other cities and pick up carload lots.
All narcotics in the United States are controlled at the top by a tight
ring of evil men who, in turn, issue state and territorial rights to
middlemen. Washington merchants are ordered to make their purchases in
New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, but mainly in New York.
Marijuana is brought up directly from Mexico, but much inferior quality
reefer seed is planted on farms between Washington and Baltimore and in
Virginia.
The local dope set-up is largely controlled by Negroes, though Chinese
also are active in the trade and have become more so since the
Communists took over China. The two tongs frequently import their own.
At this writing Red China has 500 tons of opium for sale abroad. This
is equal to the world requirements for medical and scientific needs
for more than a year. Chiang Kai-shek prohibited the production in
China in 1934. The Communists have revived Jehol and Manchurian opium
cultivation, and are reopening Tientsin dens. The tongs have not been
adhering of late to the agreement which limited them to noncompetitive
sales. Both are selling _pin yen_ (opium) and _bok for_ (heroin).
Police believe the recent but short-lived tong wars on the West Coast
were attributable to breaches of the basic compromise, plus efforts of
Chinese Communists to take over the tong dope distribution machinery.
Occasionally, when sources of supply are temporarily cut off, or when
the Italians are able to offer a more favorable price, the Chinese
Syndicates send a man to buy directly from the Mafia. This dope is
stored in a warehouse near 108th Street and 2nd Avenue, New York City,
in Marcantonio’s bailiwick.
Another difficulty in narcotics enforcement, not even whispered about
in Washington, is the leakage from diplomatic sources. It is politic
for the Bureau to deny this is so, because nothing can be done about
it. But huge amounts of concentrated dope come in envoys’ sealed
pouches. There is, as everyone in Washington knows, a lively racket
in the diplomatic corps in black market money. No easier method of
acquiring dollars is possible than through sale of dope. Some of this
contraband is used by members of the embassy staffs, themselves. In
some Near Eastern and Oriental countries, a daily intake of narcotics
is considered as normal as our use of coffee and tobacco. Many Latin
Americans are slaves to marijuana, especially in the eating form, not
otherwise available in the States. Some of this, which doesn’t find its
way into the channels of trade, is presented by the diplomats to their
American friends.
This will be denied, too, but ranking members of the diplomatic corps
who are narcotic addicts and who can’t get the stuff from other sources
have it provided for them by the protocol boys in the State Department,
who withdraw it from official government sources.
We were offered reefers by peddlers in the alleys along 4th Street, SW;
also at the corner of 7th and T and 7th and O, NW.
In an all-night diner at Vermont and L, frequented by musicians and hep
kids, we were offered reefers also.
Hard stuff is obtainable with no trouble from street salesmen in Thomas
Circle. In this neighborhood, which is bossed by Attilio Acalotti, you
can place a bet on a horse, buy a numbers ticket or get a call girl.
The service is performed for you by sidewalk newsboys and pimps on the
steps of the National Christian Church.
In recent years, rich white racketeers have gone in for opium smoking
themselves. They get it in Chinatown, where a few poppy parlors are in
operation. As noted, members of the On Leong Tong deal mostly in opium
and the members of Hip Sing in heroin.
Heroin is sold openly on the corner of 5th and H, in the Hip Sing
section of Chinatown. To prove this, we became accessories to a
violation of the law.
This is how simple the whole transaction was: We were steered to a
broken-down wreck named Joe, a well-known dope addict. Despite his
habit, Joe is an expert locksmith, a genius at his trade. He can’t
work steadily, but so talented is he, the police and other local law
enforcement bodies and private detective agencies frequently hire him
to pick locks. That’s how he gets the money to support his habit. We
gave Joe $6 to buy a deck of heroin and left him on the corner while we
drove twenty feet up the block as Joe waited for his contact, across
the street from the Gospel Mission.
We walked back and passed Joe as he handed the $6 to a young Chinese,
who had appeared out of an area way. Joe said the Chinaman’s name
was Benny Wong. This is one of the commonest Chinese names, there
may be 500 with it in Washington. While Benny went to get the stuff,
Joe sat down on a stoop and fell asleep. He had been loading himself
with secanol, a synthetic, to keep his nerve steady until he got the
heroin, and he was in a pitiable condition. While Joe slumbered, two
metropolitan cops walked by. They thought he was drunk. One went to get
the wagon while we talked the other out of pinching our decoy. A few
minutes after the cops left, Benny returned with the heroin. That’s all
there was to it.
The “hooked” addict’s cost of supporting his “yen” runs from $35 a
week up, though if one “has a monkey on his back,” meaning the urge is
desperate and irresistible, he will be soaked from $50 to $100 a week.
Those who can afford the best stuff or who no longer get a bang out of
cheap grades are bled for as much as $500 a week.
When Hyman I. Fischbach, brilliant counsel of the Congressional
committee investigating crime and law enforcement in the District
of Columbia, queried Assistant Commissioner Harney of the Narcotics
Bureau, some startling facts about narcotic addiction were brought out,
yet missed by the press and the public. These hitherto unpublished
excerpts make interesting reading.
MR. HARNEY. That also depends too on the cost of the drug and the
amount of his income. Addicts can get along--during the war we had lots
of them who had needle habits. Their intake was probably one-fourth
grain or half a grain a day of actual narcotic. The addict might
develop until he gets as high as 20, 30, or 40 grains a day, considered
a lethal dose for a non-initiated person. They build up resistance
power. They get hoggish.
CONGRESSMAN DAVIS. What is that term?