USA and League Prohibition plans--18JAN1929

 

Of the nearly 3 tonnes of dope seized in 1927, 89% were opium, 7% hemp, 3.6% morphine and 0.4% cocaine,
the light blue trace between green and dark blue. 

As the Opium Advisory committee members returned from their 3-4th Meeting lunch break in Geneva, Americans were opening their 18JAN1929 morning papers to stories like...
Senator Tydings moves to curb American loans abroad. (Germany was borrowing to pay reparations) 
Yugoslav king takes first step to end dictatorship. (The OAC meeting chairman is from Serbia) 
$20M gold earmarked here, presumably f/ French account. (Sound familiar? Like April 2026?)
Loans to brokers rise $71M in week... (Stock Market call money instability)

Talk of Relations between the U.S.-backed Permanent Central Board and the Advisory Committee were again taken up and the remainder of the meeting went into public session. Draft articles hammered out in 16FEB1923 sessions included plans for the Central Opium Board. This, the USA and China insisted, was needed even though the Opium Advisory Board was gathering statistics worldwide--albeit with a shorter list of things to do with that information. A Swiss participant understood draft Article 27 as requiring the Board to take all necessary measures to prevent such information from being published or brought to the knowledge of speculators who might use it for purposes of filthy lucre. The requirement posed a dilemma. U.S. insistence that a lengthy list of drugs be curbed met objections. Experience proved that throttling opium alone--itself 9/10ths of all drugs other than alcohol and tobacco--destabilized entire regional economies that not only exported but also monopolized and taxed drugs for revenue. American zeal, affronted by such venal pusillanimity, led her delegates to insist that economic considerations be ignored given the pressing moral reasons for banning and regulating drugs. War-torn China and Dry America's moral outrage mattered.  Both statistical teams were told to get with the program. Japan's delegate could object to the Advisory Committee dealing with statistics, but that was part of its duties. 

Mr Lyall of the Opium Board sought to smooth ruffled feathers by admitting the Central Opium Board was new, still didn't even have a secretary, and intended to urge States party to the 1925 Convention to hold off on sending statistics until after a session planned for April. For now the Board merely wanted to rubberneck League Advisory Council meetings and "gain experience." Portugal's representative was cheerfully eager to change the subject, yet France's man went back to some secrecy requirements of Article 27 of the Sino-U.S. Geneva convention. This again presented the danger of dwelling on economic and financial impacts of prohibition that both U.S. and Chinese delegates were struggling to evade acknowledging. Italy's Senator and Britain's representative argued that no speculators or business rivals had profited from statistics furnished previously to the Advisory Committee, whose work was exempt from Geneva Article 27 restrictions. This worried the Dutch representative on account of a possibility the Advisory Committee might be cut out of the loop entirely because of data secrecy concerns. Serbia's representative and Chairman considered the subject practically exhausted, and attention turned to examination of country reports. Germany quickly moved to the top of the pile. 

The Reichstag Committee studying the penal code noticed an increase in the number of drug addicts reported by Germany's Health Office for recent years, and so had passed a resolution to limit manufactures to national medical requirements. Great Britain's representative coyly asked whether the German representative cared to comment, and that worthy--keenly aware of competitors in the room--would later share information expected to flow from a future Reichstag plenary meeting. Britain's man asked why nearly 3/4 tonne of crude cocaine had been shipped from Germany to Russia and Germany's Dr Kahler volunteered to make inquiries. Regarding the report for Chosen (now Korea), Mr Sato wanted a postponement so he could prepare explanations for Japanese government plans to monopolize morphine manufactures on that island. The meeting adjourned with an uneasy truce struck between European smooth operators and the new insurgents. All participants were looking forward to dissecting and haggling over drug control reports from the U.S., Formosa, France, Great Britain and Hong-Kong at the Saturday meeting.

New York papers reported that former governor and defeated presidential hopeful Al Smith had hired on as a banker on the board of the County Trust Company--with James J Riordan. In Berlin, potash magnate was lobbying for an alliance of Germany, France and England against the United States to settle war loans and reparations issues.(link) Alien property custodian Howard Sutherland--in charge of huge holdings of equity confiscated from Germany in the war--assigned proxies for 12400 shares to John D Rockfeller Jr. then in a struggle for control of Standard Oil of Indiana.(link) Herbert Hoover was back from "Winning the Southern Cross" in South America. A shocked southerner in New York complained to newspapers that "two negro girls" had sat next to him at the picture show--this while the multiracial talkie Gang War was playing nearby. He got little sympathy.

Good reading: The Star Dwellers, by James Blish. I had not heard of the book before reading the review at Michael Grossberg's Libertarian Futurist Society. This early sixties boy-meets-aliens space opera features FTL travel to a very distant destination peopled by energy critters reminiscent of something Fred Hoyle dreamed up for one of his witty adventures. Blish focuses on diplomatic negotiations between radically dissimilar entities. Not his best work, but enjoyable.

Cool stuff: Mellow Mood Imports has clothes 'n stuff you can dance in.(link) Charleston, North Carolina was where attorney Manly Sullivan was charged with violating the National Prohibition Act. He appealed and won on the argument that forcing him to declare and pay taxes on illegal income was a violation of the Fifth Amendment. The Charleston promptly became America's signature popular dance. This is a family-owned and operated small business in the spirit of American free enterprise. 

Get the big picture in Prohibition and The Crash on Amazon Kindle in two languages. After this you’ll be able to explain to economists exactly how fanaticism and loss of freedom wrecked the U.S. economy.

Prohibition and The Crash, on Amazon Kindle (link)

ASYLUM APPLICATION FORM i589 INSTRUCTIONS IN PORTUGUESE: INSTRUÇÕES PARA O FORMULÁRIO DE ASILO i589. What we did was make the Political Asylum instructions accessible to and understandable by people accustomed to thinking in Portuguese. This costs one dollar ($1) and you can read it on a cellphone with the Kindle app.(link)

Comment at Libertariantranslator or LIBtranslator, my political economy blog at https://libertrans.blogspot.com/

Brazilian Sci-fi from 1926 featuring the adventures of a Rio de Janeiro man-about-town and the beautiful daughter of an elderly scientist–touting alcohol prohibition, eugenics and racial collectivism. Go to Amazon.com and look inside America’s Black President 2228 by Monteiro Lobato, cover art by Rene Bueno, translated by J Henry Phillips (link)

I also produce books and articles in Portuguese, using Brazilian historical sources at http://www.expatriotas.blogspot.com or www.amigra.us and in English at http://Libertariantranslator.wordpress.com (link)

My financial history blog, http://www.Libertrans.us, in Portuguese is Expatriotas for Brazilians, readable at www.expatriotas.blogspot.com (link)

Go ahead and comment. 

Do you need to contact a certified Translator or Interpreter?

Está procurando tradutor ou intérprete credenciado?