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Hemp
The Bush That George Grew
By Kenyon  Gibson

cannabissatival@hotmail.com

mina@minawear.com
3-6-4

The first recorded planting of hemp by a colonial power in the New World took place in 1545, by Spaniards in Chile.  Less than a hundred years later the Pilgrims followed suit in New England.  Hemp was an essential item, and was quick to take root in North and South America.   However, these were not the first plantings of hemp, as many history textbooks claim.  Jack Frazier, in "The Great American Hemp Industry, cites several early writings describing hemp growing naturally without any European influence:   John de Verrazano "we found these folkes to be more white than those that we found before, being clod with certaine leaves that hang on the boughs of trees, which they sewe together with threds of wilde hemp.   Thomas Hariot "The truth is, that of hempe and flaxe there is no great store in any one place together, by reason it is not planted but as the soule doth yield of itself. Lord Delaware "The country is wonderful fertile and very rich, Hempe better than English growing wilde in abundance.   Du Pratz "I ought not to omit to take notice, that hemp grows naturally on the lands adjoining to the lakes on the West of the Mississippi.   Frazier further notes evidence of pre-Columbian voyages to the New World, quoting Cyrus Gordon, whose book Before Columbus, links between the Old World and Ancient America, documents of such voyages to 531 BC.  Gordon brings to light the discovery of a Hebrew inscription found at Bat Creek, Tennessee in 1890.  The inscription, dated to 35 AD, in conjunction with Bar Kohbu coins of 135 AD in Kentucky, strongly supports the possibility of a Jewish settlement in the New World shortly after the Diaspora. Another writer who Frazier cites is Henriette Mertz, who discusses Asian voyages to the West Coast, in "Pole Ink, Two Ancient Records of Chinese Explorations in America.  It is just possible that the original Indians, reached North America in this fashion, and brought with them hemp seeds. Such voyages may not have in fact been possible without hempen ropes and sails, which were of so much a necessity to Europe that hemp was mandated in the New World. In the Spanish colonies, such orders were taken seriously, with the viceroy of the New World colonies encouraging hemp cultivation by providing seed to settlers.  The chief areas of production were Chile, Mexico, and California.  In 1795 Spain opened up the Mississippi to international trade to encourage hemp exports, some of which was actually transacted using hemp as barter. With greater access to trade routes, California increased its hemp production, going from 12,500 pounds in 1807 to over 220,000 pounds in 1810.  Much of Latin America has a Mediterranean climate, and hemp was of easy cultivation.  Remnants of these plantings still thrive, especially in the Valparaiso district of Chile, where it has had the most continuous cultivation anywhere in the New World.   France also looked across the Atlantic for hemp.  When French merchants heard that hemp was growing wild in the New World they sensed an opportunity for enormous profits.  After the first disappointments subsided, the French thought they could still make a profit in hemp if they could simply persuade the settlers in New France to cultivate cannabis as a crop.  To this end, Samuel Champlain, the great explorer and coloniser, brought hemp seeds along on his early expeditions to New France.  By 1606, hemp was growing in Port Royal in Nova Scotia under the supervision of botanist and apothecary, Louis Herbert.  Both the French and the British had difficulty in finding enough laborers to cultivate the hemp as the early settlers were busy trying to grow food to eat.  Jean Talon, the finance minister of Quebec, provided seed free to farmers which they were to plant immediately and return with seed from the following years crop.  He also confiscated all the thread in the colony agreeing only to sell it in return for hemp.     This forced the settlers to grow hemp so that they could barter or sell it for thread so that they could clothe their children.  By this rather unorthodox method, Talon succeeded in increasing the production of hemp to the satisfaction of the French government.  The French traded hemp cloth with the natives in the Louisiana territory, and a French settlement wrote a treatise describing hemp,s importance.  However, there were times as early as 1721 when France, in order to protect its home industries, discouraged production in its colonies.  Generally this was not the case; the Governor of Louisiana who was told to increase production by offering free hemp seed to the colonist.  Towards the end of the eighteenth century New Orleans had a hemp factory which provided ample cordage for ships which docked there.  By 1763 French interests in the New World wer e to subside, as the Treaty of Paris gave up Quebec.   British settlers were encouraged to grow hemp in all the colonies, which was done in Canada by land grant.  Perhaps the first orders to cultivate hemp were made at Jamestown, Virginia, which Jack Herer, in his 1985 book "The Emperor Wears no Clothes, notes as the nations first marijuana laws, in 1619. Massachusetts and Connecticut followed suit by mandating cultivation in the 1630,s. A more positive approach was to allow its use for payments of taxes, as in Virginia where hemp could be used to pay the poll tax, or, even as legal tender as a statute of 1682 shows. A 1685 account notes both New Jersey and Pennsylvania as good for growing hemp, that much was shipped to England, and that a receipt for hemp from the store house register was as good as money Subsides also worked, as Massachusetts law decks record; in 1701 such a subsidy was enacted, giving farmers a farthing per lb. of hemp, which then went for four and a half pence per lb.  Virginia was a steady producer of this staple; one 1649 account mentions "an old planter of over 30 years standing who sows yearly of hemp and flax, and causes it to be spun. In 1723 South Carolina encouraged the production of hemp by offering a bounty and in 1733 Richard Hall was paid by the state to write a book in order to promote the production of hemp and flax.  He travelled to Holland to study European practices and returned with hemp seed to plant.   Ultimately the colonies were to become independent, starting with the United States.  Independence, however, did not curtail hemp production; in many areas production increased, particularly in the United States, where the founding fathers were passionate hemp advocates.   Benjamin Franklin, as the leading paper manufacturer in the colonies, noted the raising of it in his state, of which he was in support. Thomas Paine noted hemp as a strength of the colonies, citing it as evidence of self-reliance that made the revolution plausible. George Washington grew it on his estates, and took an interest in its uses stopping on one occasion to visit a hemp paper factory in Hempstead, N.Y.   Thomas Jefferson even took a stand in favour of hemp versus a native plant, tobacco.  He voices his opinion in The Farm Journal of March 16, 1791, stating that tobacco required much more manure, employed less people, and did not contribute to the wealth or defence of the state.  He also compared hemp favourably to flax, and invented a method for breaking, which involved a thrashing machine moved by a horse; this was to be the new nation,s first patent.   John Quincy Adams wrote of Russian hemp cultivation which was printed into government records.  Little did he imagine the future governments anti-hemp activists would view these activities as subversive and un-American, or that the very substance of the paper on which the constitutions were written would be a matter of controversy.   After independence, there was new pressure on the young nation to produce hemp, as the need for defence and trade fell solely on their shoulders.  Ironically, while great amounts of hemp were grown, they were not water retted, and thus the United States, like other nations, sent to Russia for its supplies.  At one stage Yankee ships carried hemp not only to Boston and New York, but also to London and Liverpool, acting as agents for the British whom Napoleon tried to force out of the Baltic.  Many Americans voiced concern over the amount of imported hemp, and two ideas were put forth: tariffs, which were unpopular with the merchants, and subsidies to farmers producing water-retted hemp.  While much debate was heard on these proposals, Russian hemp continued to be the choice of the Navy, and sold for 100% more than American dew-retted hemp, which was used for other purposes; bagging cotton, ordinary ropes, clothing and oil.  In 1824 the Plymouth Cordage Company was founded in Plymouth, Mass.  This firm used Russian hemp, despite a tariff rise of 4 cents a pound that same year.  Bourne Spourner, Plymouth,s founder, was an abolitionist, and his dislike of slavery put him off to using the products made by such means.  Despite paying higher prices for hemp, the company prospered to become the largest cordage company in the world by 1950.   The above table shows that Kentucky and Missouri had become the centres of production, while the North-eastern States had by 1850 just about abandoned hemp growing.     Mechanisation and westward expansion were two forces behind this shift, but much was due to the soil and climate in Kentucky being especially favourable to cannabis cultivation.  The first recorded crop of hemp grown in that state was by Archibald McNeil of Clark,s Creek, near Danville in 1775.  The "Blue Grass region especially attracted hemp farmers, and was for over a century to remain the largest growing area of hemp in all of North America.  Its fertile soil, formed by the disintegration of lower Silurian limestone was especially rich in mineral deposits.   Early hemp cultivation in Kentucky was hampered by the scarcity of seed and its consequential high price.  By 1790 the situation was different because it was noted in the Kentucky Gazette that hemp was "the most certain crop and the most valuable commodity"  The exportation of hemp products from Kentucky was hampered by the difficulties of transport and its consequent costs.  As new settlers moved west, crossing the mountains, new trade opened  upssissippi was the means by which goods could be transported.  At that time the lower reaches of the river and New Orleans were Spanish possessions.   In order to boost trade the Spanish in 1788 opened up the Mississippi Basin to trade giving special privileges to such men as General James Wilkinson.  In 1795 the Pinckney Treaty concluded with Spain gave Americans free navigation on the Mississippi and a deposit, in New Orleans to land and store goods.  The latter was revoked in 1803 for a few months, which caused some inconvenience and a reduction in the export of hemp.  However, due to the Louisiana Purchase, in 1803,  the export market was reinvigorated, and Kentucky was able to send hemp and produce to the southern markets at will.  The wars in Europe in the early part of the nineteenth century helped the cultivation and manufacture of Kentucky hemp.  During the wars, importation of European hemp products and hemp fibre was curtailed which meant Kentucky took up the slack with exports to the East and the South.  After 1815 European imports resumed with the eastern states resuming their trade with European countries.  In 1839 Kentucky,s hemp crop was badly damaged by drought, but it was able to satisfy its own needs by imports from other states such as Illinois, Missouri, and Minnesota.     North Americans tried to raise the best crops they could, and this meant constant revision and a willingness to try new methods.  However, Russian, Italian, and Dutch hemp continued to be the most desirable, largely due to the centuries of experience that these nations possessed.  In Europe and Russia there was much literature available and superior seed stocks, It was apparent to some producers and distributors of hemp that the Kentucky seed was in need of improvement, and importation of quality seed was encouraged.  Bologna Hemp, grown from imported Italian seed was being cultivated with excellent results.  Its white colour, strength and fineness were much admired and appreciated.  A Dr. Spurr even suggested that the navy should obtain seed from Russia or Italy and supply Kentucky farmers so that they produce better hemp.     In 1851 L. Maltby of Mason County, having learnt of So-ma, hemp variety, while travelling in France, brought back some of these seeds, some of which were planted successfully in Louisiana.  Other varieties included Russian hemp but these were not always successful since some of the seeds were more adapted to Northern European latitudes than the southern States such as Kentucky.  That is not to say that there were not successful plantings.  A French colleague of William L. Vance, a hemp farmer, gave him some Chinese seed similar to So-ma with excellent results.  This variety was from then on to be known as the "Vance Seed.   Other factors figured into the equation, such as sorting.  Francis Campbell in 1845 laments the fact that while Canadian hemp was of good quality, it was never sorted properly, and could not be relied upon.  But the biggest factor was in processing, as U.S. farmers favoured dew retting; however, the more desirable fibres were obtained from the water retting method.  Consequently few Kentucky farmers ever achieved top prices for their hemp. In 1842 the Frankfort Commonwealth newspaper urged farmers to water-ret most of their crop because of the higher prices they could achieve.  The crop that year was expected to be the largest ever recorded.  Some farmers did follow this advice.  However, despite a growing interest they were still a minority.     Only when the price of dew retted hemp fell to that of half water-retted hemp did farmers change their age-old practices.  Water retting was a time consuming business, which the farmer was not prepared to do unless there was extra financial benefit.  Until the Civil War the Kentucky farmer continued to depend for the most part on the manufacture of bail rope and bagging to consign his hemp fibre. The quality of dew retted cordage was not of an acceptable quality for the American Navy or merchant fleet.  The United States navy saw the strategic importance to have a home grown supply of cordage and canvas and therefore tried to encourage the growth of superior hemp equal to that of Russia,s.  Previous attempts were made in 1810, an account of which is as follows:  "In the years 1809 and ,10, Russia hemp being scarce and very high, we urged on Messrs. Caruthers, of Lexington, Virginia, (large dealers in the article, and living in the neighborhood of the best hemp country) the advantage and necessity of improving it, and contracted to give them $290 per ton, for 70 to 80 tons, to be clear and well prepared.     Mr. W. Caruthers paid particular and personal attention to it and it proved, (with some exception) of excellent quality.  This was all grown in Rockbridge, Botetourt, and Montgomery counties, on the James, the Jackson, and Cowpasture rivers, and this has hitherto been the part of the State where it was grown to any extent, the three counties then producing 50 to 100 tons each annually. Knowing that the practice of preparing it was by dew, or air-rotting, which is very tedious, it lying out for months, exposed to all the vicissitudes of weather, and is often thereby injured in strength, always in color, in the year 1810, Mr. Theo. Armistead, who was Navy Agent here, and also had a rope walk, and who was very zealous in the improvement of country hemp, with our establishment, held out strong inducements to have the hemp water-rotted, in place of the usual mode, but so difficult is it to change old habits, that only in one instance did we succeed.  Colonel Wilson C. Nicholas, of Albemarle county, and formerly Governor of Virginia, water-rotted his crop; and, to encourage and extend its mode, we gave for the part of it we got, (a few tons) $360 per ton; the quality was excellent, color much improved, and we believe, the fibre also, in strength and fineness, though it was not so well cleaned or prepared as it might have been.  The experiment seems satisfactory that it was capable of improvement by proper management.   In 1824 the navy desired American hemp to be used on the ship the North Carolina so as to compare it side by side with Russian hemp.  Not enough American water-retted could be procured, so the experiment was delayed and took place some months later on board the Constellation.  The conclusion made was that the Russian hemp was superior for maritime purposes.  A further attempt to use domestic cordage took place in 1841 when the navy contracted to buy 500 tons of water-retted hemp from David Myerle of Kentucky.  Myerle delivered twenty tons to the Charleston, Massachusetts shipyard for inspection, where it was not accepted; tests showed his product to be stronger than the best Riga Rein, but the amount of tow and waste caused the inspectors to reject it under the terms of the contract. This act of rejection of domestic hemp in favour of imported hemp sparked off debates for years, with allegations of corruption voiced in Congress.  Commodore John Nicholson sided with Myerle, telling him "you have been damned badly treated, and your hemp should never have been rejected.26Sympathy, however, did not prevent Myerle from bankruptcy.  His hemp was seized by creditors, who in turn suffered a loss, as they were not adept in the handling of its sale.   Over the years tariffs have been enacted against Russian hemp, starting in 1792 with the tax of $20 per ton, rising to $60 in 1828, then falling back nearer to original levels until abolished in the twentieth century.   Another attempt at using American hemp failed completely in which unretted hemp was used.  It fermented, putting paid to many attempts to use unretted cordage.27 In 1906 hemp was successfully water retted in Northfield, Minnesota, produced in cement tanks with water circulation and temperature carefully controlled.  The resultant fibre was similar to Italian hemp in quality.   At that time prices were coming off their highs caused by the wars in Europe, when hemp was fought over.  War was the main cause of scarcity and price increase; but other factors had an effect as well, such as drought.  Many prominent families in Kentucky grew hemp and were effected by the changes, such as the Speeds and the Todds.  The latter were a major force in the hemp industry, and of some historical interest as Mary Todd was to marry a then unknown lawyer by the name of Abraham Lincoln.   In 1873 Kentucky produced 10,687 tons, 8,975 of which were from the countries of Bourbon, Foyette, Jossamine, Scott, and Woodford.28 This figure is well off previous highs from before the Civil War.  The war caused great disruption; hemp growing came to a standstill and did not ever recover to its previous levels.  One interesting use of hemp that the war occasioned was that of movable defences-Secessionist soldiers rolled wetted bundles of hemp towards the Union Army, thus able to fire upon their enemy from behind movable cover.  By such means was the battle of Lexington, Missouri, decided.   By 1879 total hemp production had been reduced to 5,025 tons with Kentucky producing 4,583 tons, the remainder coming from Missouri, Michigan, Kansas, Illinois, Minnesota and North Carolina.     The decline in the hemp industry was one of many adversities suffered by both sides in the war, and in 1882, an organisation was founded to address this loss The American Flax and Hemp Spinners and Growers Association. In 1889, Edwin Willits, then Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, noted the decline in the yearly report and exhorted his countrymen to extend the culture of hemp.  Noting that its production is an industry that dates back to the earliest history of the United States, and acknowledging the great changes in the manufacture and economics of hemp, he looks ahead, hoping that the "energy for which the American people are noted and "data concerning economical production would encourage cultivation.   In the future, hemp was to decline and be revived in the 1930s, when Henry Ford was set to use hemp as a fuel for cars. Other uses of hemp were discovered, and the American farmer was to find that he would be able to sell even the hemp wastes at a profit. However, special interest groups cut down this hope, and hemp was outlawed just as it was set to revive the US economy.   It was not until the 1980s that major interest was revived, when Jack Herer and others started to write on the subject and make the facts known. Today many US businesses are selling hemp, although it can not be grown legally in the US; ironically, arrests are being made as farmers try to get their rights, and recently Woody Harrelson was arrested for sowing the seeds of hemp in his hope state, Kentucky. In New York City, Galaxy Global Eatery serves hemp foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, ever struggling with the attempts to outlaw hemp foods in the US. John Roulac in California sells hemp oils and seeds out of his company, Nutriva, and is that same state the environmentally aware are buying their threads from Mina Hegaard at her Minawear outlet, Nirvana Ranch.   Below is a list of outlets in the US where hemp products can be legally purchased.   GALAXY GLOBAL EATERY 15 IRVING PLACE NEW YORK, NY 10003 212 777 3136 www.galaxyglobaleatery.com     UNCLE ZACH,S FRIENDLY EARTH 4314 SE HAWTHORNE PORTAND, OR 97215   MINAWEAR/NIRVANA RANCH 1842 ABBOTT KINNEY BLVD. VENICE, CA 90403 310 306 1958 mina@minawear.com   CULTURE SHOCK 7 BOLINAS ROAD FAIRFAX, CA   Hemp The Bush That George Wants To Cut Down A study of patriotism outlawed in the Homeland. Part 2 By Kenyon Gibson cannabissatival@hotmail.com mina@minawear.com 3-9-4 The previous posting to rense traced hemp's history in the New World up to about 1900. In the twentieth century, man discovered that even the waste parts of hemp had a value, and a very lucrative one, as cellulose.  Much of this was taking place in the United States, which had both the land well suited for growing hemp and the technologies for further processing.  Knowledge of hemp abounded in North America; a major proponent of hemp was the U.S. government, from the nation's first President in the eighteenth century to the Department of Agriculture in the twentieth century.   How then can hemp fare so badly as to be persecuted, vilified and prohibited in the United States? To provide an answer to such a question, this aspect of history must be explored.  A part of this examination is a study of the characters involved.  Recently The Economist1 printed that it was in the interests of Andrew Mellon, the Hearst newspaper syndicate and the DuPont Corporation to put a stop to the use of hemp.  The article stated that they brought this about through Mellon's nephew-in-law, Harry J. Anslinger.  This idea echoes what many hemp advocates have been writing; Herer (1985), Conrad (1994), Rosenthal (1994), Lupien (1995), West (1999), and Heslop (2000)6 are very vocative in these assertions, which are part of the current hemp literature and understanding of the hemp industry.   Andrew Mellon, who is to many the epitome of respectability, was able to use his official position to enrich himself while doing long term damage to the American economy.  Mellon's money was from Texas oil; and where his treasure was to be found, so was his heart.  Secretary of the Treasury from 1912 to 1932, Mellon was able to influence tax rebates for his oil interests that would lead ultimately to congressional investigations, the most famous of which was the Teapot Dome Scandal.  Mellon particularly discouraged production of safer and better fuels, such as diesel and alcohol, which could compete with fossil fuels.  One move that gave him an advantage at this game was the loan of money to the DuPont Corporation, which financed their acquisition of General Motors.  Thus, while Ford Motors set up a successful biomass fuel facility at Iron Mountain, Michigan, Mellon was supporting environmentally damaging concepts that would undermine the ecology and the health of so many less fortunate people. As powerful as he was, he was able to fool a lot of people, but not all.  When the Great Depression came, President Herbert Hoover summed up his attitude as follows:   "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmer, liquidate real estatePeople will work harder, live a more moral life.  Values will be adjusted and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people."   Mellon practised family values, by appointing his nephew-in-law, Anslinger, to the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which answered not to any police authority, but to the Treasury. In such a position, Anslinger was able to berate drugs users on one hand, while he supplied morphine to Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin with the other.  Anslinger, a raging hempophobe, launched tirades against any use of drugs and classed marijuana in with narcotics.  Quite a Pharisee, he was a dogmatic and hysterical bigot who was rebuked for reading the words "ginger coloured niggers" into government records, and had to be held back from his desire to round up all the jazz musicians in the country in a ,crackdown,.  Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Edward H. Foley, Jr. overruled this bizarre plan with a note stating Foley disapproves,.   William Randolph Hearst is perhaps best remembered as Citizen Kane,.  He owned newspapers, which were known for yellow journalism,, which fuelled the Spanish-American War. Ever willing to profit, his most despicable, but not so well publicised act, was the sale of the editorial opinions of his papers to the Nazis.  This he did in person, meeting Adolph Hitler who paid him his silver; $400,000 a year.  Hearst's relationship with Hitler did not start there, however-Hitler used to work for Hearst, but was unable to deliver by deadline, and so was let go.   Some will remember the pro-Nazi sentiments expressed after this date, while others will recall the anti-Latin tone, especially in regards to what he called "reefer madness", a campaign to stir up public hatred of marijuana. Dying alone, a pathetic figure, he left the world darkened by the shadow of Xanadu, racism and deforestation of the Pacific Northwest.   Last and not least is the DuPont Corporation.  Today one of the biggest in the world, it dominates the skyline of Wilmington, Delaware, and its influence is not unfelt in nearby Washington.  Its history goes quite a way back, and is of some interest to examine, not only for the context of this present work, but as a glimpse into the history of one of America's, and the world's, most powerful companies.   Shortly after the American War for Independence, France was experiencing political turmoil of its own.  The excesses of the monarchy and their supporters had enraged the nation, and the cry for change was to be heard in every town. Among the supporters of the old regime was one prosperous family the DuPonts. * Two members of this clan, Pierre and Irénée were thrown into prison.  Pleading senility, and agreeing to leave the country, they were granted release, and on October 1, 1799, set sail for America under their own banner. Ninety days hence, after an unpleasant journey spent guarding their wealth from the American crew, they arrived.  A relief both to them and their crew, this arrival was marked by a singular omen; that of the DuPonts breaking into a house whilst the owners were at church.   *Pierre Dupont changed the spelling of his name to DuPont; junior members adopted du Pont,, while DuPont, refers to the company, is observed throughout these essays .   They settled first in New Jersey, finding a mansion to buy at Bergen's Point, acquiring slaves, and setting up offices at 61 Pearl Street, and later 91 Liberty Street in New York City.  Pierre tried to come up with a means of launching a private empire, "Pontiania", which included gold smuggling and land speculation.  These, and other plans, were at best pipe dreams, with the thought of land speculation especially ill advised, as Thomas Jefferson pointed out to them.  Finally one thing did work for them: gunpowder. This was a dangerous business, especially for those working directly with chemicals, but lucrative to investors.  Early settlers were in constant need of this, and other explosives were added to the product line.   Wars were the most prosperous of times; for this business even the Civil War, with its losses due to a divided market, brought fortune to DuPont, despite the increase of accidents in the yards.  Eleven explosions took place, killing dozens of workers from 1861 1865. After the war, the duPonts had to endure the depression, as bitterness ravaged a whole country.  They not only endured, but prospered.  Led by Lammot DuPont, they started a cartel with major manufacturers, cutting prices, and levying severe penalties against anyone who undersold them, undercutting them badly enough to bankrupt them; their Eleutherian Mills would "pick up the pieces of the industry for pennies". American Ordinance, New York Powder Company, United States Dynamite Company, and The American Textile Powder Manufacturing Company were but a few of the smaller companies put out of business  or bought out by DuPont and companies they controlled. "The policy pursued was one of ruthless elimination", wrote Engelbrecht and Hanighen in "Merchants of Death". While the DuPonts of Delaware were growing richer during the 1890's, most Americans were growing poorer.  A public outcry rose against the nations industries being controlled by a few private corporations.  Eventually the country was sick of this situation and the Sherman anti- trust act was passed, which was to have some effect in dealing with the duPonts.   Not only were the duPonts growing more powerful economically, but they had entered the political arena as well.  In 1895 Henry duPont, having inherited his father's political power, shocked the nation with his dishonesty. DuPont, in a power struggle with John "Gas" Addicks over the senate seat in the state of Delaware, kept a stalemate going for 10 years in which his state had no senator; his attitude was "me or nobody".   By 1906 the duPonts had taken on perhaps more then they could handle.  They continued to expand monopolistically, and one of their victims, Buckeye Powder, fought back.  Robert S. Waddell, the president of Buckeye, published an open letter to the President of the U.S. in which he wrote, "Here is an absolute and exclusive monopoly, superior to the governmentit is not safe to entrustnor is it right to rob the people to fatten millionaires.The welfare of the nation is in balance against the DuPont Trust."   The government reacted in 1907 with an anti-trust suit against DuPont. Waddell heaped evidence on the desks of the Justice Department, including DuPont's collaboration with German interests to keep tight control over the world market. The government was able to use this as well as overwhelming evidence from other sources, and in 1910 DuPont was found guilty, against a backdrop of national furor. However, the new companies spun off, Hercules Powder and Atlas Powder, were headed by former DuPont executives. An anti-trust suit was not the only legal woe of that year; Henry duPont's political moves were again the focus of national attention.  Publicly accused by Willard Salisbury of buying votes, Henry "broke into a cold sweat" as a senate subcommittee investigated.  In later years, forced to submit to a vote of the people under the newly enacted seventeenth amendment, Henry's forces were noted for "stuffing ballot boxes, shipping repeats, and intimidating voters".  Nonetheless, he lost that election (1916) "swamped by a tidal wave of rejection".   Despite public outcry and court rulings, DuPont's power waxed yet bolder, bold enough for Alfred duPont to bluff President Taft into submission by threatening to throw people out of work.  As Taft put it:" Do you mean to threaten the U.S. government?" Unfortunately, Washington had let a monopoly gain the upper hand for too long and Taft was at a loss; DuPont had won.  With this kind of clout, there was little to stop them.  If a newspaper, for instance, ran an article criticising DuPont, it was bought up.  This was the fate of Every Evening, in 1911, and it was not long before they "controlled every daily in Delaware". In 1917 the tide of events once more turned toward U.S. involvement in war, and with it the tide of DuPont profits, rising from a yearly average of $6,092,000 to $58,076,000. Atlas Powder and Hercules Powder similarly had increased profits rising 480% and 575% respectively.  Ten days after the U.S. entered WWI, another court case involving duPonts came to a conclusion, this time with a duPont as both defendant and plaintiff.  Pierre duPont was the loser, a man whom the court called "without principle, money grabbing, greedy, underhanded" It was in this war that they earned the accolade merchants of death,. Perhaps this originated with their workers who were fired en masse 37,000 for Christmas, 1918, and 70,000 more by the end of the year.  Protest was met with little sympathy; "DuPont Company lives on, growing bigger and bigger and grander and grander with each day of existence," boasted DuPont executive Colonel Buckner.   Bigger and bigger was certainly true, over the deaths of soldiers and workers, DuPont rolled on.  Charges of holding back on wages and cheating employees out of their belongings began to emerge, as well as charges of cheating the U.S. government.  These last were investigated by the Graham Committee which exposed massive fraud at the taxpayer's expense. Such facts came to light during yet another depression in the U.S., which DuPont weathered in part by slashing workers pay by 10% and voting against a minimum wage law.  They also exercised their power in the realm of foreign language newspapers, insisting that all advertising be placed through an organisation owned by T. Coleman duPont; in such a way they were able to restrict stories about strikes in immigrant workers home countries. At times control of the press was crucial, as in the tetraethyl lead death cover-up of 1923.  Workers who handled this substance developed strange symptoms, and then died horrible deaths.  The building in which they worked was dubbed the House of Butterflies,, in reference to men snatching at air and drawing insects on the walls.  As profits were expected to be good on this new chemical, silence prevailed. DuPont owned newspapers in Delaware did not report the workers, deaths.     But in October of 1924 the country was given the cry of alarm by other papers.  Subsequent investigations showed that the bureau which had certified tetraethyl lead was financed by General Motors, that no coroner's inquests were held in Delaware, that death certificates were improperly handled or missing, and that poisoned workers were "sent back to the poorly ventilated plant to be poisoned again and again." The public wanted the law to be applied to those responsible, and by standards at that time this was a case for wholesale manslaughter, if not murder.  However, those investigating had no desire to bite the hand that had forked over $34,000.  No charges were pressed: tetraethyl lead was given the thumbs-up: Deepwater, the problem plant, was re-opened: Iréneé duPont gave $37,500 to the Republican Party the next year.   November 11,1930 was a day on which a shadow crossed the DuPont Empire; T. Coleman duPont, the general,, passed away.  His fall, wrote Geralde Zilg, in his 1970 exposé, "foreshadowed a dark decade ahead, indeed the darkest, most dangerous years of the family's history, years through which the Barons of Brandywine would try every legal and illegal means possible to preserve their new empire and keep millions of hungry, jobless Americans from sharing their fabulous wealth".   However harsh the mistreatment was to workers in America, what DuPont did in Europe was unspeakably worse.  In the 1930's an ambitious young character was coming into the political stage, and he needed not only moral support, but tangible support as well. The first he was able to stir up for himself by means of high pitched speeches and inflammatory writing, which attracted the likes of Madie du Pont, and her sons, who had dedicated their lives to the Führer,.  She took with her on trips snapshots of her offspring, smartly dressed in Nazi uniforms, proud of them and the leader who could rid the nation of its rotten elements,.  For material support, Hitler was in a bind, as the Treaty of Versailles forbade him the arms and poisons he so wanted. He needed a secret-weapons dealer, and this he found in the du Ponts who were willing to break laws and help him build the Third Reich.   On New Years Day 1926, DuPont executives signed a deal with Dynamit Aktion Gesellschaft and Köln Rottweiler, both of which were to be part of I.G.Farben. The deal was mainly for explosives, with patents and secret inventions being made open to the Nazis. By 1933 DuPont had decided to plunge into smuggling arms to Germany. In February A. Felix du Pont, Sr. had a secret meeting with two top agents, naming one of them, Jongo Giera (aka Peter Brenner, a WWI German spy), as DuPont's sole agent to the Republic of Germany. With the prospect of war, and future sales in mind, DuPont was diligent in its dealings, inviting Farben officials to the home of Lammot duPont in Wilmington.     In October of 1935, this invitation was accepted by no less than Dr. Fritzler Meer and Georg von Schnitzler, Farben's leading officers.  Even then DuPont knew, and expressed, that all was not quite right; government evidence in a 1945 trial included a letter from a Mr. Haas of Philadelphia, to a Dr. Röhm of Darmstadt, Germany, written in 1936, which included the following statements: "A matter like this cannot be put into the contract because it would be against the law.  We have to rely on our verbal assurance and our experiences with duPont during the last fifteen years has proven that they can be relied upon to live up to an arrangement of this kind."   DuPont-Nazi agreements had by that time reached a level of great complexity, which would result in numerous indictments against DuPont and their Axis partners in the 1940's.  In 1939, when the UK was buying arms from DuPont, one clause that DuPont and its affiliates saw fit to honour was that limiting what they could send to the allies; thus Remington supplied the British army with an inferior priming agent for cartridges, putting British ground troops in a critically weakened position on the battlefield.   As DuPont's relationships with the Nazis grew tight, both sides looked at the future, realising the difficulties that a war could impose.  Senator Homer T. Bone, Chairman of the Senate Patent's Committee, exposed these arrangements, specifically citing a letter of February 9, 1940, in which DuPont expressed intention to have Farber participation in Duperial, a DuPont-Imperial Chemicals joint venture in South America.  This, however, was against the wishes of Imperial in the UK, who felt betrayed by the willingness of DuPont to aid their enemy.   In 1941 another customer would need to be doing more business with DuPont; the U.S. military.  Lammot duPont expressed the company's sentiments when this happened, "They want what we,ve got.  Good.  Make them pay the right price for it."   While this had one meaning for DuPont and its clients, it had another when it came to dealing with DuPont's workforce in America. DuPont, financed by the Mellon Bank had acquired General Motors, which was then placed under Ireneé du Pont.  As chairman, he led GM to new strengths, not only in his charismatic speeches about a race of supermen,, but in reaching new sales, many to the Nazi war machine.   The workers, however, were not included in many of Iréneé ideas.  Rather, they came under attack, were spied upon, beaten, tortured, and killed.  Obsessed by Hitler's principles, he turned them on Americans, and such organisations as the "American Liberty League," "The Black Legion" and the "Ku Klux Klan" were to play a hand in suppressing labour. For the American Liberty League, veteran's bonuses were an extravagance, whilst taxes for pensions and the unemployed were attacked.  Roosevelt was to clash with the duPonts over this organisation, stating that it "ganged up against people's liberties". Iréneé had founded the league with Lammot and Pierre du Pont, and other anti-African-American and anti-Semitic organisations were to follow.  Ireneé also paid $1,000,000 for gas equipped storm troops to sweep through plants and beat up those not in line; this in a company where the board kept personal links to Hitler, some signing an agreement of total commitment to the Nazis cause, and to stamp out Jewish influence in America.  When the Nazis invaded France, James D. Mooney, GM's chief of European operations went to New York to have champagne and celebrate, renting a suite in the Waldorf-Astoria on Park Avenue specially for the occasion. GM factories were filled with pro Nazi sentiment led by the notorious Black Legion. This group, attired in black hooded robes sporting the skull and cross bones, was divided into special squads arson, bombing, execution, and membership, which recruited Ku Klux Klansmen.  If one can imagine an outfit one step below the KKK, this was it.  They murdered for thrill, as well as political advantage, regarding all "aliens, Negroes, Jews, cults, and creeds believing in racial equality" as enemies. Several of their murders stirred public rage; even the wealth of the duPonts could not pacify the country, and the federal government stepped in, as local and state officials were overwhelmed by these atrocities.     George H. Earle, then governor of Pennsylvania, saw it clearly, and spoke out on June 8, 1936.  "I charge that this organization is the direct result of the subversive propaganda subsidized by the Grand Dukes of the Duchy of Delaware, the duPonts, and the munitions, policies of the American Liberty League".   So out of hand was the League that they had even tried to mount an armed rebellion against Roosevelt, trying to use General Samuel Butler, but failing, as he exposed this scheme.  By 1936 it had become a total failure, and a hated name throughout America.  Although these fascist organisations were a failure to DuPont, World War II was a financial boom.  They emerged as the richest clan in America, and laid claim to a new social status usually held by older, more patriotic families.   After the war one battle to be fought for DuPont was the anti-trust suit brought against them for their stake in GM.  At first, DuPont won, which set off another round of buying shares in GM; an error in judgement that caused the government to appeal and ultimately win.  Such gloating should have been kept private, as Leonard Mosley notes: "there was no one present with enough common sense to urge them to keep their mouths shut". DuPont today is one of the most powerful companies in the world, and still makes products for war, including nuclear war heads, which they began developing in the 1940's; "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" were their babies, developed under the auspices of one of one of their most brilliant scientists and directors, Crawford Greenewalt, an M.I.T. graduate who had married into the family.   Well respected in social and scientific circles, this newcomer, was able to give a better feel to this gargantuan corporation.  For many, Greenewalt is best remembered for his photography of birds, a passion which he shared with John E. DuPont.  Both travelled extensively and wrote lasting works on exotic avifauna, most notably "Hummingbirds" by Greenewalt, published in 1960. Greenewalt's direction and that of his antecedents has differed much from that of the earlier organisation ran only by duPonts, and a greater percentage of their products are geared toward peacetime use.  Perhaps these differences have changed everything for the better, and one might well imagine the benevolent scene of a large company now peacefully producing energy while its directors wax poetic over endangered species and give back to the public a part of what they take.   Alas, such is far from being the case. Jack Frazier listed them, along with IBM and EXXON as "huge monsters that crush and mutilate everything and everyone that crosses their path or stands in their way". Ralph Nader's words are equally descriptive: "a political and corrupt plantation". Colby [Zilg] (1984) listed a number of problems, including crimes committed by then governor of Delaware Pierre S. duPont IV. This author was himself a first-hand witness to their acts, as they had suppressed his 1974 publication of "DuPont: Behind the Nylon Curtain."  In the decade between that first title and the second of 1984, he was to record even more of DuPonts disregard for the environment and the people of the United States. Their influence extends today to almost every country, and there are struggles, such as the sale of "Valpirone", or dipyrone, a drug that the American Medical Association evaluated as "a last resort".  No problema, DuPont sold this through its subsidiary Endo Laboratories in Latin America, where the public was John E. duPont was known for his studies of birds in the Philippines and the Pacific..  Currently, however, he is in jail for the murder of one of his houseguests.   An in-depth book on this subject, "The Plot to Seize the White House", by Jules Archer, gives the whole surprising story.  Copies are hard to get.so many have laboured to create. not aware that this was a dangerous product.   In Puerto Rico, pollution in the Monati River destroyed the livelihood of fishermen and farmers, turning the waters black.  This led to an ugly scene of threats by DuPont to close down and throw hundreds of people out of work, and the company tried to have the island removed from the protection of the Environmental Protection Agency.   On the mainland DuPont challenged the authority of the EPA over reductions of lead content in gasoline and that of the Food and Drug Administration over the banning of fluorocarbons.  Many Americans have become alarmed at the power and purposes of this company, and the hundred or more that it controls.  Rightly so, but what can be done?  For an answer, let us return to the topic at hand hemp, which was getting attention and public investment in the 1920's and 30's as more informed legislators, seeing a use for farm wastes, took an interest in using this plant for its cellulose content.     However, this meant competition for a number of businesses, among them a huge paper concern; the International Paper and Power Company.  This outfit had interests in wood pulp, and went about negotiations with its largest customer, the Hearst media syndicate, to monopolise the market.  Senator Thomas Schull of Minnesota seeing the problem called for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate, which caused International to back off. In 1929 Blair Coan, a Washington reporter, uncovered evidence that Department of Agriculture had chosen to suppress information on paper production from farm wastes.   One government figure who took an interest in the use of farm wastes for cellulose and paper was none other than Anslinger, who began requesting information on hemp in the 1930's.By 1935, the Bureau actively gathered information on the new hemp industry, even though it possessed no real authority to do so; the file of requests received that year is missing.   The following year one project that caught Anslinger's attention was a series of article about hemp cultivation sponsored by the Chicago Tribune.  He dispatched an agent to gather information, with specific instructions to report on the machinery involved and the demand for hemp.  She sent back her reports, satisfying his need for such sensitive information, but advising against his plans to restrict cultivation.   Marijuana Tax Act   All this poking around by the bureau was not able to put a stop to hemp growing, especially as its potential use as a source of cellulose was being discovered. More effective measures would be necessary, and these were implemented by demonising all cannabis, and then outlawing it.   Hearst accomplished much towards vilifying all cannabis in his papers, telling blatant, racist lies, evoking fears and prejudice among the ignorant.  Anslinger, who called it the "gore file", kept a file of this propaganda. In it were stories of fifteen-year-olds murdering their parents after one high and cross-racial rapes, the latter especially meant to incite tensions.  John C. Lucien summed this up in his 1995 Pepperdine University thesis: "From 1935 on, the Bureau actively re-wrote the history of hemp by demonising marijuanatriggered by monopolistic greed and economic insecurity of a few financially threatened industries".   The bureau got support in this endeavour not just from Hearst, but from other off the wall sensationalists as well.  Anslinger especially liked the propaganda of Dr. Jules Bouguet, who claimed to be the world's foremost expert on cannabis drugs.  One of Dr. Bouquet's diatribes ran as follows: "The basis of Moslem character is indolence; these people love idleness and daydreaming, and to the majority of them work is the most unpleasant of all necessities.  Inordinately vain glorious, thirsting for every pleasure, they are manifestly unable to realise more than a small fraction of their desires: their unrestrained imagination supplies the rest.  Hemp, which enhances the imagination, is the narcotic best adapted to their mentality.  When the period of intoxication is over and he is again forced with the realities of his normal shabby life, his one desire is to find a corner where he may sleep". He also claimed cannabis to be typical of the "poorer classes in urban communities: artisans, small traders, and workmen".     Bouquet failed to produce any credible evidence to support his findings, yet the Bureau still presented this erroneous rhetoric before Congress. I will leave it to the reader's imagination to picture what kind of people these were; everyone, even then, did not accept their statements. Dr. Woodward of the American Medical Association especially opposed them.  "We cannot understand yet, Mr. Chairman", Woodward protested, "why this bill should have been prepared in secret for two years without any intimation, even to the profession, that it was being prepared". This was in 1937, when Anslinger and DuPont allies were preparing the final version of their anti-hemp bill.  There was at this time some momentum building behind the scare stories about cannabis over the border in Canada where Emily Murphy picked up on the Anslinger hype and advocated "public whippings and deportations" for people caught using marijuana.     Anslinger's campaign caused local police to single out minorities, blaming "Mexicans, Spaniards, Latin-Americans, Greeks, and Negroes" as perpetrators of violent crimes due to the habit of marijuana smoking. All this added fuel to the senseless debate, and the Bureau waited for the right moment to take advantage of the misinformation campaign. Prior to the 1937 version of the anti-hemp acts, two had been unsuccessfully attempted in 1935; but by a little more secrecy and researching a route that would avoid intelligent debate, Anslinger prevailed.  General Counsel Herman Oliphant convinced the anti-hemp fanatics of a more subtle way to tackle the issues; introduction of the bill to the House Ways and Means Committee, where discussion could be kept at a minimum, and which was presided over by a DuPont ally, Representative Robert L. Doughton.   Several details bely the craftiness with which this was done, most notably the way the bill was called a marijuana, bill.  It was not disclosed that this referred to hemp and, as they were using a term then not in the public vocabulary, many parties who had interests at stake simply did not know what marijuana, was.  Even today, there are people who do not visualise marijuana, as being hemp.  Such concern was in fact voiced by a representative from Chempco, Incorporated, who stated:  "I do not think the use of the word marijuana, belongs in this measure, because that is the word that came up from Mexico and attached to these cigarettes.  I see no use in it.  This is hemp being grown, not marijuanawe might lose an industry purely by the phraseology of the measure".   Technically, the bill that was introduced was not completely prohibitive; it was a tax.  This was a second underhanded aspect to the whole thing, based on both longstanding precedent and very recent action.  The longstanding precedent of using a tax to prohibit an activity can be traced back to the reign of Charles I of England, who wanted to close all the coffee houses.  However, this was contrary to the freedom and the rights of the British people; he tried to circumvent the Magna Carta by enacting a prohibitive tax that proved burdensome to that industry, in the hopes that he could limit public assembly and free speech. Of more current precedent was the National Firearms Act, which had been approved as constitutional in the U.S. on March 29, 1937.  It was openly enacted for the purpose of curtailing machine guns, an effort to restrict weapons without violating the Fourth Amendment the right to bear arms.  The bureau, losing no time, unveiled the Marijuana Tax Act on April 15 of that year.  It passed on August 2 and received final ratification on December 11, 1937.  It is of interest to mention that at one point the Congress asked if the American Medical Association had been consulted, to which Representative Vinson, answering for the Ways and Means Committee replied "yes, we have.  A Dr. Wharton and the AMA are in complete agreement."   DuPont, in its 1937 annual report, issued a statement which many hemp advocates see as a reflection of these moves.  It read: "radical changes from the revenue raising power of government would be converted into instruments for forcing acceptance of sudden new ideas of industrial and social reorganisation".     American citizens were facing a tax which would "force acceptance of sudden new ideas": Whose ideas Du Ponts?   This really didn't matter; the Tax Act passed, it was a fait accompli, with U.S. farmers and businesses forced to accept the loss.  Frank Ridgway on October 11, 1937 wrote in the Chicago Tribune " that the prospective complications the new law would create" made it more advisable to "just burn the crops than to try to preserve through the regulatory measures."   Several farmers affected by these new rules, unable to cope with them alone, hired attorney Ojai A. Lende to sort out the difficulties.  Lende was himself baffled by the situation and ultimately asked the government to compensate the farmers.  In 1938 Lende wrote "there was a market for this hemp in processed form but the passage of the Tax Act completely destroyed the market and virtually confiscated this hemp for the growers...the bureau hampered the conduct of legitimate business by strictly enforcing the stipulations of the transfer tax".71 Anslinger responded in an apathetic and guarded way, and Lende was to send off another letter, this one more vitriolic:  "If I can find a market for the hemp I have in mind to dispose of that hemp and tell Mr. Anslinger that he can go to the region below and let him present the country with a spectacle of arresting half a thousand farmers in Minnesota for selling an agricultural crop grown off from their farms which were grown long before Congress ever thought of the Marihuana Act."   One stipulation that was especially cumbersome was the removal of all foliage.  This was burdensome to the farmers, if not nearly impossible, and at no real necessity, as the foliage decomposed naturally during the retting process.     There was also the bureaucracy involved, and many farmers simply could not get the necessary paperwork.  Illinois and Minnesota growers were especially impeded by the new regulations but Wisconsin farmers were able to continue to grow and harvest their crop, by passing the new laws without any problems; their hemp went to the U.S. navy, and a laissez-faire policy prevailed in that state. By 1943 however, all U.S. hemp growers had the government behind them.  A film, titled "Hemp for Victory" was released that year, promoting cannabis growth, and offering all growers the necessary permits.  This greatly increased planting to 158,000 acres by 1943, but fell to 5,000 acres just after the war, as the permits were once again an issue.  4-H Clubs encouraged school children to plant hemp patches which would "give 4-H Club members a real opportunity to serve their country in war time".   Thus, patriotic Americans were sowing hemp and supporting the troops. Less than patriotic Americans were keeping the war going as long as they could by limiting oil supplies to the troops, and one of these scoundrels, William Farish, the grandfather of the present US Ambassador to the Court of St. James,,  was up for charges in this matter, but his death prevented trial and full disclosure.  It is much the same today, as patriotic Americans are rallying for hemp, the substance on which the Constitution was printed, while utter scum rallies the troops to war but then gets Congress to limit their supplies while the war drags on and they get richer and richer, bigger and bigger, like Du Pont in WWII. It is not easy to overlook the fact that this war in Iraq, if one really does call it  that, is about oil, and would not be the case if hemp and other natural supplies of energy, made in the USA, were used. American would have jobs not war.        A list of traitors who are benefiting from hemp prohibition and illegal war would include many household names, I will not allot them here any space, but rather, let me list for the benefit of the reader and anyone in interested in supporting an honest economy a couple or  names of some not so well known patriots who are currently operating a hemp business in the "Homeland".