I recall an Italian druggist living on the edge
of the neighborhood, who finally came with a committee of his
countryman to see what Hull-House wanted of him, thoroughly
convinced that no such effort could be disinterested. One dreary
trial after another had been lost through the inadequacy of the
existing legislation and after many attempts to secure better
legal regulation of its sale, a new law with the cooperation of
many agencies was finally secured in 1907. Through all this the
Italian druggist, who had greatly profited by the sale of cocaine
to boys, only felt outraged and abused. And yet the thought of
this campaign brings before my mind with irresistible force, a
young Italian boy who died,--a victim of the drug at the age of
seventeen. He had been in our kindergarten as a handsome merry
child, in our clubs as a vivacious boy, and then gradually there
was an eclipse of all that was animated and joyous and promising,
and when I at last saw him in his coffin, it was impossible to
connect that haggard shriveled body with what I had known before.
A midwife investigation, undertaken in connection with the
Chicago Medical Society, while showing the great need of further
state regulation in the interest of the most ignorant mothers and
helpless children, brought us into conflict with one of the most
venerable of all customs.
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