As the time drew near for Roosevelt-hating Columnist Westbrook Pegler to say farewell to Scripps-Howard and hello to Hearst (TIME, Aug. 28), he became curiously engrossed in matters which seemed far removed from his everyday peeves. His mind's eye filled with tall clipper ships crowding on sail on the China run, with silks and sandalwood and opium, gongs and the firebreath of dragons. In New York and Boston libraries he delved long in old tomes: Lawrence Kearny, Sailor Diplomat; The Clipper Ship Era; The Opium Trade; The Opium Clipper. Could Peg be softening up, seeking escape from the hateful present? Last week, in one of his last columns for Scripps-Howard, came the answer.
"Mrs. Roosevelt's autobiography," wrote Pegler (referring to This is My Story by the President's wife which goes into detail about the family of the President's mother), ". . . is one of my favorite books and every time I dip into it I am tantalized by the author's iron reticence concerning the sources of the Delano fortune. Now I think I understand. The old gent, Warren Delano, President Roosevelt's grandfather, was an old-time opium smuggler, a member of something rather like our own Rum Row which operated off the New York coast a few years ago. The ships ran the stuff from India into China, whose emperor had seen the ravages of the drug among his people and was trying to saw them off."
Quoting from his sources, Pegler proceeded to detail and document his charge. Warren Delano, partner in the American firm of Russell & Co., "was one among American merchants who, with British merchants, were imprisoned by the Chinese in the walled-in area of Canton, the event which led to the so-called Opium War." The "vessels owned by ... Russell & Co. soon controlled the opium trade and became known as opium clippers." "Russell & Co.," was apparently "the only American . . . firm engaged in the traffic." Concluded Pegler: "Delano died in 1898, leaving a personal estate of $1,338,000. . . . When the President's mother died, the state transfer tax appraisal filed at Poughkeepsie indicated that the fortune had been kept almost intact. Mrs. Roosevelt left $1,238,361, of which $20,000 was invested in government bonds and $10,000 in war bonds."