Sign the Resolution for a Federal Commission on Drug Policy

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DRCNet Library | Schaffer Library | Hemp (Marijuana) | Marihuana Tax Act of 1937

Oct. 12th, 1937

Mrs. George Bass, Supervisor,

Federal Narcotics Bureau,

Federal Building,

Chicago, Ill.,

Dear Mrs. Bass:

A re-birth of the hemp and flax fibre industry in this nation can only be accomplished through mechanical means of decortication, in order to compete with cheap "coolie" foreign hand labor. This problem of the mechanical decortication of bast and soft fibres has had the attention of many of the most prominent agricultural interests, as well as engineers of prominence throughout the world. It has remained however, for the inventive genius of an American to solve this difficult problem, and as a result after years of research and experimental work, and large expenditures of money, the World Fibre Corporation Mechanical Decorticating machine has proved itself the

acme of efficiency, producing fibre from hemp or flax so low in cost that foreign importations and competition can be eliminated. The World Fibre Decorticating machine represents to the fibre industry what the ELI COTTON GIN was to the cotton industry.

The average layman is rather incapable of comprehending the vast effect the fibre industry will have upon agriculture and industry in general. Let us begin with agriculture, the real basis of all wealth: The growing of hemp by the American farmer means the growing of a crop that goes into industry and into the Human stomach, and therefore, constitutes the only resolution of the present day agricultural problem. Hemp is a weed eradicator and a soil builder.

The markets open to bast fibres is unlimited, effecting as it does, the entire textile industry from bast, [sic] burlaps, carpet warp, canvas, tents and awnings, waste materials, the finest of linens. Hemp fibre can be woollenized and cottonized and its uses cover a field of some four thousand textile articles. We are importing today hundreds of millions of dollars of these products both in manufactured and fibre form.

Then again, after the fibre of the hemp stalk has been removed by machine, there is left a by-product, "wood hurds" which contain 75% Alpha Cellulose. These wood hurds are used in the manufacture of paper, T.N.T., Rayon Silk, Cellophane and Cellulose; and the records reveal that some 25,000 articles and so forth, are now being manufactured from Cellulose. In the paper pulp industry alone, we are importing 80% of all paper as paper stock, and this industry runs well over one billion dollars per annum.

It is evident therefore, of the tremendous and vast opportunities that exist in this reborn industry. Why import products that the American Farmer can grow here? Why send hundreds of millions of dollars to foreign shores when the World Fibre Corporation Decorticating Machine revolutionizes this colossal industry, and creates added wealth to the American Farmer, to industry and to labor, by keeping this money at home.

Yours sincerely,

WORLD FIBRE CORPORATION

BY Signed H.W. Bellrose

H.W. Bellrose - President

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