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U.S. delegates to the International Conference on Opium at the Hague in 1911, along with Bishop Brent, the chief U.S. delegate to the Shanghai Commission, and Hamilton Wright, who very much resented the appointment of the diplomatically inexperienced California pharmacist.78

An admitted greenhorn in international affairs, Finger consulted with Wright in preparation for the conference. Their correspondence, preserved in the National Archives, makes for interesting reading.79 Aside from importuning Wright about arranging his itinerary to witness the coronation of George V in London, Finger offered to send Wright an opium outfit, seized in one of the Board's Chinatown forays, for display at the conference. This Wright accepted despite misgivings that any opium residue received therein would constitute a “highly punishable offense.” On a similar note, Finger offered the conference a “very liberal supply” of “our very finest California wines" courtesy of Westmore and Co., who would be delighted at this fine opportunity to advertise their wares. This was too much for Wright, who called it “quite unbecoming an official delegate to have any understanding with any sort of producer” of the kind.

More important, Finger also had policy issues to discuss. Among these was the matter of Indian hemp, which Finger brought up in a curious letter to Wright dated July 2, 1911:

Within the last year we in California have been getting a large influx of Hindoos and they have in turn started quite a demand for cannabis indica; they are a very undesirable lot and the habit is growing in California very fast; the fear is now that it is not being confined to the Hindoos alone but that they are initiating our whites into this habit.

We were not aware of the extent of this vice at the time our legislature was in session and did not have our laws amended to cover this matter, and now we have no legislative session for two years (January 1913).

This matter has been brought to my attention a great number of time[s] in the last two months and from the statements made to me by men of reliability it seems to be a real question that now confronts us; can we do anything in the Hague that might assist in curbing this matter?80

Finger's letter is the only known evidence of a “Hindoo” cannabis problem in California. The Hindus, actually East Indian immigrants of predominantly Sikh religion and Punjabi origin, had become a popular target of anti-immigrant sentiment after several boatloads arrived in San Francisco in

79 Records of US Delegation to the International Opium Commission and Conferences of 1909-13, Record Group 43, Entry #40, Correspondence between Hamilton Wright and Henry J. Finger (National Archives).

80 Contrary to Prof. David Musto's account in The American Disease (p. 218), there is nothing in Finger's letter to suggest that San Franciscans in particular were concerned by the threat. The overwhelming number of East Indians did not settle in the city, but in agricultural areas of the Central Valley: "California and the Oriental," Cal. State Board of Control, Report to Gov. William Stephens, June 19, 1920; revised Jan. 1, 1922: p. 122.