Oooh, cool thread! I remember reading this.

William S. Burroughs had an uncle named Horace who was also an opiate addict. Horace's father (and Burroughs' grandfather) was the inventor of the adding machine, and became a millionaire by age 35. Unfortunately, both he and his wife died young and left two baby daughters and two young sons- Horace and Burroughs' father (Mortimer) to inherit the considerable fortune. Mort was responsible with his money, but not so Horace. As soon as he came of age to start spending the $$$ he did, and he quickly became a morphine addict. In 1914 William Burroughs was born and the Harrison Narcotics Law went into effect. Opiates became much harder to come by and by that time ol' Horace had pretty much exhausted his inheritance. During one crazed search, Horace the junkie had a complete breakdown and viciously slashed his arm with a piece of broken glass in order to get admitted to a hospital so he could be administered opiates for the pain. Apparently, the amount given wasn't enough to satiate the poor addict. In complete desperation, he slashed his wrists in his hospital bed and there he bled out and snuffed it.

Horace became a hero of sorts to his nephew William, who idealized his lifestyle and then followed in his footsteps- squandering his considerable inheritance on dope and travel and living the life of a bohemian at-leisure.

Burroughs had many libertarian/right-leaning, midwestern ideals, believed a lot in pseudo-science and embraced the American gun culture, so he might very well have been a proto-MAGA, although he was a pragmatist and would have rejected much of their inane political and economic theories. I wrote my last college paper on his obsessive interest in the scientific theories of Wilhelm Reich. One of the great yet imperfect white American men of the early 20th century.