The Project Gutenberg eBook of Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls, by Various

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FIGHTING THE TRAFFIC IN YOUNG GIRLS
OR
WAR ON THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE

THE FIRST STEP.
Ice cream parlors of the city and fruit stores combined, largely run by foreigners, are the places where scores of girls have taken their first step downward. Does her mother know the character of the place and the man she is with? (See page 71.)

Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls
or
War on the White Slave Trade

A complete and detailed account of the shameless traffic in young girls, the methods by which the procurers and panders lure innocent young girls away from home and sell them to keepers of dives. The magnitude of the organization and its workings. How to combat this hideous monster. How to save YOUR GIRL. How to save YOUR BOY. What you can do to help wipe out this curse of humanity. A book designed to awaken the sleeping and protect the innocent.

By ERNEST A. BELL

Secretary of the Illinois Vigilance Association—Superintendent of Midnight Missions, etc.
with Special Chapters by the following persons:

THIRTY-TWO PAGES OF STRIKING PICTURES
Showing the workings of the blackest slavery that has ever stained the human race.

Dedicated

To the Army of Loyal Workers who, in the name of God and Humanity, have enlisted in this Holy war for the Safety and Purity of Womanhood

PREFACE.

"That glory may dwell in our land" is the motive of the writers of this book. With a true patriotism, that rejoices not in the iniquities we expose, that blushes crimson with humiliation over the crimes we record, that glows hot with indignation against the criminals we denounce, we have pursued the painful necessary task of telling the truth to the American people concerning evils that have made us reel with horror.

For the protection of the innocent, for the safeguarding of the weak, for the warning of the tempted and the alarm of the wicked, the truth must be told—the truth that makes us free.

Therefore we have used plain words—not coarse or vulgar, but chaste and true. Lawyers of the highest standing have introduced the legal language with which the statutes provide penalties for crimes against the honor and safety of women and girls. Physicians who are professors in medical colleges among the foremost in the world, men in reputation for their skill and beloved for their devotion to the people's welfare, have told here in medical terminology the intolerable consequences, to guilty and innocent, of the odious business of[Pg 10] making commerce of girls and promoting the debauchery of young men. We are sure the time has come when millions will thank these lawyers and physicians for breaking the seal of secrecy and giving the people their birth-right—the truth.

It is told that after Dante had written his "Inferno" the women of Florence would turn pale and whisper to each other as he passed, "There goes the man who has been in Hell." Some of us have gone to the abyss and have seen things which are not lawful for a man to utter. Such as could fitly be told, and must be told, we have been telling for years past, knowing that the truth must prevail.

To our great joy the magazine having the largest circulation in the world, "Woman's World," with more than two million subscribers, took up the appeal for the safety of American and alien women and girls in September of last year. This magazine has already printed or caused to be printed and circulated fully fifty million pages, and it is enlisted for the war—war on the most shameful crime of debauchery and exploiting the youth of both sexes.

This is a critical time for our nation. We must now decide whether to stamp out the White Slave Traffic and its attendant vices, or[Pg 11] to go the broad way that has led both ancient and modern nations to destruction.

Concerning the effect of vice upon the destiny of nations the Encylopaedia Britannica (Volume 32, page 32), says truly: "Though it may coexist with national vigor, its extravagant development is one of the signs of a rotten and decaying civilization * * * a phase which has always marked the decadence of great nations."

But though we thus speak we are confident that this is truly the land of the free—free, glad, safe womanhood—and the home of the brave—men brave enough to protect our girls and to deal with the White Slave traders and all their sort as they deserve.

INTRODUCTION.

By Edwin W. Sims,
United States District Attorney, Chicago.

I am firmly convinced that when the people of this nation understand and fully appreciate the unspeakable villainy of "The White Slave Traffic" they will rise in their might and put a stop to it. The growth of this "trade in white women," as it has been officially designated by the Paris Conference, was so insidious that it reached the proportions of an international problem almost before the people of the civilized nations of the world learned of its existence.

The traffic increased rapidly, owing largely to the fact that it was tremendously profitable to those depraved mortals who indulged in it, and because the people generally, until very recently, were ignorant of the fact that it was becoming so extensive. And even at this time, when a great deal has been said by the pulpit and the press about the horrors of the traffic, the public idea of just what is meant by the "white slave traffic" is confused and indefinite.

It is my hope and belief that this work, edited by the scholarly and devoted Ernest A. Bell, whose life of toil for the wayward and[Pg 14] the fallen has endeared him to all who know of him and his work, will do much to make the nature, scope and perils of this infamous trade better understood.

The characteristic which distinguishes the white slave traffic from immorality in general is that the women who are the victims of the traffic are forced unwillingly to live an immoral life. The term "white slave" includes only those women and girls who are actually slaves—those women who are owned and held as property and chattels—whose lives are lives of involuntary servitude. The white slave trade may be said to be the business of securing white women and of selling them or exploiting them for immoral purposes. It includes those women and girls who, if given a fair chance, would, in all probability, have been good wives and mothers and useful citizens.

Only a little time ago there were many thousands of our best citizens who were unable to bring themselves to believe that an international traffic in white women really existed. The statement seemed too sensational for their acceptance. If any readers remain who are still unconvinced that such an international traffic is a fact, let them consider the following, quoted from the annual report for 1908, of Hon. Oscar S. Straus, the Secretary of Commerce and Labor:

"An international project of arrangement for the suppression of the white-slave traffic was, on July 25, 1902, adopted for submission[Pg 15] to their respective governments by the delegates of the various powers represented at the Paris conference, which arrangement was confirmed by formal agreement signed at Paris on May 18, 1904, by the Governments of Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, France, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Norway, and the Swiss Federal Council. This arrangement, after submission to the Senate, was proclaimed by President Roosevelt June 15, 1908, and is printed in full in the report of the Commissioner General of Immigration. The purpose of the arrangement is set forth in the preamble, which states that the several governments, 'being desirous to assure to women who have attained their majority and are subjected to deception or constraint, as well as minor women and girls, an efficacious protection against the criminal traffic known under the name of trade in white women ("Traite des Blanches"), have resolved to conclude an arrangement with a view to concert proper measures to attain this purpose'."

It is, of course, inconceivable that the distinguished representatives of these great governments would have entertained for consideration any subject not of vital and international importance.

There is still another point upon which I feel moved to place all possible emphasis—the hideous depravity and the fiendish cunning of the[Pg 16] criminals who engage in this most abhorrent and revolting of all criminal pursuits.

Kipling said in one of his poems, describing the doings of lawless people in the camps of one of the Northern countries, that, "There is never a law of God or man runs north of Forty-nine." That and more too might be said of the districts where the white slaver grows rich from his traffic in girls. The men and the women who engage in this traffic are more unspeakably low and vile than any other class of criminals. The burglar and holdup man are high-minded gentlemen by comparison. There is no more depraved class of people in the world than those human vultures who fatten on the shame of innocent young girls. Many of these white slave traders are recruited from the scum of the criminal classes of Europe.

And in this lies the revolting side of the situation. On the one hand the victims, pure, innocent, unsuspecting, trusting young girls—not a few of them mere children. On the other hand, the white slave trader, low, vile, depraved and cunning,—organically a criminal.

In the prosecutions which I have officially conducted against this class of criminals the fact has developed that when caught they generally are willing to arrange to pay heavy fines. These offers have, of course, been refused and we have taken the position that we will in no case accept merely a fine. In all these cases already tried we have asked the court to impose[Pg 17] jail sentences and we expect to continue that policy. Men and women who make a living and fatten off the shame, the disgrace and the ruin of innocent young girls are a menace to the community, to whom no quarter should be given.

The rule in my office with reference to this class of cases is to show no quarter—to extend no consideration of any kind. We are requiring heavy bail and asking for imprisonment in the penitentiary in case of conviction. And I may add that no criminal convictions secured as a result of my efforts have yielded me a personal satisfaction to be compared with that afforded by the conviction of those engaged in the white slave trade.

One word more: I hope soon to see the time when the laws of the land will as carefully protect the daughters of the United States from the destroying hand of the white slave trader as the international treaty agreements now protect the girl who is brought in from foreign shores.

AT WORK IN THE VICE DISTRICT—AT THE VERY DOOR OF A DEN
In some cities the charitable organizations have missionaries whose work is among the denizens of the vice districts. This picture shows one of them pleading with a lost one to give up her sinful life.

BARS WERE REMOVED BY ORDER OF THE CHIEF OF POLICE
Until quite recently the back and side windows of vice resorts were barred like a prison, and one of the first steps in this crusade was to get the chief of police to remove them.

War on the White Slave Trade.

CHAPTER I.

HISTORY OF THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE.

By the white slave trade is meant commerce in white women and girls for wicked purposes. Most of its history cannot be written, for two reasons: That these crimes are kept secret as far as possible, and that they are so revolting that their details cannot be published and ought not to be read anywhere outside of the bottomless pit.

Crimes against womanhood are as old as sin. From the day that the serpent beguiled Eve by his craftiness until now, there have been few days or nights when some daughter of Eve has not been deceived or forced into an evil life by some serpent or other.

BABYLON.

In ancient Babylon the dishonoring of girlhood was a part of the temple service, as it is to this day in many temples of India. In the opinion of the German historical scholar, Dr. Grau, the temples of India probably derived the[Pg 20] hideous custom from Babylon, which the Book of Revelation calls "the mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the earth." No wonder that Babylon was denounced by prophets and apostles, or that her crimes of slavery, cruelty, dishonesty and debauchery brought perpetual ruin upon the wicked city and nation. "Fallen, fallen is Babylon!" Up the valley of the Euphrates from Babylon, and westward among the Canaanites and Phenicians, the horrible alliance of religion and lust extended, until it reached Asia Minor and Greece.

GREECE.

At Corinth, a great commercial city and seaport, business shrewdness was linked with sensuality and profanation, and a great temple of Venus was built, where one thousand priestesses were required to lead a life of religious infamy to make money for their despicable masters. There were constant importations of new girls from Lesbos and the other Grecian isles. Then as now the devices of the white slave trader were assiduously employed to keep up and increase the number of profitable European and Asiatic girls.

It is pastime as well as business to these traffickers to drug, to make drunken, to deceive, to ensnare or to debauch by force the innocent, the confiding, the thoughtless, the weak. Whether for the ancient temple of Venus at Corinth or for the dens of shame in the white[Pg 21] slave market of Chicago or Paris, beautiful victims who will earn much money for their masters and captors must be hunted and trapped.

At Athens the lawgiver Solon established houses of shame by statute, and filled them with slave girls for whom there was no possible escape. But whoever, man or woman, caused a freeborn Athenian girl to enter one of the houses incurred the penalty of death. It might be well if freeborn American girls were as thoroughly protected. An Athenian forfeited his citizenship on opening a house of shame. American citizenship in our large cities allows the white slave traders an astounding amount of political influence.

ROME.

In Rome immoral women were enrolled by the police in a public register, and this public record of their evil life always remained to bar their way to repentance and respectability. Modern European cities, on the Continent, follow this hurtful custom, and it has been introduced without authority of law in some American cities.

Many bakers, barbers and keepers of taverns, baths and drug stores were also traders in women. These depraved traffickers were regarded with the greatest loathing by the Roman people. The white slave traders of ancient Rome probably differed little from the Italian traders to be found in so many parts[Pg 22] of the world today, notably New York and Chicago. The poet Milton tells how his love of purity kept him in his youth from the evils practised at Bordello's, presumably an Italian resort in London. Persons desiring to know the trader's boasting over a young and beautiful girl who had come into his devilish power, will find it described in the old English play commonly attributed to Shakespeare, called "Pericles, Prince of Tyre."

An exceedingly bad example was set by some of the Roman emperors. Augustus even in his old age sent out men to bring him women and girls. The beautiful Mallonia stabbed herself rather than yield to the emperor Tiberius.

The emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who was very virtuous and religious and wise according to Roman ideals, persecuted Christians to the extent of legally condemning Christian girls to the houses of infamy. Young women were seized and required to sacrifice to idols. Upon refusing they were dragged through the streets and given to a white slaver.

Some beautiful legends have been preserved which tell of miraculous deliverance of Christian girls from this most Satanic cruelty. St. Agnes, the story runs, was seized and stripped, but immediately her hair grew quickly and covered her like a garment. Dragged to a den of shame, she appeared transfigured, a wonderful light shining from her body, and no one dared to harm her. At length one bold[Pg 23] ruffian came near her, but was struck dead at her feet by a thunderbolt.

The emperor Diocletian renewed these terrible persecutions. The church's only retaliation was the rescue of depraved women. Mary, an Egyptian, was a conspicuous penitent, who sailed for Jerusalem and spent her remaining years virtuously in the Holy Land.

The Christian emperor Theodosius II., who died in the year 450, laid heavy penalties on traffickers in women. Justinian, who came to the throne in 527, punished procurers with death. He was merciful toward erring women, but was unsparing toward every one who exploited them for gain.

FRANCE.

The Latin writers, conspicuously Tacitus, represent the Germans, Franks and Gauls as very virtuous, and very severe in their punishment of offenders. The earliest known legislation in the northern kingdoms is in the Capitularies of Charlemagne, who was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by the Pope in St. Peter's at Rome on Christmas day in the year 800. Early in his reign in his northern dominions Charlemagne enacted that all who kept houses of shame or lent their aid to vice were to be scourged. He would spare neither bad women nor vile men.

But succeeding kings of France, very many of them, were themselves models not of virtue and kingliness, but of dishonor and debauch.[Pg 24] Many of the clergy also were very immoral, and the whole nation became corrupt.

Louis IX. made the first earnest effort to check the evil. He issued an extreme edict, in 1254, that all immoral woman and all keepers and procurers should be at once exiled from France. After a reaction Louis renewed his efforts to extirpate the iniquity, and his son Philip continued to inflict severe penalties. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries several notorious procurers were burned alive at Paris. In the sixteenth century in cities of the south of France sometimes a woman of this detestable class was thrust into an iron cage and thrown into the river. When almost dead from drowning she was drawn out, and after a little the punishment was repeated. Many of the women who were burnt as witches were really condemned because they were procuresses or otherwise odiously immoral.

The rise of Chivalry greatly increased the safety of good women and diminished immorality among men. A higher moral tone was imparted to society everywhere. Faithful preachers cried out against the traffic in shame, the snaring of young girls and the immodesty and immorality which were found in convents, and even in churches. In the reign of Louis XI., about 1475, Father Maillard, a bold preacher of the time, excoriated the whole company of traffickers in girls, especially procuresses and citizens who let their property for houses of shame. The procuresses, he said, ought to[Pg 25] be burned at the stake, and for women who corrupted the clergy he had no mercy, but invoked the wrath of God upon them. Louis XI. was himself extremely immoral, like so many of the kings of France.

Catharine de Medicis, who became queen of France when her husband Henry II. ascended the throne in 1547, exercised a baneful influence during three reigns. Her court of two hundred ladies introduced from Italy worse vices than had before been known in France. She did, however, try to diminish prostitution in Paris.

An ordinance of 1635 condemned all men engaged in what we now call the white slave trade to the galleys for life.

Louis XV. at fifteen years of age married Maria, daughter of Stanislas, the dethroned king of Poland. The whole life of Louis was one of idle sensuality. When he was old he established a seraglio of fifteen-year-old girls, the most beautiful that could be bought or kidnapped. On this harem he spent a hundred million francs, or twenty million dollars. It was he who, when warned of the impending ruin of his nation, said "After me the deluge." He died, detested by all, in 1774.

PARIS THE MODERN BABYLON.

Paris, the capital of such kings and the scene of such debauchery, became the source and headquarters of the world-wide white slave trade of the present time. With the spread of[Pg 26] legitimate commerce to every part of the world, the long experienced traders in women sought a world-wide market for girls. There is not a civilized country which has not been exploited by the traders, alike as a hunting ground for victims and as a market in which to sell them.

All Europe, North America, Panama, South America, Egypt and other parts of Africa, India, China and Japan are the fields of operation of these atrocious men and serpentine women.

By no means all the traffickers are French. Many are Jews, many are Italians and Sicilians, some are Austrians, Germans, English, Americans, Greeks. But it is Paris that has made vice a fine art, and has made the white slave trade a wide-spread systematized commercial enterprise.

It is as true as it is lamentable that the beautiful city on the banks of the Seine, the center of fashion and of art, gained the shameful reputation of being the capital of the white slave trade, and deserved it, "by merit raised to that bad eminence."

In recent years the French government and people have felt keenly the reproach of this condition, and have been foremost in efforts to suppress the abominable commerce.

WHITE SLAVERS IN INDIA.

In 1893, during my missionary service in India, a clique of white slave traders was discovered in Calcutta. They were found to be trafficking not only in European girls whom they could lure to India, but also in little native girls, as young as nine years. There was great indignation in the capital and throughout India when these criminals were exposed and arrested.

The laws of India were at that time inadequate to punish them, but an old statute was found under which the Viceroy could deport undesirable aliens. So these wretches, too abominable to be endured in heathendom, were shipped back to Europe.

Those were the first white slave traders of whom I, a young missionary, had ever heard. Last year in Chicago a French trader told me that he had been in India, and I could not but wonder whether he had been deported from Calcutta or Bombay and made welcome in Chicago. The United States government soon afterward put him out of his wicked business.

Rev. Dr. Homer C. Stuntz, formerly of Calcutta, now of New York, told me of a frightened European girl who nervously rang his doorbell in Calcutta late at night. She had been deceived into going to India by false promises made to her by the hunters of girls. Learning their real purpose just in time, she fled from them, and inquiring the way to a missionary,[Pg 28] she was directed to Dr. and Mrs. Stuntz, with whom she was safe, and thankful a million times.

How many hundreds of innocent American and European girls have been led away to heathen and Mohammedan lands, on false promises of good positions as teachers, governesses, or even as missionaries, only the open books of the day of judgment will disclose.

CHAPTER II.

THE SUPPRESSION OF THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC.

By William Alexander Coote, Secretary National Vigilance Association for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, London, England.

Let me first of all greet you as co-workers in a cause which is very dear to the heart of God, and which is really Christianity in practice. How literally true it is that in this special form of social and humanitarian work we are seeking to save that which is lost! If this work is to be successfully done, if we are to find that which has been lost, then we must have a whole-hearted devotion to the search, and a close and intimate co-operation amongst the searchers.

We may belong to different political and social camps, we may even be as far apart as the poles in our religious sympathies and convictions, but within sound of the Divine call to this labour, in the presence of so gigantic an evil, we must unite, we dare not act as isolated units however enthusiastic or clever we may be, we must close up our ranks, and not only join hands but also hearts, and in the strength of God, with a strong inspiration from[Pg 30] the Holy One, go forth to meet this Apollyon of evil, and in the name of humanity, and better still, in the name of God, give battle until the foe is vanquished, yea, eternally routed, the honour of womanhood vindicated, and the chains of lust loosened from the minds and hearts of humanity.

Whatever the results, be it ours to remember that in this conflict we are waging a holy crusade against the vice of men who would, in their own selfish vicious interest, besmirch the purity of the womanhood of the world. Let us also remember that in this war, if needs be, we must not shrink from the use of those carnal weapons, by means of which men are brought to judgment in this world, and made to pay some penalty for the deeds which have wrought so much evil in the lives of young women; but never let us forget that such weapons, however necessary, are not the weapons. If the victory is to be effective and final, then the weapons of this warfare, must be obtained from the armoury of God, with the use of which weapons there is also promise that if the battle is waged in His Name and for His sake, victory, triumphant, eternal, glorious victory is assured.

What is this White Slave Traffic with the condemnation of which the world is today ringing? Is it some new form of vice, with the introduction of which the world is staggered; or is it the old in modern dress? No, it is neither. It is simply the old vice, in the[Pg 31] old form, doing the same old terrible work of enslavement of pure young womanhood, for the gratification of the debased and degraded passions of men. Lust knows no mercy, yea, it finds some degree of satisfaction in the cruelty inflicted on the victims of its unholy greed.

This traffic in the virtue of woman is now well known. Its methods are the same, but its results, with a growing civilization are more painful and destructive to its victims. It has no geographical boundaries, but in every clime, this hideous monster of vice seeks its victims, with a relentless and inhuman ferocity. As one surveys the results of this evil in every land, one is led to cry "How long, O Lord, how long, before men's inhumanity to women shall cease, and the kingdoms of this world become the Kingdom of our Father?"

Permit me, as a matter of historical interest, to call your attention to the simple origin of this new crusade for the suppression of the White Slave Traffic, which had its birth, under circumstances of great interest to all workers, in the year 1898. As the Secretary of the National Vigilance Association it had for years been my duty to search for missing young women, sometimes at home and sometimes abroad. In my journeys abroad, prior to 1898, I had in some instances found the missing girl, under circumstances of a most painful character. It was the old story—the promise of a good situation, or the promise of a suitable marriage, were the means invaria[Pg 32]bly used to entrap and ensnare them. Once in the hands of the traffickers, they were hurried away, from country to country, until the highest bidders obtained the virtue, honour, and the life of the victims of these inhuman traffickers. In my various journeyings these ghastly facts were over and over again brought to my knowledge. Their truth I was unfortunately frequently able to verify, so that from personal observation and knowledge I knew this state of things to exist, yea, to be ever on the increase. I knew that just as the honest merchant deals with his merchandise in the course of trade, sending certain goods to certain markets of the world, so this hideous trade was under the control of a syndicate of men and women, who bought and sold the virtue of women, in the same manner as the merchant sells his wares—to the highest bidder.

Here was indeed a revelation, so far as I personally was concerned. For a long time I had known of the existence of this traffic, but I had no idea of its widespread character. I had not dreamt of the scientific and businesslike manner in which it was conducted. Here, indeed, was the explanation of the disappearance of hundreds, yea, thousands, of girls so often reported as missing from their homes, and for whose return mothers waited year after year in vain.

The revelation enveloped me as a dark cloud. In vain I tried to disperse it. Surely there was some way of combating this gigantic evil.[Pg 33] Here indeed was the Philistine Giant of Evil. The people were indifferent. The laws were impotent. There was no public opinion on the subject. True, some of my journeys to different countries had resulted in the homecoming of some who had been falsely beguiled into the way of evil, but this was as nothing compared to that which appeared to be impregnable to the forces of righteousness.

The darkness of the picture obsessed me. It clung with an octopus-like grip to my soul. I truly found trouble and sorrow, intensified by the consciousness of perfect helplessness to grapple with such a vast area of evil. It was world-wide, and whatever the remedy, it would have to be universal in its application. This experience seemed to bring me to the very porch of hell.

Could nothing be done to cope with this state of things? Could earth with all its multifarious efforts of Prevention and Rescue find no solution of this fearful problem? Would no one be found able to fence the top of this Tarpeian Rock, over the precipice of which, the virtue of womanhood was being constantly flung? Was this feature of lust never to be quenched, or must it for ever be fed with the priceless gem in the crown of true womanhood? Was there no means of stopping the unholy demand, as that alone would cause the supply to cease?

These were some of the questions which[Pg 34] came again and again to my mind as I pondered this mighty question.

As I thus mused, a sweet and holy vision came to me. I was not asleep, neither was I fully awake so far as this world was concerned. The heart and soul were in the throes of a new birth. I know not whether it was a vision, a dream, or a Divine message. I heard no voice, I saw no form, but clear, emphatic, and distinct came the solution of the problem. It was as follows:

"If I could go to every capital of Europe, if I could interest the leading people and government of each country, if I could induce the courts of Europe to take up this matter; if I could then induce the governments to meet in conference and decide to deal with it from an international point of view, surely the evil would not only be checked, but to a large extent would be eradicated." How, without any qualifications, I tramped through Europe, went to Egypt, America, and South Africa, is a story which is told in detail elsewhere, but suffice it to say that every little point of the dream or vision was carried out, with the result that today there are established in every capital of Europe, in North and South America, in Egypt, and in South Africa, large and influential National Committees co-operating with their respective governments with the object of completely removing this hideous crime from the face of the earth.

"DANGER."
Meeting young girls at Railway Depots is one of the methods of the white slave trader. They promise to take the strangers to their friends; in fact, anything to get them to accompany them. Once in a closed carriage, they are lost. (See page 68.)

DANGEROUS AMUSEMENTS—THE BRILLIANT ENTRANCE TO HELL ITSELF.
Young girls who have danced at home a little are attracted by the blazing lights, gaiety and apparent happiness of the "dance halls," which in many instances leads to their downfall. (See page 112.)

In our propaganda in Europe it was not only[Pg 35] necessary to point out the nature of the disease we were attacking, but also the remedy we proposed.

Having carefully studied the methods of the members of these syndicates of evil, we knew exactly the kind of organization needed to counteract their wicked designs.

Part of the programme submitted to the people of Europe, was the necessity of inducing their respective Governments to hold an official conference, to mutually decide upon certain measures, for the better protection of young women traveling or accepting situations in any part of the world.

This official conference was organized, chiefly through the National Vigilance Association, and the European Powers and others were officially invited by the Government of France to take part. In July, 1902, in response to an invitation from the French Government, 16 countries were represented by 36 delegates, who met at the Foreign Office in Paris, to consider what measures would be adopted to effectually break up these syndicates of evil. After five days' deliberation the outcome of their labors was the drafting of an International Agreement, which, in our opinion, if adopted by all civilized countries, would so fully protect young women, that the moral risks attendant upon their travelling in any part of the world, either for business or recreative purposes, would be greatly reduced, if not altogether done away with. The soil being al[Pg 36]ready prepared, the decisions arrived at by the Official Conference found ready acceptance by the National Committees of Europe. The subsequent working of this Agreement has fully demonstrated its value and effectiveness in the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic.

I purpose referring to three of the clauses in the Agreement, which I feel is a woman's charter of moral liberty, and as it has been accepted by all the countries of Europe, and by North and South America, the moral interests of young women ought to be fully protected from the Machiavellian efforts of the White Slave Traders.

"Each of the Governments undertakes to have a watch kept, especially at railway stations, ports of embarkation, and en route, for persons in charge of women and girls destined for an immoral life. With this object, instructions shall be given to the Officials and all other qualified persons to obtain, within legal limits, all information likely to lead to the detection of criminal traffic.

"The arrival of persons who clearly appear to be the principals, accomplices in, or victims of, such traffic shall be notified, when it occurs, either to the authorities of the place of destination, or to the Diplomatic or Consular Agents interested, or to any other competent authorities."

[Pg 37]We had by our investigations discovered that the chief places of danger were the ports of embarkation or debarkation and the railway stations of the various countries. Here it was that the strange young woman would be spoken to in her own language by apparently a sympathetic lady, who would offer her every assistance, even to providing her with a lodging, which the new arrival in a strange country would be only too ready to accept. We knew this, we had become familiar with the fact that the railway stations at home and abroad were the hunting grounds of men and women engaged in the White Slave Traffic. It was on these facts, and this evidence, that Article 2 was agreed upon by the delegates at the Official Conference.

We are all familiar with the fact that all laws, however good, are comparatively useless unless they are breathed into by the national life of the country where they exist. Their use is in proportion to the energising power of the people interested in their administration. This Article 2 was formulated in response to the desire of the people, and when it was granted, was welcomed by them with warmth and enthusiasm which augured well for its future successful administration. We are glad to be able to assert that the high hopes to which it gave birth amongst the people of Europe, have been more than realised.

Immediately on the ratification of the Agreement the National Vigilance Association, by[Pg 38] deputation, pointed out to the British Government that the duties involved in carrying out this Article, were hardly such as could be entrusted to policemen, not even to men, who if they were placed at the ports or railway stations of the United Kingdom would not be likely to win the confidence of foreign young women coming to England. This apart altogether from the fact that the persons stationed at the ports and railway stations would require to know several languages, as well as to be possessed of much common sense and discretion. To undertake this work this Association offered to engage a large number of lady workers, possessing a knowledge of European languages, if the Government would authorise them to do so. This was agreed to, and the National Vigilance Association commenced a work which they carried on for the last five years, during which time their workers have met at the railway stations in London, and at several of the most important English ports, 16,000 young women, 80 per cent of whom have been of foreign nationality, and quite 40 per cent of whom would have been in moral peril had it not been for the assistance rendered by the workers on their arrival in England.

Thus Article 2 has done much more than establish a clear and definite method of protection for young travellers. It has roused the heart of Europe, and drawn the attention of the people to the need of being in attendance[Pg 39] at the railway stations to assist young women, and to protect them from the men and women who frequent those places for the purpose of decoying them from the path of virtue.

The Society "Les Amies de la Jeune Fille," in its early days, realised the danger to young girls travelling, and thus early commenced to safeguard them against it. Much was done, but nothing commensurate with the great need that existed.

When the Governments agreed to Article 2 of the Protocol, every National Committee in Europe felt such a sense of their responsibility, that many of them, as we in England, placed workers at the railway stations of their respective countries.

But, perhaps, the most remarkable development in connection with Article 2, was the spontaneous and marvellous manner in which the Roman Catholic Church aroused itself, and provided a number of ladies as station workers throughout Europe, to look after and care for the moral welfare of Catholic girls.

The Baroness de Montenach, residing at Freibourg, Switzerland, who had attended the first Congress for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic held in London, in 1899, saw the opportunity which Article 2 offered, and at once appealed to the women of the Catholic Church, who responded with so much enthusiasm, that today they have one of the finest and most carefully planned International Catholic Associations for Railway Station Work.[Pg 40] We know it from personal observation and can speak in the most unqualified manner of the devotion of the Catholic ladies throughout Europe who give their time and money for the protection primarily of Catholic girls, though they are always ready to assist girls of other creeds.

Thus by means of Article 2 of the International Agreement we now have Europe covered with a network of agencies, which protect young girls from moral trouble in a most efficient and striking manner.

The organisation we have in Europe is threefold, and so complete, that so far as Europe is concerned, it is well-nigh impossible for a young girl to fall into moral trouble, if she will but avail herself of the help which is ready at all times and in all places. We have three active and efficient organisations at work—Les Amies de la Jeune Fille, primarily, but not exclusively for the care of Protestant girls; the International Catholic Association for befriending young girls, primarily, but not exclusively for the protection of Catholic girls; and the ladies connected with the National Committees for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, who work at the railway stations on behalf of girls of all creeds and all nationalities.

The more we understand the practical side of the railway station work, the more strongly are we convinced that in it we have the work which, properly organised, enthusiastically and[Pg 41] efficiently carried on, will relieve society of the need of much of the philanthropic effort which comes into operation when moral trouble has overtaken the unfortunate young girl.

I have left myself very little room to do more than simply quote two of the other articles of that remarkable International Agreement to which I have referred. Article 3 says:

"The Governments undertake, when the case arises, and within legal limits to have the declarations taken of women or girls of foreign nationality who are prostitutes, in order to establish their identity and civil status, and to discover who has caused them to leave their country. The information obtained shall be communicated to the authorities of the country of origin of the said women or girls, with a view to their eventual repatriation.

"The Governments undertake, within legal limits, and as far as can be done, to entrust temporarily, and with a view to their eventual repatriation, the victims of a criminal traffic when destitute to public or private charitable institutions, or to private individuals offering the necessary security."

This clause when properly worked by the various philanthropic agencies in connection with the authorities will be the means not only of rescuing many who have been flung into the way of shadows, but of bringing to justice the[Pg 42] men and women responsible for their moral ruin. I have only to point to a recent Act in America, passed by Congress more than 12 months since, based upon this very Article to show how great will be its preventive character, if put into operation by any country.

The American Act to which I refer, states that any young girl of foreign origin, who is found to be leading a life of prostitution within three years of her landing in America, shall be arrested, and if she has been induced to lead the life by another person, he or she, on proof, shall be liable to arrest, and on conviction, to very severe penalties, in the shape of imprisonment and fine, and if of foreign origin to deportation.

We watched the beneficent operation of this Act in the United States, and rejoiced to see how conspicuously successful it was in dealing with the traffic. We had even, through the International Bureau, called the attention of the National Committees in Europe to the effective way in which the Act was dealing with the traffickers in America, and urged them to get a similar one passed in their own country, when, to our intense disappointment the Judges of the Supreme Court in America, discovered a flaw in one of its chief clauses, and, I am told that in consequence, hundreds of men and women, who had been convicted as traffickers, were immediately let loose upon society, to again engage in this lawless traffic.

What a call to this Congress to be up and[Pg 43] doing! You must not rest, you dare not hesitate, until you have renewed that law, and if needs be, strengthened it so as to deal effectively with these inhuman monsters. This is the one thing for you to be doing until it is done. Rouse the public to a sense of the gravity of the situation. Give your legislators no rest, until they have amended the law in the direction indicated.

In London the operation of this clause has been demonstrated by the improved condition of our streets. The open parade of flaunting vice has been much modified, and the foreign element of evil has found it far more difficult to carry on its ramifications than formerly.

There will be no difference of opinion amongst us as to the usefulness of Article 6 in the Protection of Young Girls, which is as follows:

"The Contracting Governments undertake, within legal limits, to exercise supervision, as far as possible, over the offices or agencies engaged in finding employment for women or girls abroad."

It is common knowledge that the Servant's Registry Office, has, like the railway station, been too ready a means in the hands of the unscrupulous traders in vice. An application for a servant, governess, or a companion to a lady, offering good wages and a comfortable home, in a foreign country, has always met with a ready response, and by such methods these[Pg 44] traders have been able to command the flower of girlhood. How many scores of young women have by these means been inveigled into a foreign land, to find themselves hopelessly enslaved into a life which is worse than a living death. The nature of this evil was well-known to those who took part in the Official Conference, and they set themselves to work to prevent these registry offices being the means, even innocently, of acting as agents for the traffickers in vice. That their efforts were effective is proved in those countries where Article 6 has been put into operation.

We can bear testimony to its efficient working in many places in England. Where it is in operation, the registry office proprietors are compelled to ascertain the bona fide character of the situations abroad offered to young women, and in this way it has foiled and de-accustomed to use these agencies to decoy young girls to their moral ruin.

I have only been able to refer to a few of the many plans for the better moral protection of young women, provided by the work for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, but sufficient has been adduced to show how many new weapons have been forged in this direction by the International Agreement, for the use of individuals as well as of nations. It is a woman's charter, which for the first time in the history of the world, regards the moral well-being of a young woman as a national asset of great value to the country in which she[Pg 45] lives. But the Agreement can only be of real value in those countries where the people have sufficient interest in the welfare of their young women to organise themselves to assist their Governments in its working.

Let me close this paper with a strong appeal, a loud call, to the men and women of America with like passions and sympathies with their English brethren across the Atlantic. We have much in common. Our hearts as well as our language are the same. We are influential and actuated by the same religious impulses. Let us then as one people, join hands across the sea in this holy enterprise, and sweep from the world this awful blight upon young womanhood. Remember it is not a crime peculiar or common to men of one nationality. All nations, more or less, have taken part. Be it ours, at this Congress, to inaugurate a world-wide crusade, in the name of God and of our common humanity, against this crime. Remember, the forces of righteousness and purity are stronger than the forces of impurity. We may receive checks when engaged in the conflict, but about the ultimate victory there is no shadow of doubt. Let us in strong faith look up unto the hills from whence cometh our help, and the battle, however prolonged, is won. Let the old and the new world link themselves together, under one banner and one leadership, spread the Light of Truth on this question, and scatter the men who delight in[Pg 46] evil, and the darkness by which their deeds are surrounded.

I appeal especially to the women of America to rise in the dignity of womanhood, and demand the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic in America, yea in the whole world, and thus give to young women those rights and that protection which should be their common heritage. Let me close by quoting Lowell's words, which on many occasions have proved a trumpet call to some forgotten duty:

CHAPTER III.

THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE OF TODAY.

There are some things so far removed from the lives of normal, decent people as to be simply unbelievable by them. The "white slave" trade of today is one of these incredible things. The calmest, simplest statements of its facts are almost beyond the comprehension or belief of men and women who are mercifully spared from contact with the dark and hideous secrets of "the under world" of the big cities.

You would hardly credit the statement, for example, that things are being done every day in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and other large cities of this country in the white slave traffic which would, by contrast, make the Congo slave traders of the old days appear like Good Samaritans. Yet this figure is almost a literal truth. The man of the stone age who clubbed the woman of his desire into insensibility or submission was little short of a high-minded gentleman when contrasted with the men who fatten upon the "white slave" traffic in this day of social settlements, of forward[Pg 48] movements, of Y. M. C. A. and Christian Endeavor activities, of air ships and wireless telegraphy.

Naturally, wisely, every parent who reads this statement will at once raise the question: "What excuse is there for the open discussion of such a revolting condition of things in the pages of a published book? What good is there to be served by flaunting so dark and disgusting a subject before the family circle?"

Only one—and that is a reason and not an excuse! The recent examination of more than two hundred "white slaves" by the office of the United States district attorney at Chicago has brought to light the fact that literally thousands of innocent girls from the country districts are every year entrapped into a life of hopeless slavery and degradation because parents in the country do not understand conditions as they exist and how to protect their daughters from the "white slave" traders who have reduced the art of ruining young girls to a national and international system. I sincerely believe that nine-tenths of the parents of these thousands of girls who are every year snatched from lives of decency and comparative peace and dragged under the slime of an existence in the "white slave world" have no idea that there is really a trade in the ruin of girls as much as there is a trade in cattle or sheep or other products of the farm. If these parents had known the real conditions, had believed that there is actually a syndicate which[Pg 49] does as regular, as steady and persistent a "business" in the ruination of girls as the great packing houses do in the sale of meats, it is wholly probable that their daughters would not now be in dens of vice and almost utterly without hope of release excepting by the hand of death.

The purpose of all our laws and statutes against crime is the suppression of crime. The protection of the people, of the home, of the individual is the purpose which inspires the honest and conscientious prosecutor. This is what the law is for, and if this result of protection to individuals and homes can be made more effective and more general by a statement such as this, then I am willing to make it for the public good. And the most direct and unadorned statement of facts will, I think, carry its own conviction and make everything like "preaching" or denunciation superfluous.

The evidence obtained from questioning some 250 girls taken in federal raids on Chicago houses of ill repute leads me to believe that not fewer than fifteen thousand girls have been imported into this country in the last year as white slaves. Of course this is only a guess—an approximate—it could be nothing else—but my own personal belief is that it is a conservative guess and well within the facts as to numbers. Then please remember that girls imported are certainly but a mere fraction of[Pg 50] the number recruited for the army of prostitution from home fields, from the cities, the towns, the villages of our own country. There is no possible escape from this conclusion.

Another significant fact brought out by the examination of these girls is that practically every one who admitted having parents living begged that her real name be withheld from the public because of the sorrow and shame it would bring to her parents. One said: "My mother thinks I am studying in a stenographic school"; another stated, "My parents in the country think I have a good position in a department store—as I did have for a time—and I've sent them a little money from time to time; I don't care what happens, so long as they don't know the truth about me." In a word, the one concern of nearly all those examined who have homes in this country was that their parents—and in particular their mothers—might discover, through the prosecution of the "white slavers," that they were leading lives of shame instead of working at the honorable callings which they had left their homes and come to the city to pursue. There are, to put it mildly, hundreds—yes, thousands—of trusting mothers in the smaller cities, the towns, villages and farming communities of the United States who believe that their daughters are "getting on fine" in the city, and too busy to come home for a visit or "to write much," while the fact is that these daughters have been swept into the gulf of white slavery[Pg 51]—the worst doom that can befall a woman. The mother who has allowed her girl to go to the big city and work should find out what kind of life that girl is living and find out from some other source than the girl herself. No matter how good and fine a girl she has been at home and how complete the confidence she has always inspired, find out how she is living, what kind of associations she is keeping. Take nothing for granted. You owe it to yourself and to her and it is not disloyalty to go beyond her own words for evidence that the wolves of the city have not dragged her from safe paths. It is, instead, the highest form of loyalty to her.

AT THE LEFT WHITE SLAVE CLEARING HOUSE, AT THE RIGHT GOSPEL MEETING
That the white slave organization is strong and wealthy is attested by the large stone and brick building on the left. It is the respectable appearance of the outside of this place that disarms suspicion until the girls are inside.

SORDID END OF THE LIFE OF SHAME
A few years is all that human nature can stand of the life in a resort. Then they are cast out a mental, moral and physical wreck to live to the end in some ramshackle building, shunned by everyone.

Again, there is, in another particular, a remarkable and impressive sameness in the stories related by these wretched girls. In the narratives of nearly all of them is a passage describing how some man of their acquaintance had offered to "help" them to a good position in the city, to "look after" them, and to "take an interest" in them. After listening to this confession from one girl after another, hour after hour until you have heard it repeated perhaps fifty times, you feel like saying to every mother in the country: Do not trust any man who pretends to take an interest in your girl if that interest involves her leaving her own roof. Keep her with you. She is far safer in the country than in the big city, but if go to the city she must, then go with her yourself; if that is impossible, place her with some[Pg 52] woman who is your friend, not hers; no girl can safely go to a great city to make her own way who is not under the eye of a trustworthy woman who knows the ways and dangers of city life. Above all, distrust the "protection," the "good offices" of any man who is not a family friend known to be clean and honorable and above all suspicion.

Of course all the examinations to which I have referred have been conducted for the specific purpose of finding girls who have been brought into this country from other lands in defiance of the federal statute, passed by Congress February 20, 1907. This act declares that any person who shall "keep, maintain, support or harbor" any alien woman for immoral purposes within three years after her arrival in this country shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be liable to a fine of $5,000 and imprisonment for five years at the discretion of the court. When the department of justice at Washington decided that this law was being violated, the United States District Attorney at Chicago was instructed to take such action as was necessary to apprehend the violators of the act and convict them. One of the first steps required was the raiding of the various dives and houses of ill fame and the arrest of the girl inmates, as well as the arrest of the keepers and the procurers of the white slaves.

While the federal prosecution is officially concerned only with those cases involving the importation of girls from other countries[Pg 53]—there being no authority under the present national statutes for the federal government to prosecute those concerned in securing white slaves who are natives of this country—it was inevitable that the examination of scores of these inmates, captured in raids upon the dives, should bring to officers and agents of the department of justice an immense fund of information regarding the methods of the white slave traders in recruiting for their traffic from home fields.

Whether these hunters of the innocent ply their awful calling at home or abroad their methods are much the same—with the exception that the foreign girl is more hopelessly at their mercy. Let me take the case of a little Italian peasant girl who helped her father till the soil in the vineyards and fields near Naples. Like most of the others taken in the raids, she stoutly maintained that she had been in this country more than three years and that she was in a life of shame from choice and not through the criminal act of any person. When she was brought into what the sensational newspapers would call the "sweat box" it was clear that she was in a state of abject terror. Soon, however, Assistant United States District Attorney Parkin, having charge of the examination, convinced her that he and his associates were her friends and protectors and that their purpose was to punish those who had profited by her ruin and to send her back to her little Italian home with all her expenses paid; that[Pg 54] she was under the protection of the United States and was as safe as if the king of Italy would take her under his royal care and pledge his word that her enemies should not have revenge upon her.

Then she broke down and with pitiful sobs related her awful narrative. That every word of it was true no one could doubt who saw her as she told it. Briefly this is her story: A "fine lady" who wore beautiful clothes came to her where she lived with her parents, made friends with her, told her she was uncommonly pretty (the truth, by the way), and professed a great interest in her. Such flattering attentions from an American lady who wore clothes as fine as those of the Italian nobility could have but one effect on the mind of this simple little peasant girl and on her still simpler parents. Their heads were completely turned and they regarded the "American lady" with almost adoration.

Very shrewdly the woman did not attempt to bring the little girl back with her, but held out hope that some day a letter might come with money for her passage to America. Once there she would become the companion of her American friend and they would have great times together.

Of course, in due time, the money came—and the $100 was a most substantial pledge to the parents of the wealth and generosity of the "American lady." Unhesitatingly she was prepared for the voyage which was to take her to[Pg 55] the land of happiness and good fortune. According to the arrangements made by letter the girl was met at New York by two "friends" of her benefactress who attended to her entrance papers and took her in charge. These "friends" were two of the most brutal of all the white slave traders who are in the traffic. At this time she was about sixteen years old, innocent and rarely attractive for a girl of her class, having the large, handsome eyes, the black hair and the rich olive skin of a typical Italian.

Where these two men took her she did not know—but by the most violent and brutal means they quickly accomplished her ruin. For a week she was subjected to unspeakable treatment and made to feel that her degradation was complete and final.

And here let it be said that the breaking of the spirit, the crushing of all hope for any future save that of shame is always a part of the initiation of a white slave. Then the girl was shipped on to Chicago, where she was disposed of to the keeper of an Italian dive of the vilest type. On her entrance here she was furnished with gaudy dresses and wearing apparel for which the keeper of the place charged her $600. As is the case with all new white slaves she was not allowed to have any clothing which she could wear upon the street.

Her one object in life was to escape from the den in which she was held a prisoner. To "pay out" seemed the surest way, and at[Pg 56] length, from her wages of shame, she was able to cancel the $600 account. Then she asked for her street clothing and her release—only to be told that she had incurred other expenses to the amount of $400.

Her Italian blood took fire at this and she made a dash for liberty. But she was not quick enough and the hand of the oppressor was upon her. In the wild scene that followed she was slashed with a razor, one gash straight through her right eye, one across her cheek and another slitting her ear. Then she was given medical attention and the wounds gradually healed, but her face was horribly mutilated, her right eye is always open and to look upon her is to shudder.

When the raids began she was secreted and arrangements made to ship her to a dive in the mining regions of the west. Fortunately, however, a few hours before she was to start upon her journey the United States marshals raided the place and captured herself as well as her keepers. To add to the horror of her situation she was soon to become a mother. The awful thought in her mind, however, was to escape from assassination at the hands of the murderous gang which oppressed her.

One recital of this kind is enough, although instances by the score might be cited which differ only in detail and degree.

It is only necessary to say that the legal evidence thus far collected establishes with complete moral certainty these awful facts: That[Pg 57] the white slave traffic is a system operated by a syndicate which has its ramifications from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific ocean, with "clearing houses" or "distributing centers" in nearly all of the larger cities; that in this ghastly traffic the buying price of a young girl is from $15 up and that the selling price is from $200 to $600—if the girl is especially attractive the white slave dealer may be able to sell her for as much as $800 or $1,000; that this syndicate did not make less than $200,000 last year in this almost unthinkable commerce; that it is a definite organization sending its hunters regularly to scour France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Canada for victims; that the man at the head of this unthinkable enterprise is known among his hunters as "The Big Chief."

Also the evidence shows that the hirelings of this traffic are stationed at certain ports of entry in Canada, where large numbers of immigrants are landed, to do what is known in their parlance as "cutting out work." In other words, these watchers for human prey scan the immigrants as they come down the gang plank of a vessel which has just arrived and "spot" the girls who are unaccompanied by fathers, mothers, brothers or relatives to protect them. The girl who has been spotted as a desirable and unprotected victim is properly approached by a man who speaks her language and is immediately offered employment at good wages, with all expenses to the destination to[Pg 58] be paid by the man. Most frequently laundry work is the bait held out, sometimes housework or employment in a candy shop or factory.

The object of the negotiations is to "cut out" the girl from any of her associates and to get her to go with him. Then the only thing is to accomplish her ruin by the shortest route. If they cannot be cajoled or enticed by promises of an easy time, plenty of money, fine clothes and the usual stock of allurements—or a fake marriage—then harsher methods are resorted to. In some instances the hunters really marry the victims. As to the sterner methods, it is of course impossible to speak explicitly, beyond the statement that intoxication and drugging are often used as a means to reduce the victims to a state of helplessness, and sheer physical violence is a common thing.

When once a white slave is sold and landed in a house or dive she becomes a prisoner. The raids disclosed the fact that in each of these places is a room having but one door, to which the keeper holds the key. In here are locked all the street clothes, shoes, and the ordinary apparel of a woman.

The finery which is provided for the girl for house wear is of a nature to make her appearance on the street impossible. Then added to this handicap, is the fact that at once the girl is placed in debt to the keeper for a wardrobe of "fancy" clothes which are charged to her at preposterous prices. She cannot escape[Pg 59] while she is in debt to the keeper—and she is never allowed to get out of debt—at least until all desire to leave the life is dead within her.

The examination of witnesses has brought out the fact that not many of the women in this class expect to live more than ten years after they enter upon their voluntary or involuntary life of white slavery. Perhaps the average is less than that. Many died painful deaths by disease, many by consumption, but it is hardly beyond the truth to say that suicide is their general expectation. "We all come to it sooner or later," one of the witnesses remarked to her companions in the jail, the other day, when reading in the newspaper of the suicide of a girl inmate of a notorious house.

A volume could be written on this revolting subject, but I have no disposition to add a single word to what will open the eyes of parents to the fact that white slavery is an existing condition—a system of girl hunting that is national and international in its scope, that it literally consumes thousands of girls—clean, innocent girls—every year; that it is operated with a cruelty, a barbarism that gives a new meaning to the word fiend; that it is an imminent peril to every girl in the country who has a desire to get into the city and taste its excitements and its pleasures.

The facts I have stated are for the awakening of parents and guardians of girls. If I were to[Pg 60] presume to say anything to the possible victims of this awful scourge of white slavery it would be this: "Those who enter here leave hope behind." The depths of debasement and suffering disclosed by the investigation now in progress would make the flesh of a seasoned man of the world creep with horror and shame.

CHAPTER IV.

MENACE OF THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE.

Right at the outset let me say in all frankness that I would never, from personal choice, write upon a subject of this character. Its sensationalism is personally repellent to me. On the other hand, no matter how carefully the public prosecutor may preserve the legal viewpoint and the legal temperament, his work may lead him into situations where he feels that he cannot, in common humanity, withhold from the public a knowledge of the things which he knows cannot fail to be of actual protective benefit to many homes; that to withhold the facts and disclosures which have come to him as an officer of the law would be to deprive the innocent and the worthy of a protection which might save many a home from sorrow, disgrace and ruin.

Again: The results of this legal work and of the explanations of the conditions uncovered in my former article have brought to me a gratifying knowledge of the practical and most effective rescue work being done by Rev. Ernest A. Bell of the Illinois Vigilance As[Pg 62]sociation, of which Rev. M. P. Boynton is the president. These men and many of the settlement and slum workers of Chicago with whom I have come in contact are not only specialists in this field, but they are as devoted as they are practical. More perhaps because of the urgent assurances of the Rev. M. P. Boynton, Mr. Bell and others that giving to the public a statement of actual conditions has been of a great service to them in their hand to hand fight than to any other reason, I am moved to make another statement.

When the editor of the Woman's World urged me to write of "The White Slave Traffic of Today," I felt that I had an official knowledge of facts which the fathers and mothers of the country had a right to know in order to prevent the possibility of their daughters falling victims to the most hideous form of human slavery known in the world today. This consideration moved me to put aside my strong personal feelings against appearing in print in connection with a subject so abhorrent. Many results of that article have made me glad that I did so—and those results have also contributed to overcome my antipathy to a further pursuit of that subject. But in following this topic as I now do, I shall again emphasize the fact that I wish to say what seems to be needful in as unsensational a way as possible, and that I also wish to do that from the viewpoint of a public prosecutor who has, in the ordinary discharge of his duties, encoun[Pg 63]tered this appalling situation, and not at all from the standpoint of the sentimentalist.

So far as the matter of sensationalism is concerned, that may be disposed of in the simple statement that the naked recital, in the most formal and colorless phraseology, of the facts already brought to light by the "white slave" prosecutions are in themselves so sensational that the art of the most brilliant orator, or the cunning of the cleverest writer, could not add an iota to their sensationalism. And it may as well be said here that it is quite impossible to even hint in public print of the revolting depths of shame disclosed by this investigation. Behind every word that can be said in print on this topic is a word of degradation of which the slightest hint cannot be given.

If there are any who are inclined to feel that the term "white slave" is a little overdrawn, a little exaggerated, let them decide on that point after considering this statement: "Among the 'white slaves' captured in raids since the appearance of my first article is a girl who is now about eighteen years of age. Her home was in France, and when she was only fourteen years old she was approached by a 'white slaver' who promised her employment in America as a lady's maid or companion. The wage offered was far beyond what she could expect to get in her own country—but far more alluring to her than the money she could earn was the picture of the life which[Pg 64] would be hers in free America. Her surroundings would be luxurious; she would be the constant recipient of gifts of dainty clothing from her mistress, and even the hardest work she would be called upon to do would be in itself a pleasure and an excitement.

"Naturally she was eager to leave her home and trust herself to one who would provide her with so enriching a future. Her friends of her own age seasoned their farewells to her with envy of her rare good fortune.

"On arriving in Chicago she was taken to the house of ill-fame to which she had been sold by the procurer. There this child of fourteen was quickly and unceremoniously 'broken in' to the hideous life of depravity for which she had been entrapped. The white slaver who sold her was able to drive a most profitable bargain, for she was rated as uncommonly attractive. In fact, he made her life of shame a perpetual source of income, and when—not long ago—he was captured and indicted for the transportation of other girls, this girl was used as the agency of providing him with $2,000 for his defense.

"But let us look for a moment at the mentionable facts of this child's daily routine of life and see if such an existence justifies the use of the term 'slavery.' After she had furnished a night of servitude to the brutal passions of vile frequenters of the place, she was then compelled each night to put off her tawdry costume, array herself in the garb of a scrub[Pg 65]-woman and, on her hands and knees, scrub the house from top to bottom. No weariness, no exhaustion, ever excused her from this drudgery, which was a full day's work for a strong woman.

"After her cleaning was done she was allowed to go to her chamber and sleep—locked in her room to prevent her possible escape—until the orgies of the next day, or rather night, began. She was allowed no liberties, no freedom, and in the two and a half years of her slavery in this house she was not even given one dollar to spend for her own comfort or pleasure. The legal evidence shows that during this period of slavery she earned for those who owned her not less than eight thousand dollars—and probably ten thousand dollars!"

Let me make it entirely clear that the white slave is an actual prisoner. She is under the most constant surveillance, both by the keeper to whom she is "let" and by the procurer who owns her. Not until she has lost all possible desire to escape is she given any liberty.

Many—very many—letters have been received from parents who read the first article on this subject. A considerable number of them are from ministers of the gospel, from officers and members of law and order leagues, woman's clubs and kindred organizations. But there is a pathetic reminder which does not come from the public-spirited servants of the[Pg 66] common good. These letters are from the fathers and mothers whose fears and suspicions were aroused by the warning that the girl who has left her home in the country, gone up to the city and does not come home to visit, needs to be looked up.

Before me, as I write, is a letter from a father which is a tragedy in a page. He begins the note by saying that the warning has aroused him to inquire after his "little girl." There is a pathetic pride in his admission that she was considered an uncommonly "pretty girl" when she left her home to take a position in Chicago. Her letters, he states, have been more and more infrequent, but that she does occasionally write home, and sometimes encloses a small amount of money. From the tone of the father's note it is evident that, while he is a trifle anxious, he asks that his daughter be "looked up" rather to confirm his feelings of confidence that she is all right than otherwise.

A glance at the address where she was to be found left no possible question as to the fate which had overtaken this daughter of a country home. So far as a knowledge of the girl's mode of life is concerned, no investigation was necessary—the location named being in the center of Chicago's "red light" district.

While the case was a sad one there appeared to be no violation of the Federal laws, the girl having come from a neighboring state. A Federal prosecution against those detaining her was, therefore, impossible. However, the[Pg 67] case was placed in the hands of Mr. Bell of the Illinois Vigilance Association. Through his efforts she was rescued and shortly thereafter returned to her mother and brothers and sisters who had supposed that she was holding a respectable, but poorly paid position. They, however, welcomed a very different person from the pretty girl who went out from that home to make her way in the big city. She was pitifully wasted by the life which she had led, and her constitution is so broken down that she cannot reasonably expect many years of life, even under the tenderest care. What is still worse, the fact cannot be denied that her moral fibre is shattered and the work of reclamation must be more than physical.

The "white slaves" who have been taken in the course of the present prosecution have, generally, been very grateful for the liberation and glad to return to their homes. It has been necessary—for their own protection as well as for other reasons—to commit some of these unfortunates to various prisons pending the trial of the cases in which they are to appear as witnesses, and practically every one of them gives unmistakable evidence that imprisonment is a welcome liberation by comparison with the life of "white slavery."

Now as to the practical means which parents should use to prevent this unspeakable fate from overtaking their daughters. They cannot do it by assuming that their daughter is all right and that she will take care of herself in[Pg 68] the big city. In a large measure it seems impossible to arouse parents—especially those in the country—to a realization that there is in every big city a class of men and women who live by trapping girls into a life of degradation and who are as inhumanely cunning in their awful craft as they are in other instincts; that these beasts of the human jungle are as unbelievably desperate as they are unbelievably cruel, and that their warfare upon virtue is as persistent, as calculating, and as unceasing as was the warfare of the wolf upon the unprotected lamb of the pioneer folk in the early days of the Western frontier.

I cannot escape the conclusion that the country girl is in greater danger from the "white slavers" than the city girl. The perusal of the testimony of many "white slaves" enforces this conclusion. That is because they are less sophisticated, more trusting and more open to the allurements of those who are waiting to prey upon them.

It is a fact which parents of girls in the country should remember that the "white slavers" are busy on the trains coming into the city and make it a point to "cut out" an attractive girl whenever they can. This "cutting out" process (I use the technical term) consists of making the girl's acquaintance, gaining her confidence and, on one pretext or another, inducing her to leave the train before the main depot is reached. This is done because the various protective and law and order organizations have[Pg 69] watchers at the main railroad stations who are trained to the work of "spotting," and quickly detect a girl in the hands of one of these human beasts of prey. Generally these watchers are women and wear the badges of their organizations.

But suppose that the girl from the country does not chance to fall in with the "white slaver" on the train, that she reaches the city in safety, becomes located in a position—or perhaps in the stenographic school or business college which she has come to attend—and secures a room in a boarding house. No human being, it seems to me, is quite so lonely as the young girl from the country when she first comes to the city and starts in the struggle of life there without acquaintances. All her instincts are social, and she is, for the time being, almost desolately alone in a wilderness of strange human beings. She must have some one to talk to—it is the law of youth as well as the law of her sex to crave constant companionship. And the consequences? She is sentimentally in a condition to prepare her for the slaughter, to make her an easy prey to the wiles of the "white slave" wolf.

The girl reared in the city does not have this peculiar and insidious handicap to contend with; she has been—from the time she could first toddle along the sidewalk—educated in wholesome suspicion, taught that she must not talk with strangers or take candy from them, that she must withdraw herself from all ad[Pg 70]vances and, in large measure, regard all save her own people with distrust. As she grows older she comes to know that certain parts of the city are more dangerous and more "wicked" than others; that her comings and goings must always be in safe and familiar company; that her acquaintanceships and her friendships must be scrutinized by her natural protectors and that, altogether, there is a definite but undefined danger in the very atmosphere of the city for the girl or the young woman which demands a constant and protective alertness.

The training is almost wholly absent in the case of the country girl; she is not educated in suspicion until the protective instinct acts almost unconsciously; her intercourse with her world is almost comparatively free and unrestrained; she is so unlearned in the moral and social geography of the city that she is quite as likely, if left to her own devices, to select her boarding house in an undesirable as in a safe and desirable part of the city; and, in a word, when she comes into the city her innocence, her trusting faith in humanity in general, her ignorance of the underworld and her loneliness and perhaps homesickness, conspire to make her a ready and an easy victim of the "white slaver."

In view of what I have learned in the course of the recent investigation and prosecution of the "white slave" traffic, I can say, in all sincerity, that if I lived in the country and had a young daughter I would go any length of hard[Pg 71]ship and privation myself rather than allow her to go into the city to work or to study—unless that studying were to be done in the very best type of an educational institution where the girl students were always under the closest protection. The best and the surest way for parents of girls in the country to protect them from the clutches of the "white slaver" is to keep them in the country. But if circumstances should seem to compel a change from the country to the city, then the only safe way is to go with them into the city; but even this last has its disadvantages from the fact that, in that case the parents would themselves be unfamiliar with the usages and pitfalls of metropolitan life, and would not be able to protect their daughters as carefully as if they had spent their own lives in the city.

One thing should be made very clear to the girl who comes up to the city, and that is that the ordinary ice cream parlor is very likely to be a spider's web for her entanglement. This is perhaps especially true of those ice cream saloons and fruit stores kept by foreigners. Scores of cases are on record where young girls have taken their first step towards "white slavery" in places of this character. And it is hardly too much to say that a week does not pass in Chicago without the publication in some daily paper of the details of a police court case in which the ice cream parlor of this type is the scene of a regrettable tragedy. The only safe rule is to keep away from places of this[Pg 72] kind, whether in a big city like Chicago or in a large country town. I believe that there are good grounds for the suspicion that the ice cream parlor, kept by the foreigner in the large country town, is often a recruiting station, and a feeder for the "white slave" traffic. It is certain that this is the case in the big city, and many evidences point to the conclusion that there is a kind of free-masonry among these foreign proprietors of refreshment parlors which would make it entirely natural and convenient for the proprietor of a city establishment of this kind, who is entangled in the "white slave" trade, to establish relations with a man in the same business and of the same nationality in the country town. I do not mean to intimate by this that all the ice cream and fruit "saloons" having foreign-born proprietors are connected with the "white slave" traffic—but some of them are, and this fact is sufficient to cause all careful and thoughtful parents of young girls to see that they do not frequent these places.

In this article it is of course impossible to more than hint at the protective measures which conscientious parents of girls should employ in order to make the way safe for their daughters. There can be no doubt that Judge Lindsay of Denver, Judge Mack of Chicago, and Mr. Edward W. Bok of the Ladies' Home Journal, are right in insisting upon greater frankness between parents and children and that every child should have a sex education[Pg 73] at home instead of being compelled to pick it up from contaminating sources on the street and at school. And I may add that the world owes a debt to these men who have handled this delicate and difficult problem in a practical as well as a powerful manner; and I feel impelled to add that, in face of the horrifying disclosures brought to me in the form of legal evidence, every boy and girl of high school age should be taught something of the awful physical as well as the moral consequences which lurk behind allurements of the life in which the "white slave" is the central figure. These things cannot be presented in the public prints, but the father who keeps close to his boy and the mother who is a companion to her daughter may reveal these things, in the home, in a way which may save almost untold suffering. And to such parents I would say that the investigations of the United States District Attorney's office in Chicago have brought together, as legal evidence, a mass of facts as to sanitary conditions in the districts where the "white slaves" are kept, which are horrifying and scarcely capable of exaggeration.

CHAPTER V.

A WHITE SLAVE CLEARING HOUSE.
A WHITE SLAVE'S OWN STORY.

The most conspicuous work of United States Attorney Sims against the white slave traders in Chicago was the arrest and indictment of a notorious French trader and his wife, Alphonse and Eva Dufour. The federal grand jury voted five indictments against each of them. They spent six weeks or so in Cook county jail, when they gained their liberty on bonds of $26,500, which they immediately forfeited and fled to Paris, in August, 1908.

My missionary duties took me occasionally to the clearing house of the Dufours, and we have often held gospel meetings in front of their resort. In this place were about twenty girls, whom the agents of this wicked couple had snared in different parts of Europe and America. One girl was from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, who had been deceived into entering the house and then held there without her street clothes. She managed to send word out and secured her release. The Dufour woman was arraigned in court but was not punished seriously for this very common crime.

A very young black-eyed, black-haired Spanish girl was among the inmates, and my[Pg 75] thoughts inevitably went to some broken-hearted mother in sunny Spain, whose daughter had been hunted for Chicago's white slave market. These murderous traffickers drink the heart's blood of weeping mothers while they eat the flesh of their daughters, by living and fattening themselves on the destruction of the girls. Disease and debauch quickly blast the beauty of these lovely victims. Many of them are dead in two or three years. Cannibals seem almost merciful in comparison with the white slavers, who murder the girls by inches. It is a dark mystery that twentieth century civilization allows these atrocities, even under the flag of the free.

In this glittering den, with its walls and ceiling of mirrors, was a sweet Russian girl, perhaps sixteen years old, whose fate made my heart bleed. She was of the best Russian type, blonde, of medium height, peach-blossom complexion, roundish mouth, and of exceedingly gentle and loving disposition. Some father, perhaps a nobleman, perhaps dead and unable longer to protect the delight of his eyes, comes inevitably to my thoughts as I write. Oh, the pity of it all, and the shame. How can any father of girls escape the nightmare of what might befall his own daughters if his own power to protect them should fail?

I went to Baron Schlippenbach, who was then the consul of the mighty Czar in Chicago, but I never learned that he was able to accomplish anything for this dear Russian girl. The[Pg 76] Czar is only "the little father," as the Russian people call him. May the Great Father in heaven help his deeply wronged daughters, in a way that shall break in pieces their oppressors.

The den of the Dufours had an income of $102,720 in the year 1907, and $41,000 in the first five months of 1908. One white slave was made to earn for them in May, 1908, the sum of $723. These figures were taken from their own account books, which were seized by the United States government after the Dufours fled to Paris.

This terrible place was both a receiving and a distributing station, and also a wide open immoral resort, patronized by thousands of young men—who are the ultimate white slavers, as they pay the expenses of the white slave trade. From this central clearing house girls were shipped to Denver, San Francisco and every place where the Dufours had correspondents. All this was revealed by their own documents after the United States had driven this tiger and tigress back to Paris.

Soon after we had initiated the public agitation against the white slave horror in Chicago I received three letters from a victim of the French traders. Such parts of the letters as can be made public are here given. These letters have supplied both information and inspiration to the workers who first brought this infamous traffic to public notice in Chicago.

A WHITE SLAVE'S OWN STORY.

"I want you to know everything I have witnessed in my three years of slavery. I was first sold in Custom House Place, by a young man working for Mr. ——, traveling the city and little towns, or wherever he could find girls.

"Here we were, always from fifteen to eighteen girls, most of us very young. The man who bought me made us work like real slaves and then never gave us our money even if it was shamefully earned. His place was always full of so-called detectives, and if some one came to claim some one of us, quick she was slipped to some other town.

"Pictures of foreign girls would arrive by mail, and if one was pretty enough they would wire to Paris and say, 'Send parcel at once.' They arrive by different ports—New York, Boston, Quebec, San Francisco—and those poor unfortunates are all claimed by some one pretending to be an aunt, or father, or husband.

"Letters are received by the resort keepers from all the states, and I believe from all the prisons of the world. If any one could read all of those men's mail, I think one would learn horrible things.

"Also we never can receive our mail direct, for the keeper opens the letters, and if they are indifferent they are closed and given to us, but if they are any way wrong in his eyes we never see them.

"If we escape and insist on not returning,[Pg 78] they will send some one after us to propose that we leave for Denver, San Francisco, China or Panama. Most of those men who make their living off those girls are old thieves and gamblers, and most of them have served terms in prison. There are very few girls who would tell, for those bad men surely would kill them if they found out who gave them away.

"If one girl is a good money-maker, they make her take one of those men to support. They say if she does not do this, she is not respected by their class of people. They take all those poor girls' money every night, and they send them back to work the next day penniless. If they should not make enough for them they are beaten, and sometimes killed.

"When those runners bring us to those houses, they keep us sometimes weeks to teach us what to say in case the police or some one would try to rescue us, and with the threat to kill us if ever we would tell.

"Some one ought to do his duty and make war on those horrid men. They simply take girls for their slaves in all the country. For even if we are weak, some one with courage ought to help us not to be persuaded by those men.

"I am certainly glad that all the men are not bad, that some one takes our part. You can be sure that most of the girls are happy that some one came to make us strong.

[Pg 79]It is well known that some of these brutal traffickers were legally hanged in California for murdering the women on whose earnings they were living.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TRUE STORY OF ESTELLE RAMON OF KENTUCKY.

She is one to be pitied, and not slandered. She was as pure as the air which she breathed in her humble home among the blue hills of the winding Cumberland. "She was light of heart and gay of wing as Eden's garden bird."

John and Amanda Ramon, after they were married, bought a little farm and settled down near the battlefield of Mill Springs. John was one of these great, big, good-looking, honest and hard-working men from the mountains. His wife, Amanda Ramon, was a refined and well educated Kentucky woman and a woman who loved to be with the "society" folks. She loved to wear fine dresses and spent more in this way than her husband could really afford, and this caused him to have to work very hard early and late. He went to clearing and improving his little farm and everybody was talking about what a noble fellow young John Ramon was and how well he seemed to be getting along. His wife did not seem to be satisfied to live in the hills. She wanted John to sell out and move to Somerset.

[Pg 81]Two years passed away on the little farm, and Estelle Ramon was born. John promised Amanda when Estelle grew old enough to attend school that he would sell out and move to town. Years passed on and John Ramon continued to work hard, and by hard work and good management he began to prosper. He built a new house and bought Estelle a piano. His wife still wanted to move to town, but John didn't want to go. He told his wife that he had nothing in town and no work there to do, that they were beginning to get along fairly well and the best thing for them to do was to let well enough alone, and that he wanted her to release him from his promise to move to town, which by the entreaties of Estelle she reluctantly did. John was happy in his home life with his wife and little girl, who had now reached the age of fifteen years. She had from the time she could toddle around been constantly with her father. In the fields making the hay, gathering the crops, seeing after the stock, you would find Estelle and her father always together. After supper she would climb upon her father's knee and he would always tell her some little story to please her. She would ride the horse to the pasture and John would carry her back in his big, strong arms. She was essentially a papa's girl, and her father almost idolized his child. When she was old enough she attended the country school close by and was known as the bright[Pg 82]est pupil in the school. She learned music from her mother, and it was her chief delight to sing and play in the evenings for her parents. She was loved by everybody in the neighborhood, young and old. At an early age she joined the church, and she could always be found in her place in the church and in the Sunday school, first as a pupil of the Sunday school and later on as a teacher of a class of little boys and girls. It was said that in after years every boy and girl in her class became model Christians.

A DIVE "BOUNCER" THRUSTING OUT A MISSIONARY
Every dive has a big, strong man, usually an ex-prizefighter, who keeps order in the place. When a man has spent all his money he is thrown into the street. All "undesirables" are treated the same way, including missionaries.

"DAISY"
The top picture shows a pure, winsome girl of fourteen going to school in a little country town. The bottom one is the same girl who left her home town to take a position in the city. The man she trusted deceived her.

One day a messenger was sent in haste from the schoolhouse to John Ramon's home to tell him to come at once, that Estelle had become violently ill while playing on the school playground. John Ramon turned white and came near fainting, strong man as he was, when this saddest of all news reached him. In a few moments he had hitched up the horses to a carriage and he and his wife were going as fast as the horses could take them to their child, whom they found in a dangerous condition. She was carried in the arms of her father to the carriage and driven home. In a short time the doctor reached the Ramon home and was by the bedside of Estelle. She had been stricken down with typhoid fever. John Ramon, with his life almost gone out of him, waited for the doctor's report from the sick room. When he came out he asked him what were the chances for his child to get well. The doctor told him that she had a severe case[Pg 83] of typhoid fever, and the chances of recovery were against her, but with close attention and nursing she had a chance to get well. John Ramon said, "Doctor, I am willing to take that chance." Day after day and night after night John Ramon sat by the bedside of his child as she lingered between life and death. The doctor would come and shake his head and say, "She is no better." For eight days and nights John Ramon had eaten scarcely anything and slept not a wink. On the evening of the eighth day the doctor came as usual. He told John Ramon that this night would determine whether his child would die or get well, that there would be a change before daylight for better or for worse. After giving John Ramon directions and telling him to wake him up if he saw any change in the child, the doctor lay down to get a much needed rest and some sleep. The clock ticked off the hours and no change came. The clock struck one, two, three. John Ramon had never, during all the long and weary night hours, taken his eyes off his child. There he sat in great trouble and sorrow, watching her. The clock struck three, and Estelle opened her eyes, looked at John Ramon, and said, "Is this you, papa?" He knew that she was better. He rushed into the room where the doctor was sleeping and awoke him. The doctor, not knowing whether the change was for the better or worse, hastened into the sick room and felt of Estelle's pulse and said, "John Ramon, your child is[Pg 84] better, the crisis is passed. She will get well." The joy of John Ramon and his wife could hardly be restrained. The doctor told them that they must be quiet, or they might excite her and make her worse. The crisis had passed and Estelle improved rapidly and was soon able to sit up and ride out with her parents. John and Amanda Ramon were filled with joy and a great weight seemed to be lifted from the whole neighborhood on account of the recovery of Estelle, for she was dearly loved by all who knew her.

On an adjoining farm to John Ramon lived a neighbor by the name of David Scott, as true a man as ever lived among the hills of the Cumberland river. David Scott had one son, William Scott, as noble a lad as ever lived. He was honest, true, and like Estelle, was loved by all. William was just two years older than Estelle, and together they had played from early childhood. During Estelle's sickness no one, unless her parents, seemed more anxious about her than did William Scott. Never a day or night passed but that William Scott called at the Ramon home to inquire about Estelle during the whole time of her illness. After she got well and took her place in the church and the Sunday school William Scott was there too. He thought that there was none like her, and she thought a great deal of him.

One day about three months after Estelle had recovered Mrs. Ramon said to her hus[Pg 85]band, "John, have you noticed that William Scott is showing too much attention to Estelle? I don't like it and we must stop it or the first thing we know he will be coming here to pay his attentions to her. Another thing, I believe that Estelle thinks a good deal of him." "Well, suppose she does," said John Ramon, "is not William a good boy and a good companion for Estelle, or anybody else?" "Yes, I know that he is a good boy, but, if we continue to let Estelle associate with him as she has been doing, the first thing we know he will be thinking of marrying her, and I could not bear the thought of having William Scott for a son-in-law." "I don't suppose there is any danger of our having to lose our Estelle soon, but when she is old enough to marry, I would rather she would marry William Scott than anybody that I know." "What! Estelle marry Bill Scott? I would rather see her dead and buried." "Well, Amanda, what objections can you find to William Scott?" "I have no particular objection to him, but he is not good enough for Estelle. I want her to marry a man who knows how to take her into society. I want her to marry a professional gentleman, and not a greenhorn like William Scott." "Well, Amanda, I don't care so much about Estelle going into what some people please to call 'society,' but I want her to marry a true man who can and will make her life happy. I have no fault to find with William Scott. I know that he is thinking a good deal of Es[Pg 86]telle, and that she thinks quite well of him, and if they should want to get married sometime I am not going to interfere." "You may not interfere, but I tell you now that Estelle shall never marry William Scott." Estelle came in from school, and this ended the conversation. Estelle and William had told each other from childhood that when they got old enough they were going to get married. On Sunday before the conversation between John and Amanda Ramon, William Scott had reminded Estelle of their long ago agreement, and Estelle had told him that they would carry out this agreement some day when they were older. Estelle one day told William that her father liked him, but that her mother hated him and that it would be best that he quit coming to her home. It was on this occasion that William and Estelle plighted each other their love and he told her that nothing but death could ever separate him from her, and that he would, if necessary, give his life for her. In after years they both well remembered these words.

John Ramon continued to work hard and to prosper. One day when he came home from town he told his wife and Estelle that rafting logs down the river was dangerous, and that if anything should happen to him he wanted to leave them a living, and, for this reason, he had his life insured today while in town for $5,000. Heavy rains were falling up the Cumberland and John Ramon was working hard, he and his hired hands, to get the log raft[Pg 87] ready to go down the river and carry his logs to Nashville when the river got high enough.

One evening John learned that a head rise was coming down the Cumberland, and he and all hands were making ready to cut the raft loose and carry it to the saw mills in Nashville as he had been doing year after year. Late on this evening John Ramon kissed his wife and Estelle good-by. He lingered longer than was his custom, and said that somehow he felt uneasy as if something was going to happen. At dark he reached the river and at ten o'clock they heard the head rise coming. The raft was cut loose and the rise struck it and carried it out into the middle of the river. The rushing waters bore down so heavily on the raft that it broke and went to pieces in the middle of the rushing waters. John Ramon became entangled among some of the logs and could not loose himself. He called for help, but no help could reach him in the darkness of the night and the fury of the waters. His voice rang out above the noise of the waters, and he cried out the last words he ever spoke on earth, "William, I'm gone. Promise me that you will take care of Estelle." The voice of William Scott rang out "I swear to you that I will do it." John Ramon went down; others of the crew escaped on logs.

I shall not undertake to describe the great sorrow in the Ramon home when, three days later, the body of John Ramon was found and brought home for burial. Who can tell the[Pg 88] heaviness which bore down upon the heart of Estelle? He was buried, and week after week Estelle would carry flowers and place them upon his grave.

A year now has passed away, and Estelle is seventeen, one of the most loveable and beautiful girls in Southern Kentucky. The death of her father had mellowed her life. She was a woman in ways, if a child in years. William Scott had watched her faithfully as he had promised her father in the hour of his death. Mrs. Ramon yet determined more than ever that Estelle should never marry William Scott. She had set her heart on some professional man for Estelle's husband who knew how to make her a belle of society. She was the only counsellor of her daughter, and in every way did she endeavor to cause her to break with young Scott. She often pictured to her the grand life she might live with some educated gentleman in the highest society; that her beauty and training could and would make her admired by everybody, and that she should not throw her chances away upon Bill Scott. She would never allow Scott to call upon Estelle, and managed to keep Estelle for the most part out of his company.

One day a well-dressed and handsome young man came into the Ramon neighborhood. He gave it out that he was an artist from Cincinnati, Ohio, and had come to make some sketches of the beautiful scenery along the Cumberland. He was polite and gentlemanly[Pg 89] in his manners, a good conversationalist and entertaining. This artist, as he was thought to be, was introduced into the Ramon home and soon became a great favorite of Mrs. Ramon, and he did not fail to show every courtesy and attention to the fair Estelle. This artist soon found out that his success depended, not upon the girl, but upon her mother. He had been telling Mrs. Ramon of the beauty and the accomplishments of her daughter, and how she would shine in society if ever given an opportunity. He did not fail to impress upon her his own importance and society connections. This suited Mrs. Ramon exactly, and she determined to marry Estelle to the artist. He declared to the mother his great and undying love for her daughter, and how it would be the delight of his life to give her the chance in the world to which her beauty so justly entitled her. Little by little did the mother, her child's only adviser, succeed in winning her over to her way of thinking. The artist had declared his love to Estelle herself. She hesitated, and thought of young Scott, whose heart she knew was breaking. Her mother persisted and the artist used his blandishments, and soon it was given out that Estelle Ramon would be married to the Cincinnati artist. When this reached the ears of William Scott, he was nearly prostrated by the terrible blow. He wrote Estelle a letter in which he told her of the promise that he had made to her dying father, and that he was going to keep that[Pg 90] promise. He warned her against marrying this strange young man, of whom she knew nothing. Estelle when she read this letter came near declining to marry the artist. Her own heart told her that William Scott was right, but the artist and the mother persisted. For fear that Estelle would yet refuse to marry the artist, the wedding day was set for the following Sunday. Sunday came, and Estelle, as pale as death, walked out on the floor, and she and the artist were married. How happy was the mother; how sad were Estelle and William Scott!

Soon the Ramon home and all the property were sold, preparatory to taking Estelle and her mother to the city. The $5000 of insurance and the $3000 which the home and other property were sold for were turned over to the artist to invest in a home in the city. Mrs. Ramon was to visit her people for a short while and Estelle and the artist were to go on and make ready the home in the city. On the morning before Estelle left she received a note from William Scott, saying that if ever she needed his assistance she would get it. She and the artist took the train at Somerset, and Estelle Ramon was whirled away to her doom. She was carried to Cincinnati, Ohio, where her husband told her that they would spend a week before looking out for a home. She spent this week in a lodging house in the outskirts of the city. At the end of this week the artist told her that they had better rest up another week[Pg 91] before they began looking around. The second week passed away as the first, and when he tried to put her off again she grew suspicious and became alarmed for the first time. She told him that he must get the home, or that he had to take her back to her mother. He went out and pretty soon came back with a telegram from, he told her, a friend of his in Cleveland, inviting them to visit Cleveland and procure a home there. Reluctantly she went with the artist to Cleveland, where they were met by some one in a closed carriage and driven to a house, which she soon learned was a house of ill-fame. On reaching this place she was carried to a room in a secluded part of the building. Her husband then informed her where she was and that here she would have to remain. That he was done with her, and for her to give his regards to her mother if they ever met again; that he was much obliged to her for the $8000 in cash, and that he wished her a good time with the madam. Estelle fainted, and this devil turned on his heels, walked away and has never been heard of since. The madam knew how to treat girls who fainted, for she had seen them faint in her house before, and she brought Estelle back to consciousness. Who can picture now the horrors which rose up before Estelle? It can not be done, and I must leave it for the imagination of the reader. In vain did Estelle beg and plead to be let go. Useless were her piteous moans for freedom. The madam told her that[Pg 92] she had bought her and paid for her, and that she was going to keep her; that the best thing she could do was to quiet down and submit to her fate willingly, and was informed of what she was expected to do and had to do. The madam told her that she had often paid as much as $100 for pretty girls like her, but that she only had to pay $50 for her by solemnly promising that she would not let her get away. Three months she was confined in this prison. It is beyond the power of man to describe the darkness, the blackness, the fearfulness and the horrors of her life now. Her only hope was the words of William Scott. She knew that he meant every word he said, and would rescue her if possible. How could he find her, was the question she would ask herself in her despair. Yet she hoped against hope that in some way or other he would find her.

Three months had passed away and the mother of Estelle had heard no tidings of her child. She was wild, she was frantic, she was mad. The terrible strain had been more than she could bear. She became a maniac, and in her ravings she would call for Estelle to come back to her. She would talk of nothing but Estelle. Amanda Ramon had destroyed her own life and the life of her child.

Where is William Scott, the child playmate, the youthful lover of Estelle, the one who promised to defend her?

William Scott had believed that the "artist"[Pg 93] was a scoundrel the first time he laid eyes on him. No sooner had suspicions of foul play been aroused in the neighborhood than young Scott took the train for Cincinnati. There he employed a detective to aid him in his search for Estelle. After one week of close search in every part of the city, the place was found where the "artist" and Estelle boarded during their two weeks' stay in Cincinnati. Where they went could not be learned from any source, so well had the "artist" covered up his tracks. He advertised for her in the newspapers and secured the services of detectives in several cities. He concluded after a search of two months that she had been killed or taken to New York City, and perhaps across the ocean to some foreign country. His money was by this time all gone. He wrote home to his father and told him to see his friends and the friends of Estelle and send him money with which to continue the search, for he intended to find her, if alive. The money was raised immediately and sent to William Scott. He next went to New York, where he spent day after day and night after night in searching for the lost girl, but with a sad heart he had to give it up, for not the remotest clew could he get. He resolved to go back to Cincinnati and see if he could find out anything more about her in the neighborhood where she spent the two weeks. He learned nothing new and had almost lost all hope. One night while sitting in the lobby of a hotel he overheard a conver[Pg 94]sation between two gamblers. One of them was telling the other about being in Cleveland and at a certain place where he met the most beautiful girl that he ever saw. He went on to describe her to the other gambler, and wound up by telling him that she fought like a tiger, and showed him the scratches which he said this girl had made on his face with her finger nails. The description given by one of these gamblers to the other was that of Estelle. William Scott later said that he could hardly keep from killing this man then and there in the hotel. Young Scott took the first train for Cleveland, not daring to seek further information from the gambler. He was fully convinced that Estelle was in a house of ill-fame in that city. By this time he had learned that it would not do him any good to tell his troubles to the police, for some of them would be more likely to help the madam secrete the girl than to help him get her away. On reaching Cleveland, he determined to tell no one of his mission or why he was there. He determined to form his own plans and carry them out. He felt sure that he and Estelle were now in the same city and the thought almost made him wild. He knew that if she was in a house of ill-fame she was there against her will and was forced to remain there. He determined to visit every house of prostitution in the city or find her.

The third night of his rounds he visited one of these houses and was admitted into the parlor. The madam came in and asked him if he[Pg 95] wished to see some of the girls. He told her that he would not object if she had one real pretty. She told him that the girls were all out now except one she called the "fighting girl from the country." He told her that he didn't guess that she was much of a fighter and that he didn't mind her fighting. He could hardly control his feelings. He paid the madam $5 and went upstairs. "What if she screams when she sees me and gives the whole thing away?" thought young Scott to himself. He felt sure that she was Estelle, and that he was going to meet her now. The door was unlocked, and he entered. She had dozed off into a sleep. He locked the door and waited till the hall was clear before waking her. He turned on the light, looked into her face. She was Estelle! He pulled two revolvers out of his pockets and laid them where they would be handy, for he had resolved to take her out of this place this night or die in the attempt. The light shone on her face and showed him how pale and troubled she looked. He could see the great sorrows of her soul written in her face as she lay there sleeping. He bent over her, touched her face and whispered, "It is William Scott, from Mill Springs, Kentucky, who has come to take you home. For your life, don't make any noise." She opened her eyes and saw him and knew him and fainted away from joy. He bathed her face and soon returning consciousness came to her. She realized at once how necessary it was for her to[Pg 96] keep quiet. They held a whispered conversation as to how to escape. He did not want to raise any scene, for this might lead to his arrest and defeat all his plans of getting away. He determined to steal her out of the house quietly and get away. He opened the door to see if there was any one in the hall, as there was no chance to escape through a window from the room. He went out in the hall and carefully locked the door behind him so as to make no noise. He then went to a window at the far end of the hall; it was open. He went back to the room and tied some bed covers and sheets together and they went out again, locked the door as before, went to this window and tied one end of the sheet and covers to a radiator and threw them out. Estelle went down and he followed. In the alley where they landed it was dark and they were soon out of sight of this building. He told her that he was afraid to take her to the depot in the city, so they walked on in the darkness till they came to the railroad. They took down this road and walked till they reached the next station, some miles away, reaching it just a few minutes before the southbound train came along. Here they took the train for Cincinnati and for home. Who could tell of the joy which Estelle now felt on being rescued from her prison house, from the worst slavery ever known to the world? At Cincinnati William Scott and Estelle took the train for Somerset and soon reached home. Great joys oftentimes have[Pg 97] great sorrows, and such awaited Estelle. William had not told her about her mother on the trip home. He knew that she would learn it soon enough. Mrs. Ramon's people thought, perhaps, if Estelle could be found, that she might come to her right mind, but such was not to be. Soon after the marriage of Estelle and William Scott Mrs. Ramon died in an insane asylum.

CHAPTER VII.

OUR SISTER OF THE STREET.

Note—Miss Dedrick is rescue missionary for the Moody Church, Chicago. She is devoting her life to the visitation and rescue of sinful women in Chicago. She is heart and soul in the work and has been wonderfully blessed in her efforts.

When asked to write for you, giving some of the experiences in the work of rescue of our sisters of the street, and those who are victims of the white slave traffic, I was more than glad of the opportunity of sharing this burden which God has laid so heavily on my heart. I will treat of conditions as I have found them in the underworld of Chicago.

Are we going to let the white slave traffic have free and undisputed sway without a word of protest, blighting and ruining the homes in this fair land of liberty and freedom? Are we in Illinois, the State that sent Abraham Lincoln forth as leader in the conflict for freedom of the slaves of the south, going to let an evil, worse, yea, far worse than that ever was, or could be, exist and triumph, and not rise up in arms against it?

"THE GILDED LIFE" AS IT REALLY IS
All the fresh air these poor slaves get is in the back yard of the dives, which is full of refuse, and where they are watched by colored attendants

"COME WITH ME, SISTER—THERE IS HOPE FOR ALL"
One who has answered the cry, "For God's sake, do something"

[Pg 99]The question, what are we doing for our sisters came up as far back as Solomon's time, but has an answer been found? No! It was only when Jesus met the woman at the well did a new life open up for our unfortunate sisters. I plead with you do not draw away your skirts for fear of contamination. Remember, the Master Himself allowed a fallen woman to wash His feet with her tears and wipe them with the hairs of her head. It was a fallen woman who was first to see the omissions and deficiencies of hospitality forgotten by others. Are not fallen women included within the scope of the Master's great commission?

A woman may fall lower than a man, but this is due to her sensitive moral nature. With the conviction that she is past redemption, doors closed, no one loving her, people, yes, her own sex, ostracizing her—she becomes hopeless, desperate, reckless. Can you blame her? Again, let me recall to your mind, Jesus Himself forgave and renewed repentant ones. Even when a woman had fallen to the depths of sin and degradation He still called her "woman."

Not every girl who leads a life of sin and shame is by any means a white slave in the full sense of the word, as the white slave traffic exists, though truly a slave she is, for God is no respecter of persons and the same judgment will be hers unless she hastens home to Father's House, where room and to spare and warm wel[Pg 100]come awaits her. Not many open doors await her in this world.

An example of this is found in the case of a young girl in Mississippi who, ruined, went from door to door to find someone who would befriend her. Some have one excuse, some another. All said: "We cannot take you in." Tired, discouraged, only one door open, and that the brothel, to which she went.

It is said in one city of half a million people, as reported through the press, they determined to expel 1,500 fallen girls from the city, without offering them a place to go. When brought before the authorities, between sobs and tears, these girls said: "Where can we go, no homes, money, nor friends?" The reply was: "I cannot tell you, but you must leave here."

Many ask: "Who are these girls who go astray?"—having an idea that it is only the ignorant class who are down in sin. It is not so, and let me undeceive everyone on this point, though many, many of the ignorant class do go astray also. Satan is claiming our best, our VERY best girls of education, refinement, advantages and religious training. In one of the most notorious and elegant resorts, known as the ———— in the red light district of Chicago, there are college girls, who have had every advantage. Only lately, as I have done personal work there, did I learn that these very girls were at times in such despair as to threaten to commit suicide.

Within a few blocks of Moody Church was a[Pg 101] girl, an elocutionist, a musician, a sweet, stately girl of refinement, whose home has been in a house of shame for the last five or six years.

Some girls come to me when in these resorts and say: "I used to sing in Moody Church Choir." Others will tell you they went through every department of the Sunday school, some were Sunday school teachers. Members of almost every Church you will find among them. When these facts are considered one cannot help but realize the need for action. Satan has entered our churches, as well as every other place. It is only recently that our churches have opened to workers to even speak on this subject, but thank God, they are gladly beginning to do so, since they see danger staring them in the face. The time for prudishness, false modesty, indelicacy is over; too long has Satan been aided in his onward march in this way.

A sad incident occurred in one of our West Side churches. Seven or eight boys, whom everyone considered pure, were found, upon investigation, to have caused the ruin of thirteen girls. One girl, in telling me how she had been led astray said she had only been getting $3.50 a week. Seeing an advertisement for experienced workers at $5.00, she answered it. For two weeks they kept it from her that she was in a house of shame.

A problem that must be met is the preservation of our American homes. Let me quote from Mr. Moody: "Intemperance comes as a[Pg 102] blight upon one family in seven, but the evil of impurity threatens seven times as many families, that is all of them." There are hundreds of towns and villages where it is impossible to get a drink of liquor of any kind, while on the other hand there is not a single town, hamlet or community of any size where the evil of impurity does not exist to a greater or less degree.

There must be co-operation on the part of the state, the home and the church. What we need is a practical salvation, something more than saying: "Be ye saved." The church can do what the state cannot, and vice versa. Not only present, but future generations are in danger. Vice and crime are being flaunted, as it were, and advertised in our very faces. Every man, woman and child has a place in the battle.

It is girls whose ages are from 13 to 22 who are going astray, even as young as 9 years; deceived, betrayed, led away, through wiles of abominable men, whose business is to traffic in girls. Since living in Chicago, many girls I have known gave birth to little ones at the ages of 13, 14 and 15.

Let me give some figures: During the month of May alone in the two syphilitic wards in Cook County Hospital, 140 men and 32 women passed through. In Twenty-second Street Red Light district, by police enumeration a few months ago, there were 1,100 girls living lives of prostitution, farther South, 1,200, mak[Pg 103]ing a total of 2,300. This is appalling, and yet this does not take in the whole city.

As many of you know, as far as can be learned, the average buying price of a girl is $15.00. She may be sold for $200.00. If specially attractive, anywhere from $400.00 to $600.00.

The conscience of these girls is by no means dead. Upon giving one my card in the hospital, she said: "If I had only known it before; many tell me about being a Christian, and another world, but I never could understand it."

The cry of another sinsick girl was, amid sobs and tears: "Oh! it is awful and sin has done it."

Oh, Christian women, mothers, give recognition to the fact; yes, welcome it, that a fallen woman can be saved, and extend to her sympathy, encouragement and love!

These girls are reached, not only through resorts, but in our city prisons, police stations, courts, hospitals, and elsewhere. The rescue homes are doing a noble work, especially Beulah Home, Salvation Army Home and others. The Girls' Refuge, where the Juvenile Court cases are taken, has girls of all ages up to 18 and 19—at present 140 girls are there under Christian influence.

The superintendent of a rescue home recently asked 200 girls who were there how many had been warned as to temptation and danger by their mothers—not one had, only in a few instances had they been told to be good while[Pg 104] they were gone. Another sad fact, and, oh, how hard to admit, is that a girl receives the most discouragement from her own sex, and with this censure and criticism, is it any wonder our sisters do not have any drawing toward Christianity?

One word of warning to Christian workers. Many take money from these resorts, going in with the sole object of getting money, by selling papers, or taking money when offered them.

One night, as I started to talk to a girl, she offered me money, and, as I refused, she seemed quite surprised. I told her I was not doing the work for money, I was interested in her soul's welfare only. She said: "How is it some of you Christians come in here and take our tainted money?" Oh, workers, remember the Gospel is without money and without price! Do not forget these girls, down as they are in sin, they are watching OUR lives, and it is this that counts for most.

Especially let me say: "The girls of today are the mothers of the morrow, and as in the life and influence of mother rests the making of men and nations, let us, with God's help, save the girls." Knowing the price of a single soul, the burden of my heart is, that the minds of our American people may be so stirred and awakened to the existing causes of evils that are engulfing our girls, that we will each take our part, appoint ourselves as a committee of one, to do all we can to stamp out this mon[Pg 105]strous soul scourge, and hinder and stop its further progress.

WHAT ARE THE DANGERS OF CITY LIFE FOR A COUNTRY GIRL?

After an experience in rescue missionary work for women and girls, not only in this city but in New York City and Boston, there is one conclusion which I am forced to come to and more and more is becoming an undeniable fact.

It is this, that our country girls are in more danger from white slave traders than city girls. Were I alone in making this statement, I should not hesitate for one moment in what I have to say, but others agree with me in this, among them being United States District Attorney Sims, who has written much on the subject of white slavery. One reason for reaching this conclusion comes from the personal hand-to-hand and heart-to-heart touch with these girls themselves. The country girl is more open to the enticements of city life, being more truthful, perfectly innocent and unsuspecting of those whose business it is to seek their prey from girls of this class.

A girl reared in the country is not taught to suspect everyone she meets, unless a rare occurrence presents itself, and when involuntarily the defense instinct asserts itself. While, on the other hand, the city girl has had it drilled into her, as it were, from the time she could walk, that she must regard people with distrust, not speaking to strangers anywhere, ac[Pg 106]cepting nothing from anyone, her own people being the only ones she should make confidants of.

Mr. Sims says: "There is a definite but undefined danger in the very atmosphere of the city for the girl or young woman, which demands a constant and protective alertness, while on the other hand, life in the rural districts is comparatively free and unrestrained." Again he states, and through his investigation of the white slave traffic has reached the conclusion, that the best and the surest way for parents of girls in the country to protect them from the clutches of the white slaver is to keep them in the country.

While this may be the safest, surest, easiest course to take, it would not be advisable in all cases, for many girls have an ambition and aim in life, which they are seeking to attain, and the city offers advantages for this development which the country does not, and we should not seek to put obstacles in her way, but to protect her in carrying out her purpose in life.

But if circumstances should seem to compel a change from country to city, the only safe way is for parents to accompany their girls and see them settled, though this would have its disadvantages, as many parents are just as ignorant as their children regarding the perils of city life.

A TIMELY WARNING.

Parents who do not believe in the warnings given on these lines but say, as many do, "Wait, time enough when they are older, then let them find out for themselves; experience is the best teacher," should remember this: Ignorance is not innocence, and it is but the preface to the book of vice. To parents is given the first and greatest opportunity of fortifying their children with the true armor of knowledge and purity.

More than one girl with whom I have talked in resorts in the Red Light district, when questioned as to how they came there, would say, "Oh, mother thinks I am working, a good position." I have said, "Does she not ask you?" "Oh, no, mother never questions me much," and in many cases they would say, "I send money home and"—think of it—"that has satisfied mother."

WHAT IS HER MOTIVE FOR CITY LIFE?

There comes a time in nearly every girl's life when her cry is to go to the city, and I think I can speak from personal experience here. It may be necessary through force of circumstances, or to develop herself along the line of her cherished ambition, or a thirst for knowledge. If it is to satisfy the desire for mere personal happiness and enjoyment and craving for excitement, I say, "Beware!" for here it is many slip and are lost.

[Pg 108]She sees no danger, even though some warnings may be given, it is hard for her to realize that she, herself, will be in danger, she will tell you that she is able to take care of herself, forgetting her surroundings will be vastly different. She finally sees the danger when, alas, too late. I found an instance of this in a resort where a dear girl said one night, "we are the fools. It's a broad door to come in but so narrow to get out of here."

A HIDDEN DANGER.

The danger begins the moment a girl leaves the protection of Home and Mother. One of these dangers, and one that seems to be well nigh impossible for parents to realize, is the fact that there are watchers or agents, who may be either men or women, at our steamboat landings, railroad stations, everywhere, who seek attractive girls evidently unused to city ways, try to make their acquaintance, using inducements and deception of every conceivable kind, offers of helpfulness, showing her every kindness.

I remember so well one dear girl whom I found in Cook County Hospital, brought there from a brothel, sold, led away, deceived, from another town, on the promise of work, who said to me, "Every one in Chicago deceives you. No one told me the truth until I met you. You are the first real friend I could trust."

Girls are offered refreshments, either to eat or drink. Many are secured in this way and[Pg 109] the girl has realized when too late, her refreshing drink was drugged, and she is a victim, a prisoner, and her life ruined.

HUNGRY FOR A LITTLE COMPANIONSHIP.

After coming to the city, homesickness may overtake a girl and even if in some cases warnings have been given, she may forget, throw off restraint and pour out her heart freely to those of whom she knows nothing, but in this unguarded moment the mischief is done.

One little realizes the longing in a girl's heart, who is alone in a big city. The following incident brings out this point:

In a brothel one night I was talking with a girl who was playing with a little pet dog. As I continued to talk to her, all at once she said looking into the dog's face, then into mine, "This is the only friend I have and if I feel blue and discouraged, he will climb into my lap and try to comfort me."

Another danger still, and a serious one, is our lodging houses of today, many of which are houses of shame, hidden from public eye. Let a girl just coming to the city beware of these for in many, many instances, I am very sure, it is just such an existence, no home life. Coming in tired, lonely, no one cares about you, you may live or die and few would know it, so to speak, unless you were in a Christian home, which are only too scarce in the lodging house business, though thank God for some. Unpro[Pg 110]tected she is here, not knowing who lives in the next room to her.

Boarding or rooming rather in one place, taking meals in another, is a great danger and one which her mother should guard against. Boarding houses are not much of an improvement, though in many cases a little more home life.

Another evil and serious danger, and only another of Satan's waiting rooms, is the entertaining of gentlemen friends in her room—true, this little room is the only place she has—and here is one of the birthplaces to immorality and temptation constantly before her. Much danger might be avoided if every lodging house had a parlor where a girl could have some home life and entertain her friends occasionally.

Oh, may the parents who read this, make sure your child has Christian influence and surroundings. It may cost you extra money to do it, but better far to cost you something than to have her life blasted and ruined.

DANGEROUS AMUSEMENTS.

Without a moment's hesitation, I would say after much investigation, one curse of our land today is five-cent theaters. Many nights have I worked outside of these, and investigated inside, and have seen these pictures not possible to describe in words, and have seen children mere babies, of every age, flocking in and out of these theaters, many of them with older people or guardians with them, many entirely[Pg 111] alone. More harm is done here in one night than could be undone in years.

Ice cream parlors of the city and fruit stores, in many cases combined, largely run by foreigners, are where scores of girls have taken their first step downward. Mr. Sims states that he believes the ice cream parlor even in the large country town is often a recruiting station and feeder for the white slave traffic.

Do not get the idea that we mean that all of these are connected with white slavery, but some of them are and wise parents should be careful on these points.

There are restaurants selling wines and liquors where many young girls go as waitresses, which hold dangers for any girl.

Also, let me say here a word in warning. Look out for the signs Satan is putting up all over our cities like this: "Ladies Entrance," "Family Entrance," which has been the "entrance" of many a precious girl to a life of sin.

The amusement parks are now becoming a serious menace to our young people. Shut up in a small room, hot and stifling, a girl gladly accepts the chance for an outing. All over these places Satan has his agents stationed, seeking victims.

Advertisements are another temptation in store for the country girl. It is in these days the devil's own invention, such alluring, attractive offers.

One girl told me she owed it to this that she was a "white slave." She said she saw an ad[Pg 112]vertisement in the paper for experienced servants for $5.00 per week. She was only getting $3.50.

She went and found out to her sorrow after a few days that she was a prisoner in a house of shame.

A life full of subtle and fierce temptation is the life of a stenographer and oh, how many here are led astray by those who should protect them. One will say, "What is a girl to do? From all you have said, she would not dare to go anywhere."

One of the most fascinating allurements of city life to many a young girl is the dance-hall, which is truly the ante-room to hell itself. Here indeed, is the beginning of the white slave traffic in many instances. A girl may in her country home have danced a little, but here, 'mid the blazing lights, gaiety and so-called happiness, she enters. She is told she is awkward and will become more graceful, no harm in it. You know the rest.

Had I a daughter or a sister, one of the places I would warn her against when going to the city would be some of our large department stores, not all, thank God, but alas, too many of them.

Many girls have a great desire and ambition to work in a store in the city. Unless it were a positive, absolute necessity, I would never allow her to do it, unless I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she possessed great strength of character. I hesitated in writing[Pg 113] this but I felt I must or God would, indeed, hold me responsible, for parents have no idea of the girls who are ruined behind counters.

When told the small salaries they will receive and a girl says, "Oh, I cannot live on that," the answer is, "We will see to that, we will provide another way for your support," and there is begun the downward career.

Fathers, mothers, did you ever stop and ask yourselves, how can these girls dress themselves the way they are required to nowadays in these stores and do it honorably on the salary that many of them receive? It will bear investigation.

A serious cause for the downfall of many girls is the small wages which so-called Christians are paying, which is barely enough for mere existence.

One father, not long ago, after some striking warnings, wrote saying he had been aroused to inquire after his little girl, her letters had been more and more infrequent, he was a trifle anxious, and wished her address looked up.

At a glance it was known at once where the girl was, the location being the center of Chicago's Red Light district.

When rescued, it was a girl with a blighted, pitifully wasted life, a sad return, indeed, to the old home. Once a pretty, pure, innocent girl. I find a majority of girls gone astray are from the country towns, villages and hamlets. There is need for the small communities to awake.

It is through the lack of education of the[Pg 114] fathers and mothers along these lines, particularly in the rural districts, that Satan has been aided in his onward evil march. Some one has said, "No reform will ever be successful till people know the truth." Until then there will be no decrease in vice.

The closed door of a father's home is the reason why many go deeper down in sin. A sad mistake here many parents make, refusing forgiveness, when your child may have made just one mistake. Are all parents following the example Jesus Christ set before us?

There is a point in a girl's downward career, just at the beginning, that she may be rescued on the rebound, as it were, and untold suffering saved her, for she is very tender at this time and easily influenced.

An instance of this and the steps by which a girl travels downward is found in that of a very dear, sweet girl, brought up in a Christian home, whom I found recently. Trouble at home a year and a half ago and she left. Her father forgave her and corresponded with her. The mother would not. She worked about a year with a prominent firm, then in a department store. Through illness, she lost her position. Tempted in different ways, going to a high class wine room, so-called, then on the stage as a chorus girl. She did not enjoy it; suffered all the time. Finally, through God's own way, lost this place. Found her in the hospital, weak, but able to leave, but nowhere to go but to hotel life. I took her to friends and[Pg 115] a happier girl you would seldom find, especially to receive a letter from mother telling her to come home. She could scarcely wait and her one cry was "to see my mother." We were able to have her return to her home in one of the neighboring states. Rescued just at the danger point, not a bad girl, but naturally innocent, unused to these hard experiences.

Some will say, "What is a girl to do? Must she be deprived of all pleasure? For from what you have said, it is not safe for a girl anywhere."

I do not wish to hinder any girl from attaining her desire and ambition, or having pleasure, but I do say with all the force I can command, that all these things spoken of, yes, and many, many more, are all serious and great dangers which when a girl is just starting out in life, ignorant of all this, if unguarded against, will be her ruin.

Discretion and wisdom must be used, and if so, there are plenty of places where a girl can find amusement which is pure, holy, elevating and uplifting. Most of the danger is hidden and our object is to bring to light these secret lurking places and expose them to the gaze of an alarming public. Many go through safely in answer to mother's prayers, warnings, advice, and careful watching of dear ones, thus being firmly established in character and morality. If one seeks to walk with their whole heart "in the straight and narrow way," these dangers will be avoided.

ON THE STREET.

CHAPTER VIII.

MORE ABOUT THE TRAFFIC IN SHAME.

By Mrs. Ophelia Amigh, Superintendent of the Illinois Training School for Girls.

One of the most disheartening things in the work of protecting innocent girls and restoring to useful lives those who have been betrayed from the path of right living is the blind incredulity of a very large part of the public. There are hundreds of thousands of women in the homes of this country who know as little of what is going on in the world, so far as the safety of their daughters is concerned, as so many children. They are almost marvelously ignorant of the terrible conditions all about them—and all about their children, too.

Of course, their blindness to these awful actualities makes them more comfortable, for the time being, than they could possibly be if awake to the perils which beset the feet of their daughters and the daughters of their friends and neighbors. But there is no permanency to this sort of peace—and thousands of mothers of this class are annually brought to their senses and recalled to earth by discovering that their own daughters have made the fatal misstep and have passed under the brand of[Pg 118] the pariah. The awakening of such parents comes too late, generally, to do much good. Not always, but in a majority of cases. Many, many times after I have related to a casual woman visitor the simple details of a typical "case" brought here to the State Home, the caller has exclaimed: "How terrible! I didn't dream that such things were going on in the world!"

Now, if you had something of great value which needed to be protected day and night, would you select for such a task a blind watchman? or one who was firmly possessed of the idea that there was really no danger, no occasion for watchfulness? Certainly not! There is nothing in the world of such priceless value to a father or a mother as the honor, the purity, the good character of a daughter. No parent will possibly question this statement. And still there are many thousands of parents entrusted by Providence with the safe-keeping of this priceless treasure who are themselves in the position of discharging that great responsibility with closed eyes, with dull ears and with a childish belief that there is no real peril threatening the safety of their daughters! These parents do not live on earth, their heads are in the clouds and their ears are filled with the cry of "'Peace! Peace!' when there is no peace."

As one whose daily duty it is to deal with wayward and fallen girls, as one who has had to dig down into the sordid and revolting de[Pg 119]tails of thousands of these sad cases (for I have spent the best part of my life in this line of work) let me say to such mothers:

In this day and age of the world no young girl is safe! And all young girls who are not surrounded by the alert, constant and intelligent protection of those who love them unselfishly are in imminent and deadly peril. And the more beautiful and attractive they are the greater is their peril!

The first and most vital step for the protection of the girls who walk in this path of pitfalls is to arouse the sleeping watchmen who are, by reason of their parenthood, responsible for the safekeeping of their daughters. This is why the "White Slave" articles by Hon. Edwin W. Sims and others, which have been published in the Woman's World, have done great good. They have stirred to a sense of alarm thousands of parents who were asleep in a false sense of security. If they accomplish nothing beyond this they will fully have justified their publication.

But it is evident that they will also result in the enactment of much needed legislation, of laws which will make it easier to convict and punish those who live from this foul traffic in the shame of girls whose natural protectors are asleep in this false sense of security. Of course, practically every state has some laws against that traffic—but I do not know of any state in which the laws now on the statute[Pg 120] books are adequate to deal with the situation as it should be dealt with.

One of the things which comfortable and trusting parents seem to find especially hard to believe is the point upon which both United States District Attorney Sims and his assistant, Mr. Parkin, have placed so much stress—the existence of an active and systematic traffic in girls. There is no safety for the daughter of any parents who are not awake and alive to the actuality of this fact!

It is one of the satisfactions of my life to reflect that I have been one of the agents in sending a dozen—perhaps more—persons to the penitentiary for participating in this traffic.

The dragnets of the inhuman men and women who ply this terrible trade are spread day and night and are manipulated with a skill and precision which ought to strike terror to the heart of every careless or indifferent parent. The wonder is not that so many are caught in this net, but that they escape! I count the week—I might almost say the day—a happy and fortunate one which does not bring to my attention as an officer of the state a deplorable case of this kind.

Just to show how tightly and broadly the nets of these fishers for girls are spread, let me tell of an instance which occurred from this institution:

This girl, whom I will call Nellie, is a very ordinary looking girl and below the average of intelligence, but as tractable and obedient[Pg 121] as she is ingenuous. She is wholly without the charm which would naturally attract the eye of the white slave trader.

Because of her quietness, her obedience and her good disposition, she was, in accordance with the rules of the institution, permitted to go into the family of a substantial farmer out in the west and work as a housemaid, a "hired girl"—her wages to be deposited to her credit against the time when she should reach the age of twenty-one and leave the Home.

She had been in her position for some time and was so quiet and satisfactory that one Sunday when the family were not going to church the mistress said:

"Nellie, if you wish to go to church alone you may do so. The milk wagon will be along shortly and you can ride on that to the village—and here is seventy-five cents. You may want to buy your dinner and perhaps some candy."

When Nellie reached town and was on her way past the railroad station to the church, the train for Chicago came in, and the impulse seized her to get aboard, go to the city and look up her father, whom she had not seen for several months. She went to the city and had hardly stepped from the train into the big station when she heard a man's voice saying: "Why, hello, Mary!"

[Pg 122]"You look the very picture," he responded, "of a girl I know well whose name is Mary—and she's a fine girl, too! Are any of your folks here to meet you?"

"No," she answered. "My father's here in the city, somewhere, but he doesn't know I'm coming. I've been working out in the country for a long time and I didn't write him about coming back."

Her answers were so ingenuous and revealing that the man saw that he had an easy and simple victim to deal with. Therefore his tactics were very direct.

"It's about time to eat," he suggested, "and I guess we're both hungry. You go to a restaurant and eat with me and perhaps I can help you to find your father quicker than you could do it alone."

She accepted, and in the course of the meal he asked her if she would not like to find a place at which to work. "I know of a fine place in Blank City," he added. "The woman is looking for a good girl just like you."

"Yes, I'd be pleased to get the place, but I haven't any money to pay the fare with," was her answer.

"Oh, that's all right," he quickly replied. "I'll buy your ticket and give you a little money besides for a cab and other expenses. The woman told me to do that if I could find her a girl. She'll send me back a check for it all."

After he had bought the ticket and put her aboard the train going to Blank City, he wrote[Pg 123] the name of the woman to whom he was sending her, gave her about $2 extra and then delivered this fatherly advice to her:

"You're just a young girl and it's best for you not to talk to anybody on the train or after you get off. Don't show this paper to anybody or tell anybody where you're going. It isn't any of their business, anyway. And as soon as you get off the train you'll find plenty of cabs there. Hand your paper to the first cab driver in the line, get in and ride to Mrs. A——'s home. Pay the driver and then walk in."

Believing that she was being furnished a position by a remarkably kind man, the poor girl followed his directions implicitly—and landed the next day in one of the most notorious houses of shame in the state of Illinois outside of Chicago. How she was found and rescued is a story quite apart from the purpose which has led me to tell of this incident—that of indicating how tightly the slave traders have their nets spread for even the most ordinary and unattractive prey. They let no girl escape whom they dare to approach!

It may be well and to the point to add, however, that two other girls who had been in care of the State Home were found to be in the same house to which the girl had been lured, and they were also recovered.

Almost at the beginning of my experience I received a penciled note which I have kept on my desk as a stimulus to my energies and[Pg 124] my watchfulness along the line of checkmating the work of the white slavers. It is very brief and terse—but what a story it tells! Here is a copy of it—with the substitution of a fictitious name:

"Ellen Holmes has been sold for $50.00 to Madame Blank's house at —— Armour avenue."

The statement was true—and the man who sold her and the woman who bought her were both sent to the state penitentiary as a penalty for the transaction!

Another fact which the public finds hard to believe—especially the public of mothers—is that girls who are lured into the life of shame find it impossible to make their escape, and that they are prisoners and slaves in every sense of the word. I recall one instance of a girl from a good home who had fallen into the hands of a white slave trader and been sold to a house in the red-light district. Her people were frantic over her disappearance and made every possible effort to locate her, but without success. Several months after the excitement and publicity aroused by her disappearance died away, a newsboy who had delivered papers at her home—which was in a very good residence district of the city—happened to be passing along a cross street of the red-light section—just on the fringe of it, in fact. Suddenly he heard a tap on the window, looked up and saw[Pg 125] the anxious face of the lost girl. Then she disappeared.

Knowing the story of her strange disappearance, he hurried straight to her home and told of his experience. Instantly the father secured officers and the little newsboy led the posse back to the house, in the window of which he had caught a glimpse of her face. They raided the place and rescued the girl. The story of the terrible treatment which she had received cannot be told here. It is enough to say that she had been held as a captive, imprisoned as much as any inmate of a penitentiary is imprisoned, and that if the friendly newsboy had not happened to pass as he did, the window from which she was looking out, she would undoubtedly be there today or in some other similar prison of shame through the process of exchange.

One other matter in this connection needs to come in for clear and decisive emphasis: the fact that the runaway marriage is the favorite device of the white slaver for landing victims who could not otherwise be entrapped. These alleged summer resorts and excursion centers which are well advertised as Gretna Greens, and as places where the usual legal and official formalities preliminary to respectable marriage are reduced to a minimum, are star recruiting stations for the white slave traffic. I have never seen this point brought out with any degree of clearness in any article, and I earnestly urge all mothers to give this statement the[Pg 126] most serious consideration, and never to allow a daughter to go to one of these places on an excursion or under any pretext whatever, unless accompanied by some older member of the family. And even then there is something unwholesome and contaminating in the very atmosphere of such a place.

Do you think that I overstate the perils of places of this kind? Of these gay excursion centers, these American Gretna Greens? I hesitate to say how many girls I have had under my care who were enticed into a "runaway marriage" at these places—and then promptly sold into white slavery by the men whom they had married, the men who married them for no other purpose than to sell them to the houses of the red-light district and live in luxury from the proceeds of their shame.

Let every mother teach her daughter that the man who proposes an elopement, a runaway marriage, is not to be trusted for an instant, and puts himself under suspicion of being that most loathsome of all things in human form—a white slave trader!

CHAPTER IX.

THE TRAFFIC IN GIRLS.

By Charles Nelson Crittenton, President of the National Florence Crittenton Mission.

Twenty-six years ago in New York City when I first began to feel an interest in unfortunate girls and established the first Florence Crittenton Home, now known as the Mother Mission, one of the things which surprised and impressed me most in coming close in touch with the subject, was that almost every girl that I met in a house of sin was supporting some man from her ill-gotten earnings. Either the man was her husband, who had driven her on the street in order that he might live in luxury and ease, or else he was her paramour, upon whom with a woman's self-forgetful devotion she delighted to shower everything that she could earn. In addition to this form of slavery I also found that the majority had to pay a certain percentage of their earnings to some individual or organization who had promised them immunity from arrest and to whom they looked for protection.

These were well recognized facts. Every policeman and every judge of the police court knew the true conditions and no one thought of denying them. Although frequently the[Pg 128] poor girls would be kept at their trade by slaps and blows and threats of death, the authorities would contend that they were "willing slaves" and that they therefore deserved no consideration or sympathy.

But when we began to get closer to the hearts of the girls, to know their true history, we discovered that the commencement of this form of slavery had been even in a baser form—that before the girls had become so-called "willing slaves" they were "unwilling slaves." Many of them had fought for their liberty and had submitted only because they had been overcome by superior force. Some of them had been drugged; others kept under lock and key until such time when either their better nature had been drugged into unconsciousness or hardened into a devil-may-care recklessness. Some had had their clothes taken from them, others had been cajoled into quietness by promise of great rewards or by intimidation, which with this young and inexperienced class is one of the most potent methods. But when we, who knew, made these statements, people began to think those interested in the welfare of these girls were going too far, that no such conditions existed. They pointed to the fact that it was beyond human possibility. Many times in those early days, when I would talk to my friends and business associates and tell them of the conditions which existed in New York City, although upon ordinary subjects they had the greatest respect for my truthful[Pg 129]ness and conservativeness, having known me in business for a good many years, they would look at me with pity for my misguided opinions. While they would mildly express unbelief at my statement to my face, when they got behind my back they would shake their heads and say, "Crittenton has gone crazy, do you know he even believes now that girls are held in slavery in New York City, against their wills, for immoral purposes."

But I have been familiar with so many cases of this form of slavery that they are too numerous even to recall. I remember well one night, being on one of the streets in lower New York, when a girl came down a flight of steps leading from a disreputable house where rooms were rented. At the foot of the steps stood a man waiting to receive her earnings. As she stepped upon the pavement in full light of the gas above the entrance, she handed him the money. He looked at it, and finding it was less than he expected or needed, with a terrible oath he felled her to the ground and said, "I will show you how to bring me such a little amount of money as this, you ought to have gotten a great deal more."

Among those who came to take shelter at the Florence Crittenton Home in those early days were beautiful twins, not sixteen years old, from a country village. We called them "Mary and Martha." Both of them had been brought to New York under a promise of marriage and sold into a life of sin. We did all we could to[Pg 130] free them from their masters, but it was impossible. They were determined that they would not be robbed of their prey which was so valuable a financial investment. Time and time again they were hunted down by their masters and lost their positions through the interference of these men. In two years one of the girls died from the mistreatment and shame she had endured. It is not unusual for me to see the other one in New York whenever I am there, still under the bondage of her so-called husband, and for her to tell me that it is no use trying to escape. Long since she has given up all hope, and that she expects to die where she is, earning money to supply her master with the luxuries of life, by selling her poor little body.

DAISY UNDER TWENTY, DYING IN THE POOR-HOUSE
Less than three years after leaving her home she was found in the poor-house, forgotten by family and friends, and dying of a loathsome disease

DAISY'S LONELY FUNERAL PAID FOR BY CHARITY
The charity nurses took up a subscription and saved her from the potter's field. No flowers. No friends. No relatives. Only the undertaker and his assistants

Among the many methods used by these fiends in human form to trap girls into houses of sin, is courtship and false marriage. These men go into the country districts and, under the guise of commercial men, board at the best hotels, dress handsomely, cultivate the most captivating manners, and then look for their prey. Upon the streets they see a pretty girl and immediately lay plans to become acquainted. Then the courtship begins. In the present condition of society it is a very easy thing for well reared girls to begin a promiscuous acquaintance, with ample opportunity for courtship. There was never a time when the bars were so low. With the public dance, or even the more exclusive german, the skating rink[Pg 131] and the moving picture arcades, all of which lend themselves to the making of intimate and promiscuous acquaintances under questionable surroundings, it is easy for a man to come into a community and in a few days meet even the best class of girls, to say nothing of the girls who are earning a living and who have no home influence. These girls are flattered by the handsome, well-dressed stranger paying them marked attention, and are quick to accept invitations to the theater or to walk or drive with him. If the girl is religious, he is not above using the cloak of religion, expressing fondness for church and prayer meetings and is frequently to be found at such places. When a girl's confidence and affection have been won, it is a comparatively easy thing to accomplish her ruin, by proposing an elopement. Her scruples and arguments are easily overcome by the skilled deceiver, and trusting him implicitly as her accepted lover, she unwittingly goes to her doom. When they arrive in the city a mock marriage is performed, for there are accomplices on every hand, and the child wife is taken into a house of sin, which she has been told by her pretended husband is an elegant boarding house.

Can you imagine any greater horror than that of this trusting child wife, when she realizes she is a prisoner and a slave in that den of shame? And such slavery! the blackest that has ever stained human history. Shut up beyond the reach of friends—for no letter she[Pg 132] may write finds its way beyond the doors of her prison house. Should she call a police officer the chances are he is receiving bribes from her keeper and he will not help her to freedom. Is it strange that soon she eagerly drinks the wine that is constantly offered her, and sometimes actually forced down her throat, and smokes the cigarette with its benumbing effect of opium and tobacco, so that under the influences of these fatal drugs she may forget her awful fate and hasten her early death, for surely no hell in the other world can be more dreadful than a house of shame in this world.

And then good women and good men who see her poor painted face later peering out between the lace curtains of her dread abode, or, if meeting her on the street, draw away from her and say, "Oh! I guess she is there because she wants to be."

This expression is one of the reasons that this condition has existed so long unchanged. It is frequently made because of the ignorance of the general public upon the subject. But the thought that when one sees a woman in a life of sin, she is there because she likes it and wants to be, has become so deeply engraved upon the human mind that it is difficult to change it. Some people are conscientious in thinking this, because they are ignorant. Others know better, but in order that they may not feel called upon to take an active part against these conditions, try to salve their conscience by saying that a fallen girl cannot be[Pg 133] helped—nothing can be done for them. And so it goes—anything to remove the responsibility of bettering conditions from their shoulders.

But today we are facing a very different condition from that which has existed ever since I have been interested in rescue work, and for centuries before. The International Agreement for the Abolition of the White Slave Traffic between the civilized nations of the world, which was entered into some ten years ago by all of the civilized nations except the United States, and which was subscribed to by the United States last June, has put an entirely different aspect upon the whole subject. The abolition of the white slave traffic is now no longer to be considered as the feverish dream of enthusiastic reformers, but its effacement has become a part of a great international agreement between nations of the world, and takes its place along with other great international questions which are adjudicated by the same process.

The recent splendid immigration laws which have been passed by the United States, protecting immigrant girls until they have been in this country three years, has been the law under which most of the cases of white slave traffic have been prosecuted. The records of the Federal courts, wherever the authorities have taken cognizance, are full of the records of cases which have been brought to trial. Many of the guilty parties have been prose[Pg 134]cuted and are now behind prison bars. Others are awaiting trial, and many others have escaped because of the difficulty of getting people to testify against them. One of the most dangerous leaders in the traffic has recently forfeited handsome holdings of real estate in Chicago, which she had put up for her bond, and escaped to France. Although fleeing from the United States into France, which is also one of the countries co-operating in the abolition of the white slave traffic, her passion for the business was so great that, when recently arrested in France, under a similar charge, she was found to have several young women from America in her clutches.

But as this law protects only immigrant girls, all the cases brought have been in the interest of these foreign girls. Thus far no one has undertaken to prosecute the offenders against American-born girls. When the curtain is drawn back upon the iniquitous system in which they have been the victims, a new chamber of horrors will be opened to the public gaze. But, thank God, good will follow, as is always the case when the light is turned on. Already laws have been presented before a number of state legislatures looking to the prosecution of those guilty of this inhuman traffic in native-born girls, and it will not be long before every state in the Union will have laws under which they can prosecute any man or woman guilty of this crime.

One of the great troubles in fighting this evil[Pg 135] is the prejudice against fallen girls and the fact that because a woman is fallen seems to be just cause to convict her of every other crime in the decalogue, thus removing her from the pale of helpful sympathy which is extended to almost every other class of unfortunate beings. Even convicted murderers and kidnapers are treated with more intelligent sympathy. Every statement which she makes is at once considered to be untrue. So far has this prejudice gone that in the state of Missouri, in a decision by its supreme court, made some years ago, it was declared that a woman of immoral life was debarred from giving testimony in the courts of that state, as the fact of her immorality prevented her from being a credible witness. It declared at the same time that immorality did not in the same way unfit or debar a man. The difficulty of convicting a person under trial for such a crime as this is largely increased because of this attitude of the public mind. The evidence must be so overwhelming against the person that all of the quibbles and questions and flaws which is possible for the human mind to make, are answerable, and even then many will feel the guilty person has been unjustly punished, and that if the girl had really wanted to make her escape from her captors she could have done so.

The prosecuting of any other character of cases where the sex question does not enter is very much easier. Take the two last cases of kidnaping, which have interested[Pg 136] the entire public and press of the country, as an example of what I mean. In the well-known Philadelphia case of 1908, in which an unusually bright boy of ten years was the victim, it was found that the kidnaper, a man, had taken the boy with him to lunch at several restaurants, had left him alone for hours in a vacant house, from the window of which he might at any moment have called to a passer-by and told him of his sad plight; had even sat several hours with him in the crowded Broad Street Station in Philadelphia, and yet, with all of these opportunities of making his trouble known, and escaping from the clutches of the man, the boy had taken advantage of none of them, but had sat silent and apparently a willing victim. In spite of these extenuating circumstances, it only took the jury a few moments to convict and send the guilty man to the penitentiary for a long period. Had the boy been a girl, and had she not made any more effort than he did to escape from her captor, and had the fact been known that the man had taken advantage of her innocence not only to kidnap her, but also rob her of her virtue, it would have been absolutely impossible to convict him of kidnaping. A recent case prosecuted in Baltimore, of a similar character, with these added features, proves the truth of this statement, the child being a girl eleven years old. The man was given a sentence of twenty-one years only, and that upon the ground of the child being[Pg 137] under the age of consent. Even this verdict was considered extreme by many who believed that the child was willing to go with him because she had written a letter to her father and mother, in which she had not complained of ill treatment. It was proven that the little girl was made to write the letter by the man, who took it out and mailed it himself, and who forced her to write just what he said. Had little Billy Whitla been a little girl, and it was proven that she had sat in a buggy and had taken candy and accepted favors, and had been perfectly happy, as a child might, with her captor, it would have been a very much more difficult case to prosecute than that when the victim was a boy. In one the sex question would almost certainly have been introduced to the further undoing of the punishment for the crime.

Such work as the Woman's World is doing, as well as the Ladies' Home Journal and other well-known magazines, in giving publicity to these facts, will be of inestimable value in the protection of youth. Soon it will be impossible for human ingenuity to devise schemes for the undoing of girls that have not already been exposed by the daily papers and magazines, thus warning girls and their parents or guardians of the conditions under which they are placed. Had this information been given to the mothers alone, many of them are so ignorant of the present conditions that they would not have seen the necessity of informing their daugh[Pg 138]ters. But coming, as it does, through the avenues of daily reading, it reaches the daughter as well as the mother, thus giving her the knowledge gleaned at a frightful cost by others, to protect her.

CHAPTER X.

WARFARE AGAINST THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE.

There is a problem of slavery today for the people to solve. The question is: "How shall the warfare against White Slavery be waged to blot out this cloud upon civilization expeditiously?" Over two years ago I learned that there was a gigantic slave trade in women, and with a handful of people we began to fight the traders. That a system of slavery, debasing and vile, had grown to enormous proportions before our very doors seemed beyond belief, an impossibility, and even romantic. Most people were skeptical of the existence of a well defined and organized traffic in girls, and they seemed to think that those advocating the abolition of this nefarious trade were either visionists or fanatics. The struggle against this trade in women was a hard one at first. The ministry, although dazed, were finally aroused to an appreciation of the truth.

Having faith in the people, and believing that this republic lauds and honors the chastity and sanctity of women, I believed in bringing this hideous traffic in girls to the public notice,[Pg 140] and when our citizens fully realized its importance they would rise to the occasion and aid in the warfare to exterminate white slavery. The result has been most gratifying, for churches, clubs, associations, newspapers, men and women in all walks of life have taken up the cause. Great armies like those of a generation ago cannot uproot this slavery, but the slavery of today must be eliminated by publicity, education, legislation and law enforcement. That is the reason magazines have brought to their readers facts concerning this hideous trade. The results of this heroic work have been wonderful, for thousands of letters inquiring about white slavery have been received, and associations and clubs have formed to fight white slavery, and legislation upon the subject has been introduced in many states. If this great good to our social life could not be brought about by publicity, there would not be any reason for bringing before the people and into the midst of the family circle facts which are so black and revolting. But to know and understand we must cast aside false modesty, take off our kid gloves and handle this great social problem with our naked hands.

The trade in women is domestic and foreign, local and international. The Honorable Edwin W. Sims, United States District Attorney at Chicago, and Harry A. Parkin, his Assistant, have been waging valiant warfare against the foreign and international trade during the past year. Articles in leading magazines which[Pg 141] were written by them have dealt chiefly with that phase of the white slave trade. They have explained, also, the debt system as a means of keeping the girls in resorts after they are procured and sold. It is with the domestic and local trade I have been mostly concerned. In Chicago alone there are more than 5,000 women leading a life of shame, and statistics show that the average life of a fallen woman is five years. One thousand persons must, therefore, be recruited every year in Chicago alone. How many voluntarily go into this life? It is estimated about forty per cent! This shows us that sixty per cent are led into it by some scheme or entrapped and sold, and at least two-thirds of this number are from our own country, being inveigled from farms, towns and cities. One may inquire, "How is it that girls are procured so easily without the public being aware of what is going on?"

The answer is that love and ambition are the baits which the procurers flaunt in the faces of their proposed victims. Often it happens that promises of positions on the stage, in stores, and various occupations alluring to young girls cause many to fall, captives in the great net set for them.

During the past two years there have been more than two hundred and fifty white slave cases tried in Chicago under the Illinois law, resulting in scores of confessions made by the procurers, and statements by hundreds of the[Pg 142] girls who were procured as to the methods employed by the traders.

To show how easily it is done, let me tell you a story of a girl from Elgin, Illinois, who was caught by the love scheme. One day this pretty little German lass was in a Chicago store buying sheet music when a well-dressed, handsome, young man, apparently looking at music, too, asked her the names of some of the latest popular songs, as he wanted to buy them. At first she turned away and did not heed him, but he was not to be repulsed, and pressing his attentions further upon her, he finally engaged her in conversation. A luncheon at a nearby restaurant, in which she joined him, was the result, and there he told her how at first sight he had fallen in love with her beauty. After lunch he suggested a visit to his bachelor apartments, but this she refused. Seeing that this plan was a failure, he asked her to marry him then and there. The silly girl, believing he loved her, and enchanted by the picture he had painted of his father's wealth and fine home in New York City, consented, and they were married. After the ceremony he told her that he was about "broke," and said that he would take her to a place where she could make enough money in a few days to pay their way to New York, where everything would be lovely, and as they were married it would be no one's business how she got the money. Immediately accounts of white slave procurers which she had read came to her mind, and she[Pg 143] then realized what she had fallen into. Lest she might arouse in him suspicion, she consented to do as he asked, but told him that before going out to the resort she wanted to buy some clothing, and arranged to meet him at a certain down-town corner toward evening. She hurried to the County Court, where an escort was given her, and she was brought to the court where I was prosecuting. I armed an officer with a warrant and he followed the girl to the appointed place of meeting. The young man was there waiting for his victim. The officer stepped up and put him under arrest, and the next day he was tried and convicted. It was then learned that he was a well known procurer of girls. Thus saved from a life of ruin, the Elgin girl went home heart-broken, but wiser for her experience. Recently she secured in the County Court an annulment of the marriage. Inquiry proved that the girl was from a very respectable home, and that she had always been a good, honest, industrious girl. Many similar cases have come out in the courts; however, the girls in most instances were not favored by the same good fortune which blessed the little girl from Elgin, and the outcome was much more disastrous. This is an illustration of the ease with which panderers make use of love as a means of securing girls for immoral houses.

The other method used by the traders is the one which appeals to the girl's ambitions. Sometimes the procurers have gained the par[Pg 144]ents' consent to allow their daughters to accompany the supposed theatrical or employment agent, as the case may be, to some city, thinking that through the daughter's success their station in life would be raised. A girl in a country community, or say factory town, is working for four or five dollars each week, when one of these procurers, traveling under the guise of an agent, meets her and promises ten to twenty dollars a week for work in the city. She may be perfectly sincere and honest in her intention to better her condition. She may want finer clothes, a wider knowledge of the world, or an education, and so she consents to go with him, and finally, against her will, ends up as an inmate in some immoral place.

One of the most recent cases shows how readily girls jump at an opportunity to better their station in life. This case first came before the court the day after last Christmas, when Frank Kelly was arrested for carrying a revolver, with which he tried to shoot an old man. During the trial the story developed as follows:

A year ago last summer fifteen-year-old Margaret Smith was working about the simple home near Benton Harbor, Michigan. The father, employed by the Pere Marquette Railroad, was away from home a good share of the time. One day a graphophone agent called at the house and the family became much interested in one of his musical machines. Shortly afterward this agent brought with him to the[Pg 145] Smith home Frank Kelly, and introduced him to Maggie, as she was called by her folks. In a day or two Margaret was on her way to Chicago with Kelly, who promised her an excellent position in the city. Upon her arrival Margaret was sold into one of the lowest dives in Chicago, located in South Clark street, and owned by an Italian named Battista Pizza. Here she learned that her captor was not Frank Kelly, but an Italian whose real name is Alphonse Citro. For a year she was kept as a slave in this resort, which was over a saloon, and the entrance was through a back alley. The only visitors were Italians, who came for immoral purposes. Learning last summer that Margaret's father, who had been hunting relentlessly for his daughter, was on the track of her, the girl was taken by Alphonse Citro, alias Kelly, to Gary, Indiana. When the father came to the resort with a policeman he found that his daughter had gone. She was kept in Gary about two months, and then returned to this disreputable place, from which she escaped finally, the Monday before Christmas. A young barber took pity on her after hearing her sad story and enlisted the sympathy of his parents, who took her to their home. Alphonse Citro (Kelly) looked for her for almost a week, and at last saw her going from a store to this home, where she was staying. He went to the house and demanded at the point of a revolver that she be given up, as he said:

[Pg 146]There was a quarrel over the girl, during which some people from the outside were attracted to the house by the commotion. Citro, becoming frightened, fled down the street, and as he ran threw the revolver, with which he tried to shoot the father of the barber during the quarrel, over a fence into a coal yard. After running two blocks, he was caught and arrested. Upon these facts this procurer, Citro, alias Kelly, was prosecuted and found guilty under the new pandering law in Illinois, and received a sentence of one year's imprisonment and a fine of five hundred dollars. The poor old father and mother, distressed and broken-hearted, were in court during the trial with their arms around each other, sobbing with joy because their little girl had been found. Pizza, the owner of the place, was indicted by the state grand jury, but escaped to Italy. This case is only one of the hundreds which might be told to show how the girls leave home upon the promise of securing employment and are in this way procured for places of ill-repute.

"MY GOD! IF ONLY I COULD GET OUT OF HERE."
The midnight shriek of a young girl in the vice district of a large city, heard by two worthy men, started a crusade which resulted in closing up the dens of shame in that city. (See page 450.)

A GILDED PALACE OF SIN
Showing the gay and attractive front entrance where the white slave trader sells young girls into a life of shame

The methods employed to entice young women are quite similar, but as to the particulars each case varies to some extent. After the girls are once within the resort, the stories are about the same. Their street clothes are seized and parlor dresses varying in length are put upon them. They are threatened, never allowed to write letters, never permitted the use of the telephone, never trusted outside the[Pg 147] house without the escort of a procurer, until two or three months have elapsed, when they are considered hardened to the life and too ashamed to face parents and friends again. If they should ask some visitor to the house to help them, would he care to expose his name to the police, as he would have to, by reporting the matter? Would he want his friends, or the folks at home to know that he had visited such a place? No; he would let the girl get out the best way she could; even though he might promise to help her. Girls are told of or perhaps have witnessed others who tried to escape, have seen their failure and punishment, and are thereby cowed into submission. They are always held upon the pretense of being indebted to the house, and this indebtedness has long been the backbone of the white slave system. From the time the girl is first sold into the house she is constantly in debt. First, for the money the owner gave to the procurer for her, next, for her parlor clothes, then for the money her procurer borrows from the owner on her as his property, goods and chattel. The bonds of slavery are thus fastened upon these poor mortals by a system of debt and vice that the people of this great country little realized existed until lately.

Fighting against this slave trade under the archaic Illinois laws was quite disheartening because it was almost impossible to get more than a fine upon the charge of disorderly conduct. The laws were so full of loopholes that[Pg 148] the traders laughed at the idea of being prosecuted. However, in Illinois, at least, we have choked the laugh. The features once wreathed in smiles begin to show the lines of worry and fear, for a new law called the Pandering Act has been passed. This went into force July 1st, 1908. The new law is good, but experience has shown where improvement is necessary. Without exception, in cases I have tried, certain wholesome-minded jurors have said after concluding the case, that the penalty was too light for the first offender. It should be made more severe. Therefore an effort is now being made to make the first offense punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary from one to ten years. Then, also, there should be a new law covering the bringing a female person of any age into the state or taking her out of the state for immoral purposes. The age limit should be omitted from the present Illinois law, which does not punish those bringing girls over the age of eighteen into the state. While other states are sending for copies of the Illinois pandering and other white slave laws, the state legislation will soon be uniform upon this subject, the United States government should be alive to the situation also. At present it has only the immigration laws regulating the importation of immoral women to fall back upon. A federal law under the interstate and foreign commerce act should be passed at once. The federal government has better and more effective machinery for get[Pg 149]ting at the facts in the foreign and interstate traffic in girls than have the various states. Commerce consists in intercourse and traffic, including in these terms the transportation and transit of persons and property, as well as the purchase, sale and barter of persons and property and agreements therefor. A federal law might be enacted as follows:

"Be it Enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that whoever shall procure, entice or encourage any female person to leave one of the states of the United States of America to go into any other state in the United States of America for the purpose of prostitution or to become an inmate of a house of prostitution or to enter any place where prostitution is practiced or allowed, or shall attempt to procure or entice any female person to leave one of the states of the United States of America to go into any other state for the purpose of prostitution, or to become an inmate of a house of prostitution or to enter any place where prostitution is practiced or allowed, or shall receive or give, or agree to receive or give any money or thing of value for procuring or attempting to procure any female person to leave one of the states of the United States of America to go into any other state in the United States of America for the purpose of prostitution or to become an inmate of a house of prostitution, or to enter any place where prostitution is practiced or allowed,[Pg 150] shall, in every case, be deemed guilty of a felony, and on conviction thereof be imprisoned not more than ten years and pay a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars."

Under the recent federal decisions what can prevent the enactment and enforcement of such a law making the traffic in women illegal? Of course, offenses committed solely within the state could not be reached by the federal government.

Other needed legislative regulations concerning the white slave traffic, such as laws against the procuring system and the indebtedness system, have been set forth in other articles in this magazine. However, besides these laws it will be necessary in each state to create a commission in the various cities, other than the police department, which shall keep a complete record of all houses of ill-fame and their inmates. A public bureau of information should be established by law where parents and friends could easily learn the whereabouts of girls who have not been heard from, and this bureau should have the names of every inmate of a disreputable house. Such a commission should have power to inquire carefully into the life of every girl. Statements should be made, under oath, and the right to ascertain whether or not these statements were true should be given the commission. Thereby the infected spots in every part of the country could be covered, and every girl and woman in immoral places could be accounted for. The fact that[Pg 151] this has not been done heretofore has greatly aided the slave traders because their success is accomplished by secrecy. Let us drag the monster, white slavery, from under ground and let the light of day show upon it, and then we shall have gone a long way towards extermination of this traffic.

That secrecy is maintained as to who the girls are and where they are from is evidenced by one of the many letters I have received, of which the following is a copy:

Chicago, Ill., July 13, 1908.

Mr. Clifford G. Roe,

Dear Sir:—Did you receive a letter from my mother, Mrs. Effie ——, from Eloise, Mich. If so, I wish you would come and see me so I can tell you everything. I have not been out of the house for three months. I have not got any clothes to wear on the street because I owe a debt. I wish you could come and see me and I can tell you everything then. I am a White Slave for sure. Please excuse pencil, I had to write this and sneak this out. Please see to this at once and help me and oblige,

Viola ——.

With people passing back and forth on the street and in and out of the house every day it seems astonishing that girls can be kept as slaves. However, the above appeal for help tells the story, not alone of the writer, but of the thousands of girls whose lives are being crushed, the minds depraved, and the bodies[Pg 152] diseased by outrageous bondage. It was discovered that Viola had been given a fictitious name, all avenues of communication with the outside world were cut off, and she had lived in constant fear of being beaten if she let anyone know who she was. At last through a ruse she succeeded in getting letters to her mother and myself, which brought about her rescue and the return of the girl to her mother, who is an invalid in Wayne County Hospital at Eloise, Michigan.

The owners of the resort where she was held were brought before the bar of justice and the judge in sentencing them said: "The levee resort keepers are murdering the souls of girls and women by binding them with ropes of illegal debt; this practice must be wiped out."

The next question which confronts us is what shall we do with the girls after they are liberated from the houses? Some have parents, some are ashamed to go back home, while others are diseased. Certainly it seems a pity to turn them out and let them battle against the prejudice of a "past life." Homes and institutions for girls are often filled or the doors are barred against fallen women. The solution of the problem is a home for white slaves in every large city in the country.

Such a home should be well equipped with a hospital to cure disease contracted in disreputable houses, and then there should be schools in the institute for training the girls for useful lives, where sewing, cooking, music, art, and[Pg 153] other things are taught. In this way the girls would be fitted to earn honest and wholesome livelihoods when they go out to face the world.

Letters are sent me from all parts of the continent asking what can be done to help the white slaves. My answer is, form organizations everywhere to fight this traffic. Through these organizations educate the girls in the rural communities to be careful how they are enticed or persuaded to go to the cities. Demand proper legislation, write the senators and representatives about it, in all places see that the laws in regard to disorderly resorts are enforced, that the foregoing proposed commission is established and help build homes for training the girls for better lives.

What mockery it is to have in our harbor in New York the statue of Liberty with outstretched arms welcoming the foreign girl to the land of the free! How she must sneer at it and rebuke the country with such an emblematic monument at its very gate when she finds here a slavery whose chains bind the captive more securely than those in the country from which she has come!

What a travesty to wrap the flag of America around our girls and extol virtue and purity, freedom and liberty, and then not raise a hand to protect our own girls who are being procured by white slave traders every day!

Some ministers have said that the subject is too black to present to their congregations. It is a problem, they said, for the public au[Pg 154]thorities and slum workers, not a question for the high-minded citizen. It is the hope that the readers of this book, who are church members, will suggest that their pastors aid in the struggle against white slavery, and that through them, people everywhere may be awakened to a realization of its importance. No social problem is too unclean for the people to take hold of when the cause undermines the fairest heritage in life, our homes. For, after all, the home is the social unit and the very foundation of all government.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BOSTON HYPOCRISY.

Arraignment of False Modesty That Deters Well-Meaning People from Fighting the White Slave Evil.

None of us is perfect. However, it is well to strive toward perfection. It is well sometimes to look into the glass and see ourselves as others see us. That is the very thing Boston needs to do at the present time. Like the ostrich that hides her head in the sand and thinks because she cannot see anyone no one can see her, Boston shuts her eyes to the social evil problem and says there is no such thing here.

To learn whether or not the White Slave traffic is nation wide, conditions in various parts of the country have been studied. From ocean to ocean the trail of this monster can be seen. New York, Chicago and San Francisco, and many other cities, realizing that there is a trade in the bodies and souls of girls, are making determined efforts to blot it out. They acknowledge its presence and they are fighting it. In New England it is different. The good people there shun the thought of such a sub[Pg 156]ject. They have not learned that false modesty is a thing of the past, and the time has come when we must know the social evil problem as it is and meet it face to face.

In talking with one of the leading workers for the betterment of Boston the above title was suggested, for he said: "The attitude of the people here regarding social evil is plain Boston hypocrisy." The idea is to hide the evil, if it is there. In this beautiful city there is not a well-defined red light district or levee as the houses of ill-fame are scattered throughout the city, often side by side with fine private residences. Here and there is a district where perhaps a dozen or more of the disorderly houses are located.

An idea of the volume of the vice business in Boston may be estimated from one day in June when an observer counted 130 men who entered a resort on Corning street between the hours of seven and twelve in the evening.

A well-defined White Slave trade is difficult to discover in a short time in any city. Citizens of Boston have not yet unearthed it. They say it is not there. They tell of an isolated case which happened a long time ago. Boston and other New England cities have all the elements which make a traffic in girls quite certain. By going to the very bottom and getting information from those "who know" the business from the ground up, who live in it, and work in it, some very reliable facts have been gathered.

[Pg 157]Walking down Washington, Tremont or Boylston streets in Boston at night, from say eight until ten o'clock, scores of girls are seen picking up fellows. Some are professionals, while others flirt just to have a good time, probably. In Providence, R. I., where Miss Margaret H. Dennehy has revealed a White Slave traffic, conditions are just as bad in regard to girls publicly displaying themselves as in Boston. This is the first symptom of something wrong which any visitor cannot help but see. Now let us look about the city a little and see what we can find. In Hayward place, one-half block from Washington street, the main shopping street of Boston, under the very nose of one of the largest retail stores, are the H—— and the E——, two places such as would only be tolerated in the lowest red light district of any city. Girls, and many young girls, too, sit at the tables and solicit men. On Beach street, one-half block from Washington street, is the D——, a similar place, owned by a Frenchman. The P—— G—— on Sudbery street is much worse than any of the others. The first three are within two blocks of Boylston and Washington streets, the principal corner in Boston.

One has but to pick up the telephone book and find the numbers there of at least two hundred houses of ill-repute. Chicago, one of the acknowledged centers of vice, does not tolerate that; nor can you find such places in the principal shopping districts of Chicago as those I[Pg 158] refer to in the above paragraph. One of the most glaring examples of disorderly places—which the good citizens there overlooked—in the business district is the B—— house of prostitution on Bulfinch street, almost within a stone's throw of the State House and Capitol of Massachusetts.

Taking the biography of one hundred girls in disreputable houses at random, it was learned that about one-third come to Boston from Canada, mainly Nova Scotia.

To one who has made a study of the White Slave traffic the first question when one finds so many disorderly places is, where do they get the girls from? Why do so many come from one locality? Is the supply equal to the demand? Are there enough persons entering into such a life voluntarily each year to keep the places going? The average life of one of these girls is about five years, according to the best statistics.

Boston and the other New England cities have the "cadet system"—meaning men and boys living from the earnings of girls engaged in this unlawful business. Most "cadets" procure girls—and that is the question for New England to solve.

Are the "cadets" there engaged in the business of trading in girls? It is said that a certain Bobbie B——, a well known "cadet" in Boston, procured about seventy girls to be sent to Panama. A certain Lena D——, who was born in Quebec, is known to be procuring girls[Pg 159] from Lowell, Mass., and the country districts, for a fast life in Boston. She perhaps is the greatest woman trader in human souls in New England. According to her own statement she "trains them to be wise." This woman once worked in Lowell in a shoe factory. The French, Jewish and Italian procurers are not so much in evidence in New England as in other American cities. The coast "cadets" there are mainly Canadians.

A new way of procuring girls has developed in Boston. Wayward girls who have offended the law in one way or another are placed on probation. The "cadets" go to the court records, find the girls' names who are on probation and persuade them to run away in order to evade probation and to secure freedom from the probation officers. There are instances where these girls have been sent into houses of bad character at Lowell, Portland, Worcester, the road house at Corderville, and other towns.

While the White Slave trade may not be as well developed in New England as in other parts of the country—to a certain extent it is there; and it is only to awaken the people to a realization of this fact that this article is written. Over two and a half years ago Chicago was told that there was a White Slave traffic, and the people were indignant. It seemed romantic and unbelievable. But Chicago knows it only too well today. Boston must be awakened in the same way. People will say it cannot be true. Indeed, it is hard to find because[Pg 160] secrecy is its success. It keeps hidden in the darkness. Someone in Boston will drag it out into the light, and we stand ready to aid in any way we can. White Slavery is the system of making good girls bad or bad girls worse. It is the modern method of men living from the loathsome earnings of disreputable women.

Let me tell you of a twenty-one-year-old girl in Boston. She was born in New York City. Her father is dead and her mother is an actress. She is pretty and well educated. This girl, by living a disreputable life, supports a Jewish "cadet" who is coarse and vulgar, and who beats her when she fails to bring back to him as much money as he desires.

Many of the girls come from or go to Washington. There seems to be a sort of an underground roadway between Boston and Washington which many of these girls travel. Hundreds of these girls do not live in the disorderly houses, but have their own apartments, and are summoned to the houses by telephone. The houses to which they are thus summoned are known as "call houses." At these houses descriptions of the various girls are kept, as to height, complexion, etc. In examining the laws of Massachusetts relating to procuring, we find the same flaws which existed in Illinois and the other states before the passage of the pandering laws.

In the revised laws of Massachusetts, 1902, Vol. 2, page 1785, Sec. 2, the procuring must be fraudulent and deceitful and the woman must[Pg 161] be unmarried and of chaste life. If the procurer marries the girl to circumvent the law he cannot be prosecuted; if the girl makes one mistake in life, she cannot be protected from being procured. In many cities the evidence in the cases shows that "cadets" are paid to marry girls by White Slave traders so that prosecution may be avoided and they may thus crawl through one of the many loopholes in moss-covered laws made before pandering became a curse upon civilization. Because a girl is not of chaste life is no reason she wants to become a prostitute. One wrong step and she is no longer chaste, and then we say, according to the law, let her shift for herself. We all make mistakes, so let us be charitable. The words "previous chaste life" should be erased from the law and all female persons should be protected from the traders.

There are four ways of combating the White Slave evil; proper laws regulating the procuring of girls; the enforcement of these laws; education as to this great social evil, and publicity—that is, finding the evil and then making it known. Let New England awaken and look about her and she will catch the true spirit of this article, which is meant to be one of helpfulness and written only with kindest motives. Embellished with quaint landmarks and historical retreats dear to all the nation and beautiful in its past, let it not live in this past alone, but be alive to modern ideas and agencies. There is one society known as the[Pg 162] New England Watch and Ward, with headquarters in Boston, which has begun to pierce into the hidden mystery of the traffic in girls. It is managed by able men, and its secretary, J. Frank Chase, is already on the trail of the White Slave monster. Through this society great efforts will be made no doubt in the near future to eliminate whatever exists of this nefarious traffic in Boston. Let us hope the Boston people will meet this problem fearlessly, candidly and honestly, and when they do they will have gone a long way toward stamping out the worst evil of the age.

CHAPTER XII.

THE AUCTIONEER OF SOULS.

That is the value the White Slave traders place upon the soul of a girl when she is auctioned off to the highest bidder for a house of ill-repute. For a few paltry dollars to the buyer of girls, not only is the body delivered to be ravished and diseased, but the soul is given over to be tortured and depraved. This is the price fathers and mothers are placing upon their daughters' souls when they think more of the money the daughter can earn by sending her away to work without careful regard as to where she is going or with whom she is going away. That is the price that false modesty, which is nothing more nor less than affected innocence, is placing upon human beings when people shun the thought of White Slavery, because it has to do with the darker side of life.

[Pg 164]Nothing is more beautiful than an innocent girl. Nothing is more hypocritical than affected innocence. Nothing is grander than a pure home. Nothing is more loathsome than the sham glare and tinsel of a house of ill-repute. Knowing the human weakness, the White Slave trader makes capital out of the carelessness and ambition of the parents, and the false modesty of the public, and thereby undermines innocence and steals the purity from the home.

Many and various schemes are resorted to by these auctioneers of souls. It is because no set rule for inveigling their captives away from home has been followed that they have succeeded so long in baffling detection.

The question of white slavery is economic as well as social. The condition of the working girl, the low salaries paid by employers, the desire for better clothes, and the great increase of the number of girls earning a livelihood contribute their share to the downfall of girls. All of these things are considered by the crafty trader who procures the girl to be auctioned into a life of slavery. Then, too, the confidence of the girl is gained by arousing her ambition or love. This is done by appealing to her vanity, by referring to her ability or her beauty.

True it is that some girls go willingly to the block to be auctioned into a disreputable life, only to find later their terrible mistake. The system of making bad girls worse is just[Pg 165] as vicious as making good girls bad and all this is white slavery.

The most worked method of securing the confidence by appealing to the ambition of the girl is by the stage or theatrical route. It is because so many girls are "stage struck" now-a-days that this method has been worked most successfully. Perhaps of all the cases that have been tried in nearly the last three years in Chicago, the girls who have been procured by inducements to go upon the stage outnumber all others. The slave trader represents himself as the agent of some theatrical manager, or perhaps as the manager himself. Going to a factory town, for example, he makes it his business to meet some girl who is working there who he has learned is "stage struck." After the formalities of an introduction, which he secures in one way or another, he leads up to the subject by telling that he is a theatrical man and is looking for new recruits.

The girl is at once interested. She is naturally ambitious. She wants to better her condition in life. She doesn't suspect that a fiend with the heart of a devil is masquerading before her as the agent of some theatrical manager. He explains to her that if she will accompany him she can make from $15 to $20 a week at the very start and in a year she will be playing a part, and a year or so later she will possibly be leading lady. The picture is an alluring one to this young girl, for she is[Pg 166] now making only perhaps $4, $5 or $6 a week, and the thought of securing such a large salary at the very start almost sweeps her off her feet. She is entranced by the beautiful picture that has been painted and she goes, perhaps to a stage from which she will never return.

The trader often has the impudence and nerve to interview the parents of the girl and obtain their consent, knowing that he is hiding behind some fictitious name, with little possibility of ever being apprehended. This was true in the case of a certain cadet who brought a little girl from Duluth, Minn. The girl was 17 years old. The parents gave their consent, thinking that through the girl's life upon the stage their position in life would be raised, and they sent the little girl on to Chicago with this man, bidding her "God-speed." The testimony in this case showed that under compulsion she wrote several letters to her parents, telling of her initial stage success, while the truth was that this man was a procurer and collecting toll upon the loathsome earnings of this girl, who was compelled by him to lead a disreputable life. He was convicted under the law for bringing a girl into the State under the age of 18 for immoral purposes and was sentenced to three years, and the girl was returned to the home of her parents.

This only serves as an illustration of how easy it is to appeal to the girl's ambition; yes,[Pg 167] even to that of a parent, in this nefarious business of securing girls to be auctioned as white slaves.

Cases have been brought to light and facts uncovered, where even disreputable theatrical agents themselves have loaned their services to the white slave system. A case recent enough to be vividly recalled by the people of Illinois is that of two young girls who were working in one of the larger department stores of the City of Chicago. One day a woman was at the counter where one of these girls was selling goods. The woman complimented the beauty of the girl, at once appealing to her vanity, and asked her how she would like to go upon the stage. The girl, who was Evelyn K——, was overjoyed at the very thought, for only a few nights before she had been talking with her chum, Ida P——, about becoming an actress. The bait that the woman had cast was readily grabbed at. The woman gave Evelyn a card with the address of a certain theatrical agent on it and instructed the girl to call there at a certain time. This she did, accompanied by her friend, Ida. Arrangements were made and tickets procured, and the girls were soon on their way to Springfield, Ill., headed for a disreputable resort, as the evidence in the case afterwards showed. Had it not been for the interference of a good Scotch lady, into whose house these girls had gone for lodging before making themselves known to their new employers, they[Pg 168] would have been cast into a life far different from that which they had anticipated. The Scotch lady, learning their destination and knowing the reputation of the resort to which these girls had been sent, warned them of the danger they were in, and aided in sending them back to Chicago.

While the case against this theatrical agent was pending, these girls, who were waiting to testify, were taken out of the city and secreted in Milwaukee, Wis., where after several weeks' hunt they were finally found and brought back to Chicago, and afterwards testified in the court to the foregoing facts.

There are many other instances of girls being brought to the city or taken from the city upon the pretext of becoming embryo actresses. In the case of a certain ex-prize fighter, who was arrested during a raid upon one of the strongholds of white slavery, the evidence was brought to light that he and another young man procured a consignment of girls in the City of Chicago, presumably to take them out with a southern musical comedy road company. These girls were sent South in company with a certain Myrtle B——, and they ended up in a resort at Beaumont, Texas. Many other cases might be cited to illustrate how easy it is to secure girls to come to the city or leave the city under the guise of putting them upon the stage. Let it be understood, however, that in all of the cases tried nothing has ever been hinted at that would[Pg 169] involve any reputable theatrical manager or agency, and the procurers have never been really associated with theatrical managers in any way, but have always falsely paraded under the theatrical mask.

Almost all positions alluring to young girls have been used to catch them in the great net these procurers have set for them. We can't blame the girls for being ambitious. We can't blame them for wanting to better their condition in life, and we can't blame them for falling prey to the white slave monster, with its tentacles spread throughout the country ready at every possible chance to clutch them within its grasp. We can only warn them to be more cautious, to investigate carefully before going away from home with people they do not know. Fathers and mothers are too negligent in this regard, and through their laxity and carelessness they have allowed their daughters to be entrapped. They should see to it that the girls, in going to the cities, are surrounded by honest and reputable acquaintances. In one case they contributed directly to the procuring of their daughters by not writing a letter to them as they had promised. The girls who had gone to the post-office, turning away from the window downcast and disheartened, were approached by a young man who had noted their sad faces. He said to them: "You appear to be in trouble." One answered, "Yes, we expected a letter from home with some money, but we did not[Pg 170] receive it. We have been here only two days and are without funds until we receive this letter. We did not get the positions we expected to get and until we find work we have no place to stay."

The young man volunteered to find them work. They had fallen into the hands of a procurer, ever on the watch, and were sold into a disorderly house before they knew it, thinking it was at this place they were to obtain work. When the facts in this case were brought to light, the procurer had fled to New York City. Through funds advanced by one of the leading clubs of Chicago and some big hearted police officers the procurer was apprehended, extradited, brought back, tried and convicted.

Through the other well known method the procurer, by pretending to be in love with his victim, appeals to her vanity and is often successful. Pretending that it is love at first sight and showering flattery upon the girls they succeed in winning confidence and hearts by the easiest method in the world.

In the early summer of 1907, Mona M——, while working at the ribbon counter of one of the Chicago stores, fell in love with handsome Harry B—— on sight. After an acquaintance of three days she was willing to go away with him to be married. It was the sale of this girl into a disreputable house and her final escape that led to the unearthing of one of the headquarters of the white slave traders and seven[Pg 171] of them were arrested in one night, her procurer receiving the longest sentence of them all.

The little Elgin girl mentioned in Chapter X, on page 142 of this book, was caught by the love method in one day; and the very recent case, in which two procurers and the man behind the scenes who had hired them, the white slave dealer, were all convicted, was an example of securing girls through pretended love. This, the first case under the amendment to the Pandering Act in Illinois was severely fought in court by two of the men. One of the procurers by the name of Lewis B—— made a confession, telling how the dealer in human souls, had hired Jacob J. and himself to go about on the streets and catch girls to be turned over to immoral resorts. The testimony in the case in which they were found guilty will show how successful they were.

Two sixteen-year-old girls, one picked up by a flirtation in one of Chicago's large summer amusement parks, were sold into captivity. This is one of the most appalling cases that has yet come to our notice. These girls were procured upon promises of marriage and a trip to New York, all of which was fine and grand to them.

So many and varied are the ways of procuring girls that it is quite impossible to tell all of them. Employment agents have been convicted for sending girls out as house servants[Pg 172] to immoral places for the ultimate reason of making them inmates in the house. The procurers have masqueraded as graphophone agents, as the sons of bankers, as detective agents looking for women detectives to work for them, and in a very recent letter received from a lady in Massachusetts the story is told how she, as a country girl, went to certain photograph studios in Boston and found that this photographer was a procurer. In a letter setting forth very vividly her experiences she says: "There were girls whom he had found nice fellows for and he would help me to find one and a possible fine marriage. I did not know then that I should have exposed him." She tells of how she eluded this man and when she saw him on the streets afterwards in Boston she would hurry into a store or a hallway and hide from him. She says: "I found afterwards that was really his business, introducing girls that he met in a business way in different studies and other places."

Through information received from letters and many other ways, we are constantly on the lookout for the procurer. One said in a confession: "We use any method to get them. Our business is to land them and we don't care how we do it. If they look easy we tell them of the fine clothes, the diamonds and all the money that they can have. If they are hard to get we use knock-out drops." His words express the whole idea of the girl auctioneer, "any way to get them for sale."

[Pg 173]Schools for manicuring, houses for vapor and electric baths, large steamboats running between the city and summer resorts, amusement parks, the nickel theaters, the waiting rooms in the depots and stores are all haunts and procuring places for the white slave trader. A Chicago girl only a short time ago wrote to one of the daily papers of her experiences on a steamboat going out of Chicago and at one of the nearby summer resorts.

Girls, look out for the pitfalls. Mothers and fathers, you can't afford to let your young daughters leave home with strangers unless you want to send them to ruin. You are unwittingly thereby aiding the white slave traders and aiding in your daughters' downfall. Train the daughters right at home, watch over them, and protect them and know where they are going and with whom they are going away. They are worthy of your greatest and kindest consideration. Do not be too anxious to make money, or for higher position in the social life at the expense of your daughter. Do not be over ready to cast off the burden of supporting your family by sending your daughter out to learn a livelihood at an early age, lest the price you get be the price of a soul.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE IN NEW YORK CITY.

There is no longer any doubt in the minds of the well informed that there exists a great white slave trade in the City of New York. In a recent report by General Bingham, police commissioner, he said: "This traffic is found to be of very large dimensions. There seems to be very slight difficulty in getting women into the country. The requirements of the immigration authorities are easily met by various simple subterfuges. The men who own these women are of the lowest class and seem to have an organization or at least an understanding, which is national or even international in scope. We cannot get these men. If we could the whole white slave trade would drop and the whole social evil be intensely ameliorated, because these men work a regular trust." In commenting on this statement of the police commissioner, Mr. George Kibbe Turner has the following to say in the June number of McClure's Magazine:

"If the interests of the prostitute are excellently safeguarded under the administration of the law by the magistrates' courts, the business of her political protector the cadet is doubly secure. At most he is only subject to a six[Pg 175] months penalty as a common vagrant, but practically speaking he can never be arrested at all because the only valid evidence against him must come from the woman who supports him, who neither desires nor dares to protest against him. There are thousands of these men in New York City and their convictions do not reach a score a year. To this might be added that no local authority ever got these men and that the only successful prosecution of them and the only one they feared, has been that started by the federal authorities in Chicago and New York during the past two years. The local politician has as yet no influence with federal courts in favor of prostitution. He delivers no important part of the votes that choose the federal authorities."

General Bingham in an article in Hampton's Magazine for September, 1909, says that he might have accepted bribes during his first year in office, from gamblers, dive keepers and other criminals, amounting to $600,000 or even a million dollars. He thinks that the graft and blackmail of New York City amount perhaps to a hundred million dollars a year. He asks the question, Who receives the graft? and answers: "Patrolmen, police captains and inspectors, employees in city offices, city officials, politicians, high and low share in it. But while the uniformed policeman is getting tens or hundreds of dollars for 'protecting' a brothel, drinking or gambling resort, the city officials and politicians are getting their thou[Pg 176]sands and hundreds of thousands through graft-yielding contracts and franchises, in cash carefully conveyed, or in other emoluments rendered them in every case for betraying the public."

In the report of the Commission of Immigration of the State of New York, a commission created by the legislature of New York in 1908, the following statement is to be found regarding the white slave business in this State:

"In the State of New York, as in other states and countries of the world, there are organized, ramified and well-equipped associations to secure girls for the purpose of prostitution. The recruiting of such girls in this country is largely among those who are poor, ignorant or friendless. The attention of the Commission has been called to one organization incorporated under the laws of New York State as a mutual benefit society, with alleged purpose, 'To promote the sentiment of regard and friendship among the members and to render assistance in case of necessity.' This society is, in reality, an association of gamblers, procurers and keepers of disorderly houses, organized for the purpose of mutual protection in their business. Some of the cafes, restaurants and other places conducted by the members are meeting places for those engaged in the business of importation. The organization includes a membership of about one hundred residents of New York City, and has representatives and[Pg 177] correspondents in various cities of the country, notably in Pittsburg, Chicago and San Francisco."

The commission has not in the report given very much of the detail of the working of this Association, but Collier's Weekly in speaking of the dismissal of General Bingham as police commissioner of New York, says: "He has been police commissioner for three and a half years. Under his strong, rough hand the disorderly houses which flourished so prosperously three years ago, imprisoning helpless immigrant women, have gone out of business. There were one hundred of them running at full speed between 23rd and 69th Street and 6th and 9th Avenue. There are scarcely twenty now and they are only operating for old time patrons. The stranger inside the city walls will not find the easy welcome for his licentiousness which 1906 and 1907 could have given him. The profession of ruining, selling, and renting out girls has been reduced. That organization known as the New York Independent Benevolent Association has had its wings clipped. The gentlemen who run this association have been checked from their vile trade by the strict regime of Bingham. For two years they have had to turn to honest or semi-honest professions instead of squeezing blood money out of little foreign girls, raped by their agents and locked up in their chain of disorderly houses in the old and new Tenderloin. They have almost forgotten the dark[Pg 178] tragedies hidden just a fathom underground in their burial lot in Washington Cemetery—the poor murdered women, the infants one span long."

While the immigration report and Collier's Weekly enter into little detail concerning the ramifications of this Association, it is not because they have no further information regarding it, but because many of the details are so vile they could not be written.

It can be said, however, that the 126 members of this Association have operated in Newark, N. J., Philadelphia, in Pittsburg, in Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, San Francisco and other cities, that they have plied their trade in South Africa, in Panama, and that different members of the Association have made repeated trips to Europe. This society has been in existence since 1896. In every large city in which an expose of the disorderly house element of the white slave traffic has been made, some of the members of that Association have been involved. At the present moment the graft investigation is going on in Chicago; one of the principal men indicted is Mike the Pike, who is well known in Philadelphia and New York. Some years ago Mike was a prominent member of the organization but quarreled with the officers and was expelled. Keller and Ullman, sent to prison by the federal authorities in Chicago for trafficking in white slaves, were members of this Association at the time of their conviction by[Pg 181][Pg 180][Pg 179] the government. Several others indicted but never brought to trial were also members.

DISEASED CHILDREN IN THE POOR-HOUSE
Scores of children suffering from disease are to be found in the charity hospitals. The white slave trade is to blame for this state of affairs

NOBODY'S CHILDREN
No father—no mother—no name. Can you imagine anything more pitiful? The result of the white slave traffic

At the time of the great cleaning out of the disorderly elements in Philadelphia many members of this Association were driven out. Some of them went to New York, some to Newark. They plied their business in Newark for two or three years and when conditions became so bad that the public rose in protest and started a movement to clean out the dens of vice, it was the members of this association who stood together and fought the authorities. However, some of their members were convicted and sent to prison. The chief of police and other officials were accused of having some partnership with these men and of levying graft upon them, much in the same way as the evidence in the present Chicago graft proceedings alleges. The then chief of police in Newark, who was alleged to have been one of the men who received money from these men, went out into one of the lonely byroads outside of the city and committed suicide by shooting himself.

It has been said that some of these men were in South Africa, and it is an established fact that many of them went there and opened up houses of prostitution but were finally expelled from the country by the British Government. Some of them went to Panama (not in the Canal Zone) and opened houses there, and some of them at the present time are still doing business there.

[Pg 182]Collier's Weekly has mentioned the cemetery owned by these men. It is quite a large section of what is known as the Washington Cemetery. Some of the women buried there, all of them foreigners, were murdered. One of them was found, the body covered with bruises and blood, and an iron bar about 18 inches long covered with blood was found near her body. Two others were strangled to death; another was found in an unconscious condition. A criminal operation had been performed which had not been successful. Several had died as the result of venereal disease. Some of the men died violent deaths; one was stabbed and died of blood poisoning. Another had his neck broken. The ages of the women varied, some were 22, 23, 24 and 25 years of age. Few of them were more than that. Fifteen babies are buried here, most of them only a few months old. In two cases coroner's inquests were held.

In the cafes frequented by these men and owned by them, one hears the vice question in its relation to the whole country discussed. The Chicago graft investigation is being discussed now and many guesses are made as to whether Mike really got the money or whether somebody put up a job on him, anyhow they all feel that Mike has distinguished himself by being so prominently connected with the men higher up.

The Association, unlike the French syndicate, imports very few women. They prey mostly on the ignorant immigrants who are already in this country in such large numbers. They are successful in securing nearly all the women they need in the large foreign centers here and are thus not under the necessity of paying the passage money of their victims to this country, but they do import some. Many of the members of this association are wealthy men. They own fine houses, automobiles, and some of them are credited with a great deal of political influence. When trouble comes to one of the members the record of the society is kept straight by passing a resolution expelling the man from the society. At the same time, the Association goes ahead and uses its money and influence to help the expelled member.

Most of the members of the Association come from Russian Poland and Galitzia, Austria. Very many of the women in their houses come from the same countries. It is interesting at this point to note that a prominent paper in Warsaw claims that they have discovered a white slave society which is practically a counterpart of the one in New York, with the difference that the Warsaw society exports the women, whereas the New York syndicate imports them. Some of the members of the New York Association are ex-criminals, having been convicted in their own country. Because of the strictness of the police in their native land, they have found it advisable to come to America. They still, however, have connections with men of their own class in those countries.

When word comes to New York that a certain city or state is wide open, some members of this syndicate go to these places and open up business. They either take their women along or after settling in a place send to some trustworthy member and have their women brought on. Practically the only charge that the local authorities of New York can bring against these men is that of vagrancy and no magistrate will convict on a charge of vagrancy when the alleged vagrant can show the deeds to property worth $20,000 or $30,000. An incident of this kind actually happened in New York three years ago.

The French syndicate as far as is known, is not an incorporated body like the Jewish organization, but that they have an organization is not questioned for a moment by those who have investigated conditions in New York City. The federal authorities have broken up a house which was alleged to be the headquarters of the French "macquereaux." Most of the women deported by the federal authorities in New York have been French women and most of the men arrested in this connection were also found to be of French extraction.

The report of the police department for 1908 shows that out of fifty-five applications for warrants for alien prostitutes, 41 were arrested, 30 were ordered deported, and 26 were[Pg 183] actually deported. Seven cases are still pending; four were discharged and the others left the country or disappeared. Out of 19 warrants for the arrest of the alien men, 11 were arrested of whom four were sent to prison and ordered deported at the expiration of their sentence. Four were discharged; 2 cases are pending and one escaped. In most cases the men and women were French.

Owing to the vigilance of the Federal authorities, and co-operation of the police department, the French end of the business received a severe blow in the city of New York. Out of 400 French "macquereaux" known to have women in houses, at least 300 left the city when the Federal authorities began to secure convictions against some of their members. However, the decision given in the Keller-Ullman case by the Supreme Court, declaring the law which gave the Federal authorities power to imprison these men for harboring and maintaining women unconstitutional, the Frenchmen have taken heart and are coming back in increasing numbers to the city.

There are many angles to the white slave business in New York. Many women are enticed into houses of ill-fame by promises of marriage and by fake marriages. The cadet took a woman before a crooked notary public and went through a form of marriage but failed to file the agreement thereof, thereby suppressing the evidence of marriage, the pur[Pg 184]pose being to aid procurers who sometimes marry several girls in their vile purposes of compelling these unfortunates to live lives of shame, to enable them to profit by their villainy. The Commission of Immigration found that this practice had been largely suppressed by the new law requiring a marriage license. These notaries now advise as to the best way the law may be circumvented. As an illustration, one notary agreed to perform a real marriage between an investigator of the commission and a supposed Swedish girl, and to draw a contract transferring her property to the husband. The notary then advised the latter as to the best manner in which to make the new wife appear to have committed adultery so that the husband might be able to secure a divorce after having secured the girl's money.

That many of these houses in New York City are run under the guise of massage parlors is well known. Many of the women in these houses are French. A paper is published in New York in which the names and addresses of these houses are advertised. Innocent women are lured by advertisements for operators. The publisher of this paper is a notary public and is always willing to advise his advertisers how to carry on their immoral business. One of the difficulties that the Federal authorities have in putting a stop to the importation of these women into the country is the fact that very many of the women who[Pg 185] have been actually intended for the disorderly houses are manifested to seemingly respectable people. These people, however, have some indirect connection with the business of prostitution. For instance, one man has what seems to be a perfectly legitimate and solid business as a manufacturer of women's clothes. However, his sole business is the supplying of that clothing to the disorderly houses throughout the country. It is said that women have come to work in his factory and have been turned over, after many glittering promises have been made to them, to some keeper of a disorderly house who made them inmates of his establishment. Some of the women go to work in restaurants where members of the Association have some interest, and thus the way is made easy for an introduction to the woman with the subsequent result of finding her way into a disorderly resort. Some of the procurers in New York work through the employment agencies. Since May, 1904, the Commissioner of Licenses has revoked 14 licenses of employment agents for sending girls to immoral places of whom 9 furnished immigrants chiefly. Nine other licenses were revoked for immoral conduct, eight furnished immigrants chiefly. The revocation of a license, however, is not an effective remedy, since in no case have fines or imprisonment been imposed for this violation of the law. Nine agents whose licenses were revoked for this reason are still acting as employment agents, or as runners[Pg 186] for other employment agents. Investigators for the federal authorities and also of the State Commission of Immigration found agents in several sections of the city who are willing on payment of an extra fee to send girls to work in disorderly houses.

The same thing may be said regarding some of the immigrant homes, which are ostensibly for the purpose of protecting foreign girls on arrival in the city of New York. The federal authorities and the State Commission found homes that sent women to disorderly places. The State Commission found one home that was willing upon a donation of $5.00 to send a girl to work in a disorderly house. This donation seems not to have been recorded in the books of the home. Several other homes are at present under investigation by the Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island.

Since 1901 the Sicilian or Southern Italian has played quite a prominent part in the great traffic in women in New York City. At that time, after his triumphant entry into the corrupt politics of the city, it was estimated that Italians controlled from 750 to 1,000 women. Gangs of Italian criminals have grown up in New York City as a great asset of the corrupt political machines. Men like Paul Kelly, Jimmie Kelly and other Italians masquerading under Irish names play a prominent part in Tammany politics, supplying "strong arm" men as repeaters in the elections, whom they recruit from the boxing and other athletic[Pg 187] clubs with which they are affiliated. Jimmie Kelly manages one or two high class pugilists, but around his saloon are to be found many preliminary boxers. These men cannot make a living as preliminary boxers and must depend on something else to eke out a livelihood. Through their connection with men like Kelly they are given the protection necessary to enable them to conduct immoral resorts or to keep women soliciting on the streets, without interference from the police. In return for this immunity they help Kelly deliver the illegal vote necessary to keep the corrupt Tammany machine in power. The Italian because he is more prone to crimes of violence pays for his political protection in votes, while the Jew largely pays cash. The Italian, unlike the Jew, very rarely puts women of his own race into the awful life; there are relatively very few Italian prostitutes. The Italian traders seem likely to displace the French, as they are kinder to the women and they adapt themselves to the political environment in a way that the French do not understand.

We quote again from Mr. George Kibbe Turner in McClure's Magazine for June, 1909:

"The Jew makes the most alert and intelligent citizen of all the great immigrant races that have populated New York. He was a city dweller before the hairy Anglo-Saxon[Pg 188] came out of the woods; and every fall the East Side resolves itself into one great clamorous political debating society.

"Out of the Bowery and Red Light districts have come the new development in New York politics—the great voting power of the organized criminals. It was a notable development not only for New York, but for the country at large. And no part of it was more noteworthy than the appearance of the Jewish dealer in women, a product of New York politics, who has vitiated, more than any other single agency, the moral life of the great cities of America in the past ten years."

It is absolute fact that corrupt Jews are now the backbone of the loathsome traffic in New York and Chicago. The good Jews know this and feel keenly the unspeakable shame of it. The American Hebrew says in an editorial:

"If Jews are the chief sinners, it is appropriate that Jews should be the chief avengers of the dishonor done to their own people, and in many cases to their own women. We feel confident that unless something is done, and done quickly, a scandal of the most intense character will break forth, and only by prompt action can its worst effects be warded off from the fair name of American Jewry."

Hon. Oscar S. Straus wrote in his report as Secretary of Commerce and Labor, for 1908:

"It is highly necessary that this diabolical traffic, which has attained international pro[Pg 189]portions, should be dealt with in a manner adequate to compass its suppression. No punishment is too severe to inflict upon the procurers in this vile traffic."

CHAPTER XIV.

BARRED WINDOWS: HOW WE TOOK UP THE CAUSE OF THE WHITE SLAVES.

This afternoon, August 26, 1909, between half past two and half past three o'clock, Mr. Ralph Radnor Earle took photographs of various places in Chicago's principal vice district. Among these were several photographs of barred windows of resorts, positively known to myself and Miss Dedrick, who both accompanied the photographer, as disorderly, flagrant, infamous houses. Some of these barred windows on the dens of crime are here reproduced from the photographs. The bars are on the windows of both floors of these buildings; these are the back windows of these dives, and look towards Clark street, a great Chicago thoroughfare, from which the upper windows are plainly seen.

Five years ago barred windows on a house of sin, which had been turned into a mission, alarmed some of us and gave us almost our first ideas of the fate of the white slaves. The house was a notorious place, the most notorious in Chicago a dozen years ago. The name of the woman who kept it was known and is still spoken in the circles of the immoral through[Pg 191]out Chicago and far beyond it. Stories are told of princes of European houses, pouring out wine and money like water in this glittering palace of mirrored walls and brilliant lights.

The woman died and the probate court would not allow her estate to use the property for immoral purposes. It was leased for a mission and rescue home by Mr. O. H. Richards, founder and superintendent of Beulah Home. Many of the windows were barred, and whatever explanations might be offered, we were never satisfied that they were not barred to keep in girls who at least at times would gladly escape. When we learned that many other houses in the vice district had windows similarly barred we were obliged to conclude that girls were constantly detained against their will.

To this refuge which had been a dive, Edith E—— fled one morning, having escaped from a resort on Custom House Place. She ran first to a drug store, telephoned to the police to get her street clothes from the dive, and then came to the rescue home. She explained that she had heard the midnight missionaries two nights before singing, in a gospel meeting which they were holding in front of the den where she was:

So deep an impression was made upon her that she was wretched all the next day, quite[Pg 192] unfitted for her old life. Next morning she escaped. She told me that she had been a very wicked girl, that her young husband had committed suicide because of her sin. She never went back to her evil life. Her physical heart was seriously weakened from her addiction to drugs, liquor and vice.

In October, 1906, the National Purity Federation, of which Mr. B. S. Steadwell of La-Crosse, Wisconsin, is president, held a conference in Chicago, at Abraham Lincoln Center. Among the speakers was the late Rev. Sidney C. Kendall, whose whole soul was torn and bleeding over the shame of making commerce of women. He told us of the crimes of the French traders, of their systematized traffic in girls and of their organization for defense when any of them is under prosecution in the courts. Mr. Kendall was sick when he was here and died the next summer. With his latest strength and his dying breath he antagonized the loathsome white slave trade. He was a member of the National Vigilance Committee for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic. Mr. Kendall's most conspicuous work was done in Los Angeles. Some of his spirit remained with a few of us in Chicago and we could not rest until some effort was made here to rid us of the shame of slavery in the twentieth century under the flag of the free.

On January 30, 1907, Mr. O. H. Richards told me how he had rescued a girl, with the help of the police, from a resort after the wom[Pg 193]an who kept the place had refused to surrender the girl to her mother and stepfather, on the claim that the girl owed twenty dollars for clothes. As there were three good witnesses to the illegal detention—the mother, the stepfather and Mr. Richards—I saw that this was a good case to bring into court. I asked the mother if, for the sake of other mothers' girls, she would take the witness stand. She heartily consented, as did her husband, and with strong crying and tears, she gave her testimony when the offending woman was arraigned, January 31, before Judge Newcomer at Harrison street. She was convicted, fined, and sent up to the bureau of identification—"rogue's gallery"—to leave her picture and measurements. This broke her pride and she came down wilted. She immediately abandoned her wicked business and is a good woman today. Last September when the midnight workers had some annoyance from dive-keepers, she visited the district at midnight to express her sympathy with the missionaries. She told me, "I remember what you said to me in court. You said, 'I love your soul, but I hate your devilish business.'"

As it was now publicly shown that girls were held in houses against their will, we printed the statute of Illinois against such detention, as a leaflet, and placed a copy in the hand of every keeper and inmate of disorderly resorts in the vice district at Twenty-second street. Captain Harding posted a copy of the leaflet in the police station. Beneath the statute we print[Pg 194]ed a note saying, "No white slave need remain in slavery in this state of Abraham Lincoln, who made the black slaves free. For freedom did Christ set us free; be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage, which is the yoke of sin and evil habit." Pastor Boynton tells in another chapter how Deaconess Hall, himself and I, with Policeman Cullet, went from house to house in the great vice district with this leaflet, which proved so powerful.

Thereafter the cause of the white slaves lay heavy on the hearts of a number of men and women, particularly Deaconess Lucy A. Hall, whose insistence that something be done led, ultimately, to the organization of the vigilance work in Chicago.

In the autumn of 1907, Mrs. Ida Evans Haines obtained a copy of a report of the Episcopal Diocese, of Massachusetts, on Social Purity and the ravages of the diseases that are the wages of sin. At Mrs. Haines' request, Rev. Morton Culver Hartzell organized a committee of ministers of various denominations, of which Rev. Dr. Swift, of Austin, was chairman, and Rev. Dr. Cain, of Edgewater, secretary. Under authority of this committee, a meeting was held at the Y. M. C. A. lecture room in November, 1907, which was addressed by Miss Rose Johnson, of Panama. Out of this meeting came the "Committee for Suppression of Traffic in Vice," of which Dr. Cain was chairman. This committee employed an investigator and was appalled by the revelation[Pg 197][Pg 196][Pg 195] of conditions in Chicago, existing not only in so-called red light districts, but also in residence districts. The activity of this committee for the suppression of traffic in vice attracted a much larger number of persons, who promoted numerous meetings, which culminated in the union meeting of ministers to consider the suppression of the white slave traffic in Chicago and Illinois, on February 10th, 1908.

BLIND BABY IN THE POOR-HOUSE
This baby's condition is the direct result of disease in the parents. Probably 25 per cent of the blindness of children is caused by illicit sexual relation. (Dr. Wm. T. Belfield, page 299.)

IN THE REFUGE
Alone in the world with no one but her baby she comes to the refuge to save herself from starvation. She has no husband. She was tempted and fell

The purpose of that meeting was to enlist the ministers, as the moral leaders of the community, in the effort to rid our city of this shame, and by holding a public convention to give the newspapers opportunity to tell the facts to the public.

Bishop Wm. F. McDowell presided; the devotional service was led by Rev. A. H. Harnly; prayer was offered by Rev. A. C. Dixon. Addresses were made as follows: "Chicago's White Slave Market; the Illegal Red Light District," by Rev. Ernest A. Bell. "The White Slaves and the Law," by Mr. Clifford G. Roe. "The International White Slave Traffic," by Dr. O. Edward Janney, of Baltimore, chairman of the National Vigilance Committee. "The Lost," by Mrs. Raymond Robins.

At that meeting, it was determined to proceed with the organization of a State Association for the suppression of the white slave traffic in Illinois. That same afternoon, February 10th, 1908, a largely attended meeting repre[Pg 198]senting ministers' meetings, settlements, clubs, temperance and other reform organizations, set themselves to establish the "Illinois Vigilance Association."

The publicity given by the conference just mentioned to the testimony of ministers, judges and prosecutors, led the Chicago Tribune to inquire very carefully into the truth of these statements, and finding them true, that newspaper committed itself in numerous editorials to antagonize the White Slave Traffic.

The same conference helped to enlist Hon. Edwin W. Sims, the United States district attorney at Chicago, in the prosecution of the traffickers in foreign girls under the Immigration Act of February 20, 1907. Mr. Sims has repeatedly stated in public meetings that we brought to his notice the appalling traffic in alien girls, which he has since done so much to suppress.

Much has been done, we rejoice to say. Still, today we photographed the barred windows in Chicago's principal market for girls.

LATER—On September 3, in an interview with Hon. LeRoy T. Steward, chief of police, Mr. Arthur Burrage Farwell and the writer submitted photographs of barred windows to the chief. He examined them carefully and said he saw no need of such bars on houses of infamy. The explanation of divekeepers that the bars were "to keep out burglars," was not satisfactory. Assistant Chief Schuettler, who was present, said, "Give it to me, I'll tend to it." He took one of the photographs and in a few days the bars were all removed.

Similar barred windows were found and photographed in Los Angeles during the crusade of the decent people of that city against its white slave market. It's wonderful how carefully these slavers everywhere protect themselves against "burglars."

We reproduce in this book two flashlight pictures of a dungeon door and a steel screen found in Custom House Place, the former white slave market of Chicago. These are taken by permission from "Chicago's Soul Market," by Dr. Jean Turner Zimmermann. She writes concerning these views as follows:

"In the south wall of the basement of 114 Federal street (Custom House Place) that congested, central Redlight District of three years ago, now given over to slum and immigrant habitation, is a great steel door about the size and shape of the door of a railway freight car. On the outside, this door opens into a narrow, blind passageway between 114 and 116 Custom House Place, formerly the notorious dive 'The ——.' On the inside this door opened into a large closet, windowless, sound proof (about 4×7 feet) and it is alleged that it was through the alley and into this blind passage way that the unwilling victims of White Slavers were carried into this little solitary cell.

"The accompanying photograph, secured by the writer, gives at least a faint idea of this frightful trap against whose pitiless walls have, no doubt, beat the agonized shrieks of more than one innocent girl.

"For two years we occupied the premises at 114 Custom House Place as a mission. Upon moving into the place we found every window incased in heavy iron bars, while between the bars and the glass of each window was mortised a one-half inch steel screen (see cut). Entrance or exit from the building was as utterly impossible as from a penitentiary, excepting by the front door."

Certain policemen, from motives best known to themselves, attempted to prevent Dr. Zimmermann from taking these photographs. Scorning their despicable threats of arrest, she took the pictures with her own hands.

CHAPTER XV.

THE NATIONS AND THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC.

Note:—Few Americans are better informed than Mr. Reynolds on the subject of commerce in white women and girls, and in Chinese and Japanese women and girls. He has investigated this awful traffic on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States, in Panama, in China and Japan. He is a member of the National Vigilance Committee, which co-operates with similar organizations in other nations for the extermination of this shameful traffic. In other important investigations he has been a special commissioner of President Roosevelt.

This chapter is an address delivered by Mr. Reynolds, who came from New York for the purpose, before the conference for the suppression of the White Slave Traffic held by the Illinois Vigilance Association in Chicago, February 8, 1909.

THE INTERNATIONAL TREATY.

On May 18, 1904, a treaty was signed between the leading countries of Europe, for the repression of the white slave traffic. This treaty was presented to our government and[Pg 200] after careful consideration its ratification was advised by the senate and proclaimed by the President, June 15, 1908. If I am correctly informed, this is the first treaty relating to social morality consummated between the leading civilized governments of the world. This action is of the highest significance and importance. The provisions of this treaty should be generally known by our people, which is not the case today, and we should carefully consider our obligations as citizens to its proper fulfillment. It should be hailed as a step of progress in this twentieth century, which seems destined to record great improvements in social well-being and in the removal of inequalities of condition. The most important provisions of the treaty which I will summarize are contained in the first three articles:

Article 1. Each of the contracting governments agrees to establish or designate an authority who will be directed to centralize information concerning the procuration of women and girls, for the purpose of their debauchery in a foreign country: That authority shall be empowered to correspond directly with the similar service established in each of the other contracting states.

Article 2. Each of the governments agrees to exercise supervision of railway stations, ports of embarkation and of women and girls in transit, in order to procure all possible information leading to the discovery of a criminal traffic. The arrival of persons involved[Pg 201] in such traffic, as procurers or victims, shall be communicated to diplomatic or consular agents.

Article 3. The governments agree to inform the authorities of the country of origin of the discovery of such unfortunates and to retain, pending advices, such victims in institutions of public or private charity. Such parties will be returned after proper identification to the country of origin.

The execution of the provisions of the treaty in European countries has been entrusted to the national police service. In this country, where the police are not a department of the national government, the Bureau of Immigration, which seemed best equipped for the service pledged, has been instructed to carry out, so far as possible, the provisions of the treaty.

THE EXTENT AND POWER OF THE EVIL FORCES.

Even this exceptionally well informed audience may not be fully aware of the extent and power of the evil forces which Europe and America have through this treaty combined to oppose. That the treaty was originally drafted without the assistance of our own government, indicates that Europe first realized the necessity of governmental action. The adhesion of our own government to the treaty proves its subsequent recognition of the seriousness of the evil. Briefly stated, the status of the white slave traffic is this: It is a traffic with[Pg 202] local, interstate, national and international ramifications. It has the complete outfit of a large business; large capital, representatives in various countries, well paid agents, and able, high salaried lawyers. Its victims are numbered yearly by the thousands. They include not only the peasant girls of European villages, but also the farmers' daughters of our own country. Some are uneducated and wholly ignorant; others have enjoyed good education. While most of them come from the homes of poverty, occasionally a child of well-to-do parentage is numbered among the victims. The alert agents of the traffic move from place to place, alluring peasant girls and farmers' daughters from their homes, entrapping innocent victims at railway stations and public resorts. Not a few girls who go to the cities to seek their fortunes and fail are caught by these harpies. And remember, I am alluding now not to those who go astray because of incidental misfortunes of circumstance, condition, or blind trust in some unworthy lover, but only to those who are entrapped by the agents of the organized white slave traffic system.

The above statements have been abundantly established by the investigations of the National Vigilance Committee within the past two years and have been confirmed by other competent authorities. These conditions have been due not to the wish or the intention of our people, but to our blindness or our ignorance. We forget that eternal vigilance is the price of[Pg 203] liberty, as one declaiming of political freedom has said. The same price must be paid for every other civic excellence or right. The liberty of woman, quite as much as the liberty of man, should be protected, and woman's moral freedom, quite as much as man's political freedom, demands for its protection unceasing vigilance.

Without going further into general conditions, I wish to present a statement regarding America's relations to the white slave traffic in China and Japan and to the yellow slave traffic in the Pacific Coast states of our own country. My information regarding China and Japan is based primarily on my own personal observations and inquiries in those countries. My information regarding conditions in California is based upon the report of a special agent of the National Vigilance Committee and upon the reports of missionaries and other workers among the Chinese and Japanese women on our Western coast.

I shall consider my subject in two divisions: First, white slave traffic in Asia; second, yellow slave traffic in AMERICA. I trust I do not seem to be stretching the application of the subject of my address in the title of the second division. It is the traffic in the bodies and souls of women, and I care not whether they are white, yellow or black. (Applause.) Our responsibility is independent of the color of the victims.

THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC IN ASIA: OUR SHAME IN THE ORIENT.

The record of white slave traffic in the Orient presents one of the darkest pages in our history. In many Oriental cities, notably in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Yokohama, there exists a quarter made up of houses of ill-repute. The most showy and stylishly dressed of their occupants are Americans. Some of them are often conspicuous in expensive equipages on the leading thoroughfares. It is so well known a fact in the Orient that these women are Americans that I was told in three cities that the term "American girl" was synonymous of a prostitute. Such a condition would be deplorable in itself, but in addition it must be understood that just as we Americans derive our chief impression of the Chinese nation from the Chinese quarters in Boston, New York, Chicago and San Francisco, so the Chinese in their home form their impression of Americans from the American communities in the Orient, in which the daughters of shame are most in evidence.

Until recently Shanghai held first place among Oriental cities of such shameful repute. That this status has been somewhat modified is due chiefly to the courage and persistence of Judge Wilfley, American Circuit Court Judge at Shanghai. He was severely criticised, I believe, before a Congressional investigating committee last winter, for lack of tact, and for[Pg 205] using rough-shod methods. A careful investigation by Mr. Root, the Secretary of State, resulted, however, in Judge Wilfley's complete vindication and in the highest praise for the service he had rendered in cleansing out the Augean stables of American vice in Shanghai. But in spite of his admirable efforts, the reform has not been permanent, and will only become so when we manifest that our moral house-cleaning is a permanent duty to be kept up at all times.

Of course there are clean and happy American homes in these cities, just as there are happy Chinese homes in our Chinese quarters, though few of us are aware of the latter fact, as neither our reporters nor our slumming parties discover them. But the American dens of vice in the coast cities are the most conspicuous exponents of Americanism in China and Japan, as the Chinese opium and gambling dens in our American cities are supposed to be typical of life in China. We hasten to assert that in our case the imputation is deplorably incorrect. We might with equal truth recognize the injustice of judging the average Chinaman by impressions formed in a Chinatown slumming party.

The Chinese colonies of this country and the European and American colonies in the Orient exhibit the worst side of their respective national character. Thus through the depravity of a fragment of our people the nation is misjudged and is believed to make for unrighteous[Pg 206]ness. This has been the direct result of our indifference to our reputation in the Orient. It is well to remind you that under the exterritoriality clause of our treaty with China, all Americans in China are under the protection and control of our consular representatives. The Chinese in this country have no such protection from their home government. The Chinese nation is, therefore, entitled to hold us responsible for the conduct of Americans in China, as we cannot hold the Chinese government responsible for the conduct of its people in our country.

When I was in Japan, at the request of the American government, I approached certain Japanese officials to learn if something could not be done to stop the sending of Japanese girls to this country for immoral purposes. I was courteously received, and after some discussion was assured that the Japanese government would gladly co-operate to suppress this traffic and would welcome any suggestions to that end. A high official said to me, "We desire to have the Japanese enjoy a good reputation in your country, and therefore we are most anxious that only those Japanese should go to your country who will contribute to the good reputation of our country." But on leaving this official he said with some hesitation, "Do you think it would be possible on your return to America to suggest to your officials that they might do something to prevent the sending of American girls to our cities?" Let those who[Pg 207] hastily declare the Japanese to be wholly depraved because of the Yoshiwara in their cities, understand that we have been and still are responsible for an American Yoshiwara in more than one Japanese and Chinese city.

Should not this mortifying suggestion of a Japanese official to a Christian nation, the burning disgrace to our country, and the dictates of patriotism, of decency and of humanity, arouse us and through us our government? If we realize the necessity of action, then there are three things which we can and should do.

1. Provision should be made by law so that the protection of American citizenship, impudently flaunted in the Orient by the American prostitutes and other outlaws, should be withdrawn. American citizenship should not be a cloak for the protection and promotion of vice. I realize the danger of the possible abuse of such proscription. Proper safeguards must be maintained so that an arrogant or unprincipled consul may not abuse his power; but with proper checks, protection sought in the name of American citizenship should bring good character as its credential.

2. Direct communication should be established between our government and the governments of Japan and China, assuring these governments that we deplore the presence in their territory of such unworthy representatives of our country, and that we will gladly co-operate in driving them from their unholy traffic.

[Pg 208]3. A formal treaty agreement should be instituted with China and Japan under which the high contracting parties should agree to use their respective police powers to detect and punish those who seek to send girls or women from one country to the other for immoral purposes.

THE YELLOW SLAVE TRAFFIC IN AMERICA—MORE SHAMEFUL STILL.

Deplorable and disgraceful as is the white slave traffic in the Orient, the yellow slave traffic in our own country is infinitely more disgraceful. We call ourselves a Christian nation. The Chinese and Japanese are classed as heathen, but I am compelled to believe that the heathen slaves imprisoned in the pens of California are in a much worse plight under Christian rule than are their unfortunate sisters in Chinese and Japanese cities under heathen rule.

I am informed that five years ago very few Oriental women were imported for immoral purposes. A small number of Chinese women were kept in certain houses for the accommodation of Chinese men. Today there is an organized system of commerce in human flesh between China and Japan and this country, and an organized system of slavery in certain of our coast states. After the payment of money for this human property, title is passed just as for[Pg 209] real estate, and the alleged property rights are respected by our officials. Is this Christian? Is it decent? Is it American? Is it anything but a vile shame and disgrace, a disgrace to be abolished by the determined action of every lover of decency in our land? [Cries of No! No!]

I am not making these statements on the basis of newspaper stories or travelers' gossip. Let me quote from a report of our investigator. Speaking of one city in California, he says, "The crib system, which means the keeping of many girls in small rooms in large buildings, sometimes under lock and key, sometimes at liberty to come and go, is adopted to a limited degree among Japanese girls. Across the river these girls are kept in the Chinese quarter. They are owned by wealthy Japanese and Chinese men. The property thus used for saloon, gambling and for a slave market for girls is said to belong to an estate controlled by a high official of the state."

Of another city our investigator says: "In conversation with a very intelligent Chinese woman, the direct question was asked, 'Are the Chinese and Japanese women actual prisoners owned and controlled by their keepers?' She said that such was practically the case, and that none of these girls were allowed to leave their rooms without being escorted by older people, whose presence with them would insure their return.

"It is remarkable that the authorities of[Pg 210] Oakland seem to regard this crib slavery of young girls as part of the legitimate business of the city."

Of a third city he says: "There is a district in ——, covering five blocks—a crib district—where the floating population gathers by the hundreds. The girls here number from 100 to 600.

"One other similar section of —— is owned by some very prominent and wealthy citizens, who pay taxes on the property. Their names are known. In the suburbs is a field containing the nameless graves of 451 unknown girls."

Many cases are on record of the attempts of missionary workers, some successful and some unsuccessful, to snatch these victims from their owners. One missionary told of an instance where she had been informed that one of five girls confined in a certain room in a house of ill-repute desired to escape. With the help of an honest policeman and two assistants the missionary forced her way into the room. When she found the five girls she was at a loss to determine what to do, because she could not recognize which one wished to escape. She had been informed that the girl she sought would be afraid to indicate her wish. After hesitation the missionary selected one girl and told the detective to seize her. The girl screamed, kicked, scratched and fought her rescuers with the greatest energy, but was carried into the street and into the mission house. As soon as she was inside the house she fell at[Pg 211] the feet of the teacher and said, "Teacher, you know I didn't mean what I said. I did not dare to show any desire to go for fear I might be taken back." It happened that the missionary got the girl whom she sought and who desired her liberty. Other attempts at rescue have been less successful. On one occasion a rescue party sought a Chinese girl, whom it was agreed should hold to her mouth a white handkerchief as a signal that she was the one to be taken. When the rescue party entered the place, they saw the girl with the handkerchief to her face, at the soliciting window. Unfortunately, in the excitement of the moment the girl lost her presence of mind, and, waving her handkerchief, cried out, "O teacher!" But a locked door still separated her from her rescuers, and her keepers, suspecting the truth, dragged her back, and she was lost in the house before the door could be forced. Other girls who escaped from the den afterwards told her fate. Her enraged owner kicked her to death in one of the rooms of her slave prison where there was none to defend her. No one was ever punished for this crime.

Horrible as these incidents were, they are but the regular accompaniments of slavery. They have been paralleled in all ages and in all countries where slavery has existed. The shame of it is that in America in the twentieth century such slavery should still be tolerated.

Ought we not to give active support to our government in its fulfillment of its treaty[Pg 212] agreement with the nations of Europe? And should not our example in the Orient and our conduct in our own country be more worthy of our national moral standards? If so, then such an association as this has a more than local service to render. Placed in this important center, it must reach out both to the East and to the West, awaken interest, give warning, and help to provide a chain of national protective agencies to combat and destroy the closely linked chain of purveyors of vice.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE YELLOW SLAVE TRADE.

During the administration of President Hayes the United States consul general at Shanghai, Mr. D. H. Bailey, made a report to the president, relating to slavery in China and the menace to our country from that cause. He enclosed with his report a translation of the laws governing slaves, some of which are as follows:

"If a female slave deserts her master's house she shall be punished with eighty blows. Whoever harbors a fugitive wife or slave, knowing them to be fugitives, shall participate equally in their punishment.

"A slave guilty of addressing abusive language to his master shall suffer death by being strangled.

"The master or the relatives of a master of a guilty slave may chastise such slave in any degree short of death, without being liable to any punishment.

"All slaves who are guilty of designedly striking their masters shall, without making any distinction between principals and accessories, be beheaded.

"If accidentally they kill their master, they shall suffer death by being strangled."

In China, and wherever Chinese live, slave[Pg 214] girls and women are subject to two forms of slavery, domestic slavery and brothel slavery. Every respectable Chinese family has one or two house slaves. The brothel slave is a literal slave, bought and sold like a sheep or cow. Traffic in Chinese girls for wicked uses extended to Hong Kong as soon as the island became prosperous and populous after being ceded to Great Britain in 1841. From Hong Kong the horrid trade reached to California, and to Singapore and other places.

Commissioners appointed by the governor of Hong Kong made a report in 1880, from which the following accounts are taken:

"Young girls, virgins of thirteen or fourteen years of age, are brought from Canton or elsewhere and deflowered according to bargain, and as a regular business for large sums of money, which go to their owners. The regular earnings of the girls go to the same quarters, and the unfortunate creatures obviously form subjects of speculation to regular traders in this kind of business, who reside beyond our jurisdiction. Mr. Lister speaks of the brothel-keepers as a horrible race of cruel women, cruel to the last degree, who use an ingenious form of torture, which they call prevention of sleep, which he describes in detail."

"Two girls were brought before the registrar general, both of whom pleaded for protection against their owner, stating that she intended to sell them to go to California. One of these had been bought by this woman for[Pg 215] eighty dollars; the girl saw the price paid for her. The other said her mother was very poor and sold her for twenty dollars. The inspector said: 'There has been at times a number of women residing in the house, and I do not know what has become of them. I believe that they have been sent to California by the defendant.'"

The poor slave girls, as shown by court proceedings at Hong Kong, had the same terror of being "sold into California" that the negro slaves in this country had of being "sold down the river." One of the girls testified that she had seen several women sent away to California. She had been present when bargains were made, the price varying. In Hong Kong the price was from fifty to one hundred and fifty dollars; they would bring in California from two hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty dollars.

Owing to the restriction of Chinese immigration, and the penal laws against importing women for evil uses, the value of a slave girl on the Pacific Coast has greatly increased; it is now $3,000.

The system of Chinese brothel slavery differs from the white slave trade, in that the Chinese brothel slaves are not weak or wicked women who have fallen into the clutches of traffickers, as so many of our European and American white slaves unquestionably are, but are good girls who have been sold by their actual owners into[Pg 216] a life of shame for money, sometimes sold by their own parents. Some are not sold outright, but are mortgaged to pay off a loan. So much is credited each month until the debt is canceled—unless fresh debts, real or fictitious, keep the victim indefinitely, as with the white slaves. On the marked differences between the white slave and the yellow slave, the commissioners previously quoted say: "Prostitutes in Europe are, as a general rule, fallen women, the victims of seduction, or possibly of innate vice. Being the outcasts of society, and having little, if any, prospect of being admitted again into decent and respectable circles of life, deprived also of their own self-respect as well as the regards of their relatives, occasionally even troubled with qualms of conscience, they mostly dread thinking of their future, and seek oblivion in excesses of boisterous dissipation. The Chinese prostitutes of Hong Kong are an entirely different set of people. Very few of them can be called fallen women, scarcely any of them are the victims of seduction in the English sense of the term, refined or unrefined. The great majority of them are owned by professional brothel-keepers or traders in women in Canton or Macao, have been brought up for that life and trained in various accomplishments suited to it. They frequently know neither father nor mother, except what they call a pocket-mother, that is, the woman who bought them from others." There are 18,000[Pg 217] such slaves in Hong Kong, if the estimates accepted by the commissioners are correct.

In China the yellow slave has hope of escape from her bondage. If she is pretty and accomplished, some rich man may buy her for his first, second, third or fourth wife. If she is homely some honest working man may take her. Or she may sing or play an instrument and thereby add to her earnings until she can buy her own freedom, if dissipation and disease have not killed her first.

The mortgaged girls are often such as have sacrificed their own to their family's honor, according to the Chinese and Japanese notion of filial piety. The money thus advanced by the keeper is thought necessary to rescue the girl's family or some member of it from calamity or ruin. One Japanese man is quoted as saying that such sacrifice on a girl's part is "Christ-like." He should hear the voice of Christ, saying of all these sins, "which things I also hate." Revelation, 2:6.

YELLOW SLAVES IN AMERICA.

The terrible system of Chinese and Japanese brothel slavery has been imported into San Francisco, Oakland, and other cities of California. Americans and Europeans have invested money and devoted business ability to this enormous iniquity, because it pays well. Apart from the horrors of Chinatown, one thousand Japanese women are held in this form of slavery in California. The San Francisco Chron[Pg 218]icle said of this statement: "There is not the slightest doubt of the truth of the assertion, disreputable as it may seem."

The police will generally say after investigating, that these women are willing to remain in their present condition. Doubtless this is true of most of them, but they are slaves, none the less, literal and actual slaves, bought and paid for and acknowledging the ownership. In a letter of Abraham Lincoln, written before the war, he tells of a company of negro slaves that he saw on a boat on the Ohio and he never saw such a happy company of people in his life. When John Brown made his raid into Virginia and captured 200,000 stands of arms at Harper's Ferry, he hoped that the thousands of negro slaves in that region would join him and fight for their freedom. He could only get six or eight negroes to join him, and those at the point of the bayonet. One was shot rather than seek his liberty. At the beginning of the Abolition movement a petition from slaves was sent to Congress in favor of slavery! Women terrorized by such laws as are quoted at the beginning of this chapter, and further terrorized by all the brutal treatment and threats of the slave traders, are not likely to say to the police that they desire liberty. But it is our duty to give them liberty and to punish their owners, who cannot legally own them, but do practically own them under the Stars and Stripes.

The following cases illustrate the traffic and[Pg 219] the work of missionaries. These three girls were in the Methodist Home for Chinese Girls, located since the earthquake at Berkeley. One says:

"I am twelve years old; born in Canton; father a laborer; mother a nurse; parents very poor. Mother fell sick and in her need of money sold me to a woman three years ago in Hong Kong. The woman promised my mother to make me her own daughter. My mother cried when she left me; I have heard that she is now dead. The big ship City of Pekin took me soon out of sight. There was trouble in landing me. The woman had no trouble in landing, because she had been in California before. She told me what I was to say. She told me I must swear I was her own daughter. The judge asked me, 'Is this your own mother?' and I said, 'Yes.' This was a lie, but I did not know it was wrong to do as I was told, and I was afraid of my mistress. The Judge said, 'Did this woman give you birth?' and I said, 'Yes.' The judge said, 'did anybody tell you to say all this?' and I said 'No,' because my mistress had instructed me. She taught me on shipboard what to say if I was taken to court. She beat me with thick sticks of firewood. She beat me with the fire tongs. One day she took a hot flatiron, removed my clothes and held it on my naked back until I howled with pain. (The scab was on her back when she came to the Mission.) My forehead is all scars caused by her throwing heavy pieces of wood at my head. One[Pg 220] cut a large gash and the blood ran out. She stopped the bleeding and hid me away. I thought I better get away before she killed me. When she was having her hair washed and dressed I ran away. I had heard of the Mission, and inquired the way and came to it. A white man brought me here. I am very happy now."

Another little slave, eleven years old, who was about to be sold from domestic slavery into a brothel, was saved by a Chinaman. She says: "A Chinaman living next door, knowing how I was treated and that I was going to be put in a brothel, when I saw him in the passageway, asked me if I wished to come to the Mission, and I said 'Yes.' My mistress had gone out into the next room, leaving her daughter and another slave girl in the room. I said I would go at once and he brought me. I am very glad to live here and lead a good life."

In the following case the rescuer was a negress. A young girl came from China to San Francisco as a merchant's wife. Missionaries visited her in Chinatown, but she disappeared and explanations were not satisfactory. A year later the door bell rang one night at the Mission and when it was opened a Chinese girl fell in a faint across the threshold, a colored girl holding her by the queue. The colored girl saw her running and, to prevent her from being dragged back by her tormentors, seized her by the queue and helped her run to the Mission. It was the merchant's young wife. The[Pg 221] wretch had left her on false pretense in a den of shame. She was tied to a window by day and to a bed by night, a thoroughly unwilling slave. Three days before her escape, the chief of police and an interpreter had gone through the house, questioning every inmate as to whether they wished to lead a life of shame or not. She was asked the question in the presence of the divekeeper, the madam and all the girls. She had been told beforehand, "If you dare say you want to escape, we will kill you." The chief of police announced in the papers that there were no slaves in Chinatown. Though watched night and day, she rushed out at an opportune moment and, with the help of the colored girl, ran to safety.

Since the earthquake immense slave pens have been built at Oakland and in San Francisco. A photograph of one large wooden structure, to hold more than a hundred girls, is before me as I write. The girls are kept in small rooms, nine or ten feet square. Americans and Chinamen are partners in the horrible business.

This chapter is a review, in part, of the book, "Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers," written by Dr. Katharine Bushnell and Mrs. Elizabeth Andrew.

It was my good fortune and delight to meet Dr. Bushnell and Mrs. Andrew in Bombay, at the time when Lord Roberts had contradicted their statements about procuring women for British soldiers in India—"Queen's wom[Pg 222]en" as they were called. Upon being convinced that Dr. Bushnell and Mrs Andrew had told the truth, Lord Roberts, then commander-in-chief of the forces in India, said, "I apologize to the ladies without reserve."

CHAPTER XVII.

HOW SNAKES CHARM CANARIES: METHODS OF PROCURERS.

At the end of May, 1907, Rev. Melbourne P. Boynton, pastor of the Lexington Avenue Baptist Church, was requested by the Chicago Examiner to make a tour of the vice district at Twenty-second street and write against its iniquities for the columns of that newspaper. Pastor Boynton stipulated that I should accompany him, as a recognized worker in the slums and superintendent of the Midnight Mission. Rev. E. L. Williams, a Methodist pastor, also accompanied us, with Detectives Considine and Thomas of the Chicago police.

As we went out I prayed God to give us a thunderbolt to alarm the people of Chicago. We did not foresee the answer to this prayer, but I have always felt that it was answered very quickly and in the following manner:

Shortly after one o'clock on the morning of May 31, we entered a resort on Dearborn street, whose former owner had come to me at midnight to tell me that he had not had one happy minute since he took up that terrible business and that he would quit it, which he did. In this place among the half-dressed inmates we noticed a modestly gowned young[Pg 224] woman, sitting at a small drinking table opposite something that ought to have been a man. The thing's name was Neil Jaeger; the girl's name was Macdonald. I asked the girl if she were an inmate or leading a life of that sort and she said no. She told me her true name and address and lied only about her age, as Jaeger had taught her to say she was twenty, when she was only sixteen, that he might sell her in the white slave market. The keeper of the resort, convinced that she was under age, had refused to deal with him. When I began to question the snake, it hissed, "Mind your own business." I replied that this was my business, and asked the detectives to investigate. Discerning quickly what it was that we had discovered, they promptly locked the thing in an iron cage, like any other wild beast. The girl was cared for. Her anxiety was expressed in her words, "What will my mother say?"

At the trial of Jaeger before Judge Fake, he himself told brazenly how he had brought this young girl from her own home in an Illinois town, her mother supposing that she was going to work in Rockford. While the girl was giving her testimony I heard the click of a camera, to my sorrow—for we were doing our utmost to keep the girl's secret and to send her quietly to her mother. More than half a million copies of her photograph went out in the great daily papers of Chicago. When the truth was known, other young girls told what they[Pg 225] had escaped by the capture and exposure of this reptile, for he was luring several of them to Chicago, one of them only fifteen years old. About half a million pages were published in the Chicago newspapers at this time against the traffic in girls. Such, it seemed to me, was the thunderbolt, for which I had prayed.

LETTERS OF A DESTROYER OF GIRLS.

In a letter written from Rockton, Illinois, on May 27, the hypocrite Jaeger had said to one of his intended victims: "I have learned to love you as I never loved a girl before and probably never will again. Now, sweetheart, I want you to get away from this town and the life you are leading there as soon as you possibly can. When you are ready let me know, and I will send you plenty of money to start out on, and will meet you wherever you say and then we can be together as much as we please and can live happy ever afterward—that is, of course, if you like me that well and I certainly hope you do. Be a good girl and God bless you and keep you from harm. Lovingly, Neil M. Jaeger."

In another letter he wrote: "From our last conversation I feel determined not to give you up, but to do all in my power to aid you to free yourself from the bondage that undermines your health and temper and open to you a life free from care and strife, where you can go where, when and with whom you please without being kept like a girl in a convent. Your[Pg 226] natural vivacious and care-free nature rebels against the shackles, which fate has placed upon you, and I am willing to give you physical, mental, moral and financial support, to give you a life where none of the troubles which now harass you will be manifest, but instead will be a life where love will rule supreme. I will further try to prove myself worthy of your esteem if you will allow me to do something in a financial way. I am a man of character, honesty and uprightness, possess an estate valued at $50,000, own an automobile and a private yacht, have an income of some $2,500 a year and am thoroughly independent. I come from one of the best families in the west. I am willing to take you to Chicago, support you, and if you desire, secure employment for you at Marshall Field & Co.'s, besides taking you to dances, theatres, automobiling and yachting. Surely anything would be better than the life you are leading there."

BISHOP OF LONDON PREACHING IN WALL STREET NEW YORK
The best loved man in England. He preaches in the slums at midnight, and in his cathedral he pleads with the leaders of his church and nation against the false modesty which keeps young people in ignorance of the wages of sin.

BARRED WINDOW AND DUNGEON DOOR
No state prison is more securely barred than was this house where many white slaves were kept. This dive was a rendezvous for thieves and other disreputable characters.

Denying rumors of his evil character, he wrote: "I did not go to Davis to see another girl. I went to sign up some policies which I wrote up there a couple of weeks ago. And if you heard anything I said about you, it was some lie those kids made up, like the one about the girl in Davis. I never spoke to the girl in my life and probably wouldn't know her if I met her on the street. I do care very much for you and I love you much more than I profess and I don't run after other girls. I would like to take you with me, but since you say that was[Pg 229][Pg 228][Pg 227] impossible, I will be true to you. If you ever want to come to me I will send you the money and will take as good care of you as if you were my own sister."

In another letter the wretch complains: "Say, why did you tell Effie about my writing to you and wanting you to come to Chicago? Please keep these things to yourself if you value love."

Needless to say, the scoundrel had no wealth, and when Judge Fake fined him two hundred dollars, all the punishment our backward laws provided at that time, he had to go to prison until his father could send the money from his home in the state of Washington.

The letters quoted above were obtained by Miss Niblo, a missionary, from the intended victims, and were published by the editor of the Freeport Evening Standard, July 31, 1907.

A very young girl who just escaped this tiger's claws wrote this letter of inquiry and gratitude:

"—— Street.
——, Illinois, August 8, 1907.

Rev. Ernest Bell:

Dear Sir:—Could you tell me if Neil Jaeger is in the bridewell yet or has he been released? I am a girl that he tried to persuade to go away with him, but he did not succeed in getting me to go. You have my heartiest congratulations for capturing such a wretch.

Yours Truly,
———"

[Pg 230]There are hundreds of such smooth scoundrels occupied all the time in replenishing the dens of shame in Chicago. They travel, to our positive knowledge, as far as Ohio and Tennessee and in all the nearer states. Fathers and mothers and brothers of girls, and the girls themselves, should be ceaselessly vigilant against these murderous deceivers. They always profess to be in some legitimate business and are apt to transact some honest deals as a blind. Every city that keeps up a red light district breeds these destroyers of girls. Every divekeeper employs such agents, and the principal is worse than the employee.

Mrs. Charlton Edholm, in her book "Traffic in Girls," writes the following confession made to her by a converted bartender: "Mrs. Edholm, I believe I am a converted man now, and that the Lord Jesus Christ has accepted me and I will dwell with him forever, but when I realize how many girls I have sent to houses of shame, I wonder if God ever can forgive me, and I would give my life if I could undo it.

"When I was a bartender for years in a saloon with wine rooms, these procurers used to come there, and often I've seen one of these men bring a beautiful girl to the ladies' entrance, and of course he would try to get her to drink wine or beer, but oftentimes having been brought up in a Christian home, or having signed the total abstinence pledge in the Sunday school,—for you W. C. T. U. women have done so much for the children by having temperance taught in the day schools and Sunday schools,—and she would refuse to touch the wine or beer, then he would wink at me, and I knew that meant an extra dollar for me, and I would drop a little drug into whatever that girl had to eat or drink, and in a few moments she would be unconscious and that fellow would have a carriage drive to the door, that girl would be placed in it and driven straight to a haunt of shame; he would receive his twenty-five or fifty dollars, and that girl would be as surely lost as if the earth had opened and swallowed her. Hundreds of times I've done this, and, Mrs. Edholm, do you think God can forgive me?"

Young men, and older men, who patronize houses of shame should be made to see and feel that all this hellish traffic goes on at their instance and at their expense. The keepers and procurers are the paid agents of the men who foot the bill. Every dollar, with the burning name of God upon it, that any man spends there makes him a stockholder in the white slave market and a partner in the traffic in girls. The men who support the hideous business are the ultimate white slave traders, and when their hired men, the divekeepers and procurers, come to judgment and condemnation, the men who supported them in crime will be arraigned beside them and punished with them.

PERIL OF STAGE-STRUCK GIRLS.

The corruption of the present day theatre is generally admitted. Archbishop Farley, in a sermon at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, on Sunday, February 7, 1909, said that "the stage is worse today then it was in the days of paganism." He added: "We see today men and women—old men and old women—who ought to know better bringing the young to these orgies of obscenity. Instead of that they should be exercising a supervision over the young and should look carefully after their companionship."

Actresses of character are among the foremost to warn young women of the perils of the modern stage. Shakespeare and the older dramatists taught virtue, often with the spirit and energy of a prophet. Multitudes of present day plays are of such moral character and tendency that no one can defend or excuse them. President Taft recently walked out of a theatre to express his disapproval of the play.

Low theatres exist merely to inflame those who visit them. They go to the awful length of naming the vice district as part of the merriment of the performances. Other so-called theatres are a part of the combined saloon and den of shame. I have conversed personally many times with girls who were deceived into going to such places, thinking they were going on the reputable stage.

Mr. Arthur Burrage Farwell, Chicago's well-[Pg 231]known reformer, here tells briefly the story of two young girls, whom I have often met in his office, who were lured by a false theatrical agency to go to a vile resort. The agency of a wicked woman, or two of them, will be noted in this case, along with the base deeds of an unscrupulous man. The keen eyes and wise head of a good hearted Scotch woman saved the girls from a terrible doom. Mr. Farwell writes as follows:

"About December 1, 1907, I received a special delivery letter from the managing editor of one of the oldest daily papers in Springfield, Illinois, informing me that two girls had been sent back to Chicago and suggesting that the police department be informed of the facts. I immediately communicated with the assistant general superintendent of police, Hon. Herman F. Schuettler, and the girls were located. The theatrical agent who had sent them from Chicago was arrested and work was started against some of the evil practices of false theatrical agents.

Taking the story from the girls and from their testimony in court, it is as follows: These two girls worked in a large department store in the city of Chicago. One of them was approached one day by a well-dressed woman who requested the judgment of this young lady upon some material to be used in theatrical work. The result was that this woman gave the name of a theatrical agent and told the girl that she could make $25.00 a week by going on[Pg 232] the stage, as she had a good voice, etc., etc.

This girl spoke to another friend, working in the same store, and together they called upon this theatrical agent whose name was given them by the woman. After being taken to a saloon, an attempt being made to compromise them, they were given tickets to the city where they were supposed to go upon the stage. They reached the city and providentially were guided to a boardinghouse of a Scotch woman who lived next door to the alleged theatre, which proved to be a saloon in the front and a vaudeville in the rear and upstairs a most awful place.

The proprietor of the alleged theatre declined to employ the young ladies unless they would stay in the rooms over the saloon or theatre. On the advice of the Scotch woman they declined to stay over the theatre, and the woman furnished them tickets and they returned to Chicago.

The preliminary hearing of the People vs. —— was held in the Municipal Court of Chicago before Judge Wells, January 14, 1908, and lasted about five days, and twenty-seven witnesses were heard, the testimony covering 373 pages. The theatrical agent ——, was held to the grand jury. His license to operate a theatrical agency was revoked by the state.

The sworn testimony showed a condition of affairs that would be a disgrace to the most ignorant, vicious and debased people. That such things are allowed in a republic where the[Pg 233] people rule, as were allowed in Springfield and in other cities, is a sad commentary upon the average indifference of the authorities and the people, which should be called criminal indifference.

The theatrical agent and one of the owners of the property in Springfield were indicted for conspiracy, but in the criminal court these charges were not sustained.

The two girls were living with a woman and one day when they were needed as witnesses it was found they were not there. A letter with no signature was received by the president of the Chicago Law and Order League, informing him that the two girls were living under assumed names in Milwaukee, and immediately representatives of the Chicago Law and Order League and of the State of Illinois, went to Milwaukee and found the girls and brought them back.

The men who were responsible for sending these state's witnesses away were indicted and were found guilty and the woman re-indicted.

The expense in this one case to the Chicago Law and Order League and the State of Illinois was probably not less than $2,000.

If the young girls who are seeking a living upon the stage could know of the pitfalls that are in their way, I believe many of them would seek other employment. One of the girls is now married and living very happily.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PROCURESSES AND THE CONFESSION OF ONE OF THEM.

Here is a story from the London Times, which might easily be repeated in the New York Herald or the Chicago Tribune:

"I was standing on a railway platform at —— with a friend waiting for a train, when two ladies came into the station. I was acquainted with one of them, the younger, well. She told me she was going to London, having been fortunate enough to get a liberal engagement as governess in the family of the lady under whose charge she then was, and who had even taken the trouble to come into the country to see her and her friends, to ascertain that she was likely in all respects to suit. The train coming in sight, the fares were paid, the elder lady paying both. I saw them into the car, and the door being closed, I bowed to them and rejoined my friend, who happened to be a London man about town. 'Well, I will say,' said he, 'you country gentlemen are pretty independent of public opinion. You are not ashamed of your little transactions being known!' 'What do you mean?' I asked. 'Why, I mean your talking to that girl and her duenna on an open platform.' 'Why, that is Miss ——, an intimate of[Pg 235] friend of ours.' 'Well, then, I can tell you,' said the Londoner to me coolly, 'her friend is Madam ——, one of the most noted procuresses in London, and she has got hold of a new victim, if she is a victim, and no mistake.' I saw there was not a minute to lose; I rushed to the guard of the train and got him to wait a moment. I then hurried to the car door where the ladies were. 'Miss ——, you must get out; that person is an unfit companion for you. Madam ——, we know who you are.' That one victim was rescued, but how many are lost?"

With "Prisoner Number 503," whose story follows, I have conversed personally and I have not the slightest doubt that her story is true. It surprised me to hear her say that she was and is a member of a Baptist church, with an implication in her words and manner that members of other churches are not quite so safe as members of her denomination. Her story was published January 28, 1909. She was brought to justice by the Chicago Law and Order League.

BY PRISONER NUMBER 503.

I am writing this message to the readers of The National Prohibitionist and to the world from behind the bars in that gloomy pile of buildings alongside the Drainage Canal, where Chicago every year spends some millions of dollars to protect herself from the criminal classes which she constantly creates and breeds.

[Pg 236]It may shock the respectable people who read these lines to find that their author is an imprisoned criminal. I lay emphasis on the word "imprisoned," because my not very long experience with the world has taught me that violation of the law is not particularly offensive to the mass of the world's inhabitants so long as it is not attended with the "pains and penalties" that are prescribed for the law's violation.

I may as well shock my readers still more at once by the frank confession that I am in prison convicted of being what is commonly known as a "white slave trader" and I was justly convicted and was guilty of the offense charged.

Behold me, a very common sort of a woman, twenty nine years old, an ex-schoolteacher, born and piously brought up in the good state of Arkansas, fairly well educated, and, until within the last few months, almost wholly inexperienced in the ways of the wicked world.

Six years ago, in my Arkansas home, I married a man whom I believed to be in every way worthy of the respect and love that I gave him and, bidding goodby to my mother and my childhood friends in the old home, went with him to St. Louis.

I wonder if the good men who let the saloons flourish in all our cities and excuse themselves with the assertion that if a man will drink it is his own business, and if he makes a fool of[Pg 237] himself, he is the only one that suffers—I wonder if those men really know what they are doing for thousands of women who do not drink but who SUFFER?

Years ago, somewhere I read an article about the saloons written by some great minister or bishop, whose name I have forgotten, and, indeed, I have forgotten most of what he said, but I remember he did say that the victims of the saloon are willing victims.

I found that my husband was a drunkard. A railroad man with a good "job," able to earn a comfortable living for himself and me; he never for a day could be depended upon. Many a morning did he kiss me goodby, leaving me the impression that he had gone to his work, when it would be three days, a week, a month, sometimes three months before I saw or heard from him again, though I might be in the sorest straits for the necessities of life. Three times he did this when he knew that I was soon to become a mother. Once, after three months' absence, I heard from him in a hospital in another city. I went to him, nursed him, brought him home and when he was able to work, gave him out of my own earnings money to pay his board until payday (for his work would oblige him to board in another town) and he went away and I never saw him again for months.

Forced to work for a living, I came to Chicago, finding a position in a legitimate busi[Pg 238]ness, although, unfortunately, it was the sort of a business that brought me into contact with many people of bad morals, and tended to deteriorate my own moral ideals.

Here in Chicago, while I was buying a railroad ticket one day in a ticket broker's office, I was introduced by the clerk to a man who appeared to be a gentleman, with the suggestion that he would be willing to do for me a slight service which I needed at the moment, regarding my baggage. A few weeks after, this man, whom I had no reason to suspect of any evil motive, sought me with the offer of a good place to work. He promised me a good salary, and the offer was specially attractive in view of the fact that I was then without work, and I accepted the place in perfect good faith.

I want to emphasize what I now say for the benefit of those who may read these lines who are parents of young girls.

I suppose I may claim to be a reasonably intelligent woman, with a fair education, some years of observation of the world and a little opportunity to know of the world's wickedness, but I was at that time absolutely ignorant of the existence of such a thing as a business in vice.

It seems to me that good people, pious fathers and mothers, who let their girls grow[Pg 239] up and go out into the world without a word of real instruction that will protect them in such crises which may come in life to any woman, are not wholly innocent—I am tempted to say are frightfully guilty of the destruction of their own daughters.

To make a long story short, and to tell a hideous tale in a few very plain words, I accepted the proposition and found myself installed in one of the protected vice dens of Chicago as housekeeper and the special personal slave of this man, whom I now found to be a slave trader, the practical owner of other women and girls in various dives, as well as the driver of gangs of procurers. This man almost owned me. My salary—such small parts of it as I got—went into his pocket upon one excuse and another, while I was subject to his brutal will constantly.

I will not shock my readers by telling the details of my horrid life in that place, but I must give them some facts that ought to be in possession of the unsuspecting decent people who sit quietly and virtuously in their own homes while a slaughter more terrible than Herod ever dreamed of goes on unceasingly.

I am asked to say whether the unfortunate girls in these places are slaves in the sense that they can not get away. My answer to that must depend upon your interpretation of "can not."

In my own case there never was a time when I could not have walked out of the building,[Pg 240] had I chosen to do so, but my promised salary was always in arrears and I was penniless, with nowhere to go and no friends.

To walk out on a winter's day into the streets of Chicago, with nothing with which to buy a meal and no shelter and no friend under the wide, pitiless sky, is a heroic course to which some resolute Spartan matron might be driven in protection of her virtue, but it's a course which can hardly be expected from a mistreated, deluded, ignorant, disgraced, modern American girl.

And it must be understood that my situation was very different from that of the "girls." I was in the position of a superintendent. They were under me. What would have been possible for me was practically impossible for them.

To begin with: No inmate of these vice dens is allowed to have clothing with which she could appear on the street. It is taken away from her by fraud or by force, as soon as she arrives, and is locked up. She never sees it again until she is regarded as thoroughly trustworthy and sure to come back if she does get out.

Then, too, she is in debt. As soon as she arrives at the house, an account is opened with her, although, perhaps, she never sees the books. She is charged with the railroad fare that has been paid to bring her to the city; she is charged with the price that was paid for her to the thief who betrayed and stole her; she is[Pg 241] charged for the alleged garments that are given her in exchange for her clothing—charged four times the price that they cost.

Of course, the police will tell you nowadays that the old debt system has been abolished, and that girls are not allowed to be in debt to the house where they are kept, and it may be that a sort of fiction is maintained, by which, if an investigation were forced, the divekeeper would pretend to be an agent for the storekeeper that sells the supplies. But the condition of debt is none the less real, although as always it be fraudulent. The divekeeper, the storekeeper and the police are all partnership in it.

Of course, it is not lawful to keep a girl a prisoner because she happens to be in debt, but she is made to believe that it is. She is told strange stories about laws that are enacted for the government of her "class," and she recognizes, all too plainly, the power of the arm of the police always outstretched in behalf of the divekeeper.

Police officers come and go in the dive. They register all "inmates" upon arrival and give formal, though, of course, unlawful sanction to the business. If a girl becomes refractory and the divekeeper threatens her with the vengeance of the police, she has every reason to believe that the threat is well founded, whether it is or not.

If, in spite of all this, a girl should be brave enough or rash enough to try to make her way[Pg 242] out of the dive, and escape, almost nude, as she is kept, into the street, perhaps she would be allowed to go. Perhaps, too, the police might not bring her back, but they certainly would not assist her escape; and if they did not force her back into the den from which she had escaped they would certainly send her to prison.

I have seen dozens of girls who wanted to get out from these dives, wanted to leave the life that they were living, but who, under the conditions that I have enumerated, did not—I think I may fairly say—could not do it.

I had been in my position as housekeeper but a little while when my owner discovered that I could be profitably employed in another line, that is, in importing slaves from other cities.

Some months before, the firm for which I was then working had sent me to Milwaukee to sell toilet preparations, and this business had brought me in contact with a considerable number of foolish young women. I knew that some of them were anxious to come to Chicago and I was sent to Milwaukee to induce them to come and bring them with me.

I made several such journeys to Milwaukee and other cities, bringing a number of victims for Chicago's slave market. I attempt no defense for this infamous work. I ask for no moderation of judgment against me, but I feel that I have a right to call the attention of the public to the glaring injustice of the situation[Pg 245][Pg 244][Pg 243] that puts me behind these bars, with long months of imprisonment before me, and leaves others who were equally guilty with me, and who are equally well known in their guilt, to go on with their wicked work.

IN THE HOSPITAL—SINS OF THE FATHERS VISITED UPON THE CHILDREN
These poor mites of humanity are brought into the world with the double handicap of poverty and disease—a charge upon the county

THE DEVIL'S SIAMESE TWINS
Tough saloon and dive combined. Into this place Mona M. was sold

I know that ignorance of law is no excuse for its violation, but I was certainly ignorant that I was breaking any law. I never dreamed of it until, just before my arrest, the proprietress of one of the houses from which a girl whom I had brought to the city had run away, told me of my danger. I asked her why she was not also in danger, and she replied that it was because she carefully followed the instructions of the police and maintained an ignorance concerning the sources from which the girls were brought who came to her house.

I may or may not be believed, but I state the truth when I say that I never brought to this slavery a girl whom I believed to be an innocent girl. I brought only girls whom I found in bad surroundings, usually in disorderly saloons, and girls who claimed to be and appeared to be beyond the protection of that extremely virtuous law, which our wise lawmakers have given us, known as the "age of consent" law. How any sane person must hate such cursed nonsense as such a law!

Now, let me ask why—why, when I was sent as a mere agent of others, when I brought girls from well-known dens where they had been ruined, brought them into a recognized slave market, delivered them to well-known slave owners, where they were used to enrich their owners and the police—why, while the slave market goes on and while the slave owners drive their new gangs, and while the police keep up their system of protection and graft—WHY AM I LOCKED UP HERE ALONE?

Now, let me make it perfectly clear on just what ground I have been sentenced to prison. I was convicted under what is known as the "pandering act," which makes it an offense to secure an inmate for a disorderly resort in the state of Illinois.

I was guilty and the protest I make is the protest of a convict, but I cry out to the good people to know why, if I must be behind prison walls for procuring an inmate for such a place, they walk free and grow rich and hold offices who allow such places to be.

IF IT BE A CRIME WORTHY OF THE PRISON TO PROCURE AN INMATE FOR A VICE RESORT, IS IT A SURE PROOF OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE VIRTUE THAT VICE RESORTS COVER SQUARE MILES OF THIS CITY AND THE CITY GOVERNMENT "REGULATES" THEM?

Ten long months hence, when, broken, disgraced, without a cent, without a friend, they turn me out into Chicago's cold November storms, will justice have been vindicated, will some great and good ends have been attained by the punishment of me—a tool, a cat's-paw—while seven thousand saloons and square miles of houses of prostitution have gone on in their bloody, damning work under sanction of the government run by you pious men?

CHAPTER XIX.

WANTED—FATHERS AND MOTHERS.

After conversing with many thousands of fallen women and misguided girls, I believe that the principal causes of their downfall are the following, in the order named:

2. Amusements that pander to passion, such as many theaters, some of the amusement parks, cafes and dance halls with drinking attachments, some Chinese restaurants, some Greek and other fruit and candy stores, and some pleasure boats that run at night.

3. Unsafe hours and unreasonable liberty; walks, drives and automobile rides, unattended, especially at night.

7. Poverty, especially where children or parents are dependent. One girl sinned to pay her mother's funeral expenses.

Doubtless other observers would add other[Pg 247] causes, and yet others would put these eight causes here named in different order. But no one will dispute that these eight are constant and fruitful causes of the ruin of girls—these eight, and the greatest of these is the first, Parental Inefficiency.

SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD GIRLS GO WRONG.

Within the last six days—it is August 10, 1909, today—the courts of Chicago have had to deal with two girls of only sixteen years who were placed in immoral resorts by young men, one of them only a boy of sixteen years.

A girl named McConnell, only sixteen years old, and a girl named Shubert, three years older, were taken by two Jews, Brodsky and Jacobson, to a resort kept by one Weinstein in South Chicago. The girls were lured from an amusement park in the suburb of Forest Park, where they were unattended by parents or friends—fair game for the white slaver.

Judge Walker in pronouncing sentence upon Brodsky, who was fined $300 and sent six months to the house of correction, said that Brodsky's wife and child and his confession of his crime stood between him and the extreme penalty of the new law of Illinois against pandering.

"Pandering," said the judge to the prisoner, "is a most abhorrent crime. A man of your attainments has sunk to the lowest depths when he hangs about parks seeking to betray inno[Pg 248]cent girls. A murder may be forgotten or the grief lessened, but the living death to which you sought to lead these girls is far worse than for their friends to have placed them in a black box and hauled them to the cemetery."

No words of judge or moralist are too strong to condemn the procurer and his master, the divekeeper. But what must be the feelings of the father and mother who thoughtlessly leave their young daughters exposed to these serpents? A mother bird is more watchful of her chicks or a cat of her kittens.

Only last Sunday afternoon Charles Kaufman, sixteen years old, of Milwaukee, was arrested by Detectives Magner and Dolan in Chicago for placing a sixteen-year-old Chicago girl, named Schwartz, in a resort in Milwaukee. He had lured her from her home, where he had been entertained for several days. Miss Mollie Schwartz, sister of the girl, said that Kaufman had beaten and threatened to kill her sister before he took her to Milwaukee and put her in the den of the white slaver. Kaufman freely admitted having lured the girl.

How terrible a story this is, involving two families, two cities, two states. What exposure could be more horrible than that a boy of sixteen, scarcely more than a child, takes a child of sixteen to another city and receives money for leaving her in a place of infamy?

But what must the father and mother of such a boy and the father and mother of such a girl, think of themselves and the way they have dis[Pg 249]charged their duty in bringing up their children?

And what must our cities think of themselves while they maintain red light districts to promote such crimes?

In winter the dance halls and in summer the amusement parks, and all the year long theaters and drinking resorts of all kinds, are very dangerous for young girls. At one time the superintendent of the Illinois Training School for Girls, at Geneva, found that eighty-seven per cent of her girls attributed their first wrong steps to temptations such as these.

Every good man and woman must do his or her whole duty against the hideous traffic in girlhood. Preachers, editors, teachers, physicians and rulers, being natural leaders of the people, have very great responsibility. But all else will follow if this end be gained—Parental Efficiency.

We close this chapter with the splendid editorial of Forrest Crissey in Woman's World for August, 1909.

SUMMER: THE SILLY SEASON.

Did you ever notice that, as the heat of midsummer opens up the pores, the youthful human seems to become exposed to curious and violent attacks of sentimentality? It's a fact. All the world recognizes that the Summer Girl is especially a prey to this insidious complaint; that no matter how modest, reserved and circumspect she may be as a Winter Girl, when[Pg 250] she breaks her Summer chrysalis all the butterfly nature within her is given wing, inward and outward restraints drop from her almost as inevitably as her cold weather clothing, and she lets herself dance along on the soft breeze of sentiment with the lightness and freedom of a bit of thistledown.

This odd Summer bewitchment might be immensely funny were it not for the fact that its consequences, in thousands of cases, are serious, not to say tragic. The comic papers depend upon this dog-day epidemic of silliness as an unfailing source of excruciatingly amusing jokes and pictures. Summer resort and seashore flirtations—what would the "comics" do without them when the mercury creeps high in the slender tube of the thermometer?

In the language of the sportsman, the Summer is everywhere recognized as the "open season" for the hunting of hearts and the pursuit of romance. The girl who is her own chaperone and protector allows herself a latitude of unconventionally in the period of Summer outings, of vacations and excursions, of moonshine and frolic, which she would not think of permitting herself at another season. Romance is in the air, and even the careful and well-reared girl finds herself under its spell.

What is the result? Thousands of half-baked romances ending in Gretna Green marriages are the invariable harvest of this season of Summer silliness; marriages which bring suffering and bitter repentance and a tragic[Pg 251] climax in the divorce courts—if they do not come to a worse ending.

Wherever the prow of an excursion boat pushes its way through the waters, wherever crowds of young people mingle in the pursuit of pleasure, there are hatched the romances which spell heartbreak and unhappiness. Every Summer furnishes thousands upon thousands of these cases. They are "down in the books"—one entry in the books at the Gretna Green, the runaway marriage headquarters, and the other in the divorce courts.

But there is another and a darker side to this matter of Summer silliness. Not long ago, in the Woman's World, Mrs. Ophelia L. Amigh, superintendent of the Illinois State Training School for Girls, at Geneva, Illinois, warned our readers that the runaway marriage is a favorite trick of the White Slaver. Mrs. Amigh knows what she is talking about when she says this. The White Slaver haunts the excursion boat, makes love to the girl whose head is turned with silly notions about romantic courtships and marriages; he takes her to a Justice of the Peace or a "marrying parson" of the excursion resort type, and a ceremony is performed. Then they go to the big city and she is sold into a slavery worse than death! This sounds sensational, but it has happened so many times that it is a tame and threadbare tale to those who know the dark things of metropolitan life, the black and ugly secrets of the Under World.

[Pg 252]Mothers should wake up to the fact that of all times daughters most need their strongest warnings and their most devoted care during the season of Summer silliness, of vacations and excursions, of unconventional meetings with young men under the easy familiarity of fun and frolic and a general "good time." And to the girl who has no mother at hand thus to warn her; take it from us that as your own chaperone you must recognize the silly season as your period of special peril, as the time when it is insidiously easy to relax your vigilance, to let down the protecting bars of strict social conventionality and to give yourself a little latitude in the matter of "harmless flirtation."

The only safe way is to be just a little more particular about the acquaintances you form during the silly season than at any other time.

CHAPTER XX.

CHICAGO'S WHITE SLAVE MARKET—THE "LEVEE."

It is no pleasure to me to impeach my city, but it is false patriotism to allow the crimes of one's own country to go without rebuke. We are responsible for the evil that we have power to abolish. It is the duty of a patriotic preacher to lash the sins of his people till they are lashed out of existence.

One afternoon last summer Captain Wood of the Twenty-second street police station, who has always taken splendid care of our missionaries, told me that Jesus did not try to destroy the "levee" in Jerusalem, but forgave the repentant woman who washed his feet with her tears. That evening a Jew who was born and brought up in Jerusalem came to help us in our street meeting. I asked him publicly if there is any "levee," that is, a vice district, in Jerusalem. He said that the Arabs would not tolerate one such house of shame but would burn it down before morning.

Mr. Archibald Forder, for seventeen years a pioneer missionary in the interior of Arabia, says that among the Arabs this vice is unknown—"and a great big UNKNOWN it is."

[Pg 254]Rev. Dr. Spencer Lewis, for many years a missionary in China, said when he preached with us in midnight Chicago, that even heathen China, which is very impure, does not obtrude vice as does Chicago.

In New York City Mayor Low broke up the "tenderloin" some years ago, and though vice is shamefully abundant and flagrant in that metropolis, the city government no longer gives the white slave traders a practical license to commit their crimes, by setting apart a portion of the city where they may operate with impunity.

In Philadelphia, when three of us conferred with Mr. Gibboney, secretary of the Law and Order Society, concerning a proposed exploration of a questionable district, one of the questions immediately raised was how we might gain our liberty if arrested in a raid on an immoral resort which we might be investigating. This was a vital and serious question, in Philadelphia. There vice is a thousand times too abundant, but it is contemptible, suspicious, secluded and afraid.

In Chicago our politicians have set apart several districts for the traffickers in slaves. The traders in girls are public, bold, defiant. They feel clean, almost virtuous, after the city hall and a deluded preacher or two have given them an immunity bath—provided only the fiction of segregation is preserved.

MAYOR A COWARD.

Mr. Gibboney called the former mayor of Philadelphia a coward, because the mayor expressed his desire to segregate vicious resorts, but not in his own neighborhood—but among the poor and helpless. Let the advocates of segregation in Chicago propose to put these resorts on Michigan avenue and Prairie avenue, where certain advocates of this shameful policy live, or in the vicinity of Mayor Busse's residence. Then we can at least believe in their sincerity and manliness. But as it is, they curse the children of the poor by protecting these resorts in districts where the poor must live.

Former State's Attorney Healy asked former Mayor Dunne why the Italian, Jewish and negro children near Twenty-second street have not the same right to a decent environment as Mayor Dunne's own children in Edgewater. Why have not the little children on Archer avenue the same right to grow up in a decent neighborhood, that the little girl has who puts her arms around Mayor Busse's neck and calls him "Uncle Fred"?

A FRIGHTENED GIRL.

I have seen with my own eyes a young girl under seventeen years of age, a member of Immanuel Baptist Church, running like a frightened gazelle, to her home near Twenty-second street, to avoid insult on the public[Pg 256] streets, from the thousands of young men who are encouraged to throng that district for immoral purposes. She ran to her home for this reason for three or four years. I lifted my hat in reverence to such a girl. But, Oh, how I felt the shame of the city and of the churches near her home, that permitted conditions that put a good girl to tests like this. I afterward talked face to face with her mother.

GRAFT INEVITABLE.

Segregation as practised, colonizes and fosters vice, maintains a white slave market under executive protection, and provides an overwhelming temptation and facility for graft. Bribeless government cannot exist for any considerable time where these facilities for corruption are so assiduously maintained. It is not in politicians, or anybody else, to resist temptation when the temptation itself is protected and cherished.

Nothing is said by our officials, or by the high priests of segregation, about corraling immoral men into segregation districts. It is therefore not segregation of vice, but only an attempted or pretended, and never a complete or successful cornering of depraved women. There are wide open resorts on more than twenty streets outside of the big "levee." Segregation as practised is not a restriction of vice so much as it is a practical license to lawbreakers to wreck human lives and blight the homes of the people, by corrupting husbands and sons[Pg 257] and taking captive wives and daughters. You would be astounded to learn how many ruined women are wives who have been allured to sin.

A MAELSTROM FOR YOUNG MEN.

Into the red light districts, so long as they remain, men and youths from the whole city and the whole world are irresistibly drawn, if only by curiosity. The "levee," blazing with electric lights and floating in liquor, is regarded by thousands of visitors as one of the chief sights of Chicago.

When the Shriners, a Masonic order, held a convention here, their red fezzes and Arabian symbols were seen by hundreds in the "levee" towards midnight. Not all, perhaps not very many of them, were there for a vile purpose. They were simply inspecting one of Chicago's pet institutions—not the cattle market at the stockyards, but the white slave market in the "levee."

Cattle men from Texas and Montana come with their carloads of cattle to Chicago, and having disposed of their stock and received their money, many of these men hurry to the "levee," of whose attractions they have heard a thousands miles away. Thus the immorality and diseases of the "levee" are spread over the land.

So far from being an efficient restriction of vice, a red light district is the greatest advertisement the horrible trade can have—and is[Pg 258] just what it desires. Every divekeeper and madam in Chicago and every other city, delights in segregation as practised by our rulers, who have sworn to the Almighty and contracted with the people to enforce the laws—and draw their salaries upon this contract and this oath.

"Give us a district to ourselves," say all the dives with one mind, and our obliging executives forthwith bow down to them and do as they say, giving these detestable criminals permission to trample the laws in the sewers. "To hell with the laws" some of the divekeepers have said to our missionaries. Why not give murderers, thugs, thieves, gamblers, forgers, a district where they may break the laws, after an immunity bath at City Hall, as well as to the filthy offenders who promote even the crimes of Sodom and Gomorrah, and invite upon Chicago the doom of those cities of the plain?

A divekeeper recently paid his first fine in twenty years. For twenty years this man had carried on his murderous trade without ever being made to feel even once that he is a criminal. What astounding privilege, in a city where many men have been arrested and fined for spitting on the sidewalk.

The French and Japanese importers of women have been amazingly exempt from punishment at the hands of our local authorities. The federal government has done its duty, as all[Pg 259] the world knows. The work of Mr. Sims and his assistants at Chicago is affecting the whole nation and Canada for good. But why are the wild beasts who trade in girls immune from punishment at the hands of our city and state authorities?

We ought to say, and do say very heartily, that our authorities in Chicago are beginning to listen to the cry of the white slaves, native and foreign. Something has been done to punish procurers and such like reptilia who do not count in politics. But the divekeepers, the buyers and holders of women, have not been seriously disturbed, except by the national government.

SEGREGATION MAKES A SLAVE MARKET.

It is impossible to abolish brothel slavery and to license, either formally or practically, the slave market, the red light district. While the divekeeper enjoys the indulgence of the mayor and the police and of their masters, the citizens, he will keep his dive—and his dive must be restocked with new victims, to make money for him, all the time. These victims will be obtained, as heretofore, by procurers who travel city and country to trap them, and they will be imported from Europe and Asia as heretofore. To maintain a segregation district is to maintain a slave market, as things are.

[Pg 260]Unless we make energetic and successful war upon the red light districts and all that pertains to them, we shall have Oriental brothel slavery thrust upon us from China and Japan, and Parisian white slavery, with all its unnatural and abominable practices, established among us by the French traders. Jew traders, too, will people our "levees" with Polish Jewesses and any others who will make money for them.

Shall we defend our American civilization, or lower our flag to the most despicable foreigners—French, Irish, Italians, Jews and Mongolians? We do not speak against them for their nationality, but for their crimes. American traders of equal infamy, to the shame of the American name, have stocked Asiatic cities with American girls.

On the Pacific Coast eternal vigilance alone can save us from a flood of Asiaticism, with its weak womanhood, its men of scant chivalry, its polluting vices and its brothel slavery. Bubonic plague in San Francisco and Seattle was alarming. Mongolian brothel slavery, the Black Death in morals, is more alarming.

On both coasts and throughout all our cities, only an awakening of the whole Christian conscience and intelligence can save us from the importation of Parisian and Polish pollution, which is already corrupting the manhood and youth of every large city in this nation.

MONEY IN VICE

There is money in vice, so long as the public conscience sleeps and officials are chloroformed with bribes, or otherwise persuaded to make it easy for lawbreakers. Frenchmen, Japanese, and Jews know what a good rich market America is, and they are exploiting it with enterprise. They will continue to do so more and more, if pulpit and press are ignorant or cowardly, and sworn officers of the law make void the law. Both native and foreign exploiters of vice immediately improve the facilities afforded by every wicked or deluded executive who proclaims a segregation district. These shrewd, diabolical men quickly stock the red light districts with their victims. The traders are organized, capitalized, ready to pay for their privileges to trample on our statute books, our flag, our Bibles, our homes.

WORSE THAN PARIS!

All Europe except Turkey is organized against the traffic in womanhood. Many criminals of this sort have been driven out of Paris—only to find a cordial welcome in the open arms of our deluded if not debauched officials, who provide for them segregation districts in this and other American cities. Thus our American cities become dumps for the outcast filth of Paris.

In our "levee" at Twenty-second street, fourteen resorts had "Paris" or "Parisian" as part[Pg 262] of their signs until Chief Shippy ordered the signs removed six months ago. Numerous other resorts have French managers and French inmates. Patriotic Americans would do well to reflect upon Sedan and the French lilies that withered there, after trainloads of women had rolled out of Paris to the French camp, while the Germans sang "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" and "The Watch on the Rhine."

We remember La Fayette and French service for American liberty, but from organized, capitalized, cunning, brazen, Parisian licentiousness in addition to that of native Americans,
Good Lord deliver us!

About a score of resorts in the same "levee," all of them extremely flagrant, are managed by Jews. Two or three places are managed by Italian men, though there are few Italian prostitutes in Chicago. One resort is controlled and occupied by Japanese—for American men; and several places contain American girls for Chinese men. I know of no resorts controlled by English, Scotch, German or Scandinavian men.

In one respect our American red light districts are worse than Paris. In Paris, if Dr. Sanger is right in his standard work, "A History of Prostitution," men are not permitted to manage the resorts. The unspeakable divekeeper—why do the American people tolerate such a viper as this?

COURTS ARE UNSTAINED.

The laws and the courts are uniformly against vice and against the men who exploit vice, for a lazy living or despicable gain.

The Supreme Court of California is representative of all courts when it said, in the case of Pon against Wittman in July, 1905:

"Under the Penal Code of this state, keeping or knowingly letting any tenement for the purposes of prostitution, keeping a house of ill-fame resorted to for the purposes of prostitution or lewdness, or residing therein, are criminal offenses, and every person who lives in or about such houses, and any common prostitute, is a vagrant. (Penal Code, sections 315, 316, 647.)

"Ordinance No. 1587 of the board of supervisors of the city and county of San Francisco also makes it a public offense to maintain such houses, or become an inmate thereof or visitor thereto, or in any manner contribute to their support.

"These laws have for their object the prohibition and suppression of prostitution, and that duty devolves, within the city and county of San Francisco, upon its police department.

"These houses are common or public nuisances. Their maintenance directly tends to corrupt and debase public morals, to promote vice, and to encourage dissolute and idle habits, and the suppression of nuisances of this char[Pg 264]acter and having this tendency, is one of the important duties of government.

"The suppression of such houses, as evidenced by the stringent laws concerning them, is a public policy of the state."—California Reports, volume 147, page 292.

California and New York have splendid modern laws against white slavery and the traffic in women in its various forms. Nine states have enacted new laws against these evils this year. We rejoice in these laws, but they will never fully accomplish their purpose while the executive officers of our cities illegally make void the law by proclaiming or recognizing red light districts, where traders are illegally exempted from the laws and their penalties.

Since the laws are good and the courts everywhere faithful, for the most part, to the laws, why are the executive officers of our cities so far from fulfilling the purpose of the laws as interpreted by the courts? Many of our officials clearly, from their conduct, consider it "one of the important duties of government" not to suppress but to protect, favor and encourage these hideous haunts of vice and crime. Why?

TONS OF GRAFT.

Doubtless tons of graft have been taken from the red light districts, and doubtless more tons will be taken by perjurers and traitors in public office. No one knows this better than honest officials—for there are many such, men who[Pg 265] keep their oath of office and conscientiously guard the great public interests of which they are trustees and not traitors.

But the evil lies deeper than corrupt officials, and cannot be eradicated by the most faithful officials only—even if all were such. Under our form of government officials are the people's agents and must do what their masters, the sovereign people, require them to do.

The responsibility is therefore the people's. Why do the sovereign people of our American cities love to have it so? Why do they approve the red light districts, the white slave market, the traffic in women and girls? Or disapprove too mildly to abolish them?

THE LIE IN THE PEOPLE'S MINDS.

Lecky, the historian of European morals, lent his great name to a great delusion, when he attempted in a passage too well known, to garland the prostitute as the protectress of pure women. Edwin Arnold, the paganizing English poet, put Lecky's folly into verse, writing a sonnet in praise of the harlot as the purest of all women—a sort of devil's compliment to our wives and mothers.

This immoral and repulsive idea has a considerable place among educated men and among the plain people. I was grieved to hear a physician quote Lecky's false and immoral statement before the Physicians' Club of Chicago. The managing editor of one of our de[Pg 266]cent and moral morning papers quoted Lecky in a short talk I had with him.

When the educated and moral are so deceived, what can we expect of the ignorant and immoral? The devil's dogma, that prostitution is a protection to virtue, is thrust upon us continually by the vilest men and women, and by those who create, promote and exploit vice. This creed is assiduously preached by divekeepers and madams throughout the world. Thereby they have their wealth, for thereby honest people are deceived into tolerating these enemies of the human race—destroyers of youths and maidens, of innocent wives and guilty husbands, of cities, civilizations and nations.

SIN IS NOT A BLESSING.

The prostitute will be a blessing to good women when Satan is actually transformed into a holy angel—but not till then. While the hideous caricature of womanhood is responsible by her diseases for one-fourth or more of the surgical operations upon innocent wives—operations made necessary by disease which their husbands bought of the prostitute, perhaps years before marriage—we cannot regard her and her criminal male partners as anything less than the red-handed slayers of good women. While the eye doctors attribute one-fourth of blindness, particularly of helpless babies, to the same source, we cannot quote except to condemn, this sophistry that makes the worse[Pg 267] appear the better cause and garlands the woman whose pursuit is death itself, suicide and murder in one.

While this perverted or enslaved creature that Lecky and Arnold would glorify drives herself and her criminal patrons to suffer locomotor ataxia, necrosis of bone and brain, or incurable insanity at public expense in our asylums, we will give her no garland, except apple blossoms—of the apples of Sodom.

GOOD WOMEN ARE NOT PROTECTED BY BAD.

Nor do hundreds of brothels illegally legalized in a city protect virtuous women, maidens and little girls from bestial assault. On the contrary, good women are a thousand times safer where no such hells exist to manufacture degenerates. The men who consort with vile women lose their respect for all women, and by their base fellowship inflame infernal fires which are the utmost menace to all good women.

We have had in Chicago numerous recent illustrations of the way in which police-protected houses of infamy save good women and girls.

A few weeks before the murder of Mrs. Gentry, Constantine applied at the rooming agency of the Young Men's Christian Association for a room. The secretary marked on his application "sporty" and did not send him to any good woman's home to room, but to a lodging house of men only. By some means he came[Pg 268] to room at the Gentry home and repaid hospitality by murdering his hostess. The "sporty" man associating with harlots, loses his respect for good women, and may murder them if they resist his wicked will.

In September one block from our outrageous "levee," where one thousand and fifty ruined women are constantly at the service of ten thousands of vile men—one block from these protectresses of good women and young girls, more than a thousand protectresses!—a thirteen-year-old girl was lured to a room and brutally assaulted. The police officer, Lieut. White, who arrested the criminal, and was himself roughly handled in the discharge of his duty, confirmed this report when I inquired of him face to face. Captain McCann told me he arrested a divekeeper for assaulting his own stepdaughter.

Do the dives protect women and girls from crimes like these? Do they not rather manufacture the degenerates who commit these crimes?

WORST ENEMIES OF THE HUMAN RACE.

Harlots and their patrons are the worst enemies in every way that good women can have. If there were any virtue in vice, if black were white or even speckled, doubtless the supreme book of morals, the guide of the race, would have some word in praise of moral rottenness—some few lines in prose or verse in laudation[Pg 269] of lewd women. But the whole Bible keeps the distinction sharp and clear between black and white, between virtue and sin.

Until the public intelligence and conscience are trained to abhor vice as a destroyer of families and nations—more insidious and more ruinous than even the liquor traffic—a soft, foolish, wicked indulgence will be granted to the red light districts, and the white slave markets which they constitute and are. We must call most urgently upon all guides and rulers of the people to make incessant war upon the loathsome criminals who prey upon young women and young men. They are the worst enemies of the human race. They drink the heart's blood of mothers and eat the flesh of their daughters. They people hospitals, alms-houses, lunatic asylums and dissecting rooms. They blast innocent wives and blind helpless babies. They enslave by force, threats or craft thousands of weak women and innocent young girls.

Their horrible flesh market and slave pen is the red light district, where they are illegally exempted from the criminal prosecutions that their crimes deserve. This favor to criminals is itself criminal. The men who have lifted up their hands to God, upon taking the oath of office, have an appalling responsibility when they exempt the most odious criminals from the laws which they are sworn and paid to enforce. The sovereign people, who indulge these officials in their palpable neglect of duty and[Pg 270] malfeasance in office, have a fearful accountability.

Property owners and their agents, who rent buildings for immoral use, are perhaps guiltiest of all, having no motive but greed. In Los Angeles, the aroused citizens put the Italian millionaire, who owned the "crib" district and was exploiting girls therein, on the chain gang and abolished the "crib" district. On the other hand, in Chicago we have seen property of Yale University become the vilest of dives, to the grief of President Hadley and the shame of his agents in this city.

The old Roman Senator, who believed that Rome and Carthage could not both be great, kept crying "Delenda est Carthago" until Carthage was blotted out. So let us keep crying, "The Levee must go!" until the police-protected white slave market is destroyed. Above all, in our struggle against this most infamous slavery, let us never forget the very early flag of the Revolution, the Pine Tree Flag, now preserved in Independence Hall, with its deathless motto, WE APPEAL TO GOD.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE FAILURE AND SHAME OF THE REGULATION OF VICE.

"When the Law fails to regulate sin, and not to take it utterly away, it necessarily confirms and establishes sin."—John Milton.

"The law ought to make virtue easy and vice difficult."—Wm. E. Gladstone.

"They enslave their children's children, Who make compromise with sin."—James Russell Lowell.

THE YOUNG MAN'S VIEW.

A ruined young man in one of Chicago's segregated districts for advertising and encouraging vice, asked this question, as he stood on the curbstone in one of our midnight gospel meetings: "If the wise men who are set up over us to rule us want it this way, what can you expect of us?"

Such is the inevitable reasoning of young men. They commonly believe that the city licenses the criminal resorts which its police protect, and they are not conscious of bad citizenship in supporting resorts which are in such favor with the city government.

Long ago Archdeacon Paley wrote in his[Pg 272] Moral Philosophy "The avowed toleration, and in some countries, the licensing, taxing, and regulating of public brothels, has appeared to the people an authorizing of fornication. The Legislators ought to have foreseen this effect."

LAWGIVERS ARE INEXORABLE.

The greatest of lawgivers, Moses, made no compromise with vice. He is inexorable. "There shall not be a harlot of the daughters of Israel." The daughter of a priest who profaned herself was to be burnt to death. The Old Testament is hot with warnings against patronizing "strange women," that is, foreign prostitutes who had invaded the Holy Land, like the imported white slaves of the French traders here today. Manu, the ancient lawgiver of India, provided that the adulterer should be burnt to death on an iron bed, and the adulteress devoured by dogs in a public place. Buddha speaks with loathing of immoral conduct.

The Son of God, that his mercy towards repentant women who washed his feet with their tears might not be taken as softness towards sin, came back from heaven to say in the Book of Revelation, that he will "cast into great tribulation" and "kill with death" wanton women and the men who visit them. Of these iniquities the compassionate Redeemer says, "Which things I also hate." Rulers cannot claim any consent or condonement of their regulation of vice from the Head of all human government,[Pg 273] the King of kings, to whom they must answer for their rule or misrule.

FALLEN GOVERNMENTS AND A FALLEN CHURCH.

So scandalously far can a fallen government and a fallen church depart from the Head of the church and the Head of human government, that we have seen kings, even the pious king of France, Saint Louis, giving a royal permit to harlots; and the Mayor of London, William Walworth, in 1381, managing the brothels at Southwark for the Bishop of Winchester, who owned, licensed and regulated those abominable places. The Reformation party prevailed upon Henry VIII, in the thirty-seventh year of his reign to end this infamy, and "this row of stews in Southwark was put down by the king's commandment, which was proclaimed by sound of trumpet." Thus as Dr. Fuller wrote, "This regiment of sinners was totally and finally routed"—a warning to other vice districts, and an example of how to deal with them.

From that date, 1545 to 1864, England gave no official endorsement to vice. Then a wicked government, after calling the medical head of the system of regulation in Paris to visit London, and getting the Parisian chief of police to write a book for their information, thrust upon the unsuspecting English nation the odious French system of legalized vice—restricting its application at first to certain garrison towns,[Pg 274] but cunningly extending it to the whole country, the Crown colonies, and Canada and India. After a heroic crusade of twenty-two years, led by Mrs. Josephine Butler, the aroused conscience of Great Britain compelled Parliament in 1886 to repeal the loathsome Contagious Diseases Acts.

ILLINOIS REJECTS THE PARISIAN SYSTEM.

The Statutes of Illinois show that in the year 1874, certain city officials in this State were about to license houses of ill-fame and to provide for enforced medical inspection of their inmates, according to the detestable methods established a century ago in Paris—a system which made the blood of Frances Willard turn to flame, when she saw its workings in Paris, and made her resolve that American womanhood should never be subjected to it. The outrageous French system of giving legal standing to vice, and attempting to assure men that they can violate the moral law and escape the physical penalty, is utterly repugnant to the Anglo-Saxon conscience. As President Roosevelt cabled to the Philippines, when he was urged to take measures for reducing disease in the army, "The way to reduce the disease is to reduce the vice." Lord Herbert, when Minister of War, by improving the habits of the men, reduced the disease in the British army 40 per cent in six years, 1860-66. Under Lord Kitchener's command in India today every sol[Pg 277][Pg 276][Pg 275]dier finds a tract in his knapsack telling him plainly the consequences of vice, and urging him to lead a manly and honorable life. The tract was prepared jointly by Lord Kitchener and the Bishop of Lahore.

CLOSED OUT AS ALL DENS OUGHT TO BE
Formerly a notorious resort containing many white slaves. Now closed, as a result of the fight against the traffic in young girls

HUNDREDS OF CHILDREN MUST WALK DAILY THROUGH THIS INFERNAL REGION
One of the streets in the vice district showing the school children passing the doors of these awful dens of sin and shame

The attempt to license infamy in cities of Illinois was thwarted by an Emergency Act, approved and in force March 27th, 1874. (See Revised Statutes, Chapter 24, Sec. 245, p. 352.)

Article V of the Cities and Villages Act provides in Section 62, item 45, that the city council shall have power not to regulate, but to suppress houses of ill-fame, within the limits of the city and within three miles of the outer boundaries of the city. p. 318.

It is not by authority of the people of Illinois that segregated districts are proclaimed, whereby a white slave market is established, and the most loathsome criminals of the world are invited to make commerce of American and alien girls.

AN UNPARDONABLE SIN.

Plato taught that the unpardonable sin is to betray a great public trust. What public trust is so great as the health and morals of the people? The old Roman law had at its foundation this motto: "The safety of the people is the supreme law." The Supreme Court of the United States has declared more than once: "No legislature can bargain away the public health or the public morals. The people them[Pg 278]selves cannot do it, much less their servants." Stone vs. Mississippi, 101 U. S. Rep., 814-819.

A great lawyer has written: "Even if the legislature does attempt to give sanction and confer its authority upon any enterprise which is immoral in its nature or which results in immorality, then the Governor and the Judge have each an oath registered in heaven to declare such legislation void." Moral Law and Civil Law, p. 90.

SUPREME COURTS ARE UNSTAINED.

It is the settled doctrine of the highest courts, as voiced by the Supreme Court of California in the case of Pon vs. Wittman, in July, 1905, that:

"These houses are common or public nuisances. Their maintenance directly tends to corrupt and debase public morals, to promote vice, and to encourage dissolute and idle habits, and the suppression of nuisances of this character and having this tendency is one of the important duties of government."

But notwithstanding the unequivocal declarations of Supreme Courts, there are nearly always politicians whose political creed is learned from the white slave trader, and the serpentine woman who keeps the glittering vestibule of hell. Such a mother of harlots, clothed in silks and decked in diamonds, can state the argument for regulation much more logically and eloquently than any policeman, politician, or rare misguided preacher (lineally descended from the Bishop of Winchester aforementioned) can state it for her benefit and profit.

Let us be careful that we be not numbered among those of whom it is written, "There were false prophets among the people."

The white slave traders, and all who wilfully or ignorantly aid and abet their abominable commerce in girls, are ardent advocates of segregation or some form of regulation—whereby they obtain a police status which enables them to exploit the helpless and foolish, and ignorant, and vicious to dispense alike to guilty men and innocent wives and babies, blindness, insanity, locomotor ataxia, abscesses, tumors, surgical operations and coffins.

To protect these loathsome resorts is like maintaining a thousand pest houses, not for purposes of quarantine, but with the sole result of advertising and spreading the pestilence.

THE SHAME OF BRUSSELS, INDIA AND HONG KONG.

In Brussels, where regulation was held to be perfect, and a model for other countries, English girls were found enslaved, and the chief of police resigned after being exposed as a partner with the white slave traders.

In India, regulation went the abhorrent length that an army circular memorandum, under authority of Sir Frederick, afterwards Lord Roberts, made the army itself a procurer of prostitutes, saying: "It is necessary to have a sufficient number of women; to take care that they are sufficiently attractive; and to provide them with proper houses"—free quarters. When Dr. Kate Bushnell and Mrs. Andrew, two American ladies, exposed the frightful conditions existing, by authority, in India, Lord Roberts at first said that they spoke falsely, but afterwards said, when convicted of the truth, "I apologize to the ladies without reserve."

In Hong Kong, under regulation, government money was used by detectives to induce women to sin with them, in order to enroll them as public women. In India and Hong Kong alike, under the reign of Queen Victoria, of happy memory, these registered women were called "Queen's women." Under such shameful misrule Hong Kong became the base for the shipment of Chinese slave girls to California, by which Mongolian brothel slavery was introduced into America—a horror worse than the bubonic plague.

BLAMELESS GIRLS ENSNARED IN CHICAGO.

In this First Ward of Chicago, said to be the most influential and richest ward in the world, are nearly two miles of indecent resorts. Since a district in this ward was thrown open to this most diabolical commerce, blameless Chicago virgins have been lured to apartments on Wabash avenue, under the shadow of churches of cathedral importance, and then sold into the adjacent white slave market—the illegal red light district. This was shown in court at[Pg 279] Harrison Street, before Judge Newcomer, June 1, 1907.

Intoxicating liquor has been sold illegally, without a license, in hundreds, perhaps thousands of resorts in the city, against the protest of the Chicago Law and Order League repeatedly addressed to the Mayor. Surely this will not be allowed to continue—the virtual payment of a bounty of a thousand dollars a year, the price of a saloon license, to the keeper of an indecent resort. Surely the First Ward debauch in the Coliseum will never be allowed again.

REPEAL OF REGULATION NOW DEMANDED IN EUROPE.

The International Bureau for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, representing every country in Europe, except Turkey, has recently written:

"We are anxious to call the attention of our readers to the fact that when we started the work for the suppression of the white slave traffic, we maintained that, apart altogether from that direct work, the respective governments would have their attention drawn to the importance of the question of the repeal of the system of regulation of vice. Our anticipations are being fully realized in different countries, where the National Committees are declaring by vote that the White Slave traffic is promoted and kept alive by the government regulation of vice, and are calling upon their respect[Pg 280]ive governments to abolish the system." (23d Annual Report of the National Vigilance Association, London, page 17.)

The only righteous attitude of government toward all crime and vice is eternal antagonism. The government should educate the people concerning the frightful effects of vice and never encourage these ruinous practices. The responsibility of government in this connection are nothing less than awful.

POSITION OF THE CLERGY.

The editor of a great Chicago daily said to me, concerning the readiness of many people to segregate and regulate vice. "The clergy won't stand for it."

Mr. Huxley, shortly before his death, addressing a company of clergymen, said that men of science in their search for the truth, may find themselves obliged to return to the guardians of Divine revelation, the ministers of God, and that if they did so return, he hoped that the clergy would not have betrayed the gates.

James Russell Lowell has told us truly that compromise in a matter of fundamental morals, that is, slavery, cost us the Civil War. In matters of eternal truth, and in matters of fundamental morals, we must not, we will not, compromise. WE WILL NEVER BETRAY THE GATES.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE WHITE SLAVES AND THE BLACK PLAGUES.

The White Slave Trade means two things, snaring girls and spreading disease. As tuberculosis has been called the White Plague, the diseases spread by vice are now called the Black Plagues. Every father and mother, every youth and maiden should be instructed at once in the right way and put on guard against the reptiles that lure unprotected girls, and against the sting of deadly disease that inevitably punishes all who break the moral law, which is physical law as well.

It is not enough to hint softly at these horrors. The truth must be told as plainly as the preacher's Bible and the physician's microscope tell it. Delicacy is excellent in telling the truth, but the delicacy that suppresses the truth is sin. Our loins are to be girt about with truth—our loins, the apostle says, the region of our sex life—girt with truth, not with ignorance and false modesty.

The general public must be made to realize the enormous extent and serious character of these diseases. They cause one-seventh of the suffering of the human race, and in cities more than one-seventh. Physicians have heretofore[Pg 282] concealed the truth from the public, but now are foremost in telling it.

When a girl is induced to take up an immoral life she is quickly infected with the diseases that go with that misconduct, and is dead while she lives and a source of death to others. A physician whose former duty it was to inspect depraved women in Paris said to an audience of young men in a vice district of Chicago that ninety-five in a hundred of those women were walking pest-houses.

The victims of the loathsome commerce in girls are first ensnared, then enslaved or at least exploited, inevitably infected with the loathsome disease and all the time compelled to make money for their wicked masters. Constantly they are spreading the pestilence to the men and youths who patronize them and then pass on the plagues to their present or future wives and children.

The red light districts, like a lake of fire, are perpetually engulfing unwary and unprotected girls, along with the wilfully depraved. They are misled by crafty women and villainous young men with smooth manners and false tongues, on promises of light work, big pay, fine clothes, jewels and great happiness. The route to the abyss is commonly by way of dance halls and amusement resorts of all kinds having drinking attachments. The girl who drinks puts herself at the mercy of the young man in whose company she may be. The girl who dances is in very great peril, and she puts[Pg 283] young men with whom she dances under greater temptation than herself.

Soon after the fatal plunge a girl becomes immodest, indecent, lawless, homeless, a victim and distributer of vile diseases. When the plain people know the horrors of the white slaves and the black plagues, the sane plain people will demand the destruction of the white slave market and the extirpation of the black plagues.

The committee of seven physicians, appointed by the Medical Society of the County of New York, after elaborate investigation reported that 225,000 persons were treated in New York City in the year 1900 for the diseases caused by vice. The majority of these were immoral men and immoral women, but a large and deeply wronged minority consisted of virtuous wives and children of all ages.

HALF A MILLION BLIND.

Any medical professor can tell any inquirer that there are at least ten or twelve thousand blind in the United States today, whose blindness dates from a few days after birth and was caused by disease which their mothers contracted innocently from their guilty husbands—who in most cases supposed themselves cured before marriage.

Dr. Neisser, of Berlin, who in 1879 isolated the germ that causes ophthalmia of the new-born, a vice germ, after careful investigation throughout Germany concludes from the sta[Pg 284]tistics that there are thirty thousand blind in Germany from this cause. If the same proportion would hold throughout Europe, there are two hundred thousand blind in Europe from this cause—more than the three armies engaged at Waterloo.

But to be very conservative, let us cut the figures in two, and we have still one hundred thousand sightless persons, blind from babyhood, in Europe alone. Including America, and adding Asia, Africa and the islands of the South Seas, we shall find in the world half a million persons blind or one million sightless eyes, from this pestilent germ—at which many young men laugh as no worse than a cold and which is on sale all the time in every immoral resort in the world.

HELEN KELLER'S "I MUST SPEAK."

In a full-page article in The Ladies' Home Journal for January, 1909, Helen Keller, the brilliant blind graduate of Radcliffe College, wrote under the heading "I Must Speak":

"The most common cause of blindness is ophthalmia of the new-born. One pupil in every three at the institution for the blind in New York City was blinded in infancy by this disease.

"What is the cause of ophthalmia neonatorum? It is a specific germ communicated by the mother to the child at birth. Previous to the child's birth she has unconsciously received it through infection from her husband.[Pg 285] He has contracted the infection in licentious relations before or since marriage. 'The cruelest link in the chain of consequences,' says Dr. Prince Morrow, 'is the mother's innocent agency. She is made a passive, unconscious medium of instilling into the eyes of her new-born babe a virulent poison which extinguishes its sight.'

Miss Keller goes on in her article to tell the women of America that blindness is by no means the most terrible result of this pestilent sin.

INNOCENT WIVES SUFFER.

Dr. Prince A. Morrow, whom Miss Keller quotes, has written a volume on the consequences of these diseases to wives and children. The book is entitled "Social Diseases and Marriage." On page 132 Dr. Morrow quotes this from Dr. Garrigues:

"I knew a girl in perfect health, of great beauty, of Junoesque proportions, combining muscular strength with regularity of features and graceful movements, possessing a most amiable disposition—in brief a paragon of a wife to make a husband happy. She married a nice young man in a good business. It was a marriage based upon mutual affection and held out every prospect of a long and happy union. A week after her marriage she came to me with an abscess in one of Bartholini's glands and a[Pg 286] profuse discharge. . . . She was under treatment for months. . . . She was seized with violent pain in the lower part of the abdomen and had a temperature of 105 degrees Fahrenheit and a pulse of 140. . . . The peritonitic infection continued to spread, and laparotomy was performed. Finally she died.

"In many similar cases the patients recovered for the time being, but went on leading a life of invalidism, interrupted by more acute attacks of peritonitis. Some get well after having their ovaries and tubes removed. This, then, is what awaits these poor women—discharges, inflammations, a life full of suffering, capital operations, or death."

"Several years ago there came under my care a case that I can never forget. The patient was a bride twenty-two years old, a beautiful woman of excellent family. She was suffering from a disease contracted from her husband, who had supposed himself cured before the wedding. An operation, which offered the only chance of saving her life, was performed. All went well for a few days. Her husband, who had been constantly with her, was called away on urgent business. The patient suddenly became worse and died before his return."

These two beautiful brides, and countless thousands like them, were killed by a disease of which young men are not afraid, of which[Pg 287] they make light in their ignorance. Any physician will attest these statements. Some surgeons attribute three-fourths of the surgical operations on women to this disease; one-fourth is a very conservative reckoning.

THE REMEDY.

Mr. Edward Bok, editor of The Ladies' Home Journal, on the editor's personal page of that magazine for September, 1908, puts the responsibility for meeting these terrible evils upon parents. He wrote:

"First: We parents must first of all get it into our heads firm and fast to do away with the policy of silence with our children, that has done so much to bring about this condition. Our sons and our daughters must be told what they are, and they must be told lovingly and frankly. But told they must be.

"Second: We fathers of daughters must rid ourselves of the notion that has worked such diabolical havoc of a double moral standard. There can be but one standard: that of moral equality. Instead of being so painfully anxious about the 'financial prospects' of a young man who seeks the hand of our daughter in marriage, and making that the first question, it is time that we put health first and money second: that we find out, first of all, if the young man comes to court, as the lawyers say, with clean hands. Let a father ask the young man, as his leading question, whether he is physically clean: insist that he shall go to his family[Pg 288] physician, and if he gives him a clean bill of health, then his financial prospects can be gone into. But his physical self first. That much every father would do in the case of a horse or a dog that he bought with a view to mating. Yet he does less for his daughter—his own flesh and blood."

Dr. William Osler, formerly of Johns Hopkins Medical School, Baltimore, now of the University of Oxford, in an article describing the diseases which are the greatest scourges of the human race, such as cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, consumption, pneumonia and leprosy, wrote of the group of vice diseases:

"These are in one respect the worst of all we have to mention, for they are the only ones transmitted in full virulence to innocent children to fill their lives with suffering, and which involve equally innocent wives in the misery and shame."

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH.

On Monday, February 8, 1909, The Illinois Vigilance Association, an organization having for its object the suppression of traffic in women and girls, held its second annual conference against this evil. The meeting was held in the auditorium of the Young Men's Christian Association, in Chicago.

Dr. Winfield Scott Hall, professor of physiology in Northwestern University Medical School, spoke on the subject that is the title of this chapter, and was followed by Judge Julian W. Mack. Their plain, chaste, truthful words gave no offense to the refined ladies and gentlemen, and young ladies and young gentlemen, who composed that large audience of nearly a thousand people. Instead of offense, appreciation and gratitude were in every heart.

The addresses of these two eminent men are here reproduced word for word from the stenographer's report, not omitting the enlivening interruptions from a woman in the audience, herself a physician and much interested in this reform.

CHAIRMAN BOYNTON: "The White Slave Traffic and the Public Health" is the top[Pg 290]ic of the address by Dr. Winfield Scott Hall, Professor of Physiology, Northwestern University Medical School:

DR. WINFIELD SCOTT HALL: Ladies and Gentlemen: It might be of interest to note in passing that my interest in this matter has been directed particularly along educational lines, to know that since the first of October, 1908, I have addressed young men and boys on this subject to the number of not less than twenty thousand, mostly in the colleges and high schools, setting forth to them in perfectly clear and simple language the proper hygiene and physiology of the sexual system, teaching them the methods of right living.

As to this nefarious traffic that we have just been hearing about, and the relation of that traffic to the public health, I would like in one sentence to sum up a parallel between this white slave trade and the black slave trade that continued from the time of the Colonies to the memory of many of us present. I believe that we have not yet expiated and paid the price of that slave trade and it may be many generations yet before we pay for it. Blood flowing in rivers is a part of that price, from the hearts of the noblest sons of America. This white slave trade must be paid for in blood. Who are the primary victims? In most cases, pure minded girls, ambitious to go out and earn a higher wage and think they can send home wages to father and mother, and they fall into these snares that are set for them.

DENOUNCING THE POLITICIANS WHO PROTECT THE DIVES
The author and his band of noble workers fighting the evil in the very heart of the vice district

[Pg 291]But we must not stop there. These poor girls do not live over at the most ten or fifteen years and a large proportion of them perhaps take their own lives. But if you could see the line of men that I saw the other night passing through one of these fifteen-cent lodging houses, lined up as they passed through to take their couch for the night, where over two hundred of these men passed by, and a large proportion of these men showing ulcers and other superficial stigmata of the venereal diseases! They represent the under world, the under dogs of society, the men who are down and out, who years ago visited the houses of ill-fame and got the disease and are now ekeing out their lives, hoping for the end to come—many of them.

But we can look further for victims. I believe that only a small proportion of the women who are in the houses of ill-fame—only a small proportion—make their way there of their own volition, and that small proportion are of the degenerate class who are born with a screw loose somewhere. From their babyhood they who are born with this taint—and we could, perhaps, trace that taint back—but born with that taint, they gradually go into that life—but they make a small proportion. The rest of them are either betrayed into that sort of a life, their lives ruined because they trusted some man, or they are bartered into it through this nefarious white slave traffic.

All lewd women are diseased some of the [Pg 292]time and some lewd women are diseased all of the time. Now, whether the lewd woman is of the clandestine type or a professional in the house of ill-fame, it does not matter. Some say the clandestine is the more dangerous. Why? Because no attempt is made to have medical care. . . . That doesn't get at the real condition at all, and so she retains disease in her body and gives it to every one perhaps who visits her for months to come. When that is in a woman's system, it is almost impossible to eradicate. It is shocking, but we must know the facts. Statistics show that of the operations on women in the hospitals of New York City year before last for the removal of one or both ovaries, sixty-five per cent of those operations were brought about and necessitated because of gonorrheal infection.

DR. HALL: A considerable proportion of them were from the house of ill-fame. No small proportion of them were lawfully wedded, high minded, wives and mothers. Now, it is not customary for a doctor to say to a woman going to the hospital, "Madam, your difficulty is of a venereal origin"—no, he says, "I find an abcess. You must get to the hospital as soon as possible or you probably will lose your life. It is a question of life and death to get to the hospital and have an operation." If the doctor had said to this woman in every case "This is is of gonorrheal origin," you can imagine [Pg 293]what the woman would say who knew she had led an innocent, pure life. She would say "Why?"—"You must have got it from some man." "But I never have had any contact with any man but my lawfully wedded husband." "Well, you must have got it from your lawfully wedded husband then."

Our standards are not high enough. Why a lawfully wedded husband should fix it up with his conscience to act so basely towards his wife we have yet to find out. But it is a wrong standard and I am glad to be able to say to the wives and mothers in this audience that almost without exception when I say to young men "Fellows, isn't it time that we have a single standard of purity for men and women?" they respond the same way you have responded and it is a question of education and we must keep it up.

Fathers and mothers in this audience—and I see there are probably grandfathers and grandmothers—let us see to it that our children are instructed in these matters by telling them the truth in early childhood, and then when they get older—girls fourteen or fifteen years old—let their mothers take them into their confidence and tell them some of these things, tell them the truth and endeavor to protect them against the wiles of tempters out in society.

I hardly need to say anything about syphilis. You know what the leper of the Orient used to be required to do and perhaps to this day—[Pg 294]when any one met this leper, you know, he had to stand back and raise a warning hand and say "Unclean, Unclean." But the man who has syphilis, does he have to raise any warning hand? No, he mingles in the best society; he drinks from our drinking glass and the innocent child perhaps uses the same drinking glass in the railway train. Fortunately, there is only a short period of time when he can transmit it through the drinking glass, but during that time there is nothing to restrain him, so far as I know.

When I was a student in the medical school a quarter of a century ago, it was a common thing to pass over with some jocose remark the disease of gonorrhea. But that isn't done any more. Why? Because it is now proven to the medical profession that gonorrhea is quite as dangerous as syphilis. But the people in general do not know that. Let us tell the young men, especially, that they cannot afford to run the risk of gonorrhea, because it may not only wreck their own lives but the germs may lurk there and may be transmitted two or three or more years later to some innocent bride.

DR. HALL: That is a perfectly fair question. I have a daughter and I want to just say this that no man is ever going to take that daughter from under my roof until I am sure that he has not got tuberculosis, for one thing, and syphilis and gonorrhea for another.

[Pg 295]CHAIRMAN BOYNTON: I am sure it is a matter of congratulation that we have physicians in the city of Chicago who can talk as Dr. Hall has talked to us this morning. I am glad the time has come when we can sit as men and women and hear the truth and be unashamed.

I am sure we are all glad to have with us Judge Julian W. Mack of the Circuit Court, who will address us.

JUDGE JULIAN W. MACK: Ladies and Gentlemen: I am on the program for the closing words. I have no particular subject to talk about but it is a great gratification to listen to the words, particularly of Dr. Hall, and to see the response that they receive in a mixed audience such as this. Too long have we buried our heads in the sand; too long have we been silent on these great subjects; too long have we lied to our little ones, and thereby helped to bring about the destruction of so many of them.

I am not one of those who believe for a moment that salvation lies in education alone. Most drunkards know the evil of drink. Most men that yield to these temptations have some idea of the evil that they are going into, but girls in great numbers do not know. The young boys in great numbers do not know. Just as Dr. Hall said, you cannot appeal to a thousand school or college men, putting before them the truth, bringing them to the knowledge of terrible danger—and get any but one response.[Pg 296] Our young people are noble and brave and we can rely upon them. If we could not, there would not be much hope of our country. We must educate them. We must tell them the facts. It isn't many years ago that the physicians were most guilty on this subject. If they had but told the men of our generation what we are now endeavoring to tell the young people of today, there would not be as many of these operations as there are now. But they passed off these matters so indifferently, as they might a slight cold, and that is what they all did practically about ten years ago. It was a crime against the young people of that day. The physicians, the clergymen and the laymen have all been awakened to a realization of our duties, at least, so far as education is concerned. It is up to us to see to it that all the boys and girls know something of the mystery of life that they may guard against the dangers and the temptations that confront them.

Dr. Hall spoke of some of the evils that await the innocent wife. Let me carry that a step further and apply it to local conditions. In our County Hospital we have a floor in the children's ward for the treatment of these cases among the children. Dr. Billings, President of the State Board of Charities and one of the, if not the leading physician in this section of the country, and Dr. Frank Churchill, one of the leading children's specialists of this city, told me a few days ago that there are from forty to sixty children at all times in that de[Pg 297]partment, and that this disease is so virulent, so contagious, that there is grave danger to every child that enters that building and is treated for other diseases in other distinctive parts of that building, and that the great and crying need for the children—the sick children—today in Chicago and in Cook county, is not one floor devoted to this, but a distinct, separate building so that the children who have not yet become afflicted and are taken to the hospital for other contagious or non-contagious diseases, may not become infected and carry into their own homes gonorrheal trouble that comes through contagion, and it is up to this Vigilance Association, the Society of Social Hygiene and the other organizations, to see to it that the innocent children who are sick and as yet not afflicted with this disease, taken to our county institution do not come out worse than they enter. It is up to us to demand that they provide a proper children's department, a proper children's building, for the treatment of these cases.

The Society of Social Hygiene is but three years old. Similar organizations exist in the large cities of the country. They are due to the awakening of the people. They are spreading among the young people the knowledge of the conditions that confront them. It is up to the rest of us to do our share in other ways. Each of us can be an inspiration in his own family, in the public and in the private schools. We, the educated people of this community, can[Pg 298] instruct the lesser educated parents so that they may realize their duty to their children. Our children and their children come together. We cannot escape that brotherhood, even if we wanted to. Our children, no matter how well we care for them, come into contact with the rest of the children of the city. We do not do our duty by our own unless we do our duty by the others too, and unless we see to it that they are properly cared for also, danger awaits our own children. That is putting it on selfish grounds, but I put it to you on the broader ground of brotherhood to man. Let us all join. On this great question at least we are one. No matter how we may differ on other social problems, on this question of the white slave traffic every decent man and woman stands on the same ground.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE VENEREAL DISEASES.

Note:—We are permitted to quote this chapter from the book "Man and Woman," by Dr. Wm. T. Belfield, Professor in Rush Medical College, and Secretary of the Chicago Society of Social Hygiene organized by the Chicago Medical Society.

Promiscuous and clandestine indulgence of the reproductive instinct, everywhere prevalent, is for obvious reasons especially common in our large cities, where even children of both sexes are frequently initiated into sexual practices before puberty—a fact familiar to physicians and often revealed in our Juvenile Courts, though apparently unsuspected by parents in general. Chicago papers recently recorded the discovery of such practices among pupils of a public school.

The illicit sexual relation is the chief though not the only factor in the dissemination of the two serious venereal diseases; so prevalent are these in our large cities that at least half the adult male population of all social grades, according to conservative estimates, contract one or both of them. (In Germany gonorrhoea is the most frequent of all diseases, with the single exception of measles; in America it is about as frequent.) Were the evil effects of[Pg 300] these diseases limited to those who seek clandestine indulgence, discussion of this distasteful topic might be reserved for them only; but since he who has acquired either of these diseases is, for an indefinite period, a possible source of contagion to his associates—especially to his bride and her children—the essential facts should be understood by every adult. These facts, so far as they concern the public welfare, are here briefly summarized:

1. Every prostitute, public or private, acquires venereal disease sooner or later; hence all of them are diseased some of the time, and some of them practically all of the time. The man who patronizes them risks his health at every exposure.

2. Medical inspection is an advantage to the prostitute chiefly because it gives her patron a false sense of security. Even the most elaborate and painstaking examination—and such is not bestowed upon the prostitute—may fail to detect a woman's lurking infectiousness; the perfunctory, routine examination actually made affords but a feeble protection to the patron. Moreover, at the first cohabitation after such examination she may acquire disease which she may transmit to every subsequent patron, until it is perhaps discovered at the next examination.

3. The many antiseptic washes, lotions and injections upon which the ignorant rely for protection from disease, are inefficient; not because they cannot destroy the germs of dis[Pg 301]ease, but because they do not penetrate the skin and mucous membranes in which these germs have been sheltered.

4. Gonorrhoea in the male, while usually cured without apparent loss of health, has always serious possibilities; it kills about one in two hundred; it permanently maims one in a hundred; it impairs the sexual power and fertility of a much larger number; it often produces urethral stricture, which later may cause loss of health and even of life; and in many cases it causes chronic pain and distress in the sexual organs, with severe mental annoyance and depression. The loss of health, time and money entailed by these sequels and their treatment may far exceed that occasioned by the original disease.

The prevalent notion among the uninformed that gonorrhoea is a mere annoyance, "no worse than a cold," is based entirely upon lamentable misapprehension.

5. The persistence of this disease in the deeper parts long after it is outwardly cured, leads to the unsuspected communication of the disease to women with whom the individual may cohabit. Among these women may be his bride, who thereupon enters upon a period of ill-health that may ultimately compel the mutilation of her sexual organs by a surgical operation to save her life. Much of the surgery of these organs performed upon women has been rendered necessary by gonorrhoea, contracted from the husband. Should she[Pg 302] while infected with this disease, give birth to a child, the baby's eyes may be attacked by the infection, sometimes with immediate loss of sight. Probably 25 per cent of the blindness of children is thus caused.

6. The other serious venereal disease, syphilis, infects the blood and therewith all parts of the body. For months after infection with this disease, the individual may communicate it by a kiss as well as by cohabitation; and articles moistened by his secretions—towels, drinking glasses, pipes, syringes, etc.—may also convey the infection. While under proper treatment the disease is not dangerous to life in the earlier years, yet the possibilities of transmitting the contagion should forbid marriage for at least three years.

The most serious results of syphilis appear years after its acquisition, when the individual has been lulled into a false sense of security by long freedom from its outward manifestations. It attacks all organs of the body, slowly and insidiously producing the symptoms of consumption, dyspepsia, liver disease and many other ailments. Since we have at present no reliable means for proving that one who has acquired the disease is absolutely cured thereof, physicians impress upon these patients two injunctions: first that they shall take the known remedies for the disease one or two months in every year, and second that they shall confide to every physician whom they may consult for any chronic or obscure ailment, the fact that[Pg 303] they have been infected with syphilis. This latter injunction is especially important; for nearly all disorders produced by syphilis can be promptly checked by certain remedies; yet many of these disorders affecting internal organs of the body, may not be identified as of syphilitic origin by the unsuspecting physician, who therefore fails to administer the needed and successful remedy. By directing the doctor's attention to the possible syphilitic origin of the disease through a frank confession of his early infection, the patient may save his health or even his life.

These serious and intractable results of syphilis appearing years after its contraction, occur especially in the shape of disorders of the blood-vessels and of the nervous system—apoplexy, paralysis, insanity and locomotor ataxia for example; and these but too often appear after the man has acquired a family that is dependent upon him for support. The mental state of the husband and father whose bread-winning capacity is suddenly abolished through the natural result of his early folly, may be imagined.

That the syphilitic parent may transmit the disease to his offspring is common knowledge; some of his children are destroyed by the inherited disease before birth; others are born to a brief and sickly span of life; others attain maturity, seriously handicapped in the race of life by a burden of ill-health, incapacity and[Pg 304] misery produced by the inherited taint; while still others apparently escape these evil effects.

Absolute freedom from venereal contagion, admittedly a prequisite for marriage, must be determined by expert medical skill; apparent recovery does not prove that the disease is really eradicated. Ignorance of the difference between real and apparent cure is responsible for most of the venereal infection of brides and taint of children.

The present popular crusade against tuberculosis is laudable and must result in a distinct restriction of the "great white plague"; but the greater black plague, syphilis, could be virtually eradicated in a few generations, through the universal practice of circumcision. Although apparently introduced into Europe less than four centuries ago, it has already tainted perhaps one-sixth of the total population, and it is steadily spreading; in the United States the ratio is but little better. (These percentages are merely estimates, since there are no official records of the venereal diseases except in public institutions.)

CHAPTER XXV.

RECRUITING GROUNDS OF THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFICKERS.

In all of the articles which have been published, and in all the addresses made respecting the white slave traffic, the public has been warned in general terms to beware lest daughters and sisters in their own towns and villages should become the prey of the white slave traffickers. In these articles it was undoubtedly thought best to spare the sense of security which the resident of a peaceful community usually has, by failing to mention specific cities where it is known that procurers and panderers of girls secure their victims. In an article which I wrote in the March number of a magazine, I transgressed to a slight extent this rule, and gave as an example the story of the little German girl from Buffalo. Those who read this will remember this pathetic case of a child widow who was persuaded to come to Chicago, with her infant in her arms, in search of more remunerative employment, and who was there sold into white slavery.

[Pg 306]Buffalo is not the only city which is a hunting ground of white slave traffickers. I think it safe to say that every city, village and hamlet whose daughters are fair to look upon, has been or will be, as time proceeds, the hunting ground of some procurer or agent for the white slave syndicate. I do not say this rashly, nor for the purpose of startling villagers where the church bell and the school bell are practically the only sounds which break the peace and quiet of the community, but I make the statement for the purpose of sounding a warning to that very resident, that very mother, that daughter, who sits in that schoolhouse or in that church pew and believes that she is safe from the snares of the traffickers because of the remoteness or the inaccessibility or otherwise of her peaceful village. It is not alone the large cities that furnish beautiful girlhood to lives of shame and debauchery. It is not necessary to go to New York, Pittsburg, Philadelphia or Kansas City to procure beautiful and attractive girls. It is well known that out on the prairies, in Texas, in Missouri, in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, in fact all over our great west, there are as beautiful types of womanhood as ever graced God's footstool. It is these that the trafficker is seeking. They it is who furnish the easiest victims for his snares.

As a prosecuting officer I personally can testify to the fact that very many cities and villages now have in the red light district of Chi[Pg 307]cago and other cities, daughters who, if their names were mentioned in their home cities, would bring shame and disgrace to prominent and honest people. There are girls from cities in the interior, girls from small villages with hardly a thousand inhabitants, and girls from villages of this size and cities of varying population from that on up to cities of the size of Boston and Pittsburg and other great commercial and social centers. There are of course some cities which furnish more women for prostitution than others. I shall not publish a comparative list, but will suffice by giving a list of cities scattered broadcast from which have come girls and women to the great white slave market in Chicago within my own personal experience. Cities which have furnished girls and women for this purpose are as follows: Toledo, Ohio; Youngstown, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Muskegon, Michigan; Montreal, Canada; Troy, New York; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Peoria, Illinois; Bloomington, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; New York; Davenport, Iowa; Moline, Illinois; Livonia, Pennsylvania; Whitehall, Michigan; Waseca, Minnesota; Charleston, Illinois. I know that the above statement will cause a thrill in some of the cities which I have mentioned, but I believe that the agitation upon the white slave question has reached a point where false modesty should no longer prevent the public from knowing the exact situation however much it may cause them to feel a sense[Pg 308] of regret that their city or village has furnished at least one victim to the sisters of scarlet.

The list of cities is not confined to the great group of cities having thousands of population, but, as you will note, includes small villages where it would hardly seem possible that girls could go astray. I might, if I had the time and space, make a list five or six times as large, but the one which I have given will serve my purpose—that of sounding a warning to those who least suspect that their daughters and sisters are in danger.

To those of you who do not reside in the cities which I have mentioned, I warn you not to conclude from the fact that I have omitted the name of your city or village from the list, that no girl has come from your community. It may be that I shall include your city in a future list—at any rate do not permit yourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security.

As I have said, some of the cities, much to their shame, have furnished for the houses of prostitution in Chicago more girls than others. For example, I have personally known for a long time that the cities of Montreal, Canada, Toledo and Youngstown, Ohio, and Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, have furnished probably a greater average by one-third than any of the other cities. This of course does not include New York; for probably more women come from New York to Chicago for the purpose of entering a house of prostitution than from any other city in the United States. This is true because[Pg 309] it has an extremely large population, and also because of the fact that it is largely through the port of New York that the alien prostitutes are brought into the United States, and thence to Chicago. Some of the other cities which I have mentioned have furnished one, two three, or more, as the particular case might be. This to me is sufficient proof of the fact that there is and probably always will be to a greater or less extent, until we crush it out, a syndicate or system which is continuously operating and seeking new fields for the purpose of ensnaring innocent victims and selling them into lives of shame.

Troy, New York, is a prolific source from which Chicago houses of ill fame receive women. In a case recently tried in the Federal courts, the testimony showed that one girl who had been found in a house of ill-fame in Chicago had originally been taken to a house at Troy and from that day, when she was eighteen years of age, until she was arrested in Chicago some five years later, she had been in the clutches of or under the control of the different members of a single family who had kept her earning money for them during all these years. The peaceful village of Charleston, in southern Illinois, has furnished to the panderers of lust a beautiful Norwegian girl, whose parents imagine that she is engaged in a legitimate occupation in Chicago, and whose peace of mind I would not disturb by furnishing them with her name. Muskegon, Michi[Pg 310]gan, is a field to which the white slave operator sends at frequent intervals for fresh girls. It is not a large city, but seldom does the procurer go there without returning with his victim.

Now a word as to the method used in procuring girls from our American cities. Some of the various schemes, which are used by the procurer, have been detailed in these pages in preceding articles, and I need not worry the reader with a repetition of their details. It is not always necessary for the procurer to go from the city to the country village to get the girl he is seeking. Indulgent parents very often permit their daughters to come to the great city unaccompanied by any protector; the Sunday excursion, the fat stock show, a world's fair, some theatrical production, a monstrous convention—these are the lights which allure the daughter and sister to the city. Perhaps she has never been in the city before and has no relatives or friends to whose house she may go. Perhaps she has been in the city once or twice before and has met a supposed woman friend, who has taken her to her house and shown her every courtesy. If the former, she will oftentimes be met at the railroad station by a young man, well dressed, pleasant and affable, who offers to spend his money to procure her a cab to take her to some respectable hotel. Unexperienced in the ways of the city, she accepts only to find that instead of a protector she has found in the affable young man a procurer for some vile house of[Pg 311] prostitution. Many, many times have instances like this occurred, and the innocent young girl has awakened the next morning to find herself situated in a gaudy bedroom, without clothing, the prey and victim of her procurer. Her clothes have been taken away from her, and upon inquiry she finds that she is in debt and will not be permitted to leave the house until she has earned sufficient money to pay back what the affable young man has spent upon cab fares and hotel bills, and, in addition to that, to repay the price which the keeper of the house gave to her seducer. An instance of this kind, in which a girl had been procured by this identical method, was related by Mr. Sims in a magazine article. She has since been rescued and is leading a respectable life back home with her parents.

Or it may be that the girl from the country is making a second or third visit to the city and has been invited to again visit the kind and elderly lady who met her in a department store and so kindly cared for her upon her last visit. This kindly elderly lady usually occupies a flat at some distance but within easy reach of the red light district. It is sumptuously furnished and, as the elderly woman explains, is a home for several young ladies who are working in stores in the city. Here the country maiden is given every luxury free of expense, is entertained royally, and, alas, very many times before she attempts to leave for her home has been caught unawares and so compromised[Pg 312] that she dare not face her home folks again. The city of Chicago in certain sections is full of apartments of this kind, where an elderly lady, usually a semi-retired keeper of a house of prostitution, has furnished an apartment and runs a supposed respectable home for working girls. Three to five girls live with her. Her telephone number is furnished to hotel employees and elevator operators, to "steer" male inquirers who are in search of a "pleasant evening" to the flat in return for a commission of fifty cents or a dollar for each customer. The girls who live in this class of places are girls who come from the country and who have fallen, but who are not low enough to go to the regular houses of prostitution in the red light district. Clerks from department stores, whose meagre salaries are not sufficient to support them while away from their parents, seek these houses as a means of supplying the deficiency in their weekly earnings. They are thus enabled to dress tastily and just a little bit better than the virtuous girl who works next to them upon the same salary but who does not sell herself for lust. In such places as these I have known of girls who came to the city to study painting, stenography, bookkeeping and other occupations, and who, while ostensibly pursuing their daily labor, are all of the time going to these houses of assignation whenever there is a dollar to be gained which will place them in a position to[Pg 313] dress better or go to some place of amusement which costs money.

What, then, shall we do to protect our daughters and our sisters? That is the question which is puzzling not only prosecuting officers and police officials, but one upon which economists and charitable organizations are spending months debating. One safe and sure protection we all have. That is, do not permit the daughter or the sister to go from the country village to the large city unless you know absolutely and beyond the peradventure of doubt, that the hotel where she shall stay, or the people whom she shall visit, are absolutely above reproach of any kind. Advise your daughter and your sister of the snares which lay in her path before it is too late. Forewarn her so that she shall be advised in time to spare her the great anguish and the pain to which she may be otherwise subjected.

If the procurer comes to the village in search of his victim, teach the daughter and the sister to have no confidence in affable strangers, well dressed and fluent of speech, but to confide always in her mother when she makes an engagement to go driving, to visit an ice cream parlor or to go to the city with a male escort.

CHAPTER XXVI.

PRACTICAL MEANS OF PROTECTING GIRLS.

There could be no legitimate excuse for exploiting the white slave trade in the public prints without the definite and sincere purpose of securing practical and substantial protection against this terrible social scourge. Such is as surely the purpose of this article as it has been that of the excellent articles by Hon. Edwin W. Sims which have brought out a vast and interesting volume of correspondence.

Many of these letters have been from fathers and mothers aroused to anxiety about daughters who have been allowed to seek a livelihood in large cities without suitable oversight or protection. In some instances the worst fears of these parents have been, by definite investigation, shown to be all too well founded.

Other letters have come, by the score, from public officials and from public spirited men and women who have at last been stirred to a realization that there is an actual, systematic and widespread traffic in girls as definite,[Pg 315] as established, as mercenary and as fiendish as was the African slave trade in its blackest days. And practically all these letters indicate that very few of those who have been finally aroused to the enormity of existing conditions have any clear idea of what should or may be done to protect these daughters of our own people from the ravages of the white slave traders.

A letter from the Mayor of a Connecticut city is typical of the common misconception among cultivated and well informed public officials who have not given the legal phases of the repression of the white slave trade especial and exhaustive study. The Mayor writes:

"I should think that the Federal Government would have to pass stringent laws providing a heavy penalty for all who are engaged in this business. The law would then be the same in all states and people could not escape from its provision as they would if the states tried to take up the matter and passed conflicting statutes. An organization might secure the passage of such an act by the Federal Government, but it hardly seems to me that it is necessary, more than to state the facts, and have the members of congress take immediate action that would put an end to the whole matter."

While it is probably true that the Federal Government has power to prohibit the carrying of women from one state to another for immoral purposes, that power has not yet been[Pg 316] specifically established by actual tests in court and is therefore, in a sense, undefined. On the other hand the states, under their police power, have a remedy in their own hands, and it would seem both logical and natural that this power be exercised in the protection of its own homes and daughters. As a matter of fact we have found literally scores of cases, in our investigations relative to the importation from foreign countries of girls destined for immoral houses, where American born girls have been lured or kidnaped from a home in one state and carried to some large city in another state, there to be broken to the life of shame.

The federal investigations in Chicago and other localities have clearly established the fact, that, generally speaking, houses of ill-fame in large cities do not draw their recruits to any great extent from the territory immediately surrounding them; for obvious reasons the white slavers who are the recruiting agents for the vile traffic prefer to work in states more or less distant from the centers to which their victims are destined.

In view of all this it must be clearly apparent that the need of the hour is legislation which will make it as difficult and dangerous for a white slaver to take his victim from one state into another as it is for him to bring a girl from France or Italy or Canada, or any other foreign country, to a house of ill-fame in Chicago or any American city. Therefore, it is suggested that if each state in the union would[Pg 317] pass and enforce severe and stringent laws against this importation, this terrible traffic would be dealt a blow in its most vulnerable part. Such an enactment might well be worded as follows:

"Whoever shall induce, entice or procure, or attempt to induce, entice or procure, to come into this state, any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or concubinage, or for any other immoral purpose, or to enter any house of prostitution in this state, shall, upon conviction, be imprisoned in the penitentiary for a period of not less than one (1) nor more than five (5) years and be fined not more than five thousand ($5,000) dollars."

One of the strangest results brought about by the recent white slave prosecutions in Chicago and the publicity which they have received, has been the astonishment of thousands of persons, as evidenced by letters, at the fact that such a wholesale traffic is actually in existence. But what is still more astounding, not to say discouraging, is the reluctance of the other thousands to believe that many hundreds of men and women are actually engaged in the business of luring girls and women to their destruction, and that this infamous traffic is being carried on in every state of the union every day of the year.

Perhaps the actuality of this awful avocation may be made more clearly apparent to the innocent and unsophisticated doubters whose awakening and moral support is needed, if I[Pg 318] cite one or two instances which have come to my personal knowledge within the last few days.

In a comfortable farm home in a state bordering upon Illinois is an uncommonly attractive young girl who has, almost by accident, been delivered from the worst fate which can possibly befall a young woman. Through secret service operations one of the most dangerous "procurers" of this country was traced to the home in which this beautiful girl had been adopted as a daughter. The white slaver had already ingratiated himself into her confidence and that of her foster-parents, and arrangements had practically been made by which she was to accompany him to Chicago, where he had a "fine position" awaiting her. If he had not been located and his character made known to the household at the time when this was done, she would now be a white slave in a Chicago den.

Another case which has had a less fortunate termination is that which involves the "fake" marriage, a subterfuge common in this wretched traffic. A young man made the acquaintance of a handsome girl in the North Side district of Chicago. He was polished and plausible and the parents of the girl, who were ambitious for their daughter's advancement, were apparently flattered that he should bestow his attentions upon her. When, after very brief courtship, he proposed marriage, they offered no objections and even set aside their own[Pg 319] wishes when he suggested that he held prejudices against being married by a clergyman and against having a formal wedding. Consequently they went before a "Justice of the Peace," who pronounced them man and wife—a "fake" Justice, who was merely a confederate of the white slaver. They went at once to San Antonio, Texas, he having claimed that he held a very profitable position in a large business concern in that city. When they arrived there the poor girl had her awful awakening, for she was promptly sold into the life of shame without hope of escape from its degrading servitude.

Another very effective regulation which every state will do well to adopt by enactment of its general assembly is that making the premises leased or used for a house of ill-fame liable for any and all fines against its lessee.

"Whoever keeps or maintains a house of ill-fame, or a place for the practice of prostitution or lewdness, or whoever patronizes the same, or lets any house, room or other premises for any such purpose, or shall keep a lewd, ill-governed or disorderly house to the encouragement of idleness, gambling, drinking, fornication or other misbehavior, shall be fined not exceeding one thousand ($1,000) dollars. When the lessee or keeper of a dwelling house or other building is convicted under this section the lease or contract for letting the premises[Pg 320] shall, at the option of the lessor, become void and the lessor may have like remedy to recover the possession as against a tenant holding over after the expiration of his term. And whoever shall lease any house, room or other premises, in whole or in part, for any of the uses or purposes finable under this section, or knowingly permits the same to be so used or kept, shall be fined not exceeding one thousand ($1,000) dollars and the house or premises so leased, occupied or used shall be held liable for, and may be sold for, any judgment obtained under this section."

Some enactment of this nature is particularly desirable for two reasons: First, because actual experience has shown that judgments obtained against keepers of such houses are difficult of collection and that the ones against whom the judgments are obtained are remarkably resourceful in avoiding punishment even after conviction. Second, it seems obvious that when a property owner knows that his real estate is particularly available for houses of this character he is, if unprincipled enough to do so, bound to encourage the use of his premises for that which will bring him the largest money returns. This puts him in the way of fattening upon the wages of the social vice without incurring danger of punishment. Naturally he becomes a friend of the traffic and ready to aid and abet it wherever and whenever he can. Therefore it seems to me he should no longer be allowed to escape the[Pg 321] penalties attached to those who engage in this infamous trade. As the owner of the property on which unlawful acts are persistently committed, and as a sharer in the unlawful profits of those acts, he should be made to share also in its perils and punishments; he should be made to feel that, as the owner of the property used for the purpose of harboring fallen women he is a link in the chain which draws innocent womanhood to its doom and that he must suffer to the full proportion of his guilt. Again, it is the first instinct of the lessee or keeper of such a house, on coming in contact with the law, to flee and forfeit his or her bonds. By making the property itself liable to forfeiture, absolute security against this kind of thing is established, thereby preventing many a miscarriage of justice and of just penalties.

Since the beginning of the recent prosecutions in Chicago a score of keepers, realizing their guilt and fearing prosecution, have fled the country and have not yet been apprehended. If both the federal and the state governments had a law of this kind the escape of these criminals would not have involved a complete defeat of the law in their cases, for prosecution could have been brought against some person connected with their establishments, and when a conviction was secured the property occupied by them could have been closed out. A statute of this kind, wherever enacted, can scarcely fail to prove one of the most powerful and effective of all possible weapons[Pg 322] against the white slave traffic. And the smaller the city, the more effective will this weapon be found—which is only another way of saying that the larger the city the larger the toleration of the social vice.

One of the greatest weapons in the hands of the white slavers and of the keepers of houses of ill-fame to prevent the escape of fresh recruits and to submerge them into hopeless slavery is the system of indebtedness which is practiced in these places. The one object of those concerned in the subjugation of a girl who has become a victim of the wiles of the white slaver is to break down all hope of escape from the life of shame and bitterness into which she has been entrapped. Nothing has been found so effective a means to this end as the debtor system. The first thing a girl is compelled to do on being thrown into one of these houses is to buy an expensive wardrobe at from five to six times its actual value. To be more definite, I have in my possession bills rendered against certain inmates taken from the dens. In these bills stockings costing 75 cents have been charged at $3.00; shoes costing $2.50 are charged at $8.00, and kimonos costing $4.00 are charged at $15.00. As the goods themselves were seized as well as the bills for them, I am able to make this statement. In every case I have found that the girl was compelled to renew her outfit of finery whenever the keeper so dictated, without regard to her need of it. Our investiga[Pg 325][Pg 324][Pg 323]tions have all shown that when a keeper imagined that a girl, an inmate, is intending to leave the place either openly or secretly, a new outfit is forced upon her at absurd figures and she is told that she cannot leave until every cent of her indebtedness has been wiped out, and that if she attempts to do so, they will "put the law on her." In the dozens of cases which I have examined there has not been a single one which has failed to show evidence of this kind. I have in my possession numerous copies of bills rendered against these wretched women in which their costumes reach as high a figure at $1,200 and even $1,500. This indebtedness system is mutually recognized and enforced between the keepers of all houses; in other words, no girl can leave one house and enter another unless she is able to show that she leaves no indebtedness behind her.

As this phase of business in the underworld is one of the main props of white slavery it is well to go into it with definiteness and to give examples which illustrates its operation.

In one of the recent raids a big Irish girl was taken and held as a witness. She was old enough, strong enough and wise enough, it seemed to me, to have overcome almost any kind of opposition—even physical violence. She could have put up a fight which few men, no matter how brutal, would care to meet. I asked her why she did not get out of the house, which was one of the worst in Chicago. Her answer was: "Get out—I can't. They make[Pg 326] us buy the cheapest rags and they are charged against us at fabulous prices; they make us change outfits at intervals of two or three weeks, until we are so deeply in debt that there is no hope of ever getting out from under. Then, to make such matters worse, we seldom get an accounting oftener than once in six months and sometimes ten months or a year will pass between settlements—and when we do get an accounting it is always to find ourselves deeper in debt than before. We've simply got to stick and that's all there is to it."

To frame an enactment which will knock this prop of indebtedness system out from under the white slave business might appear to be a most difficult matter, and yet I believe that the legislature which enacts a statute of which the following clause is the essential part will go a long way towards accomplishing this most desired result:

"And whoever shall hold, detain, restrain, or attempt to hold, detain or restrain in any house of prostitution or other place, any female for the purpose of compelling such female, directly or indirectly, by her voluntary or involuntary service or labor, to pay, liquidate or cancel any debt, dues or obligation incurred therein or said to have been incurred in such house of prostitution or other place, shall be deemed guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary at hard labor for not less than two or more than ten years."

There is only one other enactment which all legislatures should be urged to pass, and that is one which strikes directly at the white slaver, the "procurer," the owner or the "fellow." Keepers of houses of ill-fame have discovered that the hideous task of keeping the unwilling white slave in subjection is much easier if a certain ownership of her is vested in a man. In many cases this man is the one who is directly responsible for placing the girl in the house, but this is not invariably the case. When it is the case he receives not only a lump purchase price down on the delivery of his victim to the house, but he is recognized by the keeper as her owner and master, the one to whom a certain percentage of her income is paid and with whom all settlements on her account are made. What is more important in the eyes of the keeper is that this man is held absolutely responsible for the girl's subjection, and if she attempts to escape he must cajole, threaten or beat her into subjection. In one of the recent raids I chanced to come upon visual demonstration of how this peculiar phase of white slavery operates in actual practice. One of these "fellows" was disciplining a girl whom he "owned"—and doing so by the gentle process of forcing her against the wall with his hands at her throat.

Some of these "fellows" "own" two or three, or perhaps more, white slaves, and on the income of their slavery these brutes live in luxury at expensive hotels, maintain expensive automobiles and lead lives of luxury, idleness and dissipation.

While some states have statutes directly aimed at this system, it has been found extremely difficult to secure convictions against these most contemptible of all white slavers, for the reason that all of the existing statutes, so far as I am informed, make it necessary, at least by implication, for the prosecution to establish the fact that they derive their entire support from white slaves under their control—in other words, it devolves upon the state to demonstrate that the man on trial has no other visible means of support. As a consequence the defense set up is almost invariably calculated to prove that the man on trial is a solicitor for a tailoring establishment, a laundry or some other legitimate business enterprise.

In view of this fact, it seems to me an enactment drawn upon the following lines would be effective:

"Any person who shall knowingly accept or receive in whole or in part support or maintenance from the proceeds or earnings of any woman engaged in prostitution shall be deemed guilty of a felony and on conviction thereof shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than one (1) nor more than three (3) years and fined not exceeding one thousand dollars, or both, in the discretion of the court."

Not long since I was asked how many persons I supposed Chicago contained who would[Pg 327] come under a statute of this kind and who ought to receive sentence under it. My reply was this:

"Probably there are five thousand women in Chicago today following the so-called profession of prostitution, and it would seem to me, from the testimony obtained in the course of the recent white slave prosecutions here that at least one-fourth that number of male parasites are supported in whole or in part in this manner and would therefore come within the meaning of such a statute."

So much for specific legislation which ought, as a protection to the young womanhood of this country, to be passed by the legislature of every state in this country not already having statutes which adequately cover all the points involved in the clauses which I have suggested. The next practical question to be raised—and which I hope every reader of this article will ask—is this:

"What is the quickest and most practical way by which I may get action on the legislature of my own state?"

I would suggest the following methods: Find the names of the men who represent your district in the general assembly of your state and write to each one of them a letter substantially as follows:[Pg 328]

"Hon....................

"Dear Sir:—I am in hearty sympathy with the legislation against the white slave traffic proposed by the Woman's World and urge you to secure the passage of laws which shall embody the clauses and enactments suggested in the enclosed article clipped from that journal.

"You surely will not question the worthiness or the need of laws of this kind and I ask the further favor of a reply from you indicating your attitude with regard to this most important matter.

"Yours sincerely,

..............."

Also I would suggest that readers who are members of churches or habitual attendants upon church services, take this matter up with the pastors of their churches, each requesting his or her pastor to confer with the other pastors of his community to the end of preparing a petition to be sent to the representatives from that district in the legislature, urging the passage of the enactments above suggested. If these petitions are vigorously circulated they will receive the signatures of practically the entire citizenship of every community and will have a powerful, not to say compelling, influence upon the representatives and state senators who receive them. Women's Clubs, Law and Order Leagues, Christian Endeavor Societies, Epworth Leagues, Grangers and Farmers' Institutes, Young Men's Christian[Pg 329] Associations, Young Women's Christian Associations and Women's Temperance Unions in every city, village and hamlet of the country, scan also exert a powerful and practical influence in securing such legislation as a protection against the ravages of the white slavers by passing suitable resolutions of endorsement and sending those resolutions to the men representing their several communities in the general assembly of their state. While, as I say, these memorials on the part of respected organizations will do a useful work in shaping the course of legislation, this will not take the place or do the work of the individual personal letter, and every reader who is sincerely and earnestly interested in securing such legislation as I have outlined will miss the main stroke of influence if he or she fails to write a personal letter to the men representing his or her district in the general assembly of the state.

And whenever such a letter is written the various clauses given in this article should be incorporated in the letter; this will put your request in definite and explicit terms, a result greatly to be desired.

I cannot close this article without recurring to the statement made at the outset to the effect that many persons still remain unconvinced that the white slave traffic is a thing of widespread and actual existence; that it is the established calling of hundreds of men to lure and kidnap innocent girls into a life of[Pg 330] shame and to sell them into houses of prostitution, where they are kept against their will in the most revolting of all human slaveries.

"There are in that house, No. ——, two girls by the names of Annie and Edith. One has been there for two years and is not allowed to go out of the house. . . . is not even allowed to write to her own people, and whose mail is opened and read before she is allowed to look at it. The other girl has been there seven months and has never been out of the house."

A very few days ago this pitiful case was, in an official way, brought to my attention. A little German girl in Buffalo married a man who deserted her about the time her child was born. Her baby is now about eight or nine months old. Almost immediately after her husband ran away she formed the acquaintance of an engaging young man who claimed to take deep interest in her welfare, and in that of a certain girl friend of hers. He persuaded them both that if they would accompany him to Chicago he would immediately place them in employment which would be far more profitable than anything they could obtain in Buffalo. Supposing that the work awaiting her was entirely legitimate and respectable the little mother took her baby and, in company with[Pg 331] the young man and with her friend, came to Chicago. The next task of this human fiend was to persuade this "child widow" that it would be necessary for her to place her baby temporarily in a foundling's home in order that it might not interfere with her employment. This accomplished, he took the two young women at once to a notorious house and sold them into white slavery. Thenceforth this fellow has lived in luxury upon the shameful earnings of these two victims. The young mother has attempted by every means imaginable to escape from his clutches and at last has importuned him into a promise to release his hold upon her on the payment of $300. She is still "working out" the price of her release. It is scarcely too much to say that she looks twice her age.

One other example from the current history of the white slave trade as it is pursued today. Only a few nights since a physician was calling professionally at one of the houses of Chicago's "Red Light" district. Two men and a young woman entered the door just before him and took seats at a table. A glance at her fresh and innocent face was enough to convince him that she was out of her element and probably unaware of the character of her surroundings. Stepping abruptly to the table, the physician looked the young woman straight in the eye and asked:

"No—I am a respectable woman and I supposed I was being taken to a ladies' cafe."

Her companions bolted for the door and made their escape. The physician then called a policeman, who escorted the young woman to her home and found her statements to be true—that she was a respectable girl and had believed her "friends" to be taking her to a respectable restaurant.

Tragedies of this kind are happening every day and all over this country. It is time for the decent people of the United States to wake up, realize what is going on in the underworld and to take strong measures to protect their daughters and their neighbors' daughters from the hands of the most despicable and inhuman of all criminals, the white slave traders.

CHAPTER XXVII.

LAWS FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC.

The war for exterminating the white slave traffic has progressed so rapidly and has attained such enormous proportions, that it is not now confined to one state or country, but people from every state in the United States, in Canada, England, and other foreign countries, have taken up the slogan and are vitally interested in assisting to curb the monstrous traffic. Laws have been enacted in several of the states during the past sessions of their respective legislatures. In other states new laws are contemplated. Reports are received by the Committee on Legislation daily which are indeed encouraging and show the need of centralizing the effort and assisting citizens of the different states who so frequently are at a loss to know exactly what to do when a white slave case comes within their observation.

To meet this need and to further the effort to secure proper legislation, the Committee has decided to publish the following digest of the laws of every state in the Union, so far as practicable, for distribution to those who are interested in this warfare.

[Pg 334]In this connection the Committee desires to acknowledge its very deep sense of gratitude and appreciation to the governors of the respective states, their assistants and attorney generals, for the data furnished by them contained within these pages. It is indeed an encouraging sign when men in high public office stop for a time from the stress of their official duties to assist in a world-wide undertaking of this kind.

The reader will find in these pages all of the laws of each state in the United States, so far as obtainable, which affect in any way, and which may be used to throttle the white slave traffic. There will also be found simple directions to be followed by the citizen who becomes acquainted with a white slave case and who desires to have it properly prosecuted. The digest has been made as simple as possible, and technical legal terms and phrases have been avoided where possible in order that every one, be he lawyer or layman, may be able to read and act understandingly.

UNITED STATES.

The section of the United States statutes which is the basis of the Federal prosecutions is known as Section Three of the Act of February 20, 1907. It may be found in United States Compiled Statutes, Supplement 1907, page 392.

THE EFFECT OF THE SUPREME COURT DECISION.

The Congress of the United States, on February 20, 1907, passed what is known as the Immigration Act. This Act covers twenty-three printed pages affecting the immigration of all classes of peoples to the United States. Among other provisions, Section 3 of this Act attempted to prohibit the importation of alien women and girls for immoral purposes. This section was made sufficiently broad to prohibit not only the importation, but the keeping, even with the consent of the alien, of any foreign woman or girl for immoral purposes. The Act is as follows:

Sec. 3. That the importation into the United States of any alien woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution, or for any other immoral purpose, is hereby forbidden; and whoever shall, directly or indirectly, import, or attempt to import, into the United States, any alien woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution, or for any other immoral purpose, or whoever shall hold or attempt to hold any alien woman or girl for any such purpose in pursuance of such illegal importation, or whoever shall keep, maintain, control, support, or harbor in any house or other place, for the purpose of prostitution, or for any other immoral purpose, any alien woman or girl, within three years after she shall have entered the United States, shall, in every such case, be deemed guilty of a felony,[Pg 336] and on conviction thereof be imprisoned not more than five years and pay a fine of not more than five thousand dollars; and any alien woman or girl who shall be found an inmate of a house of prostitution or practicing prostitution, at any time within three years after she shall have entered the United States, shall be deemed to be unlawfully within the United States and shall be deported as provided by sections twenty and twenty-one of this Act.

It is this section of the Act under which the prosecutions in the Northern District of Illinois were instituted by United States District Attorney Sims in June of nineteen hundred and eight, and which resulted in the imprisonment of so many procurers and keepers of houses of ill-fame. Among the cases which were tried before a jury and which resulted in a conviction of the keepers, was a case entitled United States v. Keller and Ullman. These defendants were charged with having harbored Irene Bodi, a native of Austria, within three years after she had entered the United States, and found guilty by the jury and sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth for one and one-half years each. They thereupon prosecuted an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, alleging among other things that the law under which they were convicted was unconstitutional, in that the clause "keep, maintain, control, support, or harbor," attempted to embrace powers not given by the constitution to Congress, but re[Pg 337]served to the respective states and to be within their police powers. This contention was upheld by the Supreme Court. The result is that so much of Section 3 of the Act of February 20, 1907, as attempted to prosecute a keeper who simply harbored or permitted to be within his house of prostitution an alien woman or girl within three years after her arrival in this country was wiped out of the statute, and the section of the Act must now be read as follows:

Sec. 3. That the importation into the United States of any alien woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution, or for any other immoral purpose, is hereby forbidden; and whoever shall, directly or indirectly, import, or attempt to import, into the United States, any alien woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution, or for any other immoral purpose, or whoever shall hold or attempt to hold any alien woman or girl for any such purpose in pursuance of such illegal importation, shall, in every such case, be deemed guilty of a felony, and on conviction thereof be imprisoned not more than five years and pay a fine of not more than five thousand dollars; and any alien woman or girl who shall be found an inmate of a house of prostitution or practicing prostitution, at any time within three years after she shall have entered the United States, shall be deemed to be unlawfully within the United States and shall be deported as provided by sections twenty and twenty-one of this Act.

[Pg 338]It will thus be seen, by comparing the Act as originally signed by the President and the Act as it now reads, after the decision of the Supreme Court, that it is necessary in every case to show that the person who holds the alien had directly or indirectly imported the same alien into the United States for immoral purposes. In other words, the federal authorities are now restricted to cases where they are able to prove that the defendant imported the girl prior to the time she was found in his house of prostitution. This will very materially lessen the number of federal prosecutions, as it is extremely difficult in the vast majority of cases to show that the person in whose house the alien was found was in every instance responsible for her importation. It is to be hoped that Congress during its coming session shall see fit to enact remedial legislation which shall correct that clause of the Act declared unconstitutional, or if this shall be found impossible, to at least broaden the present scope of Section 3 of the Immigration Act so that it can be made more comprehensive and far-reaching.

WHERE YOUNG MEN BUY INSANITY CHEAP
A whole row of low dives and vice resorts. It is here that the white slaves are taken; it is here where the sinful pleasures of the young men wreck their bodies and steal their manhood.

OLD GLORY AND OLDER GLORY—"THESE DIVES MUST GO"
The author, Rev. Ernest A. Bell, holding a meeting in the vice district—at the open door of a notorious resort

Another result of the action of the Supreme Court is to emphasize the great need for legislation by the respective states looking to laws which shall minimize the placing of girls in houses of prostitution within the several states, and which shall prevent the migration from one state to another of women for immoral purposes. Many of the states have already responded. The State of North Dakota[Pg 341][Pg 340][Pg 339] has enacted a law to hit White Slavery. South Dakota has done the same. Illinois has already passed two excellent bills drawn on the lines suggested in the March issue of the Woman's World. The State of Iowa has also enacted a law aimed at White Slavery.

Prosecution for violation of the Federal laws rests with the United States district attorney in the respective districts. The matter should be brought to his attention and the evidence submitted for his examination. The usual procedure is to then present the matter to the Federal grand jury, if one be sitting, or to arrest the defendant and prosecute him before a United States commissioner.

ALABAMA.

In Alabama any person who takes a female from her father, mother, guardian or other person having the legal charge of her without his or her consent, for the purpose of prostitution or concubinage, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than ten nor more than twenty years.

Alabama Code, 1852, Sec. 3095; 1871, Ch. 56, Sec. 3.

Any person who takes any female unlawfully, against her will, with the intent to compel her, by menace, duress or force to marry him or any other person, or be defiled, shall on conviction be imprisoned in the penitentiary[Pg 342] not less than ten nor more than twenty-one years.

Alabama Code, 1852, Sec. 3094; 1871, Ch. 56, Sec. 3.

The above section is aimed at one who takes a female with the intent to compel her to suffer the crimes enumerated. There is a further section aimed at the person who actually accomplishes the result intended and covered by the previous section. The latter section is as follows:

Any person who takes any female and by menace, duress or force compels her to marry him or any other person or be defiled, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than ten nor more than twenty-one years.

Alabama Code, 1871, Ch. 56, Sec. 3.

It is no defense to a charge of abduction that the elopement was with the consent of the female and at her request, and the burden of proof as to the chastity of the woman abducted, in an indictment, is upon the defendant.

Any parent or guardian or person having charge or custody of a female such as is mentioned by the preceding paragraphs, who permits or encourages or abets in the commission of the crimes above set forth can be punished the same as the person who actually seduces the girl.

Alabama Code, 1893, Ch. 129, Sec. 1.

Report any violation to the prosecuting officer of the county in which the crime was committed.

ALASKA.

That if any person, under promise of marriage, shall seduce and have illicit connection with any unmarried female of previous chaste character, such person, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than one nor more than five years; or by imprisonment in the county jail not less than three months nor more than one year, or by fine not less than five hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars. A subsequent marriage of the parties, or offer to marry in good faith, is a defense to a violation of this section.

Section 123, Ch. 7, Carter's Annotated Alaska Codes.

Report violation to the District Attorney for the district in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

ARIZONA.

Every person who inveigles or entices any female, of previous chaste character, into any house of ill-fame or assignation, or elsewhere, for the purpose of prostitution; or to have illicit carnal connection with any man; and every person who, by any false pretenses, false representations or other fraudulent means, procures any female to have illicit carnal connection with any man, is punishable by imprisonment in the territorial prison not exceeding five years, or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Section 235, Ch. 1, Revised Statutes of Arizona, 1901.

Every person who takes away any female under the age of eighteen years from her father, mother, guardian, or other person having the legal charge of her person, without their consent, for the purpose of prostitution, is punishable by imprisonment in the territorial prison not exceeding five years, and a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars.

Report violation to the District Attorney for the district in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

CALIFORNIA.

"Every person who, within this state, takes any female person against her will and without her consent, or with her consent procured by fraudulent inducement or misrepresentation, for the purpose of prostitution, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding five years, and a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars. 266a. Penal Code.

"Every person who takes any female per[Pg 343]son unlawfully, and against her will, and by force, menace, or duress, compels her to live with him in an illicit relation, against her consent, or to so live with any other person, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison not less than two nor more than four years. 266b. Penal Code.

"Every person bringing to, or landing within this state, any female person born in the Empire of China or the Empire of Japan, or the islands adjacent thereto, with intent to place her in charge or custody of any other person, and against her will to compel her to reside with him, or for the purpose of selling her to any person whomsoever, is punishable by a fine of not less than one nor more than five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail not less than six nor more than twelve months. 266c Penal Code.

"Any person who receives any money or other valuable thing for or on account of his placing in custody any female for the purpose of causing her to cohabit with any male to whom she is not married, is guilty of a felony. 266d. Penal Code.

"Every person who purchases, or pays any money or other valuable thing for any female person for the purpose of prostitution, or for the purpose of placing her, for immoral purposes, in any house or place against her will, is guilty of a felony. 266e. Penal Code.

"Every person who sells any female person or receives any money or other valuable thing[Pg 344] for or on account of his placing in custody, for immoral purposes any female person, whether with or without her consent, is guilty of a felony." 266f. Penal Code.

Present the facts within your knowledge of the alleged crime to the District Attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

COLORADO.

"Any male or female person, over the age of eighteen years, who shall procure, encourage, persuade, induce, or prevail upon any female person of previous chaste character to have sexual intercourse for hire, with any male person other than himself shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for not less than one year or more than five years.

"Any male person, over the age of eighteen years, who shall act as an employee or servant in or about any room, house, or place of prostitution, or who shall engage or assist in operating or managing any room, house or building for the purpose of carrying on prostitution, or any male or female person, over the age of eighteen years, who shall knowingly live on, or be supported in whole or in part by the money or other valuable consideration realized, procured or earned by any female per[Pg 345]son through the prostitution of any other female person or persons, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for not less than one year nor more than five years.

"In all prosecutions under this act a husband or wife shall be a competent witness against the other, and the wife may be compelled to testify on behalf of the people in any prosecution under this act wherein her husband shall be a party defendant.

"Nothing in this act shall be held to alter or in any manner affect the laws relating to incest, the infamous crime against nature, seduction, adultery, rape, fornication, or other kindred offenses against the person or the public morals, nor any prosecution for such offenses." Session Laws of 1909.

Present the evidence of the violation believed to have been committed to the City Attorney or District Attorney of the city or county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

DELAWARE.

"Any person having the care, custody, or control of any minor child under the age of eighteen years who shall in any manner, sell, apprentice, give away, or otherwise dispose of such minor, or any person who shall take, receive, or employ such child for the purpose of[Pg 346] prostitution, or any person who shall retain, harbor, or employ any minor child in or about any assignation house or brothel, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof before any justice of the peace or court of record shall be fined not less than twenty dollars nor more than one hundred dollars for each and every offense."

Sec. 2, Chap. 150, Vol. 16, Laws of Delaware as amended 1895.

Present the matter to the prosecuting officer of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

FLORIDA.

"Whoever fraudulently and deceitfully entices or takes away an unmarried woman, of a chaste life and conversation, from her father's house, or wherever else she may be found, for the purpose of prostitution at a house of ill-fame, assignation or elsewhere, and whoever aids and assists in such abduction for such purpose, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding three years, or in the county jail not exceeding one year, or by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars."

Section 3523, Florida Stat.

"Whoever procures for prostitution, or causes to be prostituted, any unmarried female who is under the age of sixteen years shall be[Pg 347] punished by imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding ten years."

Sec. 3537, Florida Statutes.

Present the facts within your knowledge of the alleged crime to the State's Attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

GEORGIA.

The State of Georgia apparently has no law bearing upon the specific crimes enumerated in the various other states. The attorney general for the state writes as follows:

"Georgia has no law bearing upon the specific question in issue, but it would be in the very nature of things a crime for any person or persons to assist in inducing girls to houses of ill fame. They would at least be particeps criminis, and under the general laws on the subject which include all crimes, be punished as principals. Aside from that, as stated, we have no law bearing directly on the subject."

IDAHO.

Every person who inveigles or entices any unmarried female, of previous chaste character, under the age of eighteen years, into any house of ill-fame, or of assignation, or elsewhere, for the purpose of prostitution, or to have illicit carnal connection with any man; and every person who aids or assists in such[Pg 348] inveiglement or enticement, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison, not exceeding five years, or by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Sec. 6770, Idaho Revised Code, Vol. 2, 1908.

Every person who takes away any female under the age of eighteen years from her father, mother, guardian, or other person having the legal charge of her person, without their consent, for the purpose of prostitution, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding five years, and a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars.

Any proprietor, keeper, manager, conductor, or person having the control, of any house of prostitution, or any house or room resorted to for the purpose of prostitution, who shall admit or keep any minor of either sex therein, or any parent or guardian of any such minor who shall admit or keep such minor, or sanction, or connive at the admission or keeping thereof, into, or in any such house or room, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

Present the facts in the case to the prosecuting attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

ILLINOIS.

It is believed that the statutes passed by the recent legislature of Illinois present model laws which may well be copied by any state. These laws are therefore published in full. They are as follows:

An act to prevent the detention, by debt or otherwise, of female persons in houses of prostitution or other places where prostitution is practiced or allowed, and providing for the punishment thereof.

Section 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly. That whoever shall by any means keep, hold, detain, against her will, or restrain any female person in a house of prostitution or other place where prostitution is practiced or allowed; or whoever shall, directly or indirectly, keep, hold, detain or restrain or attempt to keep, hold, detain or restrain, in any house of prostitution or other place where prostitution is practiced or allowed, any female person, by any means, for the purpose of compelling such female person, directly or indirectly, to pay, liquidate or cancel any debt, dues or obligations incurred or said to have been incurred by such female person, shall, upon conviction for the first offense under this Act be punished by imprisonment in the county jail or House of Correction for a period of not less than six[Pg 350] months nor more than one year, and by a fine of not less than three hundred dollars and not to exceed one thousand dollars, and upon conviction for any subsequent offense under this act shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for a period of not less than one year nor more than five years.

An Act to amend an Act entitled "An Act in relation to pandering; to define and prohibit the same; to provide for punishment thereof; for the competency of certain evidence at the trial thereof, and providing what shall be a defense," approved June 1, 1908; in force July 1, 1908, and also the title of said Act.

Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly. That an Act entitled "An Act in relation to pandering; to define and prohibit the same; to provide for the punishment thereof; for the competency of certain evidence at the trial therefor, and providing what shall be a defense," approved June 1, 1908; in force July 1, 1908, including the title of said Act, be amended so as to read as follows:

Section 1. Any person who shall procure a female inmate for a house of prostitution, or who, by promises, threats, violence, or by any device or scheme shall cause, induce, persuade or encourage a female person to become an inmate of a house of prostitution; or shall procure a place as inmate in a house of prostitution[Pg 351] for a female person; or any person who shall, by promises, threats, violence, or by any device or scheme cause, induce, persuade or encourage an inmate of a house of prostitution to remain therein as such inmate; or any person who shall, by fraud or artifice, or by duress of person or goods, or by abuse of any position of confidence or authority procure any female person to become an inmate of a house of ill fame, or to enter any place in which prostitution is encouraged or allowed within this State, or to come into this State or leave this State for the purpose of prostitution, or who shall procure any female person, who has not previously practiced prostitution to become an inmate of a house of ill fame within this State, or to come into this State or leave this State for the purpose of prostitution; or shall receive or give or agree to receive or give any money or thing of value for procuring or attempting to procure any female person to become an inmate of a house of ill fame within this State, or to come into this State or leave this State for the purpose of prostitution, shall be guilty of pandering, and upon a first conviction for an offense under this act shall be punished by imprisonment in the County Jail or House of Correction for a period of not less than six months nor more than one year, and by a fine of not less than three hundred dollars and not to exceed one thousand dollars, and upon conviction for any subsequent offense under this act shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary[Pg 352] for a period of not less than one year nor more than ten years.

Section 2. It shall not be a defense to a prosecution for any of the acts prohibited in the foregoing section that any part of such act or acts shall have been committed outside this State, and the offense shall in such case be deemed and alleged to have been committed and the offender tried and punished in any County in which the prostitution was intended to be practiced, or in which the offense was consummated, or any overt acts in furtherance of the offense should have been committed.

Section 3. Any such female person, referred to in the foregoing sections, shall be a competent witness in any prosecution under this Act, to testify for or against the accused as to any transaction or as to any conversation with the accused or by him with another person or persons in her presence, notwithstanding her having married the accused before or after the violation of any of the provisions of this Act whether called as a witness during the existence of the marriage or after its dissolution.

Section 4. The act or state of marriage shall not be a defense to any violation of this Act.

Report violation to the state's attorney of the county wherein the crime was committed. If the state's attorney is not accessible, present the matter to the nearest justice of the peace.

INDIANA.

In Indiana whoever entices or takes away any female of previous chaste character to any place for the purpose of prostitution, shall be imprisoned not less than two years nor more than five, or placed in the county jail not exceeding one year and fined not exceeding five hundred dollars. Section 459, Statutes 1907.

The keeper of a house of ill fame, or a person who lets a house for the purpose of prostitution shall be punished by a fine of not less than ten dollars nor more than one hundred to which may be added imprisonment not exceeding six months in the county jail. Sec. 460, Statutes 1907.

"Whoever induces, decoys or procures or compels any female under eighteen years of age, or causes any female over eighteen years of age, against her will, to have sexual intercourse with any person other than himself; or whoever knowingly permits any other person to have sexual intercourse with any female of good repute or chastity upon premises owned or controlled by him, shall be fined not less than ten dollars nor more than five hundred dollars, to which may be added imprisonment in the county jail not less than one month nor more than six months." Section 469, Statutes 1907.

Any male person who frequents or visits a house or houses of ill fame or of assignation except as a physician or who is engaged in or about the house of prostitution, shall upon con[Pg 354]viction be fined not less than ten dollars nor more than one hundred dollars and imprisoned in the county jail not less than ten days nor more than sixty days. Section 470, Statutes 1907.

Present the facts to a justice of the peace or to the prosecuting attorney of the county in which the crime was committed.

IOWA.

"If any person take or entice away any unmarried female under the age of eighteen years for the purpose of prostitution, he shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than five years, or be fined not more than one thousand dollars and imprisoned in the county jail not more than one year."

Sec. 4760, Code of Iowa.

"That any person who shall ask, request, or solicit another to have carnal knowledge with any female for a consideration or otherwise, shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary not exceeding five years, or imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or both, such fine and jail imprisonment." Sec. 4975c. Code of Ia.

Present the facts within your knowledge of the alleged crime to the county attorney of the[Pg 355] county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

LOUISIANA.

"That any person who shall fraudulently, deceitfully or by any false representation, entice, abduct, induce, decoy, hire, engage, employ or take any woman of previous chaste character from her father's house, or from any other place where she may be, for the purpose of prostitution or for any unlawful sexual intercourse, at a house of ill-fame or at any other place of like character, or elsewhere, and any person who shall knowingly or intentionally aid, abet, assist, devise or encourage any such enticing, abduction, inducing, decoying, hiring, engaging, employing or taking, shall on conviction be punished by imprisonment at hard labor in the penitentiary for not more than five years.

"That any person who shall detain any woman against her will by force, threats, putting in bodily fear, or by any other means, at a house of ill-fame, or any other place of any other name or description, for the purpose of prostitution or for any unlawful sexual intercourse; and any person who shall aid, abet, advise, encourage or assist in any such detention, shall on conviction be punished by imprisonment at hard labor in the penitentiary for not more than five years.

"That any person who shall unlawfully and carnally know any female idiot or insane or[Pg 356] imbecile woman or girl, knowing her to be so, shall on conviction be punished by imprisonment in the state penitentiary at hard labor for not more than ten years." Act 134, 1890, Page 175.

If the crime is committed within the city of New Orleans, report the matter to the Attorney General or to the District Attorney. If committed outside the city of New Orleans, report the matter to the District Attorney in whose jurisdiction the crime is alleged to have been committed.

KANSAS.

It is unlawful for any person to take away any female under the age of eighteen years from her father, mother, guardian, or other person having charge of her person, without their consent, either for the purpose of prostitution or living with her as a concubine. The punishment is confinement at hard labor not to exceed five years. Section 2020, General Statutes, 1901.

It is unlawful to entice, decoy, place, take or receive, any female person under the age of eighteen years into any disorderly house for the purpose of prostitution. Any person who has a child in his custody and who shall dispose of it and shall place it where it can be used for an obscene, indecent or immoral purpose, exhibition or practice, shall, upon conviction, be confined in the penitentiary for not less than one year[Pg 357] or more than two years. Secs. 20-35, General Statutes, 1901.

Report violation to the county attorney of the county wherein the crime was committed. The county attorney will prosecute the case.

KENTUCKY.

"Any person who shall be found guilty of inducing, persuading, aiding or abetting, or enciting any female who has never been married, under the age of twenty-one years, to enter a house of ill-fame, house of prostitution, assignation or bawdy house, whereby such female so induced, persuaded, aided or enticed, shall be seduced and lose her virtue, shall, upon indictment and conviction, be confined in the penitentiary not less than two, nor more than five years." Sec. 1215 Kentucky Statutes.

Present the facts within your knowledge of the alleged crime to the county attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

MAINE.

"Whoever fraudulently and deceitfully entices or takes away an unmarried female from her father's house, or wherever else she may be found, for the purpose of prostitution at a house of ill-fame, assignation or elsewhere, and whoever aids therein, or secretes such fe[Pg 358]male for such purposes; or whoever inveigles or entices any female, before reputed virtuous, to a house of ill-fame, or knowingly conceals or aids in concealing any such female, so enticed, for the purpose of prostitution or lewdness, shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one, nor more than ten years." Chap. 125, Sec. 10, Revised Stat. Maine.

Present the facts within your knowledge of the alleged crime to the County Attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

MARYLAND.

The Maryland code of public general laws contains the following statutes relative to the subject in question:

Article 27 provides that any person who shall, for the purpose of prostitution, forcibly abduct from the home of her parents or her usual place of abode, any female under the age of eighteen years, shall upon conviction be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term not exceeding eight years.

For keeping a bawdy house or house of ill-fame Section 18 provides a fine of five hundred dollars or imprisonment in jail or the house of correction for a period not exceeding one year, or both.

Sections 116 and 117 provide a fine of not[Pg 359] less than $200.00 nor more than $1,000.00, or confinement in jail or the house of correction for a period of two months or not more than twelve months, or both fine and imprisonment, for the lessee, manager, etc., of a music hall, resort or other place of amusement, to employ, allow or engage female sitters who may partake of any drink, eatables, refreshments, etc., at the expense of some other or solicit others to purchase the same.

Report any violation of the above laws which come within your knowledge to the proper prosecuting officer of the county in which the crime was committed.

MASSACHUSETTS.

Whoever fraudulently and deceitfully entices or takes away an unmarried woman of a chaste life from her father's house or whereever else she may be found, for the purpose of prostitution or for the purpose of unlawful sexual intercourse at a house of ill-fame or assignation or elsewhere, and whoever aids and assists in such abduction for such purpose, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than three years or in jail for not more than one year, or by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment in jail.

Sec. 2, Chap. 212, Vol. 2; Revised Laws of Mass., 1901.

[Pg 360]Whoever, being the owner of a place or having or assisting in the management or control thereof, induces or knowingly suffers a female under the age of twenty-one years to resort to or be in or upon such place, for the purpose of unlawfully having sexual intercourse, shall be punished as provided in Section 3.

Whoever knowingly sends, or aids or abets in sending, a woman or girl to enter as an inmate or a servant, a house of ill-fame or other place resorted to for the purpose of prostitution shall for each offense be punished by a fine of not less than one hundred, nor more than five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment for not less than three months nor more than two years. Whoever as proprietor or keeper of an intelligence or employment office, either personally or through an agent or employe, sends a woman or girl to enter as aforesaid a house of ill-fame or other place resorted to for the purpose of prostitution, the character of which on reasonable inquiry could have been ascertained by him, shall for each offense be punished by a fine of not less than fifty nor more than two hundred dollars.

Whoever, for any length of time, unlawfully detains or attempts to detain, or aids or abets in unlawfully detaining or attempting to detain, or administers or aids in administering any drug for the purpose of detaining, a woman or girl in a house of ill-fame or other[Pg 361] place resorted to for the purpose of prostitution, shall for each offense be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than five years or in the house of correction for not less than one year, nor more than three years, or by a fine of not less than one hundred nor more than five hundred dollars.

Present the matter to the prosecuting attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

MICHIGAN.

"Every person who shall take or entice away any female under the age of sixteen years, from her father, mother, guardian, or other person having the legal charge of her person, without their consent, either for the purpose of prostitution, concubinage, or marriage, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding three years, or by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars." Sec. 11493, Comp. Laws, 1897.

"Every person who shall keep a house of ill-fame, resorted to for the purpose of prostitution or lewdness, and every person who shall solicit, or in any manner induce a female to enter such house for the purpose of becoming a prostitute, or shall by force, fraud, deceit, or in any like manner procure a female to enter[Pg 362] such house for the purpose of prostitution, or of becoming a prostitute, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not more than five years, or in the county jail not more than one year, or by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court." Sec. 11697, Comp. Laws, 1897.

"That it shall be unlawful for any person or persons, for any purpose whatever, to take or convey to, or to employ, receive, detain or suffer to remain in any house of prostitution, house of ill-fame, bawdy-house, house of assignation, or in any house or place for the resort of prostitutes or other disorderly persons, any female of the age of seventeen years or under." Sec. 11725, Comp. Laws, 1897.

Present the facts within your knowledge of the alleged crime to the prosecuting attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

MINNESOTA.

The statutes of Minnesota provide an imprisonment of not more than two years, or a fine of not less than two hundred dollars or more than two thousand dollars, for any person who induces, entices or procures, or attempts to induce, entice, or procure, any female person to[Pg 363] come into the state for the purpose of prostitution or any other immoral purpose, or, being a resident of the state, to induce, entice or procure a female person to enter a house of ill fame, assignation or prostitution. Chapter 404-H. F. No. 996.

Whoever shall hold, detain or restrain, in any house of ill fame or prostitution, any female person for the purpose of compelling her to pay, liquidate or cancel any debt, dues or obligations incurred or said to have been incurred in the house of ill fame or prostitution of which she is an inmate, shall be imprisoned in the state prison for not more than two years. Chapter 461-H. F. No. 998.

Whoever knowingly accepts or receives any of his or her support or maintenance of the proceeds or earnings of a woman engaged in prostitution, shall be imprisoned in the state penitentiary not less than one year nor more than three years. Chapter 475-H. F. No. 999.

Present the facts to the prosecuting attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

MISSISSIPPI.

The statutes of Mississippi punish any person who shall take any female under the age of fourteen years, against her will, and by force, menace, fraud, deceit, stratagem or duress,[Pg 364] compel or induce her to be defiled, by imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than five nor more than fifteen years. Section 1025, Statutes of Mississippi.

Every person who takes, carries away, decoys or entices any child under fourteen years of age from its parents or other person having charge of such child, for the purpose of prostitution or other immoral purpose, shall upon conviction be imprisoned in the penitentiary not exceeding ten years or in the county jail not more than one year or fined not more than one thousand dollars, or both. Section 1079, Statutes of Mississippi.

Any person who shall seduce and have illicit connection with any female child under the age of eighteen years, of previous chaste character, shall upon conviction be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than ten years; but the testimony of the female seduced alone shall not be sufficient for conviction. Section 1081, Statutes of Mississippi.

Prosecution under the above statutes may be commenced by making affidavit before a justice of the peace, setting forth the crime alleged to have been committed. The justice may then hear the matter and impose sentence if within his authority, or, if not, bind the accused to await the action of the grand jury. If the grand jury is in session the evidence should be submitted to this body and request for indictment made.

MISSOURI.

If any person shall, by any fraudulent representations, artifice or deception, decoy, entice or take away any female of previous chaste character from where she may be to a house of ill-fame or brothel or elsewhere, for the purpose of prostitution, and every person who shall advise or assist in such abduction shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary not exceeding five years, or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months or by a fine of not less than fifty dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Missouri Annotated Statutes, 1906, Sec. 1843.

MONTANA.

Every person who takes away any female under the age of eighteen years from her father, mother, guardian or other person having the legal charge of her person, without their consent, for the purpose of prostitution, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding five years, and a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars.

Sec. 8343, Revised Codes of Montana, 1907.

Any proprietor, keeper, manager, conductor or person having the control of any house of prostitution, or any house or room resorted to for the purpose of prostitution, who shall[Pg 366] admit or keep any minor of either sex therein, or any parent or guardian of any such minor who shall admit or keep such minor, or sanction or connive at the admission or keeping thereof into or in any such house or room shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

Report violation to the prosecuting attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

NEBRASKA.

"That it shall be unlawful for any person or persons to allow, keep, maintain or harbor any girl under eighteen (18) years of age, or any boy under twenty-one (21) years of age in any house of ill-fame or any house of bad repute, and any person found guilty of violating any of the provisions of this act shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and, on conviction thereof, shall be fined in any sum not exceeding one hundred ($100.00) dollars, nor less than twenty-five ($25.00) dollars, or be imprisoned in the county jail not more than thirty (30) days, and shall stand committed until such fine and costs are paid." Sec. 3755, Comp. Stat., Anno., 1909.

"If any person or persons shall induce, decoy, entice, hire, engage, employ, or compel any female under eighteen years of age; or if any person or persons shall cause, by compul[Pg 367]sion or otherwise, any female over eighteen years of age, against her will, to have illicit carnal intercourse with any person other than the person so inducing, decoying, enticing, hiring, engaging, employing, or causing such female to have such illicit carnal intercourse; or if any person or persons shall knowingly permit or allow any other person to have illicit intercourse with any female of good repute for chastity, at the house, residence, or upon the premises owned or controlled by such person or persons, the person or persons so offending shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary for not more than five years." Sec. 7876, Comp. Stat., Anno., 1909.

Present the facts within your knowledge of the alleged crime to the County Attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

NEVADA.

Every person who shall take any woman unlawfully, against her will, and by force, menace or duress, compel her to marry him, or to marry any other person, or to be defiled, and shall be thereof convicted, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for a term not less than two, nor more than fourteen years; and the record of such conviction shall operate as a divorce to the party so married.

Sec. 4707, Compiled Laws of Nevada, 1861-1900, inc.

Report violation to the District Attorney for the district in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.

If any person shall wilfully or deceitfully entice or carry away a female child under the age of eighteen years with the intent or for the purpose of prostitution or illicit sexual intercourse, he shall be imprisoned not exceeding three years and be fined not exceeding five thousand dollars.

Sec. 8, Ch. 272, Public Statutes, New Hampshire.

The prosecuting officers in New Hampshire are the select men of the various towns, the solicitors of cities and counties, and the attorney general of the state. In case a violation becomes known to you it should be reported to one or the other of these officials for proper action.

NEW JERSEY.

Any person who shall convey or take away any woman child, unmarried, whether legitimate or illegitimate, under the age of sixteen years, out or from the possession, custody or governance, and against the will of the father, mother, or guardian of such woman child,[Pg 369] though with her own consent, with an intent to contract matrimony with her, or with an intent to carnally abuse her, or to use her for immoral purposes, or to cause or procure her to be carnally abused by another or to be used for immoral purposes by another, his aiders and abettors, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor; and if he contract matrimony with her, without the consent of her father, mother or guardian, he shall be guilty of a high misdemeanor; and every such marriage shall be void; and any person who shall permit, suffer or procure any woman child under the age of sixteen years, whether single or married, with or without her consent, to be carnally abused by another or to be used for immoral purposes by another, in any house, room or place, public or private, kept by or under the control or management of such person, shall be guilty of a high misdemeanor.

Sec. 117, Ch. 65, Session Laws of New Jersey, 1906.

Report violation to the prosecutor of pleas of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

NEW MEXICO.

"Any person or persons who shall entice away and seduce or carry off any woman, who may be a minor under the care of her parents, relations or guardian; such persons who shall[Pg 370] so do, or shall have them in their possession for evil purposes, upon complaint of any person, shall be fined in any sum not exceeding one hundred dollars, nor less than eighty, or with imprisonment for any term not exceeding one year, nor less than eight months." Sec. 1349, Comp. Laws of N. M., 1897.

"Any father, or mother, or guardian, who shall surrender up in bad faith, any woman under their charge, on complaint being made thereof, shall be punished as prescribed in Section 1349." Sec. 1350, Comp. Laws of N. M., 1897.

Present the facts within your knowledge of the alleged crime to the District Attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

NEW YORK.

Sec. 2460. Compulsory prostitution of women.

1. Any person who shall place any female in the charge or custody of any other person for immoral purposes or in a house of prostitution with intent that she shall live a life of prostitution; or any person who shall compel any female to reside with him or with any other person for immoral purposes, or for the purposes of prostitution or shall compel any such female to reside in a house of prostitution or compel her to live a life of prostitution[Pg 371] is punishable by a fine of not less than one thousand dollars nor more than five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment for not less than one year nor more than three years or by both such fine and such imprisonment.

"2. Any person who shall receive any money or other valuable thing for or on account of placing in a house of prostitution or elsewhere any female for the purpose of causing her to cohabit with any male person or persons to whom she is not married shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

"3. Any person who shall pay any money or other valuable thing to procure any female for the purpose of placing her for immoral purposes in any house of prostitution or elsewhere against her will, shall be fined not less than one thousand dollars nor more than five thousand dollars, and be imprisoned for a period not less than one year, nor more than three years.

"4. Every person who shall knowingly receive any money or other valuable thing for or on account of procuring and placing in the custody of another person for immoral purposes any woman, with or without her consent, is punishable by imprisonment not exceeding five years and a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars."

"Takes, receives, employes, harbors or uses, or causes or procures to be taken, received,[Pg 372] employed or harbored or used, a female under the age of eighteen years, for the purpose of prostitution; or, not being her husband, for the purpose of sexual intercourse; or, without the consent of her father, mother, guardian or other person having legal charge of her person, for the purpose of marriage; or,

"Inveigles or entices an unmarried female, of previous chaste character into a house of ill-fame, or of assignation, or elsewhere, for the purpose of prostitution or sexual intercourse; or,

"Takes or detains a female unlawfully against her will, with the intent to compel her, by force, menace or duress, to marry him, or to marry any other person, or to be defiled; or,

"Being parent, guardian or other person having legal charge of the person of a female under the age of eighteen years, consents to her taking or detaining by any person for the purpose of prostitution or sexual intercourse;

"Is guilty of abduction and punishable by imprisonment for not more than ten years, or by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, or by both." Sec. 70, Cons. Laws of N. Y., 1909, Vol. 41.

Present the facts within your knowledge of the alleged crime to the District Attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

NORTH CAROLINA.

"If any person shall unlawfully carnally know or abuse any female child over ten and under fourteen years of age, who has never before had sexual intercourse with any person, he shall be guilty of a felony and fined or imprisoned in the state prison, in the discretion of the court." Sec. 3348, Vol. 2, Pell's Revisal of 1908.

"If anyone shall conspire to abduct, or by any means shall induce any child under the age of fourteen years, who shall reside with any of the persons designated in the preceding section, or at school, to leave the persons aforesaid or the school, he shall be guilty of a like offense, and on conviction shall be punished as prescribed in the preceding section; Provided, that no one who may be a nearer blood relation to the child than the persons named in said section, shall be indicted for either of said offenses." Sec. 3359, Vol. 2, Pell's Revisal of 1908.

Present the facts within your knowledge of the alleged crime to the Prosecuting Officer of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

NORTH DAKOTA.

"Every person who inveigles or entices any unmarried female of previous chaste character, into any house of ill-fame or of assignation or[Pg 374] elsewhere, for the purpose of prostitution, and every person who aids or assists in such abduction for such purpose, is punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary for not less than one and not exceeding five years, or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment." Sec. 8899, Laws of North Dakota, 1909.

"Any person who shall detain any woman against her will by force, threats, putting in bodily fear, or by any other means, at a house of ill-fame, or any other place of any other name or description, for the purpose of prostitution, or for unlawful sexual intercourse, or who shall aid, abet, advise, encourage or assist in such detention, shall be guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state penitentiary for a period not to exceed three years, or by imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed one year, or by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment." Act of March 16, 1909.

"Every person who takes any woman unlawfully against her will, with the intent to compel her by force, menace or duress to marry him, or to marry any other person, or to be defiled, is punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than one and not exceeding ten years." Sec. 8898, Revised Codes of N. D., 1905.

[Pg 375]"Every person who inveigles or entices any unmarried female of previously chaste character under the age of twenty years, into any house of ill-fame or of assignation or elsewhere, for the purpose of prostitution, and every person who aids or assists any such abduction for such purpose, is punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than one and not exceeding five years, or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment." Sec. 8899, Rev. Codes of N. D., 1905.

"Every person who takes away any female under the age of eighteen years, from her father, mother, guardian or other person having the legal charge of her person, without the consent of such father, mother, guardian or other person having the legal charge of her person, or any friendless female under the age of eighteen years, either for the purpose of concubinage or prostitution, is punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than one and not exceeding five years, or in the county jail not exceeding one year, or by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by both." 8900, Rev. Codes of N. D., 1905.

Present the facts within your knowledge of the alleged crime to the state's attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

OHIO.

"Whoever induces, decoys or procures any female person under eighteen years of age to have sexual intercourse with any person other than himself, or to enter any house of assignation or any house of ill-fame for the purpose of seduction or prostitution, or knowingly permits any person to have illicit intercourse with any female person, of good repute for chastity, upon premises owned or controlled by him, or any keeper of a house of assignation or house of ill-fame, who detains or harbors therein any female person under eighteen years of age, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than five years nor less than one year." Sec. 7023, Bates Anno., Ohio Stat., Vol. 3, p. 3387.

"Whoever, in a wine room, saloon, or restaurant, or elsewhere, gives, offers or furnishes to any female of good repute for chastity, over eighteen years of age, or to any female under eighteen years of age, any wine or other intoxicating liquors, with intent thereby to enable himself to have sexual intercourse, or to aid or assist any person in accomplishing or having sexual intercourse with such female, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than three years nor less than one year." Sec. 7023a, Bates Anno., Ohio Stat., Vol. 3, p. 3387.

Present the facts within your knowledge of[Pg 377] the alleged crime to the Prosecuting Attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

OKLAHOMA.

"Whoever takes any woman unlawfully against her will, with the intent to compel her by force, menace or duress, to marry him, or to marry any other person, or to be defiled, is punishable by imprisonment not exceeding ten years." Sec. 1824, Gen. Stat. Okla., 1908, Anno.

"Whoever inveigles or entices an unmarried female of previous chaste character under the age of twenty-five years, into any house of ill-fame or of assignation, or elsewhere, for the purpose of prostitution, and every person who aids or assists in such abduction for such purpose, is punishable by imprisonment not exceeding five years, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year[**], or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment." Sec. 1825, Gen. Stat. Okla., 1908, Anno.

"Whoever takes away any female under the age of fifteen years, from her father, mother, guardian or other person having the legal charge of her person, without their consent, either for the purpose of marriage, concubinage or prostitution, is punishable by imprisonment not exceeding five years or by imprisonment not less than one year, or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by[Pg 378] both such fine and imprisonment." Sec. 1826, Gen. Stat. Okla., 1908, Anno.

Present the facts within your knowledge of the alleged crime to the County Attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

OREGON.

"If any person shall take away any female under the age of sixteen years from her father, mother, guardian, or other person having the legal charge of her person, without the consent of such father, mother, guardian or other person, either for the purpose of marriage, concubinage, or prostitution, such person, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than one nor more than two years, or by imprisonment in the county jail not less than three months nor more than one year, or by fine not less than one hundred nor more than five hundred dollars." Sec. 1928, Ballinger & Cotton's Anno. Codes & Stat. of Oregon, Vol. 1.

"Any male person who lives with a prostitute, or who lives in whole or in part off of, or accepts any of the earnings of a prostitute, or solicits or attempts to solicit any male person or persons to have sexual intercourse with a prostitute, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary[Pg 379] not less than one year nor more than five years, or by fine in any sum not less than one thousand dollars nor more than five thousand dollars." Act Feb. 11, 1905.

Present the facts within your knowledge of the alleged crime to the Prosecuting or District Attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

PENNSYLVANIA.

Pennsylvania enacted on May first last, one of the statutes recommended by the committee for the several states. It is the act aimed at the procurer, and is as follows:

Be it enacted, etc., That any person whosoever, who shall induce, entice, or procure, or attempt to induce, entice, or procure, into the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, any woman or girl, for the purpose of prostitution, or for any other immoral purpose, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction, be imprisoned for a period of not less than one or more than five years, and be fined not exceeding five thousand dollars.

Application should be made to the proper prosecuting officer of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

RHODE ISLAND.

Rhode Island presents some excellent statutes. They are particularly broad and comprehensive. They are as follows:

Whoever shall unlawfully and carnally know and abuse any girl under the age of sixteen years shall be imprisoned not exceeding fifteen years.

Ch. 281, Sec. 3, Revised Statutes of Rhode Island, 1896.

Whoever shall attempt to have unlawful carnal knowledge of any girl under the age of sixteen years shall be imprisoned not exceeding ten years.

Ch. 281, Sec. 4, Id.

Whoever by threats or intimidation procures or induces, or attempts to procure or induce, any woman or girl to have any unlawful carnal connection either with himself or with any other person, or by false pretenses, false representations or other fraudulent means, procures or induces any woman or girl, not being a common prostitute or of known immoral character, to have unlawful carnal connection, either with himself or with any other person, or applies, administers to, or causes to be taken by any woman or girl any drug, matter or thing with intent to stupefy or overpower so as thereby to enable himself or any other person to have unlawful carnal connection with such woman or girl, or, being above the age of eighteen years, shall by any means whatsoever procure[Pg 381] or induce any girl under the age of eighteen years, and not of known immoral character, to have any unlawful carnal connection either with himself or with any other person, shall be imprisoned not exceeding five years: Provided, however, that no person shall be convicted of an offense under this section upon the evidence of one witness only, unless such witness be corroborated by other evidence.

Ch. 281, Sec. 5. Id.

Every person who shall inveigle or entice any woman or female child, before reputed virtuous, or any female child under fourteen years of age not proven by the defendant to have been of previous bad character, to a house of ill-fame, or who shall knowingly conceal, or aid or abet in concealing any such woman or female child so inveigled or enticed, for the purpose of prostitution or lewdness, shall be imprisoned not exceeding five years or be fined not exceeding five thousand dollars.

Ch. 281, Sec. 6. Id.

Whenever there is reason to believe that any woman, or female child, has been inveigled or enticed to a house of ill-fame as aforesaid, upon complaint thereof being made, under oath, by any overseer of the poor, sheriff, deputy sheriff, town sergeant or constable, or by the parent, master or guardian of such woman or female child, to any justice or clerk of a district court authorized to issue such warrants, such justice or clerk may issue his warrant, to enter by day or night, such house or houses of[Pg 382] ill-fame, and to search for such woman, or female child, and to bring her and the person in whose possession or keeping she may be found, before such district court, who may, on examination, order her to be delivered to such overseer, parent, master or guardian, or to be discharged, as law and justice may require.

Ch. 281, Sec. 7. Id.

If a violation is alleged to have occurred within the county in which you reside, present the matter to a justice or to any clerk of a district court of the state, and he will issue a warrant for the arrest of the defendant and proceed to prosecute the case.

SOUTH CAROLINA.

"Whoever, above the age of fourteen years, shall unlawfully take or convey, or cause to be taken or conveyed, any maid or woman-child unmarried, being within the age of sixteen years, out of or from the possession and against the will of the father or mother of such child, or out of or from the possession and against the will of such person or persons as then shall happen to have, by any lawful ways or means, the order, keeping, education, or governance of any such maiden or woman-child, shall, on conviction, suffer imprisonment for the space of two years or else shall pay such fine as shall be adjudged by the court."—Sec. 287, Crim. Code.

[Pg 383]"Whoever shall so take away, or cause to be taken away, as aforesaid, and defiles any such maid or woman-child, as aforesaid, or shall, against the will or unknowing of or to the father of any such maid or woman-child, if the father be in life, or against the will or unknowing of the mother of any such maid or woman-child (having the custody or governance, of such child, if the father be dead), by secret letters, messages, or otherwise, contract matrimony with any such maid or woman-child, shall, on conviction, suffer imprisonment for five years, or shall pay such fine as shall be adjudged by the court; one moiety of which fine shall be for the State, and the other moiety to the parties grieved." Sec. 288, Criminal Code.

Present the facts within your knowledge of the alleged crime to the Prosecuting Attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

SOUTH DAKOTA.

It is unlawful to inveigle or entice an unmarried female of previous chaste character under the age of twenty-five years, into any house or other place for the purpose of prostitution. The law punishes a person thus guilty, and every person who aids or assists in such violation, by confinement of not less than five nor more than twenty years in the state prison, or a fine of $1,000, or both such fine and[Pg 384] imprisonment. Section 334, Revised Penal Code, 1903, as amended.

Every person who takes away any female under the age of eighteen years from her father, mother, guardian or other person having the legal charge of such female, without their consent, either for marriage or prostitution or concubinage, is also punishable by the same imprisonment and fine. Section 335, Revised Penal Code, 1903, as amended.

Every person who, under promise of marriage, seduces or has illicit connection with any unmarried female of previous chaste character, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison, by the same fine and imprisonment as provided under section 334. Section 336, Revised Penal Code, as amended.

Present the facts to the prosecuting attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

TENNESSEE.

Any person who inveigles or entices any female, before reputed virtuous, to a house of ill-fame, or knowingly conceals, or aids and abets in concealing, such female so deluded or enticed, for the purpose of prostitution or lewdness, shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than two nor more than ten years.

Sec. 6768, Shannon's Code, 1896.

[Pg 385]Any person who takes any female from her father, mother, guardian or other person having the legal charge of her without her consent, for the purpose of prostitution or concubinage, shall, upon conviction, be imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than ten nor more than twenty-one years.

Present the matter to the county attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

TEXAS.

"Abduction" is the false imprisonment of a woman with intent to force her into a marriage or for the purpose of prostitution.

Article 629, Ch. 6. Revised Statutes of Texas, 1896.

If a female under the age of fourteen be taken for the purpose of marriage or prostitution from her parent, guardian or other person having the legal charge of her, it is abduction, whether she consent or not, and although a marriage afterward takes place between the parties.

The offense of abduction is complete if the female be detained as long as twelve hours, although she may afterwards be relieved from such detention without marriage or prostitution.

[Pg 386]Any person who shall be guilty of abduction shall be punished by fine not exceeding two thousand dollars. If by reason of such abduction a woman be forced into marriage, the punishment shall be confinement in the penitentiary not less than two nor more than five years; and if by reason of such abduction a woman be prostituted, the punishment shall be confinement in the penitentiary not less than three nor more than twenty years.

Report the alleged violation to the District Attorney or the county attorney within the district or county where the crime is alleged to have been committed. The matter may also be presented to a justice of the peace, in which event the county attorney should be notified.

UTAH.

The statutes of Utah have been strengthened by a recent enactment which prohibits the sending of female help to places of ill-repute. This section is as follows:

Any employment agent who shall knowingly send out any female help to any place of bad repute, house of ill-fame or assignation house, or to any house or place of amusement kept for immoral purposes, shall be liable to pay a fine of not less than one hundred dollars ($100), and shall be imprisoned not less than ninety days and on conviction thereof, in[Pg 387] any court, shall have his, its or their license rescinded.

Chapter 21, Sec. 6, Laws of Utah, 1909.

Other portions of the statutes of Utah which directly affect the subject of white slavery are as follows:

Every person who inveigles or entices any female of previous chaste character into any house of ill-fame, or of assignation, or elsewhere, for the purpose of prostitution, or to have carnal connection with any male, and every person who aids or assists such abduction for such purposes, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding five years, or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, or by a fine not exceeding $1,000 or by both.

Sec. 4222, Compiled Laws of Utah, 1907.

Every person who takes away any female under the age of eighteen years from her father, mother, guardian, or other person having the legal charge of her person, with or without their consent, for the purpose of prostitution, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding five years, or by a fine not exceeding $1,000, or both.

The proper procedure to be taken is to present the matter to the prosecuting attorney of the county in which the crime was committed. Full detailed information respecting the proper[Pg 388] procedure under these statutes may be found by referring to Title 91, Ch. 1, Laws of Utah, 1907.

VERMONT.

A person who keeps a house of ill-fame, resorted to for the purpose of prostitution or lewdness, whether the same be occupied or frequented by one or more females, shall be imprisoned not more than four years, or fined not more than three hundred dollars.

Sec. 5893, Public Statutes of Vermont, 1906.

Present the facts in the case to the state's attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

VIRGINIA.

If any person take away or detain, against her will, any female with intent to marry or defile her, or cause her to be married or defiled by another person, or take from any person, having lawful charge of her, a female under sixteen years of age, for the purpose of concubinage or prostitution, he shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than three nor more than ten years; and every person who shall assist or aid in such abduction or detention for such purpose, shall be guilty of a felony, and shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by confinement in the penitentiary not less than two nor more than five years.

Sec. 3678, Virginia Code, 1904.

Report alleged violation to a justice of the peace or the prosecuting attorney in the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

WASHINGTON.

If any person take or entice away any unmarried female under the age of eighteen years from her father, mother, guardian, or other person having the legal charge of her person, without their consent, for the purpose of prostitution, he shall upon conviction, be punished with imprisonment in the penitentiary for not more than three years, or by a fine of not more than two thousand dollars, and imprisonment in the county jail not more than one year.

Sec. 7065, Ballinger's Code, 1897.

It shall be unlawful for any child or children, boy or girl, under the age of eighteen years, to enter into or become an inmate of any house or houses of prostitution, or room or rooms where the same is conducted, either as messengers, servants, or for any other purpose whatever, whether the same be under license or otherwise.

Sec. 7254, Ballinger's Code, 1897.

Any person or persons owning, operating, or maintaining any of the places enumerated in the three preceding sections of this chapter, permitting or allowing in any way whatever any child or children, boy or girl, under eighteen years of age, to enter the same, shall be[Pg 390] deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined in a sum not less than fifty dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding ninety days, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

1. Shall take a female under the age of eighteen years for the purpose of prostitution or sexual intercourse, or without the consent of her father, mother, guardian or other person having legal charge of her person, for the purpose of marriage; or,

2. Shall inveigle or entice an unmarried female of previously chaste character into a house of ill-fame or assignation, or elsewhere, for the purpose of prostitution; or,

3. Shall take or detain a woman unlawfully against her will, with intent to compel her by force, menace or duress, to marry him or another person, or to be defiled; or,

4. Being the parent, guardian or other person having legal charge of the person of a female under the age of eighteen years, shall consent to her taking or detention by any person for the purpose of prostitution or sexual intercourse or for any obscene, indecent or immoral purpose;

Shall be guilty of abduction and punished by imprisonment in the state penitentiary for not more than ten years or by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, or by both.

Sec. 187, Chap. 249, Session Laws of Washington, 1909.

1. Shall place a female in the charge or custody of another person for immoral purposes, or in a house of prostitution, with intent that she shall live a life of prostitution, or who shall compel any female to reside with him or with any other person for immoral purposes, or for the purposes of prostitution; or,

2. Shall ask or receive any compensation, gratuity or reward, or promise thereof, for or on account of placing in a house of prostitution or elsewhere, any female for the purpose of causing her to cohabit with any male person or persons not her husband; or,

3. Shall give, offer, or promise any compensation, gratuity or reward, to procure any female for the purpose of placing her for immoral purposes in any house of prostitution, or elsewhere, against her will; or,

4. Being the husband of any woman, or the parent, guardian or other person having legal charge of the person of a female under the age of eighteen years, shall connive at, consent to, or permit her being or remaining in any house of prostitution or leading a life of prostitution; or,

5. Shall live with or accept any earnings of a woman prostitute, or entice or solicit any person to go to a house of prostitution for any immoral purpose, or to have sexual intercourse with a woman prostitute;

Shall be punished by imprisonment in the state penitentiary for not more than five years,[Pg 392] or by a fine of not more than two thousand dollars.

Report the facts of the case to the prosecuting attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

WEST VIRGINIA.

If any person take away or detain against her will a female, with intent to marry or defile her, or cause her to be married or defiled by another person, or take from any person having lawful charge of her, a female child under fourteen years of age, for the purpose of prostitution or concubinage, he shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than three nor more than ten years.

Sec. 4215, West Virginia Code, 1906.

Report the facts of the alleged crime within your knowledge to the nearest justice of the peace of the county in which the crime was committed, or refer the matter to the prosecuting attorney of the same county.

WISCONSIN.

The Wisconsin laws are particularly far reaching. The extent and broad scope of the statutes of this state may be seen upon reading the statutes verbatim, which are herewith given. They are as follows:

[Pg 393]Section 4581a. Any person who, by force, threats, promises or any other means or inducements, shall entice, inveigle, solicit, induce or take any unmarried female of previous chaste character of the age of sixteen years or under from her father, mother, guardian or other person having the legal care or custody of any such female, or from her home or other place of abode, wherever she may be, for the purpose of seduction, prostitution, or with intent to seduce, defile, deflower, or for the purpose of entering, causing, inducing or procuring her to enter any house of ill fame, assignation or other place of prostitution, for the purpose of prostitution, either temporarily or as an inmate of any such house or place, and any person who shall directly or indirectly cause, procure, aid, assist, knowingly permit or abet in any manner the seduction, defilement, deflowering or the having of illicit intercourse with any such female by any person, either at her home or other place of abode or elsewhere, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not more than ten years nor less than one year or by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars.

Section 4581b. Any person who shall fraudulently, deceitfully or by any false representations entice, abduct, induce, decoy, hire, engage, employ or take any woman over sixteen years of age and of previous chaste character from her father's house or from any other place where she may be for the purpose aforesaid[Pg 394] shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not less than five years nor more than fifteen years.

Section 4581c. Any person who shall, by any such means as are mentioned in the next preceding section, entice, abduct, induce, decoy, hire, engage, employ or take in any manner any female from her home or from any other place where she may be, for the purpose of prostitution or for unlawful sexual intercourse, and any person who shall knowingly or intentionally aid, abet, assist, advise or encourage the doing of any such act for the purpose aforesaid shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not more than five years nor less than one year.

Section 4581d. Any person who shall detain any woman against her will by force, threats, putting in bodily fear or by any other means at a house of ill fame or any other place of any name or description whatever, for the purpose of prostitution or for unlawful sexual intercourse, and any person who shall aid, abet, advise, assist or encourage in such detention shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not more than fifteen years nor less than five years.

Section 4581e. Any person, being the owner, lessee or occupant of any premises, or having, in whole or in part, the management or control thereof, who induces or knowingly permits any female under twenty-one years of age to resort to or be in or upon such premises for[Pg 395] the purpose of prostitution or unlawful sexual intercourse shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not more than five years nor less than one year.

Section 4581f. Any person who shall solicit, induce, encourage or entice, by fraudulent or deceitful representations intended or naturally tending to induce, entice or encourage, an unmarried woman of previous chaste character to leave her father's house or any other place where she may be found for the purpose of prostitution or for the purpose of unlawful sexual intercourse at a house of ill fame or assignation, and any person who shall in any manner aid, abet or assist in any such solicitation for such purpose shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for not less than six months or by imprisonment in the state prison not to exceed one year.

Present all facts regarding violation of the above statute to the district attorney in whose county the offense is alleged to have been committed.

WYOMING.

Wyoming has the following statutes respecting the seduction and enticing away of females for the purpose of prostitution:

Any male person who, under promise of marriage, shall have illicit carnal intercourse with any female of good repute for chastity, under the age of twenty-one years, shall be deemed[Pg 396] guilty of seduction, and shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than five years, or be imprisoned in the county jail not more than twelve months.

Sec. 5057, Revised Statutes of Wyoming, 1899.

Whoever entices or takes away any female of good repute for chastity from wherever she may be to a house of ill-fame or elsewhere, for the purpose of prostitution, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than five years, or may be imprisoned in the county jail not more than twelve months.

Sec. 5058, Revised Statutes of Wyoming, 1899.

Whoever induces, decoys, procures or compels any female under eighteen years of age, or causes any female over eighteen years of age, against her will, to have sexual intercourse with any person other than himself; or knowingly permits any other person to have sexual intercourse with any female of good repute for chastity, upon premises owned or controlled by him, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than five years, or may be imprisoned in the county jail not more than six months.

Sec. 5064, Revised Statutes of Wyoming, 1899.

Wyoming is to be commended also for having the following statute respecting persons known as pimps:

Whoever being a male person, frequents[Pg 397] houses of ill-fame, or of assignation, or associates with females known or reputed as prostitutes, or frequents gambling houses with prostitutes, or is engaged in or about a house of prostitution, is a pimp, and shall be fined in any sum not more than one hundred dollars, and be imprisoned in the county jail not more than sixty days.

Sec. 5065, Revised Statutes of Wyoming, 1899.

Report violation to the prosecuting officer of the county in which the crime was committed.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A PASTOR'S PART.

By Melbourne P. Boynton, Pastor of the Lexington Avenue Baptist Church, Chicago.

At the request of the publishers this chapter will be very largely the relation of personal experiences in the war on the White Slave Trade. The personal pronoun is used in obedience to instructions. After all, that is the most useful testimony which grows out of what one has seen and heard.

It is just twelve years since my pastorate at the Lexington Avenue Church began. Half of that period had passed before I became really interested and informed concerning the strange thing now so widely known as the White Slave Traffic! What is this? Do you mean to tell me that girls and young women are bought and sold? Is it true that vile men own young women and live upon their earnings, the wages of sin? Is there a market to which these girls are brought and from which they are sent into all parts of the land? Are many of them tricked into infamous dens through promised employment and then locked in and kept for weeks and months and made to toil and respond to demands that at last break their hearts and drown their hopes?[Pg 399] Are there men who spend their whole time traveling about the country getting acquainted with nice looking girls in the country stores, hotels, schools and even the homes, using every device, not stopping short of marriage, till they have sold their victims into the life that no language can describe and no clean mind imagine? Yes, O yes, it is more than true! When all this proved itself to my conscience, the facts burned themselves into my very heart. The call was so loud that response was immediate. But there were so few trying to do anything to stop the traffic. Rescue work was being done but the trade went on. The wicked men and women who bought and sold were not interfered with. The laws were weak and there were many loopholes. The workers were not of the earth's mighty and none of the churches and ministers were actively engaged. Here and there was a mission, now and then a Home opened, but all this was to save the sinner, who was there to find and punish the rascals? What could be done? It was a most discouraging and appalling task.

I remember that it was during the winter of the Spanish-American war that Rev. J. Q. A. Henry, D. D., then pastor of the La Salle Avenue Baptist Church of Chicago, invited me to go with himself and a friend to investigate the conditions in the "under world." At that time Dr. Henry was making a heroic fight on the frightful situation in the business district. Whole streets were given over to open[Pg 400] vice. The vilest saloons flaunted their damning attractions in the face of every passer by. That good Minister of God had no small part in the awakening Chicago has since experienced. It was while with Dr. Henry that I visited for the first time the notorious resort at 441 South Clark street. It was then in its strength and full of pride. The madam carried a key to the police patrol box at the corner. No secret was made of the business carried on. The company within was friendly and tried to be entertaining, but under all was an awful sadness, the smiles were shallow, the whole air of the place spelled ruin. Only a few months thereafter and that house was closed. In the autumn of 1903 it was leased by Mr. O. H. Richards, superintendent of Beulah Home, and opened as Beulah Home South. Into those same parlors I went on Thanksgiving Day, 1903, and there united with a little band of Christian workers and helped to organize a company of people that has since given to the world the Midnight Mission in Chicago and the Illinois Vigilance Association for the suppression of traffic in women and girls.

In that house of sin, made into a house of prayer, I first met Rev. Ernest A. Bell, now the honored Superintendent of the Midnight Mission and the corresponding secretary of the Illinois Vigilance Association. It was he who suggested that the war be carried into the streets, and led by him a few men and[Pg 401] women ventured forth and assailed the hosts of sin at the very doors of the brothels. The dens were invaded and men and women warned. The City Government was appealed to and in less than two years the business districts and Custom House Place, infamous across the world, were cleared of open houses of shame. Where the artful scarlet woman plied her deadly trade the streets are now full of children, and the houses once red with sin are now shops of new citizens, who have yet their mother tongue and the strange garb of lands across the seas.

So I was led to do what every true minister of Christ must do. I investigated the moral conditions of my home city. Knowledge of its culture, acquaintance with its commerce, friendship with its schools and homes and zeal for the respectable sinner were not enough. The man who is set to guard the moral interests of a community must go into the deeps and darks of his city. He must know first hand what the dangers to youth are, where the traps for girls and boys are set, what the bait used is, how the ruin is wrought and what the remedies are. Save as he does this his voice will not reach far, nor his protests have in them the moral ring of the man who knows. The daring youth and the toughened rascals soon detect whether a man talks from aroused conviction and a pointed purpose, or whether he is just preaching in the air and saying things that he thinks should be said.

[Pg 402]My investigations convinced me that all thus far said was true, and far more than any respectable man can know was terribly rampant every night in Chicago. It was very apparent that more men and women of influence and power must give earnest thought and much time to the solution of this menacing problem. A Pastor's part was very clear to my mind. It is said that the Chinese employ a physician to keep the family in good health, he draws his fees while health obtains. That is something like the position of a Christian minister in his community. It is his business to promote good health, high morals, finest ideals; to rebuke evil in all of its forms, and especially that kind of evil nearest his own doors and in his own city. What would be thought of the physician that spent his time playing with the children, reading fine poems to the family, indulging in pretty speeches, but running away when dread diseases began to show themselves, refusing to treat cancer, smallpox, or other fearful plagues. So is the preacher who is content to do the ordinary work of his pastorate and takes no pains to investigate the moral and social conditions of his town. It is the sacred duty of every pastor to know his community on its unclean and diseased side.

But I saw that such a course would open one to grave misunderstandings. It is not according to the accepted order that a minister of a large city church should browse around the slums and visit in the brothels. The saloons[Pg 403] were not a part of his expected field of labor. It was prudent and indeed necessary that the Church should speak its own mind in these matters. Therefore the whole problem was laid before the Board of Deacons and later before the Church itself, with the result that the Church voted most heartily that the Pastor should feel free to use one day a week in such labors on behalf of the fallen and outcast as he might feel led to do. Further the Church placed the work of the Midnight Mission upon its regular calendar for 4 per cent of all the missionary funds, contributions to be made quarterly towards its work, thus putting the city-saving work on a level with every other missionary enterprise of the denomination. So was the Pastor given the endorsement of his people. Such action provided ample protection and was as wings for the accomplishing of the gigantic tasks set for a small band of heroic men and women. The Church was kept informed from time to time as to the progress of the midnight work. Care was taken not to allow this work to become a mere fad, but it was so presented as to rank with every other ministry of the Church. The young people were not drawn into this type of work at all, as it was not deemed advisable to take young people into the streets of sin where the fight against the White Slave Traffic was being waged. Earnest warnings were given the young folk and the young men were especially instructed in the dangers and allurements of[Pg 404] the scarlet woman. Thus the Church was related to this needed warfare in both a physical and spiritual manner. The results upon the Church are most striking and satisfactory. It can be said with full agreement that the outcasts need the Church, but it is equally true that the Church needs this kind of service and without it suffers a loss of sympathy and aggressiveness that is fatal to the peace and prosperity of the Church. A Church ought to die fighting itself that refuses to give battle to the White Slave Traders! Shame on the minister and the Church that is indifferent under the revelations that are made every day showing to what depths the vile creatures of the red light districts have sunken to gain a little more of cruel gold! God will not hold guiltless men and women who, hearing the stifled cries of the enslaved, heed them not! It behooves the sons and daughters of the brave men who freed the black slaves to rise in another and holier crusade to free the white slaves from a bondage blacker and more damning than any the world has yet known. Yes, it is high time that every preacher of the Gospel investigated the conditions of his own city and town.

Country ministers have great opportunity in this warfare on behalf of women and girls. It is in the country that the procurers work. There is need for education, outspoken, persistent warnings that parents must be compelled to hear. The wise and earnest words of United States District Attorney Edwin W.[Pg 405] Sims, found in another chapter of this book, should be carefully pondered by all who desire to protect young womanhood. Here the country preacher will find his cue and will be instructed as to what he can and ought to do.

There is need that the Pastor co-operate with existing organizations that have for their purpose the suppression of this frightful evil. Already in nearly every city of any size there are companies of good people banded together to wipe out the White Slave Traffic. Let the Pastor seek out such folk and give them a hearty word of cheer. Such action will attract other persons of influence and wealth and give character and power to the crusade. If the folk already engaged in this holy cause are humble, unlearned and obscure, let the man of God remember that "He hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty."

If the Pastor is wise there is a surprising weight of public sentiment that will arouse at once at his call. The Press in nearly all of its forms will aid him and give wide currency to his protests and suggested methods. This has nowhere been more clearly shown than in the late session of the Illinois State Legislature. Two new bills were up for passage, they had passed the Lower House without an opposing vote and were on the calendar of the Senate on a morning when I happened to be present. The President of the Senate entertained a motion to send the bills to third reading without reference to a committee, one of the Senators[Pg 406] was busy at his desk reading a report or something when he became suddenly aware that some bills were passing to third reading without the customary reference to a committee. With startled air he arose and demanded what those bills were. The President waved his gavel at him and said, "the White Slave Bills"! "O," said the Senator, "that's all right," and sat down to resume the reading of his report. The bills then passed to third reading without a sign of opposition on any man's part. This action proved to me how very strong and immediate is the response of the good people of any community to a call like that which this book send up.

We have always found the police ready to help in any practical line. It is now nearly three years since Superintendent Bell of Midnight Mission, Miss Lucy A. Hall, a deaconess of the Methodist Episcopal Church and myself made a thorough canvass of the red-light district and put the Illinois Statute on White Slavery in the hands of nearly every dive keeper, madam and many of the prostitutes themselves. This is the form of that leaflet distributed, which had no small part in starting the crusade against the White Slavers in Chicago.

It is a penitentiary offense to detain any woman in a house of prostitution against her will.

The Criminal Code of Illinois makes the fol[Pg 407]lowing provision for the punishment of this crime against American liberty:

Sec. 57c. "Whoever shall unlawfully detain or confine any female, by force, false pretense or intimidation, in any room, house, building or premises in this State, against the will of such female, for purposes of prostitution or with intent to cause such female to become a prostitute, and be guilty of fornication or concubinage therein, or shall by force, false pretense, confinement or intimidation attempt to prevent any female so as aforesaid detained, from leaving such room, house, building or premises, and whoever aids, assists or abets by force, false pretense, confinement or intimidation, in keeping, confining or unlawfully detaining any female in any room, house, building or premises in this State, against the will of such female, for the purpose of prostitution, fornication or concubinage, shall on conviction, be imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than one nor more than ten years."

No "white slave" need remain in slavery in this State of Abraham Lincoln who made the black slaves free. "For freedom did Christ set us free. Be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage," which is the yoke of sin and evil habit.

In this canvass we had the most cordial support of the police. Captain Harding of the 22nd Street Station detailed a detective to ac[Pg 408]company us and he showed us the most faithful attention.

It was in this canvass that we visited the most infamous and notorious house in the West. The madam of this particular house told us, in the presence of the policeman, that she had paid $160.00 each for two girls that had been sent her from the South. She also explained how safe her house was from violence and how free from disease, and yet, before our conversation ceased she admitted that she had placed 105 girls in a neighboring Christian hospital for treatment. Since then that hospital has stopped doing this sort of business. The President of the institution attested the truth of the woman's statement and afterward put an end to her patronage of his hospital. Only last winter I had the opportunity of holding a Christian service in that same house of shame. Two of our lady workers secured permission to conduct such a meeting for the poor girls and invited me to take charge of the service. On a Sunday night at about 12:30 four of us went to that house and preached Christ to some fourteen of the poor creatures. One of them, a married woman, was rescued the next night. We had assurances that two or three others determined to quit the evil life and go home. The meeting was such a success, from our point of view, that the madam said she did not think another service of the sort could be arranged. There are, however, many places open for just such effort and[Pg 409] Pastors that have the support of their Churches and can find a company of faithful, sensible companions in the work, can powerfully assault the strongholds of Satan in the dark places of the cities. This phase of the work is difficult, delicate and perhaps dangerous. The most fruitful and most possible kind of effort on behalf of the outcasts is in the open air meetings, the street gatherings, where the gospel can be sung and preached by the hour. Crowds of men, mostly young men, stand for hours listening to the familiar hymns and the old, old story of the Cross. Where is the Pastor more needed than in just such gatherings? Let it be said for the Pastors of Chicago, that the mightiest of them have counted it a joy and privilege to preach from the curb-pulpit of The Midnight Mission. If the list of the ministers, lawyers, judges, physicians, teachers, deacons and other laymen was given here it would look like an honor roll of the City of Chicago. The presence of the Pastor in this sort of work is of value from more points of view than that of preaching alone. To see the accepted ministers of the city in such meetings is to lift the meetings to a plane with the Church work and worship. It gives protection to the workers when the Pastor can not be with them. It secures the respectful attention of the unchurched portion of the community and assures the police that the efforts are sane, sound and determined. It should be the purpose of[Pg 410] every Pastor to promote such open air work for the sinful and hopeless of his city.

The Pastor is the channel through which the people can be stirred on these grave social questions. Let him educate his own flock and mightily agitate his own community. In the city of London the most influential clergymen are not hesitating to take the lead in reaching the submerged portions of the population. Witness this testimony found in "The Churchman" for May 2, 1908.

THE BISHOP OF LONDON AS A MIDNIGHT MISSIONARY.

"During this Lent Dr. Ingram has taken as the field of his regular Lenten mission, the districts of central London. In addition to the many parish churches in which he has spoken, he has given addresses in connection with the mission at Westminster Abbey.

The last week of his work was marked by a midnight Church Army procession, which, with brass band and torches, perambulated the most squalid quarters of Westminster and Pimlico. For an hour and a quarter, the Church Army workers, headed by the bishop, marched slowly in the rain through the muddy streets, halting before the public houses (saloons), where addresses were given by the bishop. By the time the houses were closed the procession received large additions from the crowds of carousing men and women, who came out of them early Sunday morning. A meeting was[Pg 411] held afterwards in the schoolroom of one of the parish churches near by, where there was a half-hour of hymn singing, and a final address by the bishop."

The Bishop of London, whom Editor Bok of The Ladies' Home Journal calls the best loved man in England, has taken a foremost part in the purity reform. He preaches in the slums at midnight, and on the other hand pleads with the leaders of his church and nation to oppose with the light of truth and the fire of earnestness the evils of impurity which so threaten the national life. He protests in public by voice and pen against the false modesty which keeps young people in ignorance of the wages of sin, and so thrusts them blindfolded into the pitfalls and traps which the evil-minded always have in readiness for the untaught and unwary. The good bishop insists that the children and youth of the British Isles shall know the truth, that by the truth they may be made free. He is unsparing in his criticism of those who would have the people go on in ignorance to their injury or ruin.

Surely every true minister of the Gospel needs only to know the situation and become acquainted with the black facts of rampant sin, to buckle on his armor and give battle to the hosts of iniquity. Why then should I labor to convince my brothers in the ministry? O, Pastor, Who-ever-you-are, investigate, co-operate and agitate until all the slaves are free and the "mauvais sujet" are converted to Jesus or consigned to jail!

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE STORY OF THE MIDNIGHT MISSION.

After many days and weeks of united prayer, that God would interpose against the destruction of young girls and young men in the shameful resorts of Chicago, I asked Miss Ella N. Rudy, on an August afternoon in 1904, at a meeting at 441 South Clark street, if she would come the next night, with a view to holding a meeting in Custom House Place, which at that time had half a hundred vile resorts peopled with about seven hundred ruined girls. Miss Rudy is a woman of strong and earnest Christian character, and I appealed to her because I knew that she would surely come if she promised. She hesitated a moment and promised to come. I then announced to the score of persons present that such as would like to join us should come the next night at eight o'clock for prayer and at ten we would go to the street. The announcement was received with intense interest. Pastor Boynton, who was chairman of the meeting, immediately asked permission to preach the first sermon, which was gladly granted. Fifteen devoted people stood with him when he came to preach.

Miss Rudy is now a missionary at Ping Nam, Kwang Sai Province, South China. On December 7, 1908, she wrote me:

[Pg 413]"Yesterday the little Prayer Advocate came and in it I noticed your request for prayer for The Midnight Mission and I was reminded of the beginning of this most blessed work. I think I could point to the spot where you said, after telling the need so earnestly, 'Miss Rudy, will you stand with me, for the Lord says where two agree He will do what they ask?' I said, 'I will,' and we did pray fervently, for, having come in contact with Beulah Home and other refuges, I had seen the great need of going out to seek the lost. I remember our first night, when we hardly knew who would go with us. I put the permit near so if an officer came we could show it. I do praise God for the way He has blessed you in this work. I have never ceased praying for this work and have always held it up to others for prayer, as I have gone from place to place in evangelistic service. I was so sorry to leave Chicago, but God's call lay in another direction. I know I never was missed, for so many rose to their privilege in Jesus. But I would have been missed had I not come to China for we are so few in number here."

Before she went to China, Miss Rudy was at one time holding a gospel meeting in Pennsylvania, when a man came up to her and said: "You do not know me, but I know you. I heard you speak at midnight in Custom House Place in Chicago, and I have been a Christian man since that midnight."

As I was a missionary in India and Miss[Pg 414] Rudy is a missionary in China, and as we constantly minister at midnight in the streets of Chicago to Chinese, Japanese, an occasional Persian, Hindu or Arab, French, Polish, Russians, Germans, Italians, Jews, and almost every nationality under heaven, The Midnight Mission has some features of a foreign missionary society.

A THOUSAND WITNESSES FOR CHRIST.

From the very beginning of this unique work many earnest people came to help us. During the five years past nearly a thousand persons have taken part with us—pastors, professors, deaconesses, foreign missionaries on furlough, evangelists, judges, lawyers, physicians, "Gideons" and other business men, and many good women. All these, with breaking hearts, have shared our midnight toil and peril, snatching the lost from the fire in the very vestibule of hell. Among the well known ministers, professors and physicians who have come to help in the meetings are: Rev. Dr. Cain, moderator of the Presbytery of Chicago; Rev. Robert H. Beattie, the recent moderator; Rev. Dr. John Balcom Shaw, pastor of the Second Presbyterian church; Rev. Dr. A. C. Dixon, pastor of the Moody church; Professor Graham Taylor, Professor Solon C. Bronson, Professor Woelfkin, of Rochester, New York; Professor G. H. Trever, of Atlanta, Georgia; Drs. Linnell, Pollack and Van Dyke—the last a lecturer[Pg 415] in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, which is the medical department of the University of Illinois.

Rev. A. H. Harnly, now an evangelist for the Baptist State Association of Illinois, has preached many times with exceptional power in our midnight meetings. Rev. C. A. Kelley, Rev. Ralph Waller Hobbs and Rev. W. E. Hopkins, formerly a missionary in India, have labored much in this cause. Scores of pastors of Baptist, Christian, Congregational, Episcopalian, Methodist and Presbyterian churches have preached from the little box which is our only pulpit, except when now and then a good friend brings his automobile and lets us use it for a pulpit.

Mr. Rufus S. Simmons, a lawyer, a personal friend of President Taft, is president of the mission since it was organized at the end of 1906; for more than two years there was no organization. Mr. Simmons very often attends the meetings and takes part. His partner, Mr. S. C. Irving, comes occasionally and speaks. Judge Scott of Paris, Texas, spent one night with us, and former Judge Devlin labors diligently.

Mr. C. E. Homan, president of the Chicago camp of "Gideons," an organization of Christian commercial traveling men, and many members of that order have steadily helped in this work.

Deaconess Lucy A. Hall, Miss Helma Sutherland, Miss Florence Mabel Dedrick, mission[Pg 416]ary of the Moody church, Miss Mary F. Turnbull and scores of good women have toiled with us in the night. No speaker is more interesting and alarming to young men than Miss Turnbull, who was formerly a nurse in an asylum for the insane in New York and knows why many of the patients are there.

One of the best addresses ever given in our meetings was by a young Jew, Mr. Nathan, a reporter, who asked leave to speak. For about forty minutes he spoke with the earnestness of a prophet, though he spoke more of temporal than eternal considerations. The sweat poured down his face as he reasoned of righteousness and temperance, with some reference to judgment to come.

Another friendly Jew, Mr. Richard L. Schindler, has come scores of times to our meetings, not to speak, but to use his influence to help protect us and otherwise encourage our work.

Still another friendly son of Abraham gave me information when enemies were plotting against me. He warned them that he would expose them if they did me any harm.

A HUNDRED THOUSAND FOOLISH YOUNG MEN.

Pastors and church people usually have no idea of the multitudes of men and youths from avenues, boulevards and suburbs, who swarm by the ten thousands through the vice districts of great cities on Saturday and Sunday nights,[Pg 417] and by hundreds or thousands every other night. Fathers and mothers, sisters, sweethearts and neighbors are ignorant of the ruinous folly of several million American young men. I have counted them passing one street corner in the center of Chicago's red light district—red with the heart's blood of mothers, wives and babies—at the rate of 3,500 an hour. These are the young men of whom we read, "void of understanding" as the book of Proverbs fitly describes them. They gather by troops at the harlots' houses and throng the streets of shame without a blush. They are even ready to give reasons why they should support these slaughter houses, not knowing that "the dead are there and her guests are in the depths of hell."

One night I dreamed that I saw a young man stepping carelessly on and off a railway track, near a curve around which the express train might come thundering and screaming at any moment. Whether on the track or off it, the young man was indifferent to danger and wanton in his movements. But as I looked I saw in my dream, that there was nothing whatever above his coat collar—he had no head. This explained his recklessness. A hundred times I have told this dream to crowds of young men, to illustrate the folly of men who have heads and do not use them—"void of understanding." We have warned probably one hundred thousand of these foolish young men.

The Bible is always with us and always[Pg 418] foremost. But some who would pay no regard to an open Bible in the street preacher's hand, instantly give heed when they see the Revised Statutes of Illinois open at the criminal code, and they listen carefully to the section which pronounces them criminal if they patronize an evil resort.

We quote to them the great utterance of Judge Newcomer, spoken before the Methodist Preachers' Meeting of Chicago, September 17, 1906, when he said:

THE CRIMES OF YOUNG MEN.

"The great majority of criminals now are young men—an appalling crop of them year by year. After seven and a half years' experience in the state's attorney's office, during which I have dealt with six thousand criminal cases, sending seven to the gallows and hundreds to the penitentiary and reformatory, I believe that the chief causes of crime among young men are: 1, Liquor; 2, Lust; 3, Drugs; 4, Bad associates. Of these, liquor, bad as it is, is not the chief cause of crime among young men. The chief cause is that next after liquor. The welfare of the city, of the commonwealth, of society as a whole, of the national life itself, is menaced, to a degree exceeding any other cause, by the social evil."

We have never hesitated to warn our hearers by the prisons, by the gallows, by the most tremendous issues of life, death and eternity.

INSANITY, SURGERY, BLINDNESS.

Some who are willing to harden themselves against the laws of God and man alike, lay to heart the evidence of a standard medical treatise on insanity when it is opened and read to them in the street. The description of the brain of a dead lunatic, who lost his mind and his life as the wages of the sin upon which they are bent, brings a pallor over the faces of crowds that seem nailed down to the pavement and unable to move away. Others heed the medical testimony concerning the fearful suffering likely to come upon their present or future wives in consequence of their iniquity. Modern surgeons attribute 25 per cent of surgical operations upon women—mostly innocent wives—to these sins against chastity. Statistics of the German Empire, Austria, Denmark, and Holland show that 40.25 per cent of the blind in the asylums of those countries owe their blindness, usually dating from earliest infancy, to one of the diseases associated with prostitution—not the disease commonly most dreaded.

We distribute leaflets specially prepared and attractively printed in two colors, telling plainly the criminality of vice and the ruin that it brings upon the body and brain and character of transgressors. We have printed more than 150,000 tracts and cards, which are eagerly taken by many thousands of young men, to the anger and loss of the keepers of the criminal[Pg 420] resorts. The work of tract distribution is carried on in all weather, often when street meetings are impossible.

This educational work is carried on in friendly co-operation with The Chicago Society of Social Hygiene—organized by the Chicago Medical Society—which supplies us with circulars for this purpose. This feature of our work led to an invitation to our superintendent to address The Physicians' Club concerning the work of The Midnight Mission. Dr. Archibald Church, editor of The Chicago Medical Recorder, has asked for and accepted an article on this work for his paper.

IN RAIN AND SNOW.

"I respect you," said a divekeeper who with others has since abandoned his loathsome business, "because you work in the rain and you work in the cold." I find it equally blessed to be Christ's witness by the Martyrs' Memorial in classic Oxford, on the hot sand beneath the palm trees of Ceylon and India, and on a snowbank among Chicago's red lights. Everywhere large audiences stand eagerly listening to the messengers of God. Our midnight street meetings continue three, four, five, and even six hours at one place, in the summer.

CONVERSIONS—AND BETTER.

Several women have repented and have been cared for or restored to their relatives. But our effort has been chiefly directed toward the[Pg 421] thousands of men and youths whose money supports the institutions that destroy manhood and womanhood alike. Hundreds of repentant men and boys have knelt in the dust of Custom House Place, Peoria Street, and Armour Avenue. In social and business position they range from a wholesale merchant and a fallen minister to gamblers and wrecks.

But what can be better than conversions—that make glad the heart of God? Nothing, except preventing the children of God from plunging into deadly sin. If the only good accomplished by our midnight cry were the prevention of the ruin of a dozen youths in a year, it would be gloriously worth while to keep on crying. But hundreds have turned back from the brink of perdition, including university students and Church members. With outstretched hands and glad gratitude, they say to us: "We thank you; you have kept us from sin tonight!" When we recall Dr. Prince A. Morrow's estimate, quoted by Dr. Howard A. Kelly in a paper read before the American Medical Association, that 450,000 American young men make the plunge into the moral sewer every year, we see what an enormous field there is for this preventive work.

One Sunday night a young husband from Racine, Wisconsin, whose wife was in poor health, listened to our plain words and turned back from the sin he intended. He had never been warned and he was very thankful; he told me he was a Catholic and had never gone[Pg 422] wrong. Another evening a very handsome young man, twenty-eight years old, listened to the words of warning and then came to me quietly and said: "I am a Christian and a church member and I have never gone wrong, but I was just about to go into one of these houses of shame, while waiting for a train which is late, when I saw your gospel meeting and have been kept back from sin by your message. Most men would be ashamed to tell you, but I tell you for your encouragement."

IF THIS WERE YOUR SON.

Among the hundreds of repentant men and youths who have knelt in the dust of Chicago's most infamous streets, in the open air meetings of The Midnight Mission, is one whom we will call Joe.

One Saturday night Joe came to our meeting and told us that he was a gambler, a pickpocket, a drunkard, a libertine and worse—enticing girls from their homes and placing them in houses of infamy. He asked us to pray for him, which of course we did. Joe disappeared for an hour or so, but returned at midnight to our meeting, and at half-past twelve knelt in the street, with another repentant young man, confessing his ruinous and shameful sin.

For four years since that night we have kept in touch with Joe. We were obliged to advise his father—living in another state, an elder in the Presbyterian church, who never suspected anything wrong in his son—to take more in[Pg 423]terest in Joe, and not to take less interest in the class of other men's sons that he was teaching in Sunday School. On his own motion Joe told his father the whole heart-breaking truth. Unspeakably humiliated, the father proved himself a father indeed, and did everything in his power to restore the young man to a right life, at great cost to himself.

Joe now has his own home and his own business. He is a respected citizen, instead of—God knows what—most likely a despicable white slave trader in Chicago or Detroit or New York. He is one of hundreds who have heeded our midnight protest against terrible sin, our midnight testimony for the Lamb of God, who takes away sin.

ANTAGONISM—PROTECTION—TRIUMPH.

At the beginning of our work the keepers of evil resorts were respectful and to a degree friendly. During the second summer, 1905, the meetings increased very greatly in power. Sometimes we continued preaching from ten o'clock at night till three in the morning. Workers reached their homes after daylight, with hearts almost bursting for gladness because many sinners had repented. As many as fifty workers were engaged in the same block at once, holding four simultaneous meetings. All were working voluntarily and without pay. I myself was earning my expenses with my pen.

[Pg 424]Thousands of misguided men had their attention called to the cross of Christ and the holy life every week. The revenues of the resorts were seriously diminished. One manager, who had been misled in his boyhood and genuinely regretted the loathsome life he was leading, said to me, "If you Christian people keep coming, we've got to go." The Christian people kept coming. That man has since quit his awful business.

With our increasing spiritual power, keepers of saloons and resorts became alarmed for their revenues and began to offer resistance. They hired express men to drive into our meetings and organ grinders to disturb us with their noise. On one occasion a cab driver was paid to drive at high speed into our meeting, where deaconesses and many Christian women were assisting. Many times automobiles were stationed near us and made as noisy as possible in order to harass us. They wasted some nice fresh eggs on us, and a melon. As we were proceeding lawfully, under legal permits from the police department, we called upon the police for complete protection. While an American patrolman was on the beat we had no trouble, but a foreign-born officer showed us considerable disfavor. We had our own opinion of the source of his ill-will. Chief Collins was entirely just and friendly and took all necessary measures for our protection.

At length, managers of resorts, saloons and gambling dens in notorious Custom House[Pg 425] Place calculated that each hour we worked they lost $250, and they determined to give us "the worst of it" even if they had to hire thugs to slug me. We kept steadily calling upon God and faithfully preaching His truth. At length, near the end of October, such representations were made to Chief Collins that he ordered our meetings stopped at ten o'clock—when they began—on the ground that we were disturbing the sleep of lodgers in hotels two blocks away!

Thereupon, accompanied by Mr. Arthur Burrage Farwell, Miss Lucy Page Gaston, Deaconess Lucy A. Hall, Miss Eva Marshall Shonts and others, eleven in all, we called upon the chief of police, explained our surprise at being stopped in our work, which was entirely lawful, and requested him to cleanse that street of resorts which were entirely unlawful. This he immediately promised to do, on condition that we would not stir the newspapers or arouse public sentiment to compel him to do it. We accepted his word and awaited fulfillment. Two months later—namely, at Christmas, 1905, he notified the resorts, and published in the newspapers, that they must vacate on the first of May, 1906.

THE DIVES OFFER A BRIBE OF $50,000.

During the intervening months the white slave traders, gamblers, keepers of the worst disorderly saloons and some property owners and real estate agents who made money out[Pg 426] of that precinct of perdition, raised a slush fund, employed an attorney and used every device in their power to gain a continuance of their nefarious traffic in the heart of Chicago—for they were between the Federal building containing the post office, and the Dearborn passenger station, used by the Erie, Grand Trunk, Santa Fe and Monon railways.

Mayor Dunne told Pastor Boynton and myself, at the Sherman House on the evening of March 15, 1907, when his political enemies were accusing him falsely of being the friend of vice, that the divekeepers offered him $50,000 if he would allow them to remain four months more in Custom House Place. Mayor Dunne, a man of the highest character, attested this statement by an appeal to God. Chief Collins had previously told me that the dives had made this offer but he had replied to them, "If you had Marshall Field's money you cannot stay there after the first of May, if I am chief of police, so help me God." No political or other influence could induce him to waver or to reverse his order, and when the first of May came he drove them out with a mailed fist.

Mayor Dunne told us that while he was on the bench the case of a Polish girl came before him, which had prepared his mind to act against the resorts if he should ever have power. This innocent immigrant girl had arrived at the Dearborn station and had been lured into one of the adjacent dens, her clothes taken from her, and herself made a white slave.

ON THE WEST SIDE.

In 1906 we worked principally on the vice-ridden streets of the West Side. After the earthquake in San Francisco many depraved women, with their parasites, took refuge in Chicago. These were very brazen women, and the vile young men who lived on their shameful earnings were cunning in thwarting the police. Conditions became insufferable. So wide open was the district that a secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association in walking four blocks on the sidewalk was solicited by sixty-two women from their open doors and windows. A police court justice was accused of assessing petty fines against these offenders when the police brought them into court.

We steadily preached the word and prayed to God to abolish those frightful traps for boys. We learned of one boy, a choir boy in a Methodist church, who was dragged forcibly into one of those dens, and infected with a disease from which he soon died.

Captain Barcal, of the Desplaines street police station, in plain clothes and unknown to the evangelists, visited our midnight gospel meeting in Peoria street at the corner of Randolph, Saturday night, September 15. Several repentant young men were on their knees in the dust, surrounded by missionaries working with them and praying for them. The captain said to Alexander Cleland, one of the secretaries of the Central Young Men's Christian[Pg 428] Association: "I will not tolerate any interference with this good work."

One Sunday afternoon as we were working on Sangamon street a beautiful, sinful Jewess insulted me and justified herself by saying with a strong Jewish accent, "You spoil our business." The next Sunday or so a young Jew parasite succeeded in breaking up our meeting. Captain Barcal was indignant and took better care of us than ever. One Sunday a Jew said to me, "The girls say you have spoiled their business." Soon afterward a police order and the new municipal courts utterly transformed that region. Business interest were weary of such outrageous conditions and demanded a decisive change. Some months afterward a policeman remarked upon the transformation and explained, "The Lord's time came to work and He has been working." There is still very much to be done there, but the former flagrancy of vice has been abolished.

Mr. Henry De Vries, Mr. and Mrs. F. J. Macdonald and Mr. R. M. Hawkins worked with me during our conflict on the West Side. Mr. Macdonald was killed the next year by a train.

AT TWENTY-SECOND STREET.

For the last three years since our mission was organized, chiefly through the efforts of the Rev. Dr. John Balcom Shaw, we have labored mostly in the great vice district and[Pg 429] white slave market at Twenty-second street. Of course we had no very glad welcome, after the preceding conflicts. I have been assaulted three times in that district and several who have worked with us have been roughly handled. Vile drugs have been thrown into our meetings and on our clothes—assafoetida and hydrogen sulphide. Viler words have been hurled into our ears. One French trader threatened to break me to pieces and send me to a hospital if it cost him a mint of money, but he afterward became friendly and finally quit his loathsome business.

Objection was made to our scientific teaching and circulars. Even the police captains, who have always taken splendid care of us, were influenced by our adversaries to object to our telling the young men about the diseases that are on sale in the resorts. Our circulars and the circulars of the Chicago Society of Social Hygiene were referred by the chief of police to the corporation counsel who promptly approved them. He said we were like the Knights of the Garter and our circulars not immoral but highly moral. We have circulated nearly a million pages of these circulars. Young men hear us gladly and accept the circulars with thanks. I have counted two hundred men listening at once to Evangelist J. R. Beveridge, who is very plain speaking, while he was working with us.

OTHER WORKERS IN THE NIGHT.

The Salvation Army and the Volunteers of America do not hold meetings in the vice districts of Chicago, but women officers of those societies do visit the resorts selling papers. At times both Salvationists and Volunteers have taken part in our midnight meetings. Many people passing our meetings suppose that we are from the Salvation Army, as it is believed to do such work. The Army has rescue and maternity homes and does much good work for the fallen, but the preaching in the vice districts is done by our own and similar recent organizations.

Rev. V. A. M. Mortensen, a Lutheran minister, has organized The Rescue League, which looks for support chiefly to the Lutheran churches. Mr. Mortensen preaches in the night, chiefly on the West Side. He is much interested in the work against the white slave trade. Through his agency Jennie Moulton was sent to Joliet under a sentence of twenty years for procuring young girls for some degraded Greeks. Mr. Mortensen has also been very diligent against dealers in obscene pictures and postcards.

Rev. N. K. Clarkson has worked part of the time with The Midnight Mission and part of the time independently. He has organized The White Cross Midnight Missionary Association, which is very diligent, preaching sometimes[Pg 431] almost all night and never ceasing for rain or snow. This heroic work compels respect.

Dan Martin works Saturday nights in the vice district with a large company of devoted people. Hundreds of men and youths have knelt in the dust, confessing their sins, in Mr. Martin's meetings.

JUSTICE

CHAPTER XXX.

HELEN CHAMBERS, SOME OTHER GIRLS AND "DAISY."

This is the story of Helen Chambers as told in a special dispatch from Kansas City, Missouri, to the Republican of Joliet, Illinois, and published in that newspaper August 5, 1909. Drink, drugs and debauchery hurried this winsome and respected girl to her coffin before nineteen years had passed over her head. She is one of thousands who perish similarly every year in this beautiful land of churches and colleges.

FIRST DRINK SENDS GIRL TO HER RUIN.

Kansas City, Mo., Aug. 5.—On last New Year's eve Helen Chambers, daughter of a respected family of Aurora, a girl not yet 18 years old and still a student in the high school, with a girl companion went to Chicago. There in a cafe Helen Chambers took her first drink. She took several drinks, and before the night was over was enjoying to the fullest the fascinations of a life that she had never known before.

After a lapse of several months Helen Cham[Pg 433]bers died at the general hospital this morning of a reaction following an operation. Her system had been too weakened by dissipation to recover from the shock. A mental and physical wreck, she had gone to the hospital in the vain hope of relief.

Within seven months Helen Chambers, the simple Aurora girl crowded events into her life that would have been good measure for as many years. From the simple drinks that she indulged in on her first night, which marked the passing of the old year, she went in for the stronger ones. For two weeks prior to being taken to the general hospital she virtually lived on absinthe, and at the last she began using morphine. A message to her mother, still living in Aurora, received no response and the girl, with her life slowly ebbing out, dozed restlessly through weary and tortuous minutes until the end came.

"I was just quitting high school," she said yesterday, when asked to tell her story. "On New Year's eve I went to Chicago with another girl. We met two boys and went to a cafe, where the New Year's celebration was just starting. I didn't know what it was like, but I found out. Everything was in order, but I noticed that the girls seemed to drink as much as the men.

"Every one drank freely and soon it seemed as though every one was intoxicated. I took[Pg 434] my first drink because every one seemed to be drinking and to be happy as well. The minutes passed quickly and my brain grew numb.

"I don't know exactly how I got out of the cafe or the events leading up to it. But when I awoke the next morning I felt disgraced. That was the beginning, this is the ending of it.

"I then decided to run away from home. I decided it would be best. I came to Kansas City about April 1. I fell in with bad associates, but finally married. I went to Dallas, Texas, with my husband. There we quarreled and he returned to Kansas City without me, but I soon followed. We made up here, but quarreled again and separated, and then I started anew, and the rest you know. I slept in a cheap rooming house last Sunday night. Monday I came here, hoping that there might be some relief, but it seems all up with me."

VETERAN MINISTER PROTESTS AGAINST THE VICE TRAFFIC.

The Rev. Dr. Duncan C. Milner, a veteran of the Civil War and a veteran in the wars of the Lord, published the following warning against the white slave traders in the same issue of the Joliet Republican, which told the tragic story of Helen Chambers.

There has been much said in the public press about the "White Slave Traffic." Some people suppose that this is only one of the sensational inventions of yellow newspapers. There is undoubted evidence that young women are made articles of merchandise for vile purposes and that the business of supplying the market has assumed vast proportions.

The evil is by no means confined to the great city. While Chicago may be the headquarters for this traffic in human flesh in this part of the country, the smaller cities and the rural districts are involved. Edwin W. Sims, United States district attorney, has prosecuted a number of cases against the white slave traders and has also by his articles in "The Woman's World" given to the public the results of investigation. Mr. Sims said he had to "put aside personal feelings against appearing in print in connection with a subject so abhorrent," because he wanted fathers and mothers to know the perils of their daughters.

The extent of this evil can only be judged by the statements of such men as Mr. Sims, his assistant, Mr. Parkin, Clifford G. Roe, assistant state's attorney of Cook County, and by a number of judges of the courts.

It has been said by investigators that 20 per cent voluntarily enter such a life, and that 80 per cent are led into it or are entrapped and sold. A small per cent of these are from foreign countries, but two-thirds of them are from[Pg 436] our country and largely from farms and smaller towns and cities.

This systematic traffic in girls from American homes is carried on by male parasites, who live lives of luxury from their gains from this work as procurers and panderers. Women are also used to beguile other women for the trade.

These infamous creatures sometimes go as agents for books, gramophones, or machines. A woman now in the penitentiary said she canvassed communities to sell toilet articles, for the purpose of finding girls.

Victims are looked for in railroad depots, and trains are watched for young women traveling alone.

General deliveries in post offices are watched where young women call for letters.

Recruiting stations are found in dance halls, in the cities and amusements parks with drinking places as attachments. Ice cream parlors and fruit stores sometimes serve as spiders' webs for entanglement.

The villainous men engaged in this work assume the guise of friends and sometimes will even talk to parents about getting fine positions for their girls. They are promised places in stores and laundries and in a number of cases theatrical positions, with large pay. Sometimes the procurer professes to have fallen in love and marries his victim and then sells her in the market. Several of the runaway marriages on the boat excursions and at[Pg 437] summer resorts have been shown in the courts as of this fraudulent order.

After girls are caught in the net and drawn into a vile resort various plans are made to complete their ruin and hold them in absolute bondage. Their street clothes are taken away, they are not allowed to write letters to their friends, and some are confined under lock and key.

Their owners keep them in debt for clothes, charged for at exorbitant prices, their wages are often paid to the parasite who has claims upon them and often these ties of debt and vice so fasten the bonds of slavery that they become broken and desperate. All of these things and many more unprintable details of these cases have been made matter of court record and show that this systematic traffic in American girls is not a fiction.

To show the tremendous financial gains of the traffic, one couple gave a bond of $26,500 and immediately ran away and forfeited their bond.

To combat this wide spread evil a National Vigilance Committee has been organized and a number of states including Illinois, have formed state societies, "to suppress traffic in women and girls." The Chicago Law and Order League, of which Arthur Burrage Farwell is president, has done active work in aiding to prosecute cases. Chicago has also The Midnight Mission of which R. S. Simmons, an attorney of high standing is president, and[Pg 438] Rev. Ernest A. Bell is superintendent. Street meetings are held in the "Red-light" districts and work is done to spread the teachings as to the penalties of vice and the blessings of purity, and appeals are made from legal, sanitary, moral and spiritual motives for men and women to be saved.

Judge Mack of Chicago and Judge Ben Lindsey of the Juvenile Court of Denver, with noted physicians and ministers have spoken and written words of warning to parents and also have sent out pleas for wise instruction of children for their protection from the evils of sexual vice.

It is not enough to simply prosecute the monsters who are part of this vile traffic, but there should be a campaign of education in all communities, city and county, with better laws and more strict enforcement of those we now have.

Many ministers might well follow Dr. Milner's example and write articles for the newspapers to whose columns they have access, instructing, warning and alarming parents and brothers of girls and the girls themselves against the enemies of every home in the world.

AMERICAN GIRLS IN MOST DANGER.

An able investigator, a lady whose name we cannot divulge, comparing virtuous immigrants and American girls, writes:

[Pg 439]"The foreign girls have a safeguard in early marriage. While unmarried and away from home, they usually live with families of their own nationality and are treated as members of the family. Italian girls are further protected by the severe standards of their parents; an Italian father will almost kill a daughter who has gone astray. I have found Russian, Jewish, and Italian girls innocent, very sweet and trustful.

"American wage-earning girls on the other hand present a different picture. While many of them find homes in private families or among friends, many others are rooming in houses where there is no one to look after them. Many of them have no sitting room in which to receive men friends and have to use their bedrooms for this purpose. Some girls speak of this necessity with regret and a serious realization of the situation. Such girls can live under such conditions and be safe. Others resent the implication that these conditions are dangerous, feeling that their own virtue is questioned. Others treat the matter flippantly.

"The men and women who are interested in girls for no good reason have no difficulty in meeting the American girls, working as they do in stores, offices, hotels and restaurants. I believe that the American girl is surrounded by more numerous and far more subtle temptations than is the foreign girl."

KITTY SCHAY.
(This story is clipped from The National Prohibitionist.)

Another of the horrid stories that have come to light in the work of the Law and Order League of Chicago is that of a young girl who may be known here as Kitty Schay. This girl was born in Milwaukee twenty-one years ago, and became an orphan when only four years old. She was brought up in the home of an aunt who seems to have been a good woman, but somewhat unfeeling, and was given little or no opportunity for education, going to work at any early age.

Seeking amusement and companionship that her home did not give her, the poor girl began to frequent the public halls where dances were given, under saloon auspices, and came to attract much admiration and secure many acquaintances because of her graceful dancing. These associations led to late hours, and although the girl, under circumstances that made truthtelling likely, insists that she was guilty of no offenses against virtue, her aunt became angry with her and drove her from her home.

Thrust upon her own resources, the poor creature sought work, living in a cheerless furnished room, and found her associations for companionship and pleasure at dances and in concert halls and in the back rooms of some of the numerous gin mills that flourish in the city[Pg 441] of Milwaukee, with the approval and consent of so many of that city's good people.

Thus she lived, comparatively blameless, amid perils and temptations, until one night she was introduced to a young woman who offered her a position in Chicago where she could earn "good wages." The winter was coming on. The child had no store of winter clothing and looked forward to the terrible days of December and January with dread. She realized that the scanty pay for which she worked would buy her little of what she needed, and when the temptress talked to her of what seemed to her fabulous pay she consented all too willingly.

Perhaps she did not inquire too closely into the character of the work to which she was going. She had begun to drink, indeed, she says she was partially intoxicated at that moment with drink that had been furnished her by the woman and a male companion. At least, she agreed to go, and at the depot in Chicago was met by a closed hack in which she was taken at once to one of the dives of Chicago's greatest vice preserve where the police, to whom she glibly told the story that she had been instructed to tell, speedily enrolled her as a woman of the "underworld."

Then began two months of horror. Exposure to disease, unthinkable brutality, degradation never before dreamed of—these were her portion in a full cup; and the alluring prospect of pay that had baited the trap faded away and[Pg 442] she received in return for all this nothing but the barest, scantiest living.

At length a frequenter of the place, in whom honest impulses were not wholly dead, moved by her sorrowful story, fought her way out of the dive and reported the case to the Law and Order League.

The police have sent the poor creature back to Milwaukee to what improvement of fate it may well be imagined. And the vice mills grind on, and the police are busy "registering" new victims.

SALVATION ARMY EXPERIENCES.

Some time ago a Chicago girl found herself orphaned and almost friendless; her aunt cared for her for a little while, but life was so unbearable there that she decided to try domestic service.

One of the best known department stores in this city was at that time running a Labor Bureau; the girl went there and in due time was presented to a pleasant-faced ladylike woman, who offered her employment as "parlor-maid."

The poor girl, with glad heart and bright hopes, set off for her new home; but before night fell she found that she had been sold into a slavery worse than death. Her pleadings and tears were all in vain, and it was some months later before an opportunity of escape presented itself. Then, while walking on Clark street with the keeper of the house, she suddenly espied a little group of Salvationists[Pg 443] holding an open-air meeting. To the amazement and consternation of the woman with her, the girl not only paused to listen, but took her stand between two Army girls, saying, "You will take care of me, I know."

That night she slept in an Army Rescue Home, and stayed with us for some time. An operation, made necessary by the life she had been forced to live, ended her days; but she died in peace, confident that she was going to a world where sorrow and sin never can enter.

Captain G., a Salvation Army officer while doing house to house visitation in the "Red Light" district, was amazed to meet a woman who came from her own township in the Fatherland.

It was perhaps a sentimental feeling which prompted the woman so freely to speak to the officer in reference to her chosen life. She said that years ago she had been beguiled to this country by an advertisement, which promised a good home and good wages to suitable girls. She replied to the advertisement and in due time was met at a Chicago railway station by the parties with whom she corresponded; and a few hours later found to her horror, that her confidence had been betrayed and that she was an unwilling guest of a resort.

There seemed to be no way of escape; and as time went on she grew accustomed to it and concluded that as others were making money in such fashion, she would follow their example. For years she has maintained a dis[Pg 444]reputable house, and most of the girls who live in it were entrapped and snared from their country homes much after the same fashion as she herself.

A Canadian school girl started to make a visit to her married sister in New York State. The train reached its destination several hours late. The sister, who had been waiting at the railway station for hours, had just returned to her home when the train arrived; thus there was no one to meet the little girl at the end of her journey.

A man who had been lounging around the railway station, stepped up and asked her whom she was waiting for. Innocently enough she told him the whole story, when he remarked that he had been sent by the sister to take her to her home. Stepping into a carriage they drove to a well appointed house; but in his haste to leave the station unobserved, the man had forgotten to ask for the check for the child's trunk.

Leaving the little one, he returned to the station where the married sister was frantically making inquiries in reference to the traveler and was told that no one, answering that description, had stepped from the train. However the trunk standing there with the child's initials on it made her confident that her sister had arrived and, in some unexplained fashion, had disappeared.

While the controversy with the station-master was going on, a man came up to claim[Pg 445] the trunk; and an innocent girl was thus saved from the hands of the procuress, for the house to which she had been taken proved to be a notorious house of ill-fame.

No steps were taken in this case, as in thousands of others, to punish the wrong-doer; the sister dreading the notoriety, which would follow such a case.

We present in this book photographs of "Daisy," who died the day these words are penned. One picture shows her at seventeen in her beauty, "young and so fair." Another shows her dying in the poorhouse before she is twenty, after one year of sinful indulgence and one year of lingering death. The third shows her coffin, if the photographer is successful in snapping it tomorrow as the hearse leaves the undertaker's rooms, for her friends are too ashamed to give her burial from their home. These and all the others in this book are actual photographs, correctly named and in no way made up or misrepresented. The story of Daisy is told over their signatures, by Rev. W. E. Hopkins, formerly a missionary in India, now pastor of the Baptist church at West Pullman, and a worker in The Midnight Mission; and Miss Belle Buzzell who has been for many years a worker in the slums and prisons of Chicago. Miss Buzzell's picture is seen beside the bed of the dying girl. It was "Daisy's" own expressed desire that her death might be life to other girls by its warning.

THE STORY OF "DAISY."

We found her one day in March in the venereal ward at Cook County Hospital. She was unconscious, and it was five weeks before she could tell us her story. One of those great blue eyes was sightless. One hand was crippled. Her lower limbs were paralyzed. She was dying—dying of the horrible, loathsome, putrefying disease of the life of shame.

Poor child! This was the work of but one year of this life and she was not yet twenty years old. During that miserable year of sin, she was ill but recovered sufficiently to resume the service of lust. Then came the break and for long weary months she lay helpless in the resort amidst the revellings of her stronger companions and their consorts—ghastly haunt of the women whose way ends in death.

The madam was kind to her, Daisy told us, and during the long illness at the hospital and later at the poorhouse she visited her frequently, bringing flowers and fruit and supplying her with money for the little delicacies which the county forgets to provide. But she, too, is a woman of sorrow. She is much better than her business and did not mean that her parlor should become a death-chamber. When we told her tonight of Daisy's death she broke down in an agony of tears and for an hour cried out her story of shame, of heartbreak, of regret and remorse, and of longing for home and a worthy life. Yet she is bound[Pg 447] for the present and we pray for her deliverance from this partnership with hell, and hope that Daisy's death may be as the touch of the Divine Spirit that shall restore in her the marred image of an exalted Christian womanhood.

About two years ago Daisy was left an orphan under peculiarly sad conditions. She resented the solicitude of an only sister—tho' her senior—and as neither was a Christian, the friction grew into a quarrel. She was given the alternative of submission or separation, and her sensitive spirit sought a place in the strange world without.

She entered the employ of a man whose family and business standing gave her reason to believe that she could trust him, and she testifies that he treated her as a true friend until he had won her entire confidence. Then in an hour of need when she was in search of a new place, he directed her to No. —— West Madison street. He did not take her in, lest he be charged with selling her as a white slave, but left her on the brink of ruin to take the plunge alone. How true the saying of the wise man, "Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth or a foot out of joint."

After six months at Cook County Hospital she was removed to the infirmary at Dunning. She thought that her sister was having her taken to a private sanitarium and the rude awakening in the County poorhouse broke[Pg 448] her heart. We had secured funds for a Christian burial to save her from the potter's field, when after a long search, we found her sister, who will bury her; and we would gladly have saved her from the poorhouse had it been within our power.

She told us that she was always of an affectionate disposition and was led to hope that her lonely heart would find loving companionship among prostitutes. Oh! God, judge these devourers of loving, trustful, innocent children. Instead of love she found betrayal and shame and remorse, and sickness, and death; another victim sacrificed to ignorance and treachery and greed and lust.

During the second month in the hospital, Daisy made such gain as to raise hopes of at least partial recovery. With returning strength she came to realize the sinfulness of her life and repented in deep humility. She was at her best when she accepted Jesus as her Savior, and definitely, determinedly yielded herself to him. Her sympathy went out to the diseased and friendless other girls in the ward, and her testimony moved them profoundly.

Her love for Jesus grew so strong that one desire possessed her—that she might live to warn girls of the sure end of the evil way and win them to Christ. In response to flowers and loving messages from young peoples' societies and friends, she sent most pathetic warnings. "Tell the girls for me always to confide in and obey their mothers," was her[Pg 449] common message, and she urged us to tell her story wherever we could to warn mothers and daughters, and to use it in every possible way to save lost girls.

In fulfillment of her request, we send out on this day of her death, September 2, 1909, this message to accomplish the ministry that she was unable to perform.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE VICE DISTRICTS OF LOS ANGELES AND DES MOINES.

"My God! If I only could get out of here!" This midnight shriek of a young girl in the "crib" district of Los Angeles pierced the ears and the hearts of Rev. Sidney C. Kendall and Rev. Wiley J. Phillips, editor of The California Voice. They joined hands under the midnight sky and vowed to God and to each other to fight against that white slave market until it was annihilated.

Mr. Kendall could pray and preach and write. Mr. Phillips controlled the columns of the Voice, and also had the spirit and skill to use the law against the horrible traders in girls. Every week the Voice exposed and denounced the "cribs." Everyday Mr. Kendall wrote an article or a chapter, or addressed a ministers' meeting against the city's awful curse and shame. At night these determined men led little companies of ministers and others through the crib district that they might know the infamies that were practiced in their city.

Mr. Kendall wrote a book, "The Soundings of Hell," exposing the white slave traffic, particularly in Los Angeles. Mrs. Charlton Ed[Pg 451]holm made one hundred and twenty speeches in the churches, pleading that Christ's people stamp out the traffic in girls. Mass meetings were held, petitions were signed, circulars were sown broadcast exposing the appalling conditions and demanding the destruction of the slave market. On Sunday, December 15th, three thousand people from the churches gathered at Temperance Temple and marched like an army into the crib district—"Heaven invaded Hell."

Mr. Phillips believed in all this and helped it all along, but he also believed that the law was made for the unholy and profane. He collected evidence for use in court and signed complaints when no one else was willing to do it. He was warned that if he assailed the owners of the crib district he took his life in his hands, but he was not the man to be deterred by threats. He found that Ballerino, an Italian millionaire, owned many of the cribs. Mr. Phillips brought fifteen of the girls into court to show that they were paying Ballerino $7.50 a day for each of the sordid rooms called "cribs."

The first girl called to the witness stand perjured herself, and failure seemed inevitable as the witnesses had been tampered with. She herself asked to be recalled to the stand, said she had lied and wished now to tell the truth, as the girls had been talking it over and had decided to tell the truth. The other fourteen[Pg 452] then gave truthful testimony. Ballerino was convicted, an appeal to the higher courts went against him, he was put on the chain gang and compelled to pay a fine and costs, though he was a millionaire.

Agitation, publicity and prosecutions were maintained until the scandalous crib district of Los Angeles was absolutely annihilated. The French traders recognized that the city was no longer a market for girls and turned their cargoes aside to other cities, that love these monstrous beasts so dearly that they give them segregated districts, where they may enslave young girls and debauch young men, with assurance that laws are contemptible, and graft is precious, and the good people have sand in their eyes.

The story of the destruction of the open market for girls in Des Moines is best told in the following articles of the commissioner of public safety, the chief of police and the city physician. The determination to annihilate the dens which had been protected so long was caused in part by the high crime of bringing back a girl who had escaped to another city, to compel her to work out a debt in one of the dives of Des Moines. We are indebted for these articles to The Light, published at La Crosse, Wisconsin, by B. S. Steadwell.

THE NIGHTMARE ENDED IN DES MOINES.

Of all the cities of the United States, Des Moines stands today a bright and shining example of the utter fallacy of the "segregation" idea. Practiced more or less openly for twenty years or more, now, after a few months of freedom, the past seems like a nightmare, which it is impossible to believe will ever be tolerated in this city again.

In a short paper, hurriedly prepared, it will be impossible to give much more than general statements of opinion. We have affidavits, statistics of arrest, opinions of high-class citizens, opinions of independent investigators from other states, statements from experience by police officials and city physicians to support the following:

Segregation provides a resort, refuge and hiding place for criminals and thugs of every description.

Segregation, with its red lights, its music, the painted women in the windows, etc., provides an educational feature for school chil[Pg 454]dren and students, the possibilities of which can be better imagined than described.

Segregation could never be made to completely segregate, but rather, provided a center from which prostitution radiated in every direction like a cancer.

Segregation makes its baleful influence felt in business and politics and is a direct factor in all the criminal influence of a large city.

All the open and recognized houses of prostitution in the city of Des Moines were suppressed by a general police order issued September 8, 1908. With the exception of two police captains, one of whom is now chief of police, the order was criticized by the body of police and especially by the then chief; it was opposed by city officials; public sentiment made no especial demand for it, to say the least, and it was freely prophesied that the order would be followed by a saturnalia of crime and rapes. I am free to confess that even the honest doubters could advance many plausible arguments on the utter absurdity of trying to totally suppress this evil. But now, after a few months' trial, one of the most convincing (if somewhat amusing) tributes to the unqualified success we have met with, in spite of the most diabolical opposition, is the manner in which officials of all degrees of importance are now jumping into our band-wagon and actually trying to crowd us out.

The fact that we have an army post and a full regiment of cavalrymen was repeatedly[Pg 455] advanced with arguments and statements as to what might be expected from this source alone if the red light districts were abolished. It is true that soldiers were giving the city much trouble at that time. Murders and rapes were becoming common occurrences. Loud and indignant protests were being made by citizens and the press of the city was filled with debates of what to do with soldiers and the army post.

With the suppression of the segregated districts all trouble with soldiers ceased as if by magic. It was very clearly proved that with temptations removed soldiers are quite as good as average citizens, and there is no further talk of removing the fort from this city. All through the troublous times of "red-light," however, the officers, non-commissioned officers and the very many respectable soldiers, were always eager and ready to co-operate with the police for the maintenance of law and order.

No one questions the success of the suppression of public houses of prostitution in this city, and no disinterested person questions the beneficent effect. What the future holds is open to serious conjecture. Some of the advocates of segregation have loudly expressed the hope that a brothel would be set up by the side of each "preacher's" door, so that the city would be glad to return to segregation. A city election will be held next spring, complicated with a fierce struggle for the congressional[Pg 456] nomination. There is no doubt the so-called "liberal element" will be a unit for an open town, while the better elements, as usual, will be confused and divided. In the event of the election of a reactionary who could secure control of the Department of Public Safety, the cause of clean and moral city government would receive a decided setback. Nothing less than everlasting vigilance by the heads of the police department will keep the city out of the old rut. Great things are expected from the "Cosson" law, passed at the last session of the Iowa State Legislature. It has even been intimated that this law is responsible for the abolishment of the red-light districts, though it does not become effective until July 4, 1909. There has always been abundance of laws against prostitution and its attendant evils. The trouble has always been that they were not enforced.

In addition to the statements of the chief of police and the city physician, I am sending you a copy of a voluntary statement received from an independent investigator, representing a civic association in one of the largest cities of the Middle West. As the association desires to continue these investigations in other cities for some time to come we are only allowed to use this statement on the express stipulation that the name of the investigator and the city he represents is suppressed for the time being. His statement is as follows:

Dear Sir: After a careful and critical examination of conditions in Des Moines, it is with the greatest pleasure that I extend to the citizens of your city my hearty congratulations upon the successful progress of the campaign for civic betterment. Having been particularly interested in the effort made here to stamp out the recognized houses of prostitution, and having been qualified by considerable experience in the investigation of all phases of the social evil in large cities, I feel that I speak with some degree of authority on this subject. And it gives me great pleasure to say to you and Des Moines that there is not now in this city a recognized and admitted house of prostitution.

There are not any considerable number of loose women to be seen upon the streets, and the deportment of the women who do walk the streets of Des Moines speaks volumes in praise of the efficiency of your police regulation.

I have made special search for indications of prostitutes having taken up residence in the city at large, and am absolutely convinced that your experience has proven this bugaboo to be wholly chimerical. This conclusion has been amply verified by interviews I have had with representative business and professional men, whose homes are in the residential districts of your city.

The evidences of activity in Des Moines real[Pg 458] estate are to my mind conclusive proof that this city is rising to a proper realization and appreciation of its opportunities to become recognized as one of the most desirable places in America for homes, educational centers and legitimate business enterprises. (Signed)

The following is the statement of Chief Miller. The appointment of Mr. Miller as chief was unanimously endorsed by the press and public. He is the first chief in Des Moines selected from the ranks and appointed entirely on his merits.

STATEMENT OF CHIEF OF POLICE MILLER.

I have been a member of the Des Moines police force for over seventeen years, filling every position from patrolman up. I was appointed Chief of Police on October 14, 1908. I have pleasure in submitting the following conclusions, based on my experience as a police officer:

Segregation never segregated in Des Moines. The most prosperous houses with the high-class patronage absolutely refused to enter the segregated districts, and were always able to command sufficient influence to enable them to defy the police.

Landladies in segregated districts, by reason of severe competition, were compelled to resort to all means of advertising, which included red lights over the doors, the serving of[Pg 459] liquors and other refreshments, orchestral music, persistent displaying of charms by women in the windows and other means of making their business as conspicuous as possible, and thereby attracting even innocent spectators to the vicinity who were often robbed by attaches and hangers-on from the resorts. The segregated districts always became notorious and the evil was greatly augmented thereby.

Property in the segregated districts was manipulated by money sharks for the purpose of securing complete financial control over the women, who in their slavery and despair were often driven to commit desperate crimes in their futile endeavors to free themselves from the hands of their masters. The cleaning up of the resorts freed between two and three hundred of these women, who immediately left the city and have not been replaced. As they were well known it was impossible for them to locate in residence districts and citizens have taken pleasure in keeping us posted with reference to suspicious persons in the suburbs.

In conclusion will say that the remarkable freedom of the city from crime, immediately following the closing of resorts, the boom in residence and city real estate and business in general, also the higher moral tone of the city, is so pronounced and apparent to all in Des Moines, that I have no hesitation in placing myself on record with the deliberate statement that any future administration will hesitate[Pg 460] before attempting to again place the city of Des Moines in the "segregated" class.

STATEMENT OF THE CITY PHYSICIAN.

One of the most difficult questions before municipal governments for the past half a century has been the controlling and the successful handling of prostitution, and during the last ten years this problem has become more and more perplexing.

Men of knowledge and familiar with this subject have given this problem much thought and consideration trying to devise some logical plan that would lead to a satisfactory solution. Segregation has been argued pro and con; licensing and physical examination have been suggested and put into practice, but not until recently has it been actually demonstrated that this great question can be solved.

All great cities have been wrestling with this question and have tried various methods, and have yet to find a satisfactory method by which these classes can be controlled. Prostitutes and their followers are no small factor that go to make up a city's population, and they will follow their vocation to some extent under any circumstances or conditions.

This being true, it has on the other hand been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that[Pg 461] this class of traffic can be almost entirely abolished. Prior to September 15th, 1908, this city had what is commonly known as a "red-light district" covering an area of about three square blocks. In this district the rowdy and tough element naturally congregated, and it was an every day occurrence to see drunken brawls, cutting and shooting scraps, and suicides; everything, in fact, that would be disgusting and annoying to the sober-minded citizen. It was an every night occurrence for ambulance calls to come from this district, where some unfortunate had been stabbed or shot down, or an inmate of one of the disorderly houses had committed or made the attempt at suicide.

On the fifteenth day of September, 1908, the superintendent of the Department of Public Safety issued an order to the effect that the "red-light district" would no longer be tolerated, and that the common prostitute and street-walker would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. From that date on a gradual decline was noticeable in the emergency work, and the calls for shooting and cutting affrays were few. At this time I can safely say that emergency work coming from this source has decreased ninety per cent.

Whenever you have a consolidation of elements which appeals to the rough class, viz., houses of ill-fame, saloons of the low type, and gambling dens, you are sure to have more crime committed and vice protected. Do away[Pg 462] entirely, or scatter these factors in crime and you will notice a decided slump in your police service calls relative to this line of work.

In my judgment the abolishment of the "red-light district," coupled with the prosecution of prostitute and street-walker, has proven the most satisfactory solution of the perplexing problem, and offers more protection to the home, and a greater inducement to the prospective citizen, and keeps the criminal class away from the city's gates. In conclusion, will state that I was originally opposed to the suppression of the red-light districts and believed it would result in making matters worse. I base all the foregoing statements on my four years' experience.

CHAPTER XXXII.

CONDITIONS IN LONDON.

George R. Sims says, "The mother of cities lays her whole heart bare to no man. There is no man living who has fathomed her depths. There is no man living who has mastered her mysteries."

For the last quarter of a century especially there have been emancipating influences and efforts of noblest kinds which are really bringing, somewhat gradually, but very surely, a new London—a city that is winning a right to be viewed as a centre of largest endeavor for civic righteousness that history can so far record.

The Bishop of London, presiding at their National Vigilance Association, July 20, 1909, had a right to say, "We have succeeded in getting London united on moral questions." By his side was the Archbishop of Westminster, who said among other significant words, for the Catholic Church that, "While we work together to advance the object of the Association and its dealings with this terrible traffic, we should also make every possible effort to[Pg 464] build up, in the children of the country, a definite and clear belief of what they owe to their Maker and of the account they will have to give Him hereafter."

The Chief Rabbi, Dr. Adler, made many vigorous statements, among which some were unusually impressive. Speaking of the White Slave Traffic, he said, "It does not merely affect the welfare of the English people, but also the welfare of the entire globe. The evil must be regarded as a veritable cancerous growth on the body politic, which must be excised. The authorities in Argentina have largely succeeded in purifying Buenos Ayres." He then spoke of the purpose of the National Vigilance Association, and said it was "To obey the bidding of the prophet, that which is lost, I will seek again, that which has gone astray, I will bring back, that which has a wing broken I will bind up, and that which is sick I will strengthen."

Seated at the right of the chairman were Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Albany, Alice, Countess of Strafford, the Countess Dowager of Chichester, and Mrs. Creighton. The last named in representing the women of England called attention to the need of educational plans, and said, "Sometimes one gets afraid of the people fighting with evil, thinking only of that fight, and not sufficiently of the building up that is needed to make the right so strong, that it has nothing to fear from the wrong. Don't let us forget to let it[Pg 465] educate ourselves also, and to make it for each of us our great work to maintain that high and healthy public opinion which will make it ever more and more difficult for evil to prevail."

Sir Percy W. Bunting, M. A., one of the founders of the Association, spoke of it as "an organization of the helping instincts of all the churches, based on the mere humanity of the case. We touch here the fringe of the greatest moral problem in all time." Mr. Donald Maclean, Member of Parliament, Mr. Archibald J. Allen, Mr. Arthur R. More, Sir Francis Channing, Member of Parliament, Mr. Bullock and Mr. Coote spoke hopefully of prospects insured. This was really a platform of very earnest people of differing creeds representing Royalty, representing the great Law Making Body, different organizations and the great business world.

Among those in attendance were Lady Hughes Hunter, Lady Bunting, Lady McLaren, Colonel and Mrs. Young, Lord Radstock, Very Rev. Dr. Jackman, Very Rev. Father Bannan, Miss Leigh Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Fox Butlin, and Dr. Wilbur Crafts of Washington, D. C., with many others, making a really great meeting—great with people of diverse thought on other subjects, great in the inspiration gained, great in assurance of increasing momentum of a magnificent endeavor that should, with correlated efforts of other National Vigilance Associations bring a world[Pg 466] force that shall be mightier than the evil however deeply intrenched that may be.

At the meeting of the British Committee of the International Bureau for Suppression of the White Slave Traffic there was a demonstration of the power of crystallizing different National organizations. The Bureau is strong in its members and leaders and especially its General Secretary, Wm. Alex. Coote, who has visited every capital in Europe and organized National Committees in every country except Turkey. He has won Royal recognition in Germany in having presented to him by the Emperor of Germany a diamond monogram as a recognition of his efforts on behalf of German girls. The President of the French Republic has made him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. King Alfonso of Spain has made him a Cabellero of the Order of Charles III.

At this day's meeting, W. F. Craies, Esq., legal advisor presided. Reports were read from different countries.

From Sweden, came the word that the Princess Royal had accepted the Presidency of the National Committee and attended nearly every Committee meeting, which was a guarantee and stimulus to the success of the work. Efforts for legislation and plans for assisting girl travelers are among the good works.

From Switzerland, among other good methods for defeating vice, Government has legislated against the abuse of the Poste Restante, providing that no minor can be allowed to re[Pg 467]ceive correspondence without a permit or authorization from parents.

From Germany, fifteen traffickers had been condemned and forty-two girls re-patriated as some of the results of their National Committee. They are also working toward strengthening their laws.

From Egypt came news of development in spite of many difficulties. Seven hundred fifty-nine girls of minor age had been stopped and placed in hands of their respective Consuls, 485 of them being Greeks. Three hundred ten girls have been rescued. Forty-six souteneurs denounced, 22 of whom are exiled. Thirty minors were re-patriated.

Canada has a strong new law that with the impulse of the International Council of Women held in June brings the question squarely to the front.

From the United States reports showed aggressive work on the part of voluntary organizations, state's attorneys, and federal attorneys in vigorous law enforcement, and effective new laws enacted, with good hope of further legislation, and some diligence in educational plans through public gatherings, and sending literature where it has proven to be the needed help in many communities.

Mr. Coote referred to the deputation to the Home Office of March 30, which had been fully reported at a previous meeting. He regretted now that owing to other urgent matters before Parliament their bill which met[Pg 468] such encouragement might not be brought forward at the present session.

Plans were made for delegates to the Congress of the International Bureau to be held in Madrid in May, 1910.

Announcement was made for a conference of station workers in Neuchatel, June 2, 3 and 4, 1910.

From these two great meetings, it would be discovered to any in attendance, that there is a purpose, and loyalty and persistence, characterizing the people and their methods, which is just as readily discovered in their everyday work.

Several similar and strong organizations are doing thoroughly good and effective work. The British Committee for the Abolition of State Regulation of Vice, under the efficient leadership of Henry J. Wilson, Member of Parliament, is one of merit. The London Council for the Promotion of Public Morality with the Bishop of London as chairman, is an organization standing for justice and skilled means in the obtaining.

The societies known as preventive are numerous The Girls' Friendly Society of the Church of England, is a splendid plan covering truly what its name implies, being real friends to its members. Their work includes clubs, classes, and a most careful record, copy of which is sent ahead to other cities or countries in case of removal, so that there are friends to meet them and continue the chain of friend[Pg 469]ship, reporting back to the national office from time to time, sustaining a relation to the girls wherever they go, friendship awaiting them through record made.

The Church Army of the Church of England is doing a most beautiful and many sided service, chiefly among the criminal, outcast, careless and neglected classes. They connect with the Probation System and help many who otherwise would go to the prisons, restoring many to their families and places in society. Their many departments include the League of Friends of the Poor, working toward removing causes of distress, giving employment where warranted, planning labor homes where direction is given to expenditures and habits. The Emigration Department seeks to farther locate some who are better for being quite away from old associates. The Women's Social Department is very successful. Industrial homes whether for rescue or preventive cases have been of great service. Women's clubs have held together those who have passed through these homes. A large work-room affords work for many who otherwise would find no way. Fresh air homes, dispensaries, factory girls' club, with the evangelists' training home, the missions, women's evangelistic departments, needle-work guild, out-door rescue work and rescue worker's training home, rescue workers' union, the Church Army Brotherhood and the many other departments[Pg 470] make a very great plant yielding most beautiful fruitage in the lives of those helped.

From their rescue training home the sisters go forth, two by two, to seek during the night hours for the poor wanderers who haunt the thoroughfares. On such an evening out where London is worst, around Piccadilly, Bloomsbury, Haymarket, among the showy throngs, and in the less lighted streets where distressed, cowering, fearful ones wander, let us come with these workers and note the many who are willing to stop and receive a flower or a message or daintily prepared letter, and see the surprise when they feel that there are earnest souls who wish to be sincerely kind. Many are willing to stop and tell us their difficulties, some we will wish to see in the courts next day.

But in all our going about, morning, noon or night, we will have to admit our surprise that notwithstanding the many individual instances of wrecked lives who are influencing downward too many others, there is not a street in all London where we would not feel as safe as in the very best business streets of Chicago or New York. There are no dens of continuous growing infamy. Workers in all organizations are on the hunt for them. Police officials are alert and take the initiative in many instances; if a plant of this noxious kind is set out, it is uprooted before it has much chance for spreading its influence. Business men say, "We will not have them, no tolera[Pg 471]tion is given, when known; there are no houses of prostitution, known as such for longer than till they can be taken before the courts."

The strenuous efforts of the organizations mentioned heretofore have been directed so long toward these things through preventive plans and legislation and wholesome law-enforcement that there is no longer any doubt concerning the wish of the people or their representatives in official places.

Since the reign of toleration of vice was broken by the strong word of government in 1886, there has been a winning battle, which though still on, has brought so much of victory that we can believe that completeness of triumph will dawn, and at just about the time that England shakes itself from the related enslaving chains of intemperance and the obstinate industrial system.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

FOR GOD'S SAKE DO SOMETHING.

The testimony already given in these pages leaves no room to doubt the existence of a widespread, hideous commerce in girls. In conclusion, as a sort of judicial summing up of the case against the most odious criminals of the world, we quote Judge John R. Newcomer of Chicago, who says:

"Within one week I had seven different letters from fathers, from Madison, Wisconsin, on the north, to Peoria, Illinois, on the south, asking me in God's name to do something to help them find their daughters, because they had come to Chicago and they had never heard from them afterwards.

"If you mean by the White Slave Traffic the placing of young girls in a brothel for a price, it most undoubtedly is a real fact, based upon statements that have been made in my court during the past three months by defendants, both men and women, who have pleaded guilty to that crime, and in a sense it is both interstate and international.

"Not one, but many shipments, of which I have personal knowledge based upon testimony of people who have pleaded guilty, many shipments come from Paris and other European cities to New York; and from New York[Pg 473] to Chicago and other western points; and from Chicago as a distributing point to the West and the Southwest; and on the western coast, coming in to San Francisco and other ports there. Yes, it is a real fact; and it is something that we have got to take notice of, and something that, while it may have been developed largely during the last ten years, the national government itself has recently taken notice of its existence.

"There are three specific classes of what we might call white slave traders. First, the man or woman who conducts the brothel; and if I had more time I would like to tell you something about the ways and means used by these people to keep at least a large number of their girls there. Second, the man who acts as a sort of broker, dealing in girls, transferring them from one brothel to another. The third class is the lowest of all—those men and women, largely women, who make a business of procuring girls for the brothel. These three classes make a living off that traffic and the profit therefrom."

Bishop Anderson of the Episcopal diocese of Chicago says: "The mind of the public is moral, and if it can be convinced of the actual state of affairs the public conscience will soon be aroused and something good is bound to be accomplished. Accurate and conservative information, if spread broadcast, will go far to accomplish the great work which we have in hand."

[Pg 474]St. Paul had a like confidence in the public intelligence and conscience, and in the usefulness of information spread broadcast to end the White Slave Traffic. The apostle wrote on this subject in 2 Timothy, 3:6-9: "For of these are they that creep into houses and lead captive silly women, laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses so do these men also resist the truth, men of corrupt mind, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further, for their folly shall be known unto all men, as theirs also came to be." St. Paul here intimates that publicity will overthrow the traffickers in women as the opponents of Moses were overwhelmed in Egypt.

In this confidence we are sending forth this volume, to spread broadcast the testimony of many witnesses, whose character and intelligence none can impeach. We are certain that if the facts set forth in this book by lawyers, physicians, missionaries and other workers are understood by the English-speaking peoples the White Slave Traffic will be immediately and permanently reduced and speedily abolished throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. All Christendom must follow if we lead worthily in this reform. Japan will quickly join us and is already doing so. Human nature itself, once it is enlightened as to the facts of commerce[Pg 475] in girls, must almost necessarily abolish the cursed trade.

Surely every one whose own mind is not debauched will take some part in this most essential and inevitable reform. As General Booth of the Salvation Army said so many times, on one of his tours in this country and around the world a dozen years ago:

"FOR GOD'S SAKE DO SOMETHING. IT WILL COST YOU TIME, IT WILL COST YOU MONEY, IT MAY COST YOU REPUTATION, BUT FOR GOD'S SAKE DO SOMETHING."

About the year 1877 an excursion steamer, the "Princess Alice," was sunk by another ship in the Thames, near London, and six or seven hundred happy excursionists were drowned in a few minutes. At the inquest, as is told, a gentleman asked permission to testify, as he was an eye-witness of the disaster. He told what he saw and said that he was most impressed by a young mother, who held her baby as high as her hands could reach, as she sank and rose again and again, hoping that some one would rescue the child—but in vain. The judge asked the witness, "What did you do for those sinking hundreds, and for that perishing mother and baby?" The man answered, "I—I—I did nothing." The judge replied, "You saw all that, and did nothing—nothing?"—and they hissed him from the court room.

The great Judge will hold an inquest on the[Pg 476] thousands who are engulfed every month in the black waters of the vice markets of our great cities. Shall He wither us with His wrath as we answer, "Nothing," or shall He say as He said of one long ago,

WHY ARE YOU WEEPING, SISTER?

Why are you weeping, Sister?
Why are you sitting alone?

I'm bent and gray
And I've lost the way!
All my tomorrows were yesterday!
I traded them off for a wanton's pay.
I bartered my graces for silks and laces
My heart I sold for a pot of gold—
Now I'm old.

Why did you do it, Sister,
Why did you sell your soul?

I was foolish and fair and my form was rare!
I longed for life's baubles and did not care!
When we know not the price to be paid, we dare.
I listened when Vanity lied to me
And I ate the fruit of The Bitter Tree—
Now I'm old.

Why are you lonely, Sister?
Where have your friends all gone?

Friends I have none, for I went the road
Where women must harvest what men have sowed[Pg 478]
And they never come back when the field is mowed.
They gave the lee of the cup to me
But I was blind and would not see—
Now I'm old.

Where are your lovers, Sister,
Where are your lovers now?

My lovers were many but all have run
I betrayed and deceived them every one
And they lived to learn what I had done.
A poisoned draught from my lips they quaffed
And I who knew it was poisoned, laughed—
Now I'm old.

Will they not help you, Sister,
In the name of your common sin?

There is no debt, for my lovers bought.
They paid my price for the things I brought.
I made the terms so they owe me naught.
I have no hold for 't was I who sold.
One offered his heart, but mine was cold—
Now I'm old.

Where is that lover, Sister?
He will come when he knows your need.

I broke his hope and I stained his pride.
I dragged him down in the undertide.[Pg 479]
Alone and forsaken by me he died.
The blood that he shed is on my head
For all the while I knew that he bled—
Now I'm old.

Is there no mercy, Sister,
For the wanton whose course is spent?

When a woman is lovely the world will fawn.
But not when her beauty and grace are gone,
When her face is seamed and her limbs are drawn.
I've had my day and I've had my play.
In my winter of loneliness I must pay—
Now I'm old.

What of the morrow, Sister?
How shall the morrow be?

I must feed to the end upon remorse.
I must falter alone in my self-made course.
I must stagger alone with my self-made cross.
For I bartered my graces for silks and laces
My heart I sold for a pot of gold—
Now I'm old.

THE RED ROSE.

A white-faced wreck upon the bed she lay,
And reaped the whirlwind of her yesterday.
Before her rose the record of the past,
And sin's dark wages all were due at last.

A gentle messenger of God was there,
Who kissed her brow and smoothed her tangled hair;
And, in the tend'rest accents, told of One
Who died for her—God's well-beloved Son.

"No power could ransom such as me," she cried,
"No cleansing stream my crimson sins could hide;
For souls like yours there may be pardon free;
The Son of God would never stoop to me."

"I bring a gift of love," the listener said,
"This dewy rose of richest, deepest red.
Will you not take it? Have you not the power?"
The trembling fingers reached and grasped the flower.

"My sister," said the giver, "Just as I
Held out to you that rose of scarlet dye,
God offers you salvation from above,
Through Jesus' precious blood—His gift of love.
[Pg 481]

"Reach out and take it without doubt or fear."
"Is it so simple?" sobbed the girl, "So near?"
"Ay, nearer to you than myself He stands,
Eternal life within His pierced hands."

"So simple, Lord?" she moaned. "Nothing to do,
But reach and take eternal life from you?
I take it, Lord!" And lo, the dying eyes
Were radiant with the light of Paradise!

O death triumphant! Victory complete!
Today she worships at her Savior's feet.
Lost one, God offers you for Jesus' sake
Eternal life. Will you not reach and take?

Transcriber's Note

The following typographical errors from the original edition have been corrected for this electronic edition.

In Chapter III, "the man at the head of this unthinkable enterprise it known" has been changed to "the man at the head of this unthinkable enterprise is known".

In Chapter VI, "The clock struck one, two three" has been changed to "The clock struck one, two, three"; and "till they came to the ralroad" has been changed to "till they came to the railroad".

In Chapter VII, "forgave and renewed repetant ones" has been changed to "forgave and renewed repentant ones"; and "barely enough for mere exstence" has been changed to "barely enough for mere existence".

In Chapter VIII, "the man who proposes an elopment" has been changed to "the man who proposes an elopement".

In Chapter XI, "plain Boston hyprocisy" has been changed to "plain Boston hypocrisy"; and "the enforcement of these law" has been changed to "the enforcement of these laws".

In Chapter XII, "they have succeeding so long in baffling detection" has been changed to "they have succeeded so long in baffling detection"; and "apprehended, extradicted, brought back, tried and convicted" has been changed to "apprehended, extradited, brought back, tried and convicted".

In Chapter XIII, "some indirect connection with the business of prosstitution" has been changed to "some indirect connection with the business of prostitution".

In Chapter XIV, "Committee for Suppresson of Traffic in Vice" has been changed to "Committee for Suppression of Traffic in Vice".

In Chapter XV, "correspond directly with the similiar service" has been changed to "correspond directly with the similar service"; a missing period has been added following "our blindness or our ignorance"; and "information regarding conditions in Calfornia" has been changed to "information regarding conditions in California".

In Chapter XVIII, "my situattion was very different" has been changed to "my situation was very different".

In Chapter XXI, "When the Law falls to regulate sin" has been changed to "When the Law fails to regulate sin"; and "resorts which are in suc favor with the city government" has been changed to "resorts which are in such favor with the city government".

In Chapter XXIV, "yet the possibilties of transmitting the contagion" has been changed to "yet the possibilities of transmitting the contagion"; "admittedly a prequisite for marriage" has been changed to "admittedly a prerequisite for marriage".

In Chapter XXVI, "placing the girl in the the house" has been changed to "placing the girl in the house".

In Chapter XXVII, in the laws of Illinois, "An Act in relation to pandering; to definie and prohibit the same" has been changed to "An Act in relation to pandering; to define and prohibit the same"; in the laws of Nebraska, "causing such female to have such illicit carnal intercouse" has been changed to "causing such female to have such illicit carnal intercourse"; in the laws of New York, "detaining by any person for the purpose of prostitution or sexual intercouse" has been changed to "detaining by any person for the purpose of prostitution or sexual intercourse"; in the laws of Oklahoma, Sec. 1825, "is punishable by imprisonment not exceeding five years, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment" has been changed to "is punishable by imprisonment not exceeding five years, or by imprisonment not less than one year, or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment"; in the laws of Oregon, "Present the facts within your knowlege of the alleged crime" has been changed to "Present the facts within your knowledge of the alleged crime".

In Chapter XXIX, "1, Liquor, 2, Lust; 3, Drugs; 4, Bad associates" has been changed to "1, Liquor; 2, Lust; 3, Drugs; 4, Bad associates"; and "the Federal building containing the postoffice" has been changed to "the Federal building containing the post office".

In Chapter XXX, "she virturally lived on absinthe" has been changed to "she virtually lived on absinthe".

In Chapter XXXIII, "case against the most odius criminals of the world" has been changed to "case against the most odious criminals of the world".

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Preface		9
Introduction		13
Edwin W. Sims.
I.	History of the White Slave Trade	18
II.	The Suppression of the White Slave Traffic	29
William Alexander Coote.
III.	The White Slave Trade of Today	47
Edwin W. Sims.
IV.	Menace of the White Slave Trade	61
Edwin W. Sims.
V.	A White Slave Clearing House; A White Slave's Own Story	74
VI.	The True Story of Estelle Ramon of Kentucky	80
D. F. Sutherland.
VII.	Our Sister of the Street	98
Florence Mabel Dedrick.
VIII.	More about the Traffic in Shame	117
Ophelia Amigh.
IX.	The Traffic in Girls	127
Charles N. Crittenton.
X.	Warfare Against the White Slave Traffic	139
Clifford G. Roe.
XI.	The Boston Hypocrisy	155
Clifford G. Roe.
XII.	The Auctioneer of Souls	163
Clifford G. Roe.
XIII.	The White Slave Trade in New York City	174
By a Special Contributor.
XIV.	Barred Windows: How we Took up the Fight	190
XV.	The Nations and the White Slave Traffic	199
James Bronson Reynolds.
XVI.	The Yellow Slave Trade	213
XVII.	How Snakes Charm Canaries	223
XVIII.	Procuresses, and the Confession of One	234
XIX.	Wanted—Fathers and Mothers	246
XX.	Chicago's White Slave Market	253
XXI.	The Failure and Shame of the Regulation of Vice	271
XXII.	The White Slaves and the Black Plagues	280
XXIII.	The White Slave Traffic and the Public Health	289
Dr. Winfield Scott Hall.
XXIV.	The Vice Diseases	299
Dr. William T. Belfield.
XXV.	Recruiting Grounds of White Slave Traffickers	305
Harry A. Parkin.
XXVI.	Practical Means of Protecting Our Girls	314
Harry A. Parkin.
XXVII.	Laws for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic	333
Harry A. Parkin.
XXVIII.	A Pastor's Part	398
Melbourne P. Boynton.
XXIX.	The Story of the Midnight Mission	412
XXX.	Helen Chambers, Some Other Girls and "Daisy"	432
XXXI.	Destruction of the Vice Districts of Los Angeles and Des Moines	450
XXXII.	Conditions in London	463
Lucy A. Hall.
XXXIII.	For God's Sake, Do Something	472
POEMS.
Why Are You Weeping, Sister?		477
The Red Rose		480

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls; Or, War on the White Slave Trade

FIGHTING THE TRAFFIC IN YOUNG GIRLS ORWAR ON THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE

Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls or War on the White Slave Trade

By ERNEST A. BELL

CONTENTS

Dedicated

PREFACE.

INTRODUCTION.

By Edwin W. Sims, United States District Attorney, Chicago.

War on the White Slave Trade.

CHAPTER I.

HISTORY OF THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE.

BABYLON.

GREECE.

ROME.

FRANCE.

PARIS THE MODERN BABYLON.

WHITE SLAVERS IN INDIA.

CHAPTER II.

THE SUPPRESSION OF THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC.

CHAPTER III.

THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE OF TODAY.

CHAPTER IV.

MENACE OF THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE.

CHAPTER V.

A WHITE SLAVE CLEARING HOUSE.A WHITE SLAVE'S OWN STORY.

A WHITE SLAVE'S OWN STORY.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TRUE STORY OF ESTELLE RAMON OF KENTUCKY.

CHAPTER VII.

OUR SISTER OF THE STREET.

WHAT ARE THE DANGERS OF CITY LIFE FOR A COUNTRY GIRL?

A TIMELY WARNING.

WHAT IS HER MOTIVE FOR CITY LIFE?

A HIDDEN DANGER.

HUNGRY FOR A LITTLE COMPANIONSHIP.

DANGEROUS AMUSEMENTS.

ON THE STREET.

CHAPTER VIII.

MORE ABOUT THE TRAFFIC IN SHAME.

CHAPTER IX.

THE TRAFFIC IN GIRLS.

CHAPTER X.

WARFARE AGAINST THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BOSTON HYPOCRISY.

CHAPTER XII.

THE AUCTIONEER OF SOULS.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE IN NEW YORK CITY.

CHAPTER XIV.

BARRED WINDOWS: HOW WE TOOK UP THE CAUSE OF THE WHITE SLAVES.

CHAPTER XV.

THE NATIONS AND THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC.

THE INTERNATIONAL TREATY.

THE EXTENT AND POWER OF THE EVIL FORCES.

THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC IN ASIA: OUR SHAME IN THE ORIENT.

THE YELLOW SLAVE TRAFFIC IN AMERICA—MORE SHAMEFUL STILL.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE YELLOW SLAVE TRADE.

YELLOW SLAVES IN AMERICA.

CHAPTER XVII.

HOW SNAKES CHARM CANARIES: METHODS OF PROCURERS.

LETTERS OF A DESTROYER OF GIRLS.

PERIL OF STAGE-STRUCK GIRLS.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PROCURESSES AND THE CONFESSION OF ONE OF THEM.

BY PRISONER NUMBER 503.

CHAPTER XIX.

WANTED—FATHERS AND MOTHERS.

SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD GIRLS GO WRONG.

SUMMER: THE SILLY SEASON.

CHAPTER XX.

CHICAGO'S WHITE SLAVE MARKET—THE "LEVEE."

MAYOR A COWARD.

A FRIGHTENED GIRL.

GRAFT INEVITABLE.

A MAELSTROM FOR YOUNG MEN.

SEGREGATION MAKES A SLAVE MARKET.

MONEY IN VICE

FIGHTING THE TRAFFIC IN YOUNG GIRLS
OR
WAR ON THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE

Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls
or
War on the White Slave Trade

By Edwin W. Sims,
United States District Attorney, Chicago.

A WHITE SLAVE CLEARING HOUSE.
A WHITE SLAVE'S OWN STORY.