Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls Part 22

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.

Our young people are n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sed 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 department, 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 a.s.sociation, 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 inst.i.tution 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 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.

--E. A. B.

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 s.e.xes are frequently initiated into s.e.xual practices before p.u.b.erty--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 s.e.xual 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 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 a.s.sociates--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 prost.i.tute, 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 prost.i.tute 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 prost.i.tute--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 disease, 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 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 gla.s.ses, 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 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 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 circ.u.mcision. 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 inst.i.tutions.)

CHAPTER XXV.

RECRUITING GROUNDS OF THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFICKERS.

By Harry A. Parkin, a.s.sistant United States District Attorney, Chicago.

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.

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 G.o.d'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 Chicago 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 prost.i.tution 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 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 prost.i.tution 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 prost.i.tution than from any other city in the United States. This is true because 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 prost.i.tutes 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 l.u.s.t 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, Michigan, 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 repet.i.tion 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 prost.i.tution. 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 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 prost.i.tution, 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 cla.s.s 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 prost.i.tution 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 l.u.s.t. 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 a.s.signation whenever there is a dollar to be gained which will place them in a position to dress better or go to some place of amus.e.m.e.nt 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.

By Harry A. Parkin, a.s.sistant United States District Attorney, Chicago.

What can be done about it?