Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls Part 3

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:

"Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, G.o.d's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right.

And the choice goes on for ever 'twixt that darkness and that light."

CHAPTER III.

THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE OF TODAY.

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

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 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 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.

Is not this, then, reason enough for a little plain speech to parents?

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 the number recruited for the army of prost.i.tution 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--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 a.s.sociations 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.sage 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 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, pa.s.sed 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--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, a.s.sistant United States District Attorney Parkin, having charge of the examination, convinced her that he and his a.s.sociates 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 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 n.o.bility 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 pa.s.sage 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 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 cla.s.s, 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 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 a.s.sa.s.sination 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 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 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 a.s.sociates 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 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 cla.s.s 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 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 debas.e.m.e.nt 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.