"DANGER."
"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.
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 onlynecessary 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 already 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.
Article 2 of the International Agreement is as follows:
"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."
"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."
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, bydeputation, 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 attendanceat 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.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 andefficiently 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."
"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 themen 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 anddoing! 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."
"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 thesetraders 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 shelives. 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 inevil, 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:
"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, God'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."
"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, God'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."
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 forwardmovements, 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 whichdoes 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 ofthe 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—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
AT THE LEFT WHITE SLAVE CLEARING HOUSE, AT THE RIGHT GOSPEL MEETINGThat 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
SORDID END OF THE LIFE OF SHAMEA 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 somewoman 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—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; thatshe 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 tothe 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 atlength, 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: Thatthe 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 tobe 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 escapewhile 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 topresume 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.
By Edwin W. Sims, United States District Attorney, Chicago.
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 Association, 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, encountered 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 whichwould 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-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!"
If this is not slavery, I have no definition for it.
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 thecommon 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, thecase 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 inthe 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 havewatchers 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 advances 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 hardship 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 thiskind, 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 educationat 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.
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 mythoughts 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. TheCzar 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.
"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,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.
"Have courage! God is with you, and many of the slaves."
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.
E. A. B.