Three men went out one summer night,No care had they nor aim,And dined and drank—"Ere we go homeWe'll have," they said, "a game."Three girls began that summer night,A life of endless shame;And went through drink, disease and death,As swift as racing flame.Lawless and homeless, foul they died;Rich, loved, and praised the men;But when they all shall meet with God,And Justice speaks—What then?—Stopford A. Brooke.
Three men went out one summer night,No care had they nor aim,And dined and drank—"Ere we go homeWe'll have," they said, "a game."
Three girls began that summer night,A life of endless shame;And went through drink, disease and death,As swift as racing flame.
Lawless and homeless, foul they died;Rich, loved, and praised the men;But when they all shall meet with God,And Justice speaks—What then?
—Stopford A. Brooke.
E. A. B.
This is the story of Helen Chambers as told in a special dispatch from Kansas City, Missouri, to the Republican of Joliet, Illinois, and published in that newspaper August 5, 1909. Drink, drugs and debauchery hurried this winsome and respected girl to her coffin before nineteen years had passed over her head. She is one of thousands who perish similarly every year in this beautiful land of churches and colleges.
Died a Drug Fiend.
Kansas City, Mo., Aug. 5.—On last New Year's eve Helen Chambers, daughter of a respected family of Aurora, a girl not yet 18 years old and still a student in the high school, with a girl companion went to Chicago. There in a cafe Helen Chambers took her first drink. She took several drinks, and before the night was over was enjoying to the fullest the fascinations of a life that she had never known before.
After a lapse of several months Helen Chambers died at the general hospital this morning of a reaction following an operation. Her system had been too weakened by dissipation to recover from the shock. A mental and physical wreck, she had gone to the hospital in the vain hope of relief.
Lives Two Weeks on Absinthe.
Within seven months Helen Chambers, the simple Aurora girl crowded events into her life that would have been good measure for as many years. From the simple drinks that she indulged in on her first night, which marked the passing of the old year, she went in for the stronger ones. For two weeks prior to being taken to the general hospital she virtually lived on absinthe, and at the last she began using morphine. A message to her mother, still living in Aurora, received no response and the girl, with her life slowly ebbing out, dozed restlessly through weary and tortuous minutes until the end came.
"I was just quitting high school," she said yesterday, when asked to tell her story. "On New Year's eve I went to Chicago with another girl. We met two boys and went to a cafe, where the New Year's celebration was just starting. I didn't know what it was like, but I found out. Everything was in order, but I noticed that the girls seemed to drink as much as the men.
"Every one drank freely and soon it seemed as though every one was intoxicated. I tookmy first drink because every one seemed to be drinking and to be happy as well. The minutes passed quickly and my brain grew numb.
Decides to Leave Her Home.
"I don't know exactly how I got out of the cafe or the events leading up to it. But when I awoke the next morning I felt disgraced. That was the beginning, this is the ending of it.
"I then decided to run away from home. I decided it would be best. I came to Kansas City about April 1. I fell in with bad associates, but finally married. I went to Dallas, Texas, with my husband. There we quarreled and he returned to Kansas City without me, but I soon followed. We made up here, but quarreled again and separated, and then I started anew, and the rest you know. I slept in a cheap rooming house last Sunday night. Monday I came here, hoping that there might be some relief, but it seems all up with me."
Both Miss Chambers and her parents are well known to many Joliet residents.
The Rev. Dr. Duncan C. Milner, a veteran of the Civil War and a veteran in the wars of the Lord, published the following warning against the white slave traders in the same issue of the Joliet Republican, which told the tragic story of Helen Chambers.
Systematic Traffic in American Girls.
There has been much said in the public press about the "White Slave Traffic." Some people suppose that this is only one of the sensational inventions of yellow newspapers. There is undoubted evidence that young women are made articles of merchandise for vile purposes and that the business of supplying the market has assumed vast proportions.
The evil is by no means confined to the great city. While Chicago may be the headquarters for this traffic in human flesh in this part of the country, the smaller cities and the rural districts are involved. Edwin W. Sims, United States district attorney, has prosecuted a number of cases against the white slave traders and has also by his articles in "The Woman's World" given to the public the results of investigation. Mr. Sims said he had to "put aside personal feelings against appearing in print in connection with a subject so abhorrent," because he wanted fathers and mothers to know the perils of their daughters.
The extent of this evil can only be judged by the statements of such men as Mr. Sims, his assistant, Mr. Parkin, Clifford G. Roe, assistant state's attorney of Cook County, and by a number of judges of the courts.
It has been said by investigators that 20 per cent voluntarily enter such a life, and that 80 per cent are led into it or are entrapped and sold. A small per cent of these are from foreign countries, but two-thirds of them are fromour country and largely from farms and smaller towns and cities.
This systematic traffic in girls from American homes is carried on by male parasites, who live lives of luxury from their gains from this work as procurers and panderers. Women are also used to beguile other women for the trade.
These infamous creatures sometimes go as agents for books, gramophones, or machines. A woman now in the penitentiary said she canvassed communities to sell toilet articles, for the purpose of finding girls.
Victims are looked for in railroad depots, and trains are watched for young women traveling alone.
General deliveries in post offices are watched where young women call for letters.
Recruiting stations are found in dance halls, in the cities and amusements parks with drinking places as attachments. Ice cream parlors and fruit stores sometimes serve as spiders' webs for entanglement.
The villainous men engaged in this work assume the guise of friends and sometimes will even talk to parents about getting fine positions for their girls. They are promised places in stores and laundries and in a number of cases theatrical positions, with large pay. Sometimes the procurer professes to have fallen in love and marries his victim and then sells her in the market. Several of the runaway marriages on the boat excursions and atsummer resorts have been shown in the courts as of this fraudulent order.
After girls are caught in the net and drawn into a vile resort various plans are made to complete their ruin and hold them in absolute bondage. Their street clothes are taken away, they are not allowed to write letters to their friends, and some are confined under lock and key.
Their owners keep them in debt for clothes, charged for at exorbitant prices, their wages are often paid to the parasite who has claims upon them and often these ties of debt and vice so fasten the bonds of slavery that they become broken and desperate. All of these things and many more unprintable details of these cases have been made matter of court record and show that this systematic traffic in American girls is not a fiction.
To show the tremendous financial gains of the traffic, one couple gave a bond of $26,500 and immediately ran away and forfeited their bond.
To combat this wide spread evil a National Vigilance Committee has been organized and a number of states including Illinois, have formed state societies, "to suppress traffic in women and girls." The Chicago Law and Order League, of which Arthur Burrage Farwell is president, has done active work in aiding to prosecute cases. Chicago has also The Midnight Mission of which R. S. Simmons, an attorney of high standing is president, andRev. Ernest A. Bell is superintendent. Street meetings are held in the "Red-light" districts and work is done to spread the teachings as to the penalties of vice and the blessings of purity, and appeals are made from legal, sanitary, moral and spiritual motives for men and women to be saved.
Judge Mack of Chicago and Judge Ben Lindsey of the Juvenile Court of Denver, with noted physicians and ministers have spoken and written words of warning to parents and also have sent out pleas for wise instruction of children for their protection from the evils of sexual vice.
It is not enough to simply prosecute the monsters who are part of this vile traffic, but there should be a campaign of education in all communities, city and county, with better laws and more strict enforcement of those we now have.
Duncan C. Milner.
Many ministers might well follow Dr. Milner's example and write articles for the newspapers to whose columns they have access, instructing, warning and alarming parents and brothers of girls and the girls themselves against the enemies of every home in the world.
An able investigator, a lady whose name we cannot divulge, comparing virtuous immigrants and American girls, writes:
"The foreign girls have a safeguard in early marriage. While unmarried and away from home, they usually live with families of their own nationality and are treated as members of the family. Italian girls are further protected by the severe standards of their parents; an Italian father will almost kill a daughter who has gone astray. I have found Russian, Jewish, and Italian girls innocent, very sweet and trustful.
"American wage-earning girls on the other hand present a different picture. While many of them find homes in private families or among friends, many others are rooming in houses where there is no one to look after them. Many of them have no sitting room in which to receive men friends and have to use their bedrooms for this purpose. Some girls speak of this necessity with regret and a serious realization of the situation. Such girls can live under such conditions and be safe. Others resent the implication that these conditions are dangerous, feeling that their own virtue is questioned. Others treat the matter flippantly.
"The men and women who are interested in girls for no good reason have no difficulty in meeting the American girls, working as they do in stores, offices, hotels and restaurants. I believe that the American girl is surrounded by more numerous and far more subtle temptations than is the foreign girl."
Another of the horrid stories that have come to light in the work of the Law and Order League of Chicago is that of a young girl who may be known here as Kitty Schay. This girl was born in Milwaukee twenty-one years ago, and became an orphan when only four years old. She was brought up in the home of an aunt who seems to have been a good woman, but somewhat unfeeling, and was given little or no opportunity for education, going to work at any early age.
Seeking amusement and companionship that her home did not give her, the poor girl began to frequent the public halls where dances were given, under saloon auspices, and came to attract much admiration and secure many acquaintances because of her graceful dancing. These associations led to late hours, and although the girl, under circumstances that made truthtelling likely, insists that she was guilty of no offenses against virtue, her aunt became angry with her and drove her from her home.
Thrust upon her own resources, the poor creature sought work, living in a cheerless furnished room, and found her associations for companionship and pleasure at dances and in concert halls and in the back rooms of some of the numerous gin mills that flourish in the cityof Milwaukee, with the approval and consent of so many of that city's good people.
Thus she lived, comparatively blameless, amid perils and temptations, until one night she was introduced to a young woman who offered her a position in Chicago where she could earn "good wages." The winter was coming on. The child had no store of winter clothing and looked forward to the terrible days of December and January with dread. She realized that the scanty pay for which she worked would buy her little of what she needed, and when the temptress talked to her of what seemed to her fabulous pay she consented all too willingly.
Perhaps she did not inquire too closely into the character of the work to which she was going. She had begun to drink, indeed, she says she was partially intoxicated at that moment with drink that had been furnished her by the woman and a male companion. At least, she agreed to go, and at the depot in Chicago was met by a closed hack in which she was taken at once to one of the dives of Chicago's greatest vice preserve where the police, to whom she glibly told the story that she had been instructed to tell, speedily enrolled her as a woman of the "underworld."
Then began two months of horror. Exposure to disease, unthinkable brutality, degradation never before dreamed of—these were her portion in a full cup; and the alluring prospect of pay that had baited the trap faded away andshe received in return for all this nothing but the barest, scantiest living.
At length a frequenter of the place, in whom honest impulses were not wholly dead, moved by her sorrowful story, fought her way out of the dive and reported the case to the Law and Order League.
The police have sent the poor creature back to Milwaukee to what improvement of fate it may well be imagined. And the vice mills grind on, and the police are busy "registering" new victims.
Some time ago a Chicago girl found herself orphaned and almost friendless; her aunt cared for her for a little while, but life was so unbearable there that she decided to try domestic service.
One of the best known department stores in this city was at that time running a Labor Bureau; the girl went there and in due time was presented to a pleasant-faced ladylike woman, who offered her employment as "parlor-maid."
The poor girl, with glad heart and bright hopes, set off for her new home; but before night fell she found that she had been sold into a slavery worse than death. Her pleadings and tears were all in vain, and it was some months later before an opportunity of escape presented itself. Then, while walking on Clark street with the keeper of the house, she suddenly espied a little group of Salvationistsholding an open-air meeting. To the amazement and consternation of the woman with her, the girl not only paused to listen, but took her stand between two Army girls, saying, "You will take care of me, I know."
That night she slept in an Army Rescue Home, and stayed with us for some time. An operation, made necessary by the life she had been forced to live, ended her days; but she died in peace, confident that she was going to a world where sorrow and sin never can enter.
Captain G., a Salvation Army officer while doing house to house visitation in the "Red Light" district, was amazed to meet a woman who came from her own township in the Fatherland.
It was perhaps a sentimental feeling which prompted the woman so freely to speak to the officer in reference to her chosen life. She said that years ago she had been beguiled to this country by an advertisement, which promised a good home and good wages to suitable girls. She replied to the advertisement and in due time was met at a Chicago railway station by the parties with whom she corresponded; and a few hours later found to her horror, that her confidence had been betrayed and that she was an unwilling guest of a resort.
There seemed to be no way of escape; and as time went on she grew accustomed to it and concluded that as others were making money in such fashion, she would follow their example. For years she has maintained a disreputable house, and most of the girls who live in it were entrapped and snared from their country homes much after the same fashion as she herself.
A Canadian school girl started to make a visit to her married sister in New York State. The train reached its destination several hours late. The sister, who had been waiting at the railway station for hours, had just returned to her home when the train arrived; thus there was no one to meet the little girl at the end of her journey.
A man who had been lounging around the railway station, stepped up and asked her whom she was waiting for. Innocently enough she told him the whole story, when he remarked that he had been sent by the sister to take her to her home. Stepping into a carriage they drove to a well appointed house; but in his haste to leave the station unobserved, the man had forgotten to ask for the check for the child's trunk.
Leaving the little one, he returned to the station where the married sister was frantically making inquiries in reference to the traveler and was told that no one, answering that description, had stepped from the train. However the trunk standing there with the child's initials on it made her confident that her sister had arrived and, in some unexplained fashion, had disappeared.
While the controversy with the station-master was going on, a man came up to claimthe trunk; and an innocent girl was thus saved from the hands of the procuress, for the house to which she had been taken proved to be a notorious house of ill-fame.
No steps were taken in this case, as in thousands of others, to punish the wrong-doer; the sister dreading the notoriety, which would follow such a case.
We present in this book photographs of "Daisy," who died the day these words are penned. One picture shows her at seventeen in her beauty, "young and so fair." Another shows her dying in the poorhouse before she is twenty, after one year of sinful indulgence and one year of lingering death. The third shows her coffin, if the photographer is successful in snapping it tomorrow as the hearse leaves the undertaker's rooms, for her friends are too ashamed to give her burial from their home. These and all the others in this book are actual photographs, correctly named and in no way made up or misrepresented. The story of Daisy is told over their signatures, by Rev. W. E. Hopkins, formerly a missionary in India, now pastor of the Baptist church at West Pullman, and a worker in The Midnight Mission; and Miss Belle Buzzell who has been for many years a worker in the slums and prisons of Chicago. Miss Buzzell's picture is seen beside the bed of the dying girl. It was "Daisy's" own expressed desire that her death might be life to other girls by its warning.
We found her one day in March in the venereal ward at Cook County Hospital. She was unconscious, and it was five weeks before she could tell us her story. One of those great blue eyes was sightless. One hand was crippled. Her lower limbs were paralyzed. She was dying—dying of the horrible, loathsome, putrefying disease of the life of shame.
Poor child! This was the work of but one year of this life and she was not yet twenty years old. During that miserable year of sin, she was ill but recovered sufficiently to resume the service of lust. Then came the break and for long weary months she lay helpless in the resort amidst the revellings of her stronger companions and their consorts—ghastly haunt of the women whose way ends in death.
The madam was kind to her, Daisy told us, and during the long illness at the hospital and later at the poorhouse she visited her frequently, bringing flowers and fruit and supplying her with money for the little delicacies which the county forgets to provide. But she, too, is a woman of sorrow. She is much better than her business and did not mean that her parlor should become a death-chamber. When we told her tonight of Daisy's death she broke down in an agony of tears and for an hour cried out her story of shame, of heartbreak, of regret and remorse, and of longing for home and a worthy life. Yet she is boundfor the present and we pray for her deliverance from this partnership with hell, and hope that Daisy's death may be as the touch of the Divine Spirit that shall restore in her the marred image of an exalted Christian womanhood.
About two years ago Daisy was left an orphan under peculiarly sad conditions. She resented the solicitude of an only sister—tho' her senior—and as neither was a Christian, the friction grew into a quarrel. She was given the alternative of submission or separation, and her sensitive spirit sought a place in the strange world without.
She entered the employ of a man whose family and business standing gave her reason to believe that she could trust him, and she testifies that he treated her as a true friend until he had won her entire confidence. Then in an hour of need when she was in search of a new place, he directed her to No. —— West Madison street. He did not take her in, lest he be charged with selling her as a white slave, but left her on the brink of ruin to take the plunge alone. How true the saying of the wise man, "Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth or a foot out of joint."
After six months at Cook County Hospital she was removed to the infirmary at Dunning. She thought that her sister was having her taken to a private sanitarium and the rude awakening in the County poorhouse brokeher heart. We had secured funds for a Christian burial to save her from the potter's field, when after a long search, we found her sister, who will bury her; and we would gladly have saved her from the poorhouse had it been within our power.
She told us that she was always of an affectionate disposition and was led to hope that her lonely heart would find loving companionship among prostitutes. Oh! God, judge these devourers of loving, trustful, innocent children. Instead of love she found betrayal and shame and remorse, and sickness, and death; another victim sacrificed to ignorance and treachery and greed and lust.
During the second month in the hospital, Daisy made such gain as to raise hopes of at least partial recovery. With returning strength she came to realize the sinfulness of her life and repented in deep humility. She was at her best when she accepted Jesus as her Savior, and definitely, determinedly yielded herself to him. Her sympathy went out to the diseased and friendless other girls in the ward, and her testimony moved them profoundly.
Her love for Jesus grew so strong that one desire possessed her—that she might live to warn girls of the sure end of the evil way and win them to Christ. In response to flowers and loving messages from young peoples' societies and friends, she sent most pathetic warnings. "Tell the girls for me always to confide in and obey their mothers," was hercommon message, and she urged us to tell her story wherever we could to warn mothers and daughters, and to use it in every possible way to save lost girls.
In fulfillment of her request, we send out on this day of her death, September 2, 1909, this message to accomplish the ministry that she was unable to perform.
"She, being dead, yet speaketh."
Belle Buzzell,W. E. Hopkins,Missionaries.E. A. B.
"My God! If I only could get out of here!" This midnight shriek of a young girl in the "crib" district of Los Angeles pierced the ears and the hearts of Rev. Sidney C. Kendall and Rev. Wiley J. Phillips, editor of The California Voice. They joined hands under the midnight sky and vowed to God and to each other to fight against that white slave market until it was annihilated.
Mr. Kendall could pray and preach and write. Mr. Phillips controlled the columns of the Voice, and also had the spirit and skill to use the law against the horrible traders in girls. Every week the Voice exposed and denounced the "cribs." Everyday Mr. Kendall wrote an article or a chapter, or addressed a ministers' meeting against the city's awful curse and shame. At night these determined men led little companies of ministers and others through the crib district that they might know the infamies that were practiced in their city.
Mr. Kendall wrote a book, "The Soundings of Hell," exposing the white slave traffic, particularly in Los Angeles. Mrs. Charlton Edholm made one hundred and twenty speeches in the churches, pleading that Christ's people stamp out the traffic in girls. Mass meetings were held, petitions were signed, circulars were sown broadcast exposing the appalling conditions and demanding the destruction of the slave market. On Sunday, December 15th, three thousand people from the churches gathered at Temperance Temple and marched like an army into the crib district—"Heaven invaded Hell."
Mr. Phillips believed in all this and helped it all along, but he also believed that the law was made for the unholy and profane. He collected evidence for use in court and signed complaints when no one else was willing to do it. He was warned that if he assailed the owners of the crib district he took his life in his hands, but he was not the man to be deterred by threats. He found that Ballerino, an Italian millionaire, owned many of the cribs. Mr. Phillips brought fifteen of the girls into court to show that they were paying Ballerino $7.50 a day for each of the sordid rooms called "cribs."
The first girl called to the witness stand perjured herself, and failure seemed inevitable as the witnesses had been tampered with. She herself asked to be recalled to the stand, said she had lied and wished now to tell the truth, as the girls had been talking it over and had decided to tell the truth. The other fourteenthen gave truthful testimony. Ballerino was convicted, an appeal to the higher courts went against him, he was put on the chain gang and compelled to pay a fine and costs, though he was a millionaire.
Agitation, publicity and prosecutions were maintained until the scandalous crib district of Los Angeles was absolutely annihilated. The French traders recognized that the city was no longer a market for girls and turned their cargoes aside to other cities, that love these monstrous beasts so dearly that they give them segregated districts, where they may enslave young girls and debauch young men, with assurance that laws are contemptible, and graft is precious, and the good people have sand in their eyes.
The story of the destruction of the open market for girls in Des Moines is best told in the following articles of the commissioner of public safety, the chief of police and the city physician. The determination to annihilate the dens which had been protected so long was caused in part by the high crime of bringing back a girl who had escaped to another city, to compel her to work out a debt in one of the dives of Des Moines. We are indebted for these articles to The Light, published at La Crosse, Wisconsin, by B. S. Steadwell.
By J. L. Hamery, Superintendent, Department of Public Safety.
Of all the cities of the United States, Des Moines stands today a bright and shining example of the utter fallacy of the "segregation" idea. Practiced more or less openly for twenty years or more, now, after a few months of freedom, the past seems like a nightmare, which it is impossible to believe will ever be tolerated in this city again.
In a short paper, hurriedly prepared, it will be impossible to give much more than general statements of opinion. We have affidavits, statistics of arrest, opinions of high-class citizens, opinions of independent investigators from other states, statements from experience by police officials and city physicians to support the following:
Segregation, as applied to prostitution, is but another term for "incubation."
Segregation is the nucleus and backbone of the White Slave Traffic.
Segregation provides a resort, refuge and hiding place for criminals and thugs of every description.
Segregation is affiliated with gambling, bootlegging, opium and cocaine joints.
Segregation, with its red lights, its music, the painted women in the windows, etc., provides an educational feature for school children and students, the possibilities of which can be better imagined than described.
Segregation could never be made to completely segregate, but rather, provided a center from which prostitution radiated in every direction like a cancer.
Segregation makes its baleful influence felt in business and politics and is a direct factor in all the criminal influence of a large city.
All the open and recognized houses of prostitution in the city of Des Moines were suppressed by a general police order issued September 8, 1908. With the exception of two police captains, one of whom is now chief of police, the order was criticized by the body of police and especially by the then chief; it was opposed by city officials; public sentiment made no especial demand for it, to say the least, and it was freely prophesied that the order would be followed by a saturnalia of crime and rapes. I am free to confess that even the honest doubters could advance many plausible arguments on the utter absurdity of trying to totally suppress this evil. But now, after a few months' trial, one of the most convincing (if somewhat amusing) tributes to the unqualified success we have met with, in spite of the most diabolical opposition, is the manner in which officials of all degrees of importance are now jumping into our band-wagon and actually trying to crowd us out.
The fact that we have an army post and a full regiment of cavalrymen was repeatedlyadvanced with arguments and statements as to what might be expected from this source alone if the red light districts were abolished. It is true that soldiers were giving the city much trouble at that time. Murders and rapes were becoming common occurrences. Loud and indignant protests were being made by citizens and the press of the city was filled with debates of what to do with soldiers and the army post.
With the suppression of the segregated districts all trouble with soldiers ceased as if by magic. It was very clearly proved that with temptations removed soldiers are quite as good as average citizens, and there is no further talk of removing the fort from this city. All through the troublous times of "red-light," however, the officers, non-commissioned officers and the very many respectable soldiers, were always eager and ready to co-operate with the police for the maintenance of law and order.
No one questions the success of the suppression of public houses of prostitution in this city, and no disinterested person questions the beneficent effect. What the future holds is open to serious conjecture. Some of the advocates of segregation have loudly expressed the hope that a brothel would be set up by the side of each "preacher's" door, so that the city would be glad to return to segregation. A city election will be held next spring, complicated with a fierce struggle for the congressionalnomination. There is no doubt the so-called "liberal element" will be a unit for an open town, while the better elements, as usual, will be confused and divided. In the event of the election of a reactionary who could secure control of the Department of Public Safety, the cause of clean and moral city government would receive a decided setback. Nothing less than everlasting vigilance by the heads of the police department will keep the city out of the old rut. Great things are expected from the "Cosson" law, passed at the last session of the Iowa State Legislature. It has even been intimated that this law is responsible for the abolishment of the red-light districts, though it does not become effective until July 4, 1909. There has always been abundance of laws against prostitution and its attendant evils. The trouble has always been that they were not enforced.
In addition to the statements of the chief of police and the city physician, I am sending you a copy of a voluntary statement received from an independent investigator, representing a civic association in one of the largest cities of the Middle West. As the association desires to continue these investigations in other cities for some time to come we are only allowed to use this statement on the express stipulation that the name of the investigator and the city he represents is suppressed for the time being. His statement is as follows:
Mr. J. L. Hamery.
Dear Sir: After a careful and critical examination of conditions in Des Moines, it is with the greatest pleasure that I extend to the citizens of your city my hearty congratulations upon the successful progress of the campaign for civic betterment. Having been particularly interested in the effort made here to stamp out the recognized houses of prostitution, and having been qualified by considerable experience in the investigation of all phases of the social evil in large cities, I feel that I speak with some degree of authority on this subject. And it gives me great pleasure to say to you and Des Moines that there is not now in this city a recognized and admitted house of prostitution.
There are not any considerable number of loose women to be seen upon the streets, and the deportment of the women who do walk the streets of Des Moines speaks volumes in praise of the efficiency of your police regulation.
I have made special search for indications of prostitutes having taken up residence in the city at large, and am absolutely convinced that your experience has proven this bugaboo to be wholly chimerical. This conclusion has been amply verified by interviews I have had with representative business and professional men, whose homes are in the residential districts of your city.
The evidences of activity in Des Moines realestate are to my mind conclusive proof that this city is rising to a proper realization and appreciation of its opportunities to become recognized as one of the most desirable places in America for homes, educational centers and legitimate business enterprises. (Signed)
The following is the statement of Chief Miller. The appointment of Mr. Miller as chief was unanimously endorsed by the press and public. He is the first chief in Des Moines selected from the ranks and appointed entirely on his merits.
I have been a member of the Des Moines police force for over seventeen years, filling every position from patrolman up. I was appointed Chief of Police on October 14, 1908. I have pleasure in submitting the following conclusions, based on my experience as a police officer:
Segregation never segregated in Des Moines. The most prosperous houses with the high-class patronage absolutely refused to enter the segregated districts, and were always able to command sufficient influence to enable them to defy the police.
Landladies in segregated districts, by reason of severe competition, were compelled to resort to all means of advertising, which included red lights over the doors, the serving ofliquors and other refreshments, orchestral music, persistent displaying of charms by women in the windows and other means of making their business as conspicuous as possible, and thereby attracting even innocent spectators to the vicinity who were often robbed by attaches and hangers-on from the resorts. The segregated districts always became notorious and the evil was greatly augmented thereby.
Property in the segregated districts was manipulated by money sharks for the purpose of securing complete financial control over the women, who in their slavery and despair were often driven to commit desperate crimes in their futile endeavors to free themselves from the hands of their masters. The cleaning up of the resorts freed between two and three hundred of these women, who immediately left the city and have not been replaced. As they were well known it was impossible for them to locate in residence districts and citizens have taken pleasure in keeping us posted with reference to suspicious persons in the suburbs.
In conclusion will say that the remarkable freedom of the city from crime, immediately following the closing of resorts, the boom in residence and city real estate and business in general, also the higher moral tone of the city, is so pronounced and apparent to all in Des Moines, that I have no hesitation in placing myself on record with the deliberate statement that any future administration will hesitatebefore attempting to again place the city of Des Moines in the "segregated" class.
Respectfully submitted,A. G. MILLER,Chief of Police.
One of the most difficult questions before municipal governments for the past half a century has been the controlling and the successful handling of prostitution, and during the last ten years this problem has become more and more perplexing.
Men of knowledge and familiar with this subject have given this problem much thought and consideration trying to devise some logical plan that would lead to a satisfactory solution. Segregation has been argued pro and con; licensing and physical examination have been suggested and put into practice, but not until recently has it been actually demonstrated that this great question can be solved.
All great cities have been wrestling with this question and have tried various methods, and have yet to find a satisfactory method by which these classes can be controlled. Prostitutes and their followers are no small factor that go to make up a city's population, and they will follow their vocation to some extent under any circumstances or conditions.
This being true, it has on the other hand been proven beyond a reasonable doubt thatthis class of traffic can be almost entirely abolished. Prior to September 15th, 1908, this city had what is commonly known as a "red-light district" covering an area of about three square blocks. In this district the rowdy and tough element naturally congregated, and it was an every day occurrence to see drunken brawls, cutting and shooting scraps, and suicides; everything, in fact, that would be disgusting and annoying to the sober-minded citizen. It was an every night occurrence for ambulance calls to come from this district, where some unfortunate had been stabbed or shot down, or an inmate of one of the disorderly houses had committed or made the attempt at suicide.
On the fifteenth day of September, 1908, the superintendent of the Department of Public Safety issued an order to the effect that the "red-light district" would no longer be tolerated, and that the common prostitute and street-walker would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. From that date on a gradual decline was noticeable in the emergency work, and the calls for shooting and cutting affrays were few. At this time I can safely say that emergency work coming from this source has decreased ninety per cent.
Whenever you have a consolidation of elements which appeals to the rough class, viz., houses of ill-fame, saloons of the low type, and gambling dens, you are sure to have more crime committed and vice protected. Do awayentirely, or scatter these factors in crime and you will notice a decided slump in your police service calls relative to this line of work.
In my judgment the abolishment of the "red-light district," coupled with the prosecution of prostitute and street-walker, has proven the most satisfactory solution of the perplexing problem, and offers more protection to the home, and a greater inducement to the prospective citizen, and keeps the criminal class away from the city's gates. In conclusion, will state that I was originally opposed to the suppression of the red-light districts and believed it would result in making matters worse. I base all the foregoing statements on my four years' experience.
Respectfully,CLIFFORD W. LOSH,City Physician.
E. A. B.
By Miss Lucy A. Hall, Deaconess of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Chicago.
George R. Sims says, "The mother of cities lays her whole heart bare to no man. There is no man living who has fathomed her depths. There is no man living who has mastered her mysteries."
For the last quarter of a century especially there have been emancipating influences and efforts of noblest kinds which are really bringing, somewhat gradually, but very surely, a new London—a city that is winning a right to be viewed as a centre of largest endeavor for civic righteousness that history can so far record.
The Bishop of London, presiding at their National Vigilance Association, July 20, 1909, had a right to say, "We have succeeded in getting London united on moral questions." By his side was the Archbishop of Westminster, who said among other significant words, for the Catholic Church that, "While we work together to advance the object of the Association and its dealings with this terrible traffic, we should also make every possible effort tobuild up, in the children of the country, a definite and clear belief of what they owe to their Maker and of the account they will have to give Him hereafter."
The Chief Rabbi, Dr. Adler, made many vigorous statements, among which some were unusually impressive. Speaking of the White Slave Traffic, he said, "It does not merely affect the welfare of the English people, but also the welfare of the entire globe. The evil must be regarded as a veritable cancerous growth on the body politic, which must be excised. The authorities in Argentina have largely succeeded in purifying Buenos Ayres." He then spoke of the purpose of the National Vigilance Association, and said it was "To obey the bidding of the prophet, that which is lost, I will seek again, that which has gone astray, I will bring back, that which has a wing broken I will bind up, and that which is sick I will strengthen."
Seated at the right of the chairman were Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Albany, Alice, Countess of Strafford, the Countess Dowager of Chichester, and Mrs. Creighton. The last named in representing the women of England called attention to the need of educational plans, and said, "Sometimes one gets afraid of the people fighting with evil, thinking only of that fight, and not sufficiently of the building up that is needed to make the right so strong, that it has nothing to fear from the wrong. Don't let us forget to let iteducate ourselves also, and to make it for each of us our great work to maintain that high and healthy public opinion which will make it ever more and more difficult for evil to prevail."
Sir Percy W. Bunting, M. A., one of the founders of the Association, spoke of it as "an organization of the helping instincts of all the churches, based on the mere humanity of the case. We touch here the fringe of the greatest moral problem in all time." Mr. Donald Maclean, Member of Parliament, Mr. Archibald J. Allen, Mr. Arthur R. More, Sir Francis Channing, Member of Parliament, Mr. Bullock and Mr. Coote spoke hopefully of prospects insured. This was really a platform of very earnest people of differing creeds representing Royalty, representing the great Law Making Body, different organizations and the great business world.
Among those in attendance were Lady Hughes Hunter, Lady Bunting, Lady McLaren, Colonel and Mrs. Young, Lord Radstock, Very Rev. Dr. Jackman, Very Rev. Father Bannan, Miss Leigh Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Fox Butlin, and Dr. Wilbur Crafts of Washington, D. C., with many others, making a really great meeting—great with people of diverse thought on other subjects, great in the inspiration gained, great in assurance of increasing momentum of a magnificent endeavor that should, with correlated efforts of other National Vigilance Associations bring a worldforce that shall be mightier than the evil however deeply intrenched that may be.
At the meeting of the British Committee of the International Bureau for Suppression of the White Slave Traffic there was a demonstration of the power of crystallizing different National organizations. The Bureau is strong in its members and leaders and especially its General Secretary, Wm. Alex. Coote, who has visited every capital in Europe and organized National Committees in every country except Turkey. He has won Royal recognition in Germany in having presented to him by the Emperor of Germany a diamond monogram as a recognition of his efforts on behalf of German girls. The President of the French Republic has made him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. King Alfonso of Spain has made him a Cabellero of the Order of Charles III.
At this day's meeting, W. F. Craies, Esq., legal advisor presided. Reports were read from different countries.
From Sweden, came the word that the Princess Royal had accepted the Presidency of the National Committee and attended nearly every Committee meeting, which was a guarantee and stimulus to the success of the work. Efforts for legislation and plans for assisting girl travelers are among the good works.
From Switzerland, among other good methods for defeating vice, Government has legislated against the abuse of the Poste Restante, providing that no minor can be allowed to receive correspondence without a permit or authorization from parents.
From Germany, fifteen traffickers had been condemned and forty-two girls re-patriated as some of the results of their National Committee. They are also working toward strengthening their laws.
From Egypt came news of development in spite of many difficulties. Seven hundred fifty-nine girls of minor age had been stopped and placed in hands of their respective Consuls, 485 of them being Greeks. Three hundred ten girls have been rescued. Forty-six souteneurs denounced, 22 of whom are exiled. Thirty minors were re-patriated.
Canada has a strong new law that with the impulse of the International Council of Women held in June brings the question squarely to the front.
From the United States reports showed aggressive work on the part of voluntary organizations, state's attorneys, and federal attorneys in vigorous law enforcement, and effective new laws enacted, with good hope of further legislation, and some diligence in educational plans through public gatherings, and sending literature where it has proven to be the needed help in many communities.
Mr. Coote referred to the deputation to the Home Office of March 30, which had been fully reported at a previous meeting. He regretted now that owing to other urgent matters before Parliament their bill which metsuch encouragement might not be brought forward at the present session.
Plans were made for delegates to the Congress of the International Bureau to be held in Madrid in May, 1910.
Announcement was made for a conference of station workers in Neuchatel, June 2, 3 and 4, 1910.
From these two great meetings, it would be discovered to any in attendance, that there is a purpose, and loyalty and persistence, characterizing the people and their methods, which is just as readily discovered in their everyday work.
Several similar and strong organizations are doing thoroughly good and effective work. The British Committee for the Abolition of State Regulation of Vice, under the efficient leadership of Henry J. Wilson, Member of Parliament, is one of merit. The London Council for the Promotion of Public Morality with the Bishop of London as chairman, is an organization standing for justice and skilled means in the obtaining.
The societies known as preventive are numerous The Girls' Friendly Society of the Church of England, is a splendid plan covering truly what its name implies, being real friends to its members. Their work includes clubs, classes, and a most careful record, copy of which is sent ahead to other cities or countries in case of removal, so that there are friends to meet them and continue the chain of friendship, reporting back to the national office from time to time, sustaining a relation to the girls wherever they go, friendship awaiting them through record made.
The Church Army of the Church of England is doing a most beautiful and many sided service, chiefly among the criminal, outcast, careless and neglected classes. They connect with the Probation System and help many who otherwise would go to the prisons, restoring many to their families and places in society. Their many departments include the League of Friends of the Poor, working toward removing causes of distress, giving employment where warranted, planning labor homes where direction is given to expenditures and habits. The Emigration Department seeks to farther locate some who are better for being quite away from old associates. The Women's Social Department is very successful. Industrial homes whether for rescue or preventive cases have been of great service. Women's clubs have held together those who have passed through these homes. A large work-room affords work for many who otherwise would find no way. Fresh air homes, dispensaries, factory girls' club, with the evangelists' training home, the missions, women's evangelistic departments, needle-work guild, out-door rescue work and rescue worker's training home, rescue workers' union, the Church Army Brotherhood and the many other departmentsmake a very great plant yielding most beautiful fruitage in the lives of those helped.
From their rescue training home the sisters go forth, two by two, to seek during the night hours for the poor wanderers who haunt the thoroughfares. On such an evening out where London is worst, around Piccadilly, Bloomsbury, Haymarket, among the showy throngs, and in the less lighted streets where distressed, cowering, fearful ones wander, let us come with these workers and note the many who are willing to stop and receive a flower or a message or daintily prepared letter, and see the surprise when they feel that there are earnest souls who wish to be sincerely kind. Many are willing to stop and tell us their difficulties, some we will wish to see in the courts next day.
But in all our going about, morning, noon or night, we will have to admit our surprise that notwithstanding the many individual instances of wrecked lives who are influencing downward too many others, there is not a street in all London where we would not feel as safe as in the very best business streets of Chicago or New York. There are no dens of continuous growing infamy. Workers in all organizations are on the hunt for them. Police officials are alert and take the initiative in many instances; if a plant of this noxious kind is set out, it is uprooted before it has much chance for spreading its influence. Business men say, "We will not have them, no toleration is given, when known; there are no houses of prostitution, known as such for longer than till they can be taken before the courts."
The strenuous efforts of the organizations mentioned heretofore have been directed so long toward these things through preventive plans and legislation and wholesome law-enforcement that there is no longer any doubt concerning the wish of the people or their representatives in official places.
Since the reign of toleration of vice was broken by the strong word of government in 1886, there has been a winning battle, which though still on, has brought so much of victory that we can believe that completeness of triumph will dawn, and at just about the time that England shakes itself from the related enslaving chains of intemperance and the obstinate industrial system.
The testimony already given in these pages leaves no room to doubt the existence of a widespread, hideous commerce in girls. In conclusion, as a sort of judicial summing up of the case against the most odious criminals of the world, we quote Judge John R. Newcomer of Chicago, who says:
"Within one week I had seven different letters from fathers, from Madison, Wisconsin, on the north, to Peoria, Illinois, on the south, asking me in God's name to do something to help them find their daughters, because they had come to Chicago and they had never heard from them afterwards.
"If you mean by the White Slave Traffic the placing of young girls in a brothel for a price, it most undoubtedly is a real fact, based upon statements that have been made in my court during the past three months by defendants, both men and women, who have pleaded guilty to that crime, and in a sense it is both interstate and international.
"Not one, but many shipments, of which I have personal knowledge based upon testimony of people who have pleaded guilty, many shipments come from Paris and other European cities to New York; and from New Yorkto Chicago and other western points; and from Chicago as a distributing point to the West and the Southwest; and on the western coast, coming in to San Francisco and other ports there. Yes, it is a real fact; and it is something that we have got to take notice of, and something that, while it may have been developed largely during the last ten years, the national government itself has recently taken notice of its existence.
"There are three specific classes of what we might call white slave traders. First, the man or woman who conducts the brothel; and if I had more time I would like to tell you something about the ways and means used by these people to keep at least a large number of their girls there. Second, the man who acts as a sort of broker, dealing in girls, transferring them from one brothel to another. The third class is the lowest of all—those men and women, largely women, who make a business of procuring girls for the brothel. These three classes make a living off that traffic and the profit therefrom."
Bishop Anderson of the Episcopal diocese of Chicago says: "The mind of the public is moral, and if it can be convinced of the actual state of affairs the public conscience will soon be aroused and something good is bound to be accomplished. Accurate and conservative information, if spread broadcast, will go far to accomplish the great work which we have in hand."
St. Paul had a like confidence in the public intelligence and conscience, and in the usefulness of information spread broadcast to end the White Slave Traffic. The apostle wrote on this subject in 2 Timothy, 3:6-9: "For of these are they that creep into houses and lead captive silly women, laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses so do these men also resist the truth, men of corrupt mind, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further, for their folly shall be known unto all men, as theirs also came to be." St. Paul here intimates that publicity will overthrow the traffickers in women as the opponents of Moses were overwhelmed in Egypt.
In this confidence we are sending forth this volume, to spread broadcast the testimony of many witnesses, whose character and intelligence none can impeach. We are certain that if the facts set forth in this book by lawyers, physicians, missionaries and other workers are understood by the English-speaking peoples the White Slave Traffic will be immediately and permanently reduced and speedily abolished throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. All Christendom must follow if we lead worthily in this reform. Japan will quickly join us and is already doing so. Human nature itself, once it is enlightened as to the facts of commercein girls, must almost necessarily abolish the cursed trade.
Surely every one whose own mind is not debauched will take some part in this most essential and inevitable reform. As General Booth of the Salvation Army said so many times, on one of his tours in this country and around the world a dozen years ago:
"FOR GOD'S SAKE DO SOMETHING. IT WILL COST YOU TIME, IT WILL COST YOU MONEY, IT MAY COST YOU REPUTATION, BUT FOR GOD'S SAKE DO SOMETHING."
About the year 1877 an excursion steamer, the "Princess Alice," was sunk by another ship in the Thames, near London, and six or seven hundred happy excursionists were drowned in a few minutes. At the inquest, as is told, a gentleman asked permission to testify, as he was an eye-witness of the disaster. He told what he saw and said that he was most impressed by a young mother, who held her baby as high as her hands could reach, as she sank and rose again and again, hoping that some one would rescue the child—but in vain. The judge asked the witness, "What did you do for those sinking hundreds, and for that perishing mother and baby?" The man answered, "I—I—I did nothing." The judge replied, "You saw all that, and did nothing—nothing?"—and they hissed him from the court room.
The great Judge will hold an inquest on thethousands who are engulfed every month in the black waters of the vice markets of our great cities. Shall He wither us with His wrath as we answer, "Nothing," or shall He say as He said of one long ago,
"She hath done what she could"?
E. A. B.