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

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

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

"I am losing money every day she is gone."

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

Chicago, Ill., July 13, 1908.

Mr. Clifford G. Roe,

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

Viola ——.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XI.

THE BOSTON HYPOCRISY.

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

By Clifford G. Roe, Assistant State's Attorney of Cook County, Illinois.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XII.

THE AUCTIONEER OF SOULS.

By Clifford G. Roe, Assistant State's Attorney of Cook County, Illinois.

"Hear ye! Hear ye! How much will ye give for a human being—body and soul?"

"What is the soul worth?"

"Nothing," cried the auctioneer, "I throw that in with the sale of the body."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XIII.

THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE IN NEW YORK CITY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

B. C.



CHAPTER XIV.

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

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

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

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

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

"Throw out the life-line to danger-fraught men, Sinking in anguish where you've never been."

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

Judge Fake spoke briefly, and a letter was read from Judge Sadler.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"In the south wall of the basement of 114 Federal street (Custom House Place) that congested, central Redlight District of three years ago, now given over to slum and immigrant habitation, is a great steel door about the size and shape of the door of a railway freight car. On the outside, this door opens into a narrow, blind passageway between 114 and 116 Custom House Place, formerly the notorious dive 'The ——.' On the inside this door opened into a large closet, windowless, sound proof (about 4x7 feet) and it is alleged that it was through the alley and into this blind passage way that the unwilling victims of White Slavers were carried into this little solitary cell.

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

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

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

—E. A. B.



CHAPTER XV.

THE NATIONS AND THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC.

By James Bronson Reynolds, New York.

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

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

THE INTERNATIONAL TREATY.

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

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

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

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

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

THE EXTENT AND POWER OF THE EVIL FORCES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE YELLOW SLAVE TRAFFIC IN AMERICA—MORE SHAMEFUL STILL.

Second. Yellow slave traffic in America.

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

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