CHICAGO AND ITS CESS-POOLS OF INFAMY
BY
SAMUEL PAYNTER WILSON
Author of “Chicago by Gas Light”, “Wilson’s Epitome
of Historical and Chronological Facts” and
“Wilson’s Concise History.”
DEDICATED
TO THE GOOD
MEN AND WOMEN OF THE WORLD
WITH THE HOPE THAT THE
VICIOUS MAY BECOME BETTER
MEN AND WOMEN
CHICAGO
SAMUEL PAYNTER WILSON
SIXTEENTH EDITION
MR. SAMUEL PAYNTER WILSON.
Chicago, Ill.
MY DEAR FRIEND:—
I have read your book with great interest. It tells the truth, though
no book can tell all the truth. You have been a great help to our
community by the practical and useful service you have rendered in the
investigation of vice and the bringing of those responsible for it to
justice. Our city is the better for your work.
I hope your book will do much good. If parents but knew the dangers
that confront their boys and girls in our great cities, they would at
least take some ordinary precautions before turning children adrift
amid these perils.
Very sincerely yours,
MORTON CULVER HARTZELL,
President of the Douglas Neighborhood Club.
Contents.
Pages
Dedication 3
Hartzell’s Letter 4
Preface 7-11
Chicago 13-22
Chicago Society 23-34
The White Slave Traffic 35-58
Smashing the Traffic 59-74
Why Girls Go Astray 75-85
More About the Traffic in Shame 86-90
Crime in Chicago 91-103
The Police 105-119
The Lost Sisterhood 121-140
Chicago’s Crowning Curse 141-148
Gambling Hells 149-160
Criminal Operations 161-163
Life Under the Shadows 165-173
The Pawnbrokers 175-184
Pacific Garden Mission 185-191
Churches 193-196
Concert Saloons and Damnation 197-201
Divorces 203-215
Tramp’s Paradise 217-219
Theatres 220-223
PREFACE
Chicago is to the West what New York is to the East. It is not only the
Great Metropolis of the western states, but is the chief attraction
upon this continent, the great center to which our people resort for
business, and pleasure, and as such, is a source of never-failing
interest.
This being the case, it is natural that every American should desire
to visit Chicago, to see the city for himself, behold its beauties,
its wonderful sights, and participate in the pleasures which are to
be enjoyed only in the metropolis. Thousands avail themselves of this
privilege every year; but the great mass of our people know our chief
city only by the description of friends and the brief accounts of its
sights and scenes which occur from time to time in the newspapers of
the day. Even those who visit the city bring away but a superficial
knowledge of it, as to know Chicago requires months of constant study
and investigation. Strangers see only the surface; they cannot
penetrate into its inner life, and examine the countless influences at
work every day in shaping the destiny of the beautiful city. Few even
of the residents of the metropolis, have either the time or means for
such investigation. Few have a correct idea of the terrible romance and
hard reality of the daily lives of a vast portion of the dwellers in
Chicago, or of the splendors and luxury of the wealthier classes.
One of the chief characteristics of Chicago is the rapidity with
which changes occur in it. Those who were familiar with the city in
the past will find it new to them now. The march of progress and
improvement presses on with giant strides, and the city of today is
widely separated from that of a few years ago. Only one who has devoted
himself to watching its onward career, in prosperity, and magnificence
or in misery and crime, can form any idea of the magnitude and
character of the wonderful changes of the past twenty-five years.
The volume now offered to the reader aims to be a faithful and graphic
pen picture of Chicago and its countless sights, its romance, its
mysteries, its nobler and better efforts in the cause of humanity,
its dark crimes, and terrible tragedies. In short, the work endeavors
to hold up to the reader a faithful mirror in which shall pass all the
varied scenes that transpire in Chicago by sunlight and by gaslight.
To those who have seen the great city, the work is offered as a means
of recalling some of the pleasantest experiences of their lives; while
to the still larger class who have never enjoyed this pleasure, it is
hoped that it will be the medium of acquiring an intimate acquaintance
with Chicago in the quiet of their homes.
This volume is not a work of fiction, but a narrative of
well-authenticated, though often startling facts. The darker sides of
Chicago life are shown in their true colors, and without any effort to
tone them down. Foul blots are to be found upon the life of the great
city. Sin, vice, crime and shame are terrible realities there, and they
have been presented here as they actually exist.
Throughout the work, the aim of the author has been to warn those who
wish to see for themselves the darker side of city life, of the danger
attending such undertaking. A man who seeks the haunts of vice and
crime in Chicago takes his life in his hand and exposes himself to
dangers of the most real kind while in quest of knowledge.
Enough is told in this volume to satisfy legitimate curiosity, and to
convince the reader that the only path of safety in Chicago is to avoid
all places of doubtful repute. The city is bright and beautiful enough
to occupy one’s time with its wonderful sights and innocent pleasures.
To venture under the shadows is to covet danger in all its forms. No
matter how “Wise in his own conceit” a stranger may be, he is but a
child in the hands of the disreputable classes of the great city.
In the preparation of this work the author has drawn freely upon his
experiences, the result of a long and intimate acquaintance with all
the various phases of Chicago life. He ventures to hope that those who
are familiar with the subject will recognize the truthfulness of the
statements made and that the book may prove a source of pleasure and
profit to all who may honor it with a perusal.
But to destroy the pitfalls, and to blot out forever the vicious places
that yawn for the youths of our land, is the chief aim in spreading in
plain view the picture here presented.
The monsters may snort and foam, and clap their chubby hands for a
while, and laugh at the destruction they have wrought, but we say to
them, the ship is not wrecked yet, and in the lull of the storm, we bid
our readers to be of good cheer.
The publication of any book must deal largely in facts and if in
presenting these dreadful pictures to the public they may be the
means of saving some mother’s boy or girl from the “brands of eternal
burning,” we shall feel that we have accomplished that which money
cannot buy—a clear conscience.
SAMUEL PAYNTER WILSON.
CHICAGO
Twenty-five years in Chicago! What amazing tragedies, and heart-rending
scenes have been cast to the winds in that quarter of a century! Could
a departed spirit of the earlier days be transported to modern Chicago,
the grand panorama would amaze it, even though it be endowed with
universal wisdom.
Many historical landmarks have given way to multitudinous mountains of
brick and mortar. Where once stood the “low grocery,” now are erected
monuments of commerce. Vicious places, where lips have touched wine
sweetened by vile and despicable men, are now splendid buildings,
churches, temples of learning and other great structures.
The growth and development of Chicago is without parallel, and without
precedent. Its future has been often prophesied, but not always
understood. When we undertake to trace the causes that have led to its
commercial supremacy, and those that are now operating to increase its
prosperity, we are met by singular and fatuous circumstances, which it
was impossible to foresee and not easy to comprehend. One thing is,
however, certain, that the anticipations of the most sanguine have
always been more than realized, while the prognostications of the
doubtful have only been remembered for their fallacy.
The progressive growth of the city has been often capricious, so far
as locality is concerned, but the important factor of topography has
always asserted itself, in spite of all efforts to ignore it in the
interests of individual projects.
The people of Chicago represent every nationality upon the Globe, and
thus give to the city the cosmopolitan character which is one of its
most prominent features. But no city on the continent is so thoroughly
American as this. The native population is the ruling element, and
makes the great city what it is, whether for good or for evil. The
children and grandchildren of foreigners soon lose their old world
ideas and habits and the third generation sees them as genuine and
devoted Americans as any in the city.
The besetting sin of the foreign born citizen is their race for
wealth; the very struggle for existence is so eager and intense here,
that the people think little of public or religious affairs, and leave
their city government, with all its vast interests, in the hands of a
few politicians. They pay dearly for this neglect of such important
interests. They are taxed and plundered by political tricksters, and
are forced to bear burdens and submit to losses which could be avoided
by a more patriotic and sensible treatment of their affairs.
The race for wealth is a very exciting one in the great city. The
interests at stake are so vast, the competition so constant and close,
that men are compelled to be on the watch all the time, and to work
with rapidity and almost without rest. Every nerve, every muscle, every
power and faculty of body and mind, is taxed to the utmost to discharge
the duty of the day. Go into any of the large establishments of the
city during business hours and you will be amazed at the ceaseless rush
and push of clerks and customers. It is one of unending drive. They
cannot always stand the strain upon them, and die off by the hundreds.
at a time of life when they ought to be looking forward to a hearty old
age.
A gentleman once said to the writer of these pages:
“I came to Chicago at the opening of the World’s Fair to seek
employment. I came up the Mississippi River as far as St. Louis, full
of hope and confidence. The trip up the river gave new life to this
feeling. I knew I was competent, and I was resolved to succeed. I
landed at one of the nearby depots and taking up my valise started up
town. I turned into State Street, and as I did so, found myself in a
steady stream of human beings, each hurrying by as if his life depended
upon his speed, taking no notice of his fellows, pushing and jostling
them, and each with a weary, jaded, anxious look upon his face. As I
gazed at this mighty torrent I was dismayed, I got as far as State
and Madison Streets, and then I put my valise upon the pavement, and
leaning against a convenient lamp-post, watched them as they passed
me by; they came by hundreds, thousands, all with eager, restless
gait that I now know so well; all with the weary, anxious, careworn
expression I have mentioned, as if trying to reach some distant goal
within a given time. They seemed to say to me, 'we would gladly stop
if we could, and rest by the way, but we must go on and on and know
no rest.’ I asked myself what chance have I here? Can I keep up with
this mighty, eager, restless throng, or will they pass me, and leave me
behind?” “Well,” he added, with a sad smile, “I have managed to keep
up with them, but I tell you it’s a hard strain. We are all living
too fast; we are working too hard, we grind, grind at our treadmills
all day and we grind too hard, we break down long before we should,
this haste, this furious pace at which we are going, at business, at
pleasure, at everything, is the great curse of Chicago life.”
Now, my friend’s opinion is shared in by hundreds, thousands of
the most sensible men of the city, but they are powerless to save
themselves from the curse they know to be upon them. So they must join
the crowd, and rush on and on, seeking the glittering prize of wealth
and fame.
The common opinion that Chicago is the paradise for humbugs and
tricksters is somewhat overdrawn. These people do abound here, beyond
a doubt; but they are short-lived. They flourish today and are
gone tomorrow, they take no root, and have no hold upon any genuine
interests; they attain no permanent success. It is only genuine merit
that succeeds in the great city. Men are here subjected to a test that
soon takes the conceit out of them. They are taken for just what they
are worth, and no more, and he must show himself a man indeed, who
would take his place among the princes of trade, or among the leaders
of thought and opinion. He may bring with him from his distant home the
brightest of reputations, but here he will have to begin at the very
bottom of the ladder and mount upward again. It is slow work, so slow
that it tries every quality of true manhood to its utmost.
It is said that Chicago is the wickedest city in the country. It is
the second largest, and vice thrives and reigns supreme in crowded
communities. How great this wickedness is we may see in the subsequent
portions of this work. If it is the wickedest city, it is also one of
the best on the continent. If it contains thousands of the worst men
and women in our land, it contains also thousands of the brightest and
best of Christians. In point of morality, it will compare favorably
with any city in the world. It is unhappily true that the devil’s
work is done here upon a large scale; but so is the work of God upon
an even greater scale. If the city contains the gaudiest, the most
alluring, and the vilest haunts of sin, it also boasts of the noblest
and grandest institutions of religion, of charity, and virtue.
I have spoken of the energy of the people in matters of business; they
are, in all respects the most enterprising in the Union. They are bold
and self-reliant; they take risks in business from which others shrink,
and carry their ventures forward with a resolution and vigor that
cannot fail of success. It is this that has made Chicago great; its
people take a large, liberal view of matters; they are cosmopolitan in
all things.
As a place of residence to those who have the means to justify it,
Chicago is a most delightful city. Its attractions are many and it
possesses a peculiar charm, which all who have dwelt within its borders
feel.
To the dweller in Chicago, State Street is what the Boulevards are to
the Parisians. It is the center of life, gayety and business; the great
artery through which flows the strong life-current of the metropolis.
From the Chicago River to Twelfth Street it is thronged with a busy
crowd of workers, restless pleasure-seekers, the good and the bad,
the grave and the gay, all hurrying on in eager pursuit of the “show
street” of the city, and certainly no more wonderful sight can be
witnessed than this grand thoroughfare at high noon. As night comes on
the great hotels, restaurants and business emporiums, send out a blaze
of light, and are alive with visitors. The crowd is out for pleasure at
night, and many and varied are the forms which the pursuit of it takes.
Here is a family—father, mother and children—out for a stroll to see
the sights they have witnessed a hundred times, and which never grow
dull; there is a party of theatre-goers, bent on an evening of innocent
amusement; here is a “gang of roughs,” swaggering along the sidewalks,
jostling all who come within their way; here a party of young bloods,
out on a lark, are drawing upon themselves the keen glances of the
stalwart policeman, as he slowly follows them.
All sorts of people are out and the scene is enlivened beyond
description. Moving rapidly through the throng, sometimes in couples,
sometimes alone, and glancing swiftly and keenly at the men they
pass, are a number of flashily-dressed women, generally young and
prepossessing. One would never take them for respectable women, as they
do not intend that you shall. These are the most degraded of the “lost
sisterhood.” The men of the city shun them; their prey is the stranger,
and should they succeed in attracting the attention of a victim they
dart off down the first side street, and wait for their dupes to join
them.
Woe to the man who follows after one of these creatures. The next
step is to some of the low dives which still occupy too many of the
so-called “hotels” in the business district or perchance to the back
room of some pretentious saloon, where bad or drugged liquor steals
away the senses of the luckless victim, and robbery or even worse
violence, too often ends in the adventure. These women have gone so far
down into the depth of sin, that they scruple at nothing which will
bring them money.
The throng fills the street until a late hour of the night, then the
theatres pour out their audiences to join in, and for an hour or more
the restaurants and cafes are filled to their utmost capacity; then as
midnight comes on, the street becomes quieter and more deserted. The
lights in the buildings are extinguished, and gradually upper State
Street becomes silent and deserted—Chicago has gone to bed.
Chicago Society
Good and Bad.
Society in Chicago is made up of many parts, a few of which we propose
to examine.
The first-class is unfortunately smallest, and consists of those who
set culture and personal refinement above riches. It is made up of
professional men and their families, lawyers, clergymen, artists,
authors, physicians, scientific men and others of kindred pursuits and
tastes. Compared with the other classes, it is not wealthy, though many
of its members manage to attain competency and ease. Their homes are
tasteful and often elegant, and the household graces are cultivated
in preference to display, the tone of this class is pure, healthy
and vigorous, and personal merit is the surest passport to it. It
furnishes the best types of manhood and womanhood to be met with in
the metropolis and its homelife is simple and attractive. In short,
it may be said to be the saving element of society in the city, and
fortunately it is a growing element, drawing to it every year new
members, not only from the city itself, but from all parts of the
country. It is this class which gives tone to the moral and religious
life of the city. Its members are generally sufficiently well-off in
this world’s goods to render them independent of the forms to which
others are slaves; they are always ready to recognize and lend a
helping hand to struggling merit, but sternly discountenance vulgarity
and imposture. They furnish the men and women who do the best work and
accomplish the greatest results in social and business life and their
names are honored throughout the city.
The second-class consists of those who have inherited large wealth for
one or more generations of ancestors. They are generally people of
culture, nothing of shoddyism or snobbery about them. Their houses are
filled with valuable works of art and mementoes. Having an abundance
of leisure they are free to cultivate the graces of life, and they
constitute one of the pleasantest patrons of society in the city. The
class is not large, but it is constantly receiving new members in the
children of men who have made their way in the world, and have learned
to value money at its true worth. They make good citizens, with the
exception of an easy going indifference to political affairs, are proud
of their city and country, and do not ape the airs or costumes of
foreign lands.
The third largest class, that which may be said to give Chicago’s
fashionable society its peculiar tone, consists of the “newly rich.”
These are so numerous, and make themselves so conspicuous, that they
are naturally regarded as the representative class of Chicago society.
They may be known by their coarse appearances, and still coarser
manners, their loud style and ostentatious display of wealth. Money
with them is everything, and they judge men, not by their merits, but
by their bank account. They are strangers to the refinements and small,
sweet courtesies of life, and for them substitute a hauteur and a dash
that lay them open to unmerciful ridicule. Some of them are without
education or polish, and look down upon those who are less fortunate
than themselves, and fawn with cringing servility upon the more
aristocratic portion of society. To be invited to an entertainment
of some family of solid repute in the fashionable world, to be on
visiting terms with those whose wealth and culture rank them as the
true aristocracy, is the height of their ambition. This they generally
accomplish, for money is a passport to all classes of Chicago society.
The better elements may laugh at the “newly rich,” but they invite them
to their houses, entertain them, are entertained in return, and so do
their share in keeping the “newly rich” firm in its position on the
Avenues and Lake Shore Drive.
The “newly rich” look down with supreme contempt upon the institutions
which have enabled them to rise so high in the social scale. It is from
them one hears so many complaints of the degeneracy of society, and it
is the frown from them that chills the ambitious hopes of rising merit;
lacking personal dignity themselves, they ridicule it in others.
Some strange changes of names are brought about by a translation to
the upper circles. Plain John Smith becomes John Smythe, and perhaps
Smyythe. Sam Long, who began life by driving a dray, is now Mr.
Samuel Longue. A coat of arms suddenly makes its appearance, for the
establishment in the city which deals in such matters is equal to any
emergency, and often a pedigree is manufactured in the same way.
A mansion on Lake Shore Drive or in any of the more pretentious
avenues, newly acquired wealth is liberally expended in fitting up the
new house; and then the fortunate owners of it suddenly burst upon
society as stars of first magnitude. They are ill-adapted to their new
position, it is true, rude and unrefined, but they have wealth and are
willing to spend it, and money is supposed to carry with it all the
virtues and graces of fashionable life. This is all society requires,
and it receives them with open arms, flatters and courts them, and
exalts them to the seventh heaven of fashionable bliss.
Lucky are they who can manage to retain the positions thus acquired.
It too often happens that this suddenly gotten wealth goes as rapidly
as it came. Then the star begins to pale and finally the family drops
out of the fashionable world. It is not missed, however; new stars
take their places, perhaps to share the same fate, thus this class of
society is not permanent as regards its members. It is constantly
changing. People come and go, and the leaders of one season may be
conspicuous the next only by their absence.
Sometimes even this class of society takes a notion to be exclusive,
and then it is hard to enter the charmed circle.
Some years ago, a gentleman, a man of brains and sterling merit, who
had risen slowly to fortune feeling himself in every way fitted for
social distinction, resolved to enter society, and to signalize his
entree by a grand entertainment. At that time he lived in a not very
fashionable street, but he did not regard this as a drawback. He issued
his invitations and prepared his entertainment upon a scale of unusual
magnificence, and at the appointed time his mansion was ablaze with
light, and ready for the guests. Great was his mortification, not one
of those invited set foot within his doors. In his anger he swore a
mighty oath that he would yet compel Chicago society to humble itself
to him. He kept his word, became one of the wealthiest men in the city,
indeed one of the merchant princes of the land, and in the course of
a few years, society, which had scorned his first invitations, was
begging for admission to his sumptuous fetes. He became a leader of
society, and his mandates were humbly obeyed by those who had presumed
to look down upon him. It was a characteristic triumph; his millions
did the work.
Poverty is always a misfortune. Chicago brands it as a crime;
consequently no poor man, or even one of moderate means, can hold a
place in Chicago society. Indeed it would be impossible for any one
not possessed of great wealth to maintain a position in what is termed
“high-toned” society here. To do this it requires an almost fabulous
outlay of money. As money opens the doors of the charmed circle, so
money must keep one within it. Thus Chicago (as in most large cities)
has become the most extravagant in the world. In few cities on the
globe are such immense sums spent.
Extravagance is the besetting sin of metropolitan social life. Immense
sums are expended annually in furnishing the aristocratic mansions, in
dress, in entertainments, and all sorts of folly and dissipation. It is
no uncommon thing for a house and its contents to be heavily mortgaged
to provide the means of keeping its occupants in proper style. The
pawnbrokers drive a thriving trade with the ladies of position who
pledge jewels, costly dresses, and other articles of feminine luxury,
to raise the money for some functional folly. Each member of society
strives to outshine or outdress, his or her acquaintances, and to do
so requires a continual struggle and a continual drain upon the bank
account. Men have been led to madness and even suicide and women to sin
and shame, by this constant race for social distinction, but the mad
round of extravagances and folly goes on and on, the new comers failing
to profit by the sad experiences of those who have gone before them.
The love of dress is a characteristic of the Chicago woman of fashion.
To be the best dressed woman at a ball, the opera, a dinner, or on the
street, is the height of her ambition. To outshine all other women in
the splendor of her attire or her jewels, is to render her supremely
happy. Dresses are ordered without regard to cost, and other articles
of luxury are purchased in proportion.
Now this is well enough for those who can afford it, but the majority
of the Chicago fashionables cannot stand the strain long. As we have
said, their great wealth melts steadily under such demands upon it,
until there is nothing left but bankruptcy and ruin and of the eternal
grind. From time to time the business community is startled by the
failure, perhaps the suicide of some normally well-to-do merchant or
banker. The affair creates a brief sensation and is soon forgotten.
The cause is well-known, “living beyond his means,” or “ruined by his
family’s extravagance.” Men suffer the tortures of the damned in their
efforts to maintain their commercial standing, and at the same time
to provide their families with the means of keeping their place in
society. They are driven to forgery, defalcation, and other crimes, yet
they do not achieve their object. Ruin lays its heavy hand upon them
and the game is played out.
As for Madame, she must have money. The husband may not be able
to furnish it, and there may be a limit even to the pawnbroker’s
generosity; but money she must have. Fashionable life affords her the
means. She sells her honor for filthy lucre; she finds a lover with a
free purse, and willing to pay for the favors. She acts with her eyes
open, and sins deliberately, and from the basest of motives. She wants
money and she gets it. Sometimes the intrigue runs on without detection
and Madame shifts from lover to lover, according to her needs. Again
there is an unexpected discovery; an explosion follows. Madame’s fine
reputation goes to the winds, and there is a gap in society.
No wonder so many fashionable women look jaded, have an anxious,
half-startled expression, and seem weary. They are living in a state of
dread lest their secrets be discovered and the inevitable ruin overtake
them.
Some strange things happen at these fashionable gatherings. Let your
memories run back to the early eighties and you will recall an incident
of a robbery in the very midst of festivities. In most instances the
articles taken are of value that can be easily secreted, the criminal
as a rule, is no vulgar thief, but is one of society’s privileged and
envied members. The papers of that date recorded the following:
“In the dingy back room of a renowned detective was the scene of
an impressive spectacle several weeks ago. In the presence of the
gentlemen, one a well-known detective, the other a prominent
merchant—knelt a fashionably dressed man of middle age, confessing a
shameful story of crime, and imploring mercy.
“I admit all,” he cried. “I stole the property, but I cannot restore
it, I was driven to the deed in order to maintain my position in
society. My means had largely left me, and I could not resist
temptation.”
“This statement fell like a thunderbolt upon the merchant, who had
known the speaker long and favorably. To the detective, however, it
was not at all unexpected, as he had already satisfied himself as to
the guilt of the man. The stealing which was here confessed was one of
those crimes in higher circles of society.”
Only a decade has elapsed since the family of a well-known lawyer
living on a prominent Avenue, gave a social entertainment to which
persons of high standing in society were invited. The following morning
it was discovered that rings, watches and jewelry worth several hundred
dollars was missing. The most careful search and close examination
of servants forced the conclusion upon the family that the robbery
had been committed by some one of the guests, although this seemed
incredible, as every name upon the list of those present seemed to
forbid the thought of suspicion. The affair was put into the hands of
private detectives, who were unable, however, to obtain the slightest
clew to the thief of the property.
Yet it is not the professional thieves that those who get up
fashionable entertainments chiefly fear. The most dangerous class,
because the most numerous, are included among the invited guests and
are called, when detected, kleptomaniacs.
The White Slave Traffic
The revelations made by investigators should be given as wide a
currency as possible. The extent of the White Slave traffic and the
machinery by which it is maintained, should be brought home, not only
to the officials sworn to deal with crime, but to parents sworn under
higher law to guard their young.
Thousands of girls from the country are entrapped each year, and
the pitiful fact is that the parents of a large majority of these
unfortunates are unaware of their fate. As a consequence of this state
of public ignorance, the traffic proceeds unchecked, save by the
efforts of persons willing to give time and money for the procuring of
evidence and prosecuting the offenders.
What is greatly needed as a supplement to vigorous prosecution of
offenders is a campaign of education. Writers, clergymen and officials
should take up this appalling evil and instruct parents as to the
reality and extent of the danger. In small towns there is virtually no
knowledge of this terribly increasing traffic of buying and selling and
securing girls for houses of prostitution.
The problem is enormous, but by educational means it can be largely
solved. The responsibility for a broad and systematic campaign of
enlightenment rests chiefly with the parents, who should become
enlightened upon the subject by reading and inquiry, and then instruct
their children upon the educational lines to the end that they may know
the sad realities and gravity of the evil and its conditions.
The vampires who deal in human bodies must and will be punished. These
wretches, who, for a few dollars, will dig so low down in the quagmire
of rottenness must be sent to prison. If fathers and mothers could be
brought to a realization that thousands of young and tender girls are
being sold to vultures for immoral purposes, they would raise a wave of
indignation that would sweep around the world.
It is notable, and a commendable fact that the government, through its
agents and courts, is accomplishing results that will, it is hoped,
forever crush this awful business, and drive the keepers of these
cess-pools of vice and shame into the sea of everlasting ignomy.
The sole aim in writing upon the White Slave subject is to definitely
call the attention of the men and women of the United States,
and especially those of the larger cities, to the vicious, and
thoroughly organized white slave traffic of today, and its attendant,
far-reaching, horrible results upon the young man and womanhood of our
land. During a constant investigation, covering several years’ time
in the central slum districts of Chicago, I have gained much actual
knowledge of the questions of poverty, drink and prostitution among
the lost men and women of this great city. Have become personally
acquainted with very many of them, visiting them, listening to their
heart stories and growing to know much of their inside lives and have
learned a real tender interest and pity for them in their remorseful,
helpless, hopeless condition. Statistical references have been taken
from the writings of United States District Attorney Sims, Ernest A.
Bell, Judge John R. Newcomer, Clifford G. Roe and others engaged in
prosecuting and reform work, all of whom I thank earnestly and wish
well in what they are accomplishing for good where it is so desperately
needed in this submerged underworld of our city.
After these years of experience, and after having visited in various
capacities, disguised, etc., many of the worst haunts of vice
and houses of prostitution in Chicago, I personally came to this
conclusion: There is small chance for a girl, once having been sold
into or entered upon a life of prostitution, to ever escape therefrom.
Invariably she is kept in debt to her masters, excessive bills
for parlor clothes, board, dentistry, laundry and all conceivable
expenses are kept charged up against her. She is under constant
threat of personal violence and blackmail in every form (her owners
securing, whenever possible, some knowledge of her home and friends
and continually holding this knowledge as a dagger over her), and
then there are the ever-present whoremasters and madams with drugs
and drinks and bolts and bars, guarding every possible avenue of
escape with blows and curses and brutality beyond conception. Very few
young girls enter a life of prostitution voluntarily, and few, once
entering, ever escape.
The recent examination of more than two hundred “white slaves” by
the office of the United States District Attorney of Chicago has
brought to light the fact that literally thousands of innocent girls
from the country districts are every year entrapped into a life of
hopeless slavery and degredation because parents in the country do not
understand conditions as they exist and how to protect their daughters
from the “white slave” traders who have reduced the art of ruining
young girls to a national and international system. I sincerely believe
that nine-tenths of the parents of these thousands of girls who are
every year snatched from lives of decency and comparative peace and
dragged under the slime of an existence in the “white slave” world have
no idea that there is really a trade in the ruin of girls as much as
there is trade in cattle or sheep or the other products of the farm. If
these parents had known the real conditions, had believed that there is
actually a syndicate which does as regular, as steady and persistent a
“business” in the ruination of girls as the great packing houses do in
the sale of meats, it is wholly probable that their daughters would
not now be in dens of vice and almost utterly without hope of release
excepting by the hand of death.
It is only necessary to say that the legal evidence thus far collected
establishes with complete moral certainty these awful facts: That the
white slave traffic is a system—a syndicate which has its ramifications
from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific ocean, with “clearing houses”
or “distributing centers” in nearly all the larger cities; that in this
ghastly traffic the buying price of a young girl is $15.00 and that
the selling price is generally about $200.00—if the girl is especially
attractive, the white slave dealer may be able to sell her for $400.00
or $600.00; that this syndicate did not make less than $200,000 last
year in this almost unthinkable commerce; that it is a definite
organization sending its hunters regularly to scour France, Germany,
Hungary, Italy and Canada for victims; that the man at the head of this
unthinkable enterprise is known among his hunters as “The Big Chief.”
Judge John R. Newcomer of Chicago, said before the National Purity
Congress at Battle Creek, Michigan:
“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 afterward.
“If you mean by the 'white slave’ traffic the placing of young girls
in a brothel for a price, it is undoubtedly 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 York to
Chicago and other western points; and from Chicago as a distributing
point to the West and Southwest; and on the western coast coming into
San Francisco and other ports there. No, 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 past ten years, the
national government itself has recently taken notice of its existence.”
Mr. Clifford G. Roe, formerly Assistant State’s Attorney, who has
prosecuted very many cases against the traffickers in women, said
before the union meeting of ministers called to consider the white
slave traffic, at the auditorium of the Young Men’s Christian
Association, February 10, 1908:
“A great many persons are yet skeptical of the existence of an
organized traffic in girls. They seem to think that those advocating
the abolition of this trade are either fanatics or notoriety seekers.
They doubt the truth of the impossibility of escape and content
themselves with the thought that girls use the plea of slavery to right
themselves with their parents and friends when their cases are made
public.
“However, if these same people could have been in the courts of Chicago
during the past year their minds would be disabused of the idea that
slavery does not exist in Chicago.
“The startling disclosures made in nearly a hundred cases ought to
arouse not only the citizens of Chicago, but the whole country to the
highest pitch of indignation.”
Chicago’s Soul Market.
“O, he keeps a bunch of 'fillies’ in the shanty down near the corner of
Monroe and Peoria streets, and they’re not foreigners, either. They’re
your nice American girls. No wonder he can make a bet like that on a
mere chance, from a roll of yellow-backs.” The speaker was a madam of
a Peoria street resort, the listeners a motley crowd of women gathered
in the rear room of a popular saloon and gambling house not far from
the corner of Green and Madison streets on the seething, congested
west side of Chicago. These women assembled in that screened back room
to risk their hard-earned or evil-gotten money on the horses of the
Louisville race track.
There sat the little eighteen-year-old, brown-eyed milliner, her
dissipated face hollow and drawn from worry and lack of sleep and an
insufficient quantity of nourishing food, while near her a white-haired
old woman in shabby black was tightly grasping two quarters, her entire
worldly possession. Just across sat a well-dressed woman restaurant
keeper, a young Eastern Star, and half a hundred others, above all of
whom shone the yellow-haired madam of the Peoria street resort, the
star patron of that great gambling room for women, each one of whom was
eagerly beckoning the well-groomed bookmaker, feverishly anxious to get
her pittance on the race track favorite, when a connecting door was
pushed suddenly open and in rushed a fashionably-dressed, brutal-faced
young Russian Jew, holding loosely an immense roll of money. Tens,
twenties, hundreds—he came with them until three hundred dollars had
been placed to win upon a “clocker’s tip” in that day’s last race in
Louisville.
There was a grim, deadly silence, eating, unbearable silence in that
gambling room as they waited the ring of the telephone and the name of
the winner. Again the yellow-haired madam’s voice screamed shrilly out,
for she was indeed ill at ease, her money was on the favorite—“Yes, a
bunch of American 'fillies’ peddled out at fifty cents an hour to all
comers, black and white, sick or sound. No wonder he can make a play
like that on an outside chance.”
Three hundred dollars! My heart stood still almost. The thought
flashed through my brain that that wager meant hundreds of hours of
shame and slavery and horror to those girls in the shanties down on
Peoria Street, some mother’s girl, every one of them. I sat still for
a little while and watched the fevered, anxious throng about me. My
heart kept going faster and faster until I could bear it no longer.
American “fillies” and body and soul under a brutal Russian Jewish
whoremonger! I slipped quietly out into the street; night was coming on
as I walked down Madison street and south on Peoria. Yes, there were
the shanties—poor, wretched hovels, every one of them. Out shone the
flickering red lights, out came the discordant, rasping sound of the
rented piano, out belched the shrieks of drunken harlots, mingled with
the groans and curses of task-masters in a foreign tongue, attracting
the attention of the hundreds of laborers, negroes and boys, as they
walked home on Peoria street from their day’s work. On I went until
I came to the little shed just north of the slum saloon occupied by
one S——, and checking my steps I looked around me on the squalid,
wretched scene. I was in the midst of prostitution at its lowest—the
heart-breaking dregs of Chicago’s twenty-two thousand public women.
Yes, there they were—the fair young American girl, the stolid Russian
Jewess, the middle-aged, syphilitic harlot, living, prostituting,
dying, like so many hurt, broken moths around that great Red
Light—Chicago’s west side soul market—their poor, wretched bodies, sold
day and night at from twenty-five to fifty cents an hour to all comers
who could pay the pitiful price demanded by their brutal, soulless
masters; and as I looked the burning fire of intense pity entered my
soul for these drug and drink-sodden, diseased, chained slaves—my
sisters in Christ in this great free American Republic—and so with a
heart full of consuming desire to know more of the real lives of these
scarlet women and to help them, if possible, I began at once a thorough
personal investigation of Chicago’s public slave market, visiting these
people in various capacities whenever occasion offered; talking with
them, gaining their much-abused confidence until I gradually learned
the inside lines of the saddest story America has ever known since the
black mothers of our Southland were torn from their black and white
babies and with shrieks of agony and heartstrings bleeding and souls
rent with blackened horror were sold to death on the plantations of
Louisiana and Mississippi, and I want to tell you who read this and who
think there is little truth in the now much agitated question of white
slavery in America, that in the dives and dens of our city’s underworld
I have heard shrieks and heart cries and groans of agony and remorse
that have never been surpassed at any public slave auction America has
ever witnessed, as these girls, many of them, oh! so young, realizing
their awful fate with scalding tears and moans of horror, shut out
from their hearts and lives father or mother, or husband and child
and turned their sob-shaken, tortured bodies to face the months or
years of final, relentless wretchedness and woe, to be at last thrown
out sick and broken to die in some alley or be carted off to Dunning
poorhouse to gradual physical decay and a pauper’s burial, and grave
and obliteration, while those who sold them just a few years before go
out in their diamonds and fine linen and their great automobiles to buy
up more girls (it might be your daughter—father, mother—or it might be
mine) to fill up the vacancy in the ranks of this vast army of white
slaves. A woman said to me the other day, and it was a lofty, sneering
tone, too: “I doubt if these women are ever coerced or even imposed
upon.” Listen! read, then listen! Sitting in my office one afternoon,
I listened, my blood almost freezing, to the following story, vouched
for by Mr. C——, an immigration inspector and brother of a well-known
Chicago reform-worker, and here it is as he told it to me: “One evening
some time ago I was looking up a case down in the Twenty-second
street red-light district, and visited and inspected, looking for
immigrant girls held illegally at a certain house of the lower class
in that neighborhood of prostitution. While in the house I noticed a
young woman lying very ill (in the last stages of consumption, if I
remember the story exactly) and in a semi-conscious condition, and to
my horror upon inquiry I learned that in the rush hours of business
this helpless, painracked young woman was open to all comers holding
an accredited room check.” My friends, there are true stories heard
and known every day around the city’s seething, blood-red soul market
that cannot be put in print—stories though, that, were they to become
known, would make decent Chicago rise as one man and cry with a voice
outspeaking Fort Sumpter, “White Slavery in Chicago and America must
cease!”