_commercialised exploitation of prostitutes_. The independent
prostitute, living alone, scarcely lends herself to the White Slave
trader. It is on houses of prostitution, where the less independent and
usually weaker-minded prostitutes are segregated, that the traffic is
based. Such houses cannot even exist without such traffic. There is
little inducement for a girl to enter such a house, in full knowledge
of what it involves, on her own initiative. The proprietors of such
houses must therefore give orders for the "goods" they desire, and it
is the business of procurers, by persuasion, misrepresentation, deceit,
intoxication, to supply them. "The White Slave Traffic," as Kneeland
states, "is thus not only a hideous reality, but a reality almost
wholly dependent on the existence of houses of prostitution," and as
the authors of _The Social Evil_ state, it is "the most shameful
species of business enterprise in modern times."[1]
In this intimate dependence of the White Slave Traffic on houses of
prostitution, there lies, it may be pointed out, a hope for the future.
We are concerned, for the most part, with the more coarse-grained part
of the masculine population and with the more ignorant, degraded, and
weak-minded part of the army of prostitutes. Although much has been said
of the enormous extension of the White Slave Traffic during recent
years, it is important to remember that that extension is chiefly marked
in connection with the great new centres of population in the younger
countries. It is fostered by the conditions prevailing in crude,
youthful, prosperous, but incompletely blended, communities, which have
too swiftly attained luxury, but have not yet attained the more humane
and refined developments of civilisation, and among whom women are often
scarce.[2] Although there are not yet any very clear signs of the decay
of prostitution in civilisation, there can hardly be a doubt that
civilisation is unfavourable to houses of prostitution. They offer no
inducements to the more intelligent and independent prostitutes, and
their inmates usually present little attraction to any men save those
whose demands are of the humblest character. There is, therefore, a
tendency to the natural and spontaneous decay of organised houses of
prostitution under modern civilised conditions; the prostitute and her
clients alike shun such houses. Along this line we may foresee the
disappearance of the White Slave Traffic, apart altogether from any
social or legal attempts at its direct suppression.[3]
It is sometimes said that the relation of the isolated prostitute to her
_souteneur_ constitutes a form of "white slavery." Undoubtedly that may
sometimes be the case. We are here in a confused field where the facts
are complicated by a number of considerations, and where circumstances
may very widely differ, for the "fancy boy"--selected from affection by
the prostitute herself--may easily become the _souteneur_, or "cadet" as
he is termed in New York, who seduces and trains to prostitution a large
number of girls. The prostitute is so often a little weak in character
and a little defective in intelligence; she is so often regarded as a
legitimate prey by the world in which she moves, and a legitimate object
of contempt and oppression by the social world above her and its legal
officers, that she easily becomes abjectly dependent on the man who in
some degree protects her from this extortion, contempt, and oppression,
even though he sometimes trains her to his own ends and exploits her
professional activities for his own advantage. These circumstances so
often occur that some investigators consider that they represent the
general rule. No doubt they are the most conspicuous cases. But they can
scarcely be regarded as representing the normal relations of the
prostitute to the man she is attracted to. She is earning her own
living, and if she possesses a little modicum of character and
intelligence, she knows that she can choose her own lover and dismiss
him when she so pleases. He may beat her occasionally, but all over the
world this is not always displeasing to the primitively feminine woman.
"It is indeed true," as Kneeland remarks, "that many prostitutes do not
believe their lovers care for them unless they 'beat them up'
occasionally." The woman in this position is not more of a "white slave"
than many wives, and some husbands, who submit to the whims and
tyrannies of their conjugal partners, with, indeed, the additional
hardship and misfortune that they are legally bound to them. And the
_souteneur_, although from the respectable point of view he has put
himself into a low-down moral position, is, after all, not so very
unlike those parasitic wives who, on a higher social level, live lazily
on their husbands' professional earnings, and sometimes give much less
than the _souteneur_ in return.
When, however, we put aside the complicated question of the prostitute's
relationship to the man who is her lover, protector, and "bully," we
have to recognise that there really is a "White Slave Traffic," carried
on in a ruthlessly business-like manner and on an international scale,
with watchful agents, men and women, ever ready to detect and lure the
victims. But even this too amply demonstrated fact was not found
sufficiently highly spiced by the White Slave Traffic agitators. It was
necessary to excite the public mind by sensational incidents. Everyone
was told stories, as of incidents that had lately occurred in the next
street, of innocent, refined, and well-bred girls who were snatched away
by infamous brigands beneath the eyes of their friends, to be immured in
dungeons of vice and never more heard of. Such incidents, if they ever
occurred, would be too bizarre to be justifiably taken into account in
great social movements. But it is even doubtful whether they ever occur.
The White Slave traders are not heroes of romance, even of infamous
romance; less so, indeed, than many more ordinary criminals; they are
engaged in a very definite and very profitable business. They have no
need to run serious risks. The world is full of girls who are
over-worked, ill-paid, ignorant, weak, vain, greedy, lazy, or even only
afflicted with a little innocent love of adventure, and it is among
these that White Slave traders may easily find what their business
demands, while experience enables them to detect the most likely
subjects.
Careful inquiry, even among those who have made it their special
business to collect all the evidence that can be brought together to
prove the infamous character of the White Slave Traffic, has apparently
failed to furnish any reliable evidence of these sensational stories. It
is easy to find prostitutes who are often dissatisfied with the life (in
what occupation is it not easy?), but it is not easy to find prostitutes
who cannot escape from that life when they sufficiently wish to do so,
and are willing to face the difficulty of finding some other occupation.
The very fact that the whole object of their exploitation is to bring
them in contact with men belonging to the outside world is itself a
guarantee that they are kept in touch with that world. Mrs.
Billington-Grieg, a well-known pioneer in social movements, has
carefully investigated the alleged cases of forcible abduction which
were so freely talked about when the White Slave Bill was passed into
law in England, but even the Vigilance Societies actively engaged in
advocating the bill could not enable her to discover a single case in
which a girl had been entrapped against her will.[4] No other result
could reasonably have been expected. When so many girls are willing, and
even eager, to be persuaded, there is little need for the risky
adventure of capturing the unwilling. The uneasy realisation of these
facts cannot fail to leave many honest Vice-Crusaders with unpleasant
memories of their past.
It is not only in regard to alleged facts, but also in regard to
proposed remedies, that the White Slave Agitation may properly be
criticised. In England it distinguished itself by the ferocity with
which the lash was advocated, and finally legalised. Benevolent bishops
joined with genteel old maids in calling loudly for whips, and even in
desiring to lay them personally on the backs of the offenders,
notwithstanding that these Crusaders were nominally Christians, the
followers of a Master who conspicuously reserved His indignation, not
for sinners and law-breakers, but for self-satisfied saints and
scrupulous law-keepers--just the same kind of excellent people, in
fact, who are most prone to become Vice-Crusaders. Here again, it is
probable, many unpleasant memories have been stored up.
It is well recognised by criminologists that the lash is both a
barbarous and an ineffective method of punishment. "The history of
flagellation," as Collas states in his great work on this subject, "is
the history of a moral bankruptcy."[5] The survival of barbarous
punishments from barbarous days, when ferocious punishments were a
matter of course and the death penalty was inflicted for horse-stealing
without in the least diminishing that offence, may be intelligible. But
the re-enactment of such measures in so-called civilised days is an
everlasting discredit to those who advocate it, and a disgrace to the
community which permits it. This was pointed out at the time by a large
body of social reformers, and will no doubt be realised at leisure by
the persons concerned in the agitation.
Apart altogether from its barbarity, the lash is peculiarly unsuited
for use in the White Slave trade, because it will never descend on the
back of the real trader. The whip has no terrors for those engaged in
illegitimate financial transactions, for in such transactions the
principal can always afford to arrange that it shall fall on a
subordinate who finds it worth while to run the risks. This method has
long been practised by those who exploit prostitution for profit. To
increase the risks merely means that the subordinate must be more
heavily paid. That means that the whole business must be carried on
more actively to cover the increased risks and expenses. It is a very
ancient fact that moral legislation increases the evil it is designed
to combat.[6]
It is necessary to point out some of the unhappy features of this
agitation, not in order to minimise the evils it was directed against,
nor to insinuate that they cannot be lessened, but as a warning against
the reaction which follows such ill-considered efforts. The fiery
zealot in a fury of blind rage strikes wildly at the evil he has just
discovered, and then flings down his weapon, glad to forget all about
his momentary rage and the errors it led him into. It is not so that
ancient evils are destroyed, evils, it must be remembered, that derive
their vitality in part from human nature and in part from the structure
of our society. By ensuring that our workers, and especially our women
workers, are decently paid, so that they can live comfortably on their
wages, we shall not indeed have abolished prostitution, which is more
than an economic phenomenon,[7] but we shall more effectually check the
White Slave trader than by the most draconic legislation the most
imaginative Vice-Crusader ever devised. And when we ensure that these
same workers have ample time and opportunity for free and joyous
recreation, we shall have done more to kill the fascination of the
White Slave Traffic than by endless police regulations for the moral
supervision of the young.
No doubt the element of human nature in the manifestations we are
concerned with will still be at work, an obscure instinct often acting
differently in each sex, but tending to drive both into the same risks.
Here we need even more fundamental social changes. It is sheer
foolishness to suppose that when we raise our little dams in the path of
a great stream of human impulse that stream will forthwith flow calmly
back to its source. We must make our new channels concurrently with our
dams. If we wish to influence prostitution we must re-make our marriage
laws and modify our whole conception of the sexual relationships. In the
meanwhile, we can at least begin to-day a task of education which must
slowly though surely undermine the White Slave trader's stronghold. Such
an education needs to be not merely instruction in the facts of sex and
wise guidance concerning all the dangers and risks of the sexual life;
it must also involve a training of the will, a development of the sense
of responsibility, such as can never be secured by shutting our young
people up in a hot-house, sheltered from every fortifying breath of the
outside world. Certainly there are many among us--and precisely the most
hopeless persons from our present point of view--who can never grow into
really responsible persons.[8] Neither should they ever have been born.
It is our business to see that they are not born; and that, if they are,
they are at least placed under due social guardianship, so that we may
not be tempted to make laws for society in general which are only needed
by this feeble and infirm folk. Thus it is that when we seek to deal
with the White Slave Trader and his victims and his patrons we have to
realise that they are all very much, as we have made them, moulded by
their parents before birth, nourished on their mothers' knees. The task
of making them over again next time, and making them better, is a
revolutionary task, but it begins at home, and there is no home in which
some part of the task cannot be carried out.
It is possible that at some period in the world's history, not only will
the White Slave Traffic disappear, but even prostitution itself, and it
is for us to work towards that day. But we may be quite sure that the
social state which sees the last of the "social evil" will be a social
state very unlike ours.
[1] The nature of prostitution and of the White Slave Traffic and their
relation to each other may clearly be studied in such valuable
first-hand investigations of the subject as _The Social Evil: With
Special Reference to Conditions Existing in the City of New York_, 2nd
edition, edited by E.R.A. Seligman, Putnam's, 1912; _Commercialised
Prostitution in New York City_, by G.J. Kneeland, New York Century Co.,
1913; _Prostitution in Europe_, by Abraham Flexner, New York Century
Co., 1914; _The Social Evil in Chicago_, by the Vice-Commission of
Chicago, 1911. As regards prostitution in England and its causes I
should like to call attention to an admirable little book, _Downward
Paths_, published by Bell & Sons, 1916. The literature of the subject
is, however, extensive, and a useful bibliography will be found in the
first-named volume.
[2] This is especially true of many regions in America, both North and
South, where a hideous mixture of disparate nationalities furnishes
conditions peculiarly favourable to the "White Slave Traffic," when
prosperity increases. See, for instance, the well-informed and temperately
written book by Miss Jane Addams, _A New Conscience and
an Ancient Evil_, 1912.
[3] See Havelock Ellis: _Sex in Relation to Society (Studies in the
Psychology of Sex)_, Vol. VI., Ch. VII.
[4] "The White Slave Traffic," _English Review_, June, 1913. It is just
just the same in America. Mr. Brand-Whitlock, when Mayor of Toledo,
thoroughly investigated a sensational story of this kind brought to him
in great detail by a social worker and found that it possessed not the
slightest basis of truth. "It was," he remarks in an able paper on "The
White Slave" (_Forum_, Feb., 1914), "simply another variant of the story
that had gone the rounds of the continents, a story which had been
somehow psychologically timed to meet the hysteria which the pulpit,
the Press, and the legislature had displayed."
[5] G.F. Collas, _Geschichte des Flagellantismus_, 1913, Vol. I., p. 16.
[6] I have brought together some of the evidence on this point in the
chapter on "Immorality and the Law" in my book, _The Task of Social
Hygiene_.
[7] The idea is cherished by many, especially among socialists, that
prostitution is mainly an economic question, and that to raise wages is
to dry up the stream of prostitution. That is certainly a fallacy,
unsupported by careful investigators, though all are agreed that the
economic condition of the wage-earner is one factor in the problem. Thus
Commissioner Adelaide Cox, at the head of the Women's Social Wing of the
Salvation Army, speaking from a very long and extensive acquaintance
with prostitutes, while not denying that women are often "wickedly
underpaid," finds that the cause of prostitution is "essentially a
moral one, and cannot be successfully fought by other than moral
weapons."--(_Westminster Gazette_, Dec. 2nd, 1912). In a yet wider
sense, it may be said that the question of the causes of prostitution
is essentially social.
[8] This is a very important clue indeed in dealing with the problem of
prostitution. "It is the weak-minded, unintelligent girl," Goddard
states in his valuable work on _Feeblemindedness_, "who makes the White
Slave Traffic possible." Dr. Hickson found that over 85 per cent. of
the women brought before the Morals Court in Chicago were distinctly
feeble-minded, and Dr. Olga Bridgeman states that among the girls
committed for sexual delinquency to the Training School of Geneva,
Illinois, 97 per cent. were feeble-minded by the Binet tests, and to be
regarded as "helpless victims." (Walter Clarke, _Social Hygiene_, June,
1915, and _Journal of Mental Science_, Jan., 1916, p. 222.) There are
fallacies in these figures, but it would appear that about half of the
prostitutes in institutions are to be regarded as mentally defective.
XI
THE CONQUEST OF VENEREAL DISEASE
The final Report of the Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases has brought
to an end an important and laborious investigation at what many may
regard as an unfavourable moment. Perhaps, however, the moment is not so
unfavourable as it seems. There is no period when venereal diseases
flourish so exuberantly as in war time, and we shall have a sad harvest
to gather here when the War is over.[1] Moreover, the War is teaching us
to face the real facts of life more frankly and more courageously than
ever before, and there is no field, scarcely even a battlefield, where a
training in frankness and courage is so necessary as in this of Venereal
Disease. It is difficult even to say that there is any larger field, for
it has been found possible to doubt whether the great War of to-day, when
all is summed up, will have produced more death, disease, and misery than
is produced in the ordinary course of events, during a single generation,
by venereal disease.
There are, as every man and woman ought to know, two main and quite
distinct diseases (any other being unimportant) poetically termed
"Venereal" because chiefly, though not by any means only, propagated in
the intercourse over which the Roman goddess Venus once presided. These
two diseases are syphilis and gonorrhoea. Both these diseases are very
serious, often terrible, in their effects on the individual attacked,
and both liable to be poisonous to the race. There has long been a
popular notion that, while syphilis is indeed an awful disease,
gonorrhoea may be accepted with a light heart. That, we now know, is a
grave mistake. Gonorrhoea may seem trivial at the outset, but its
results, especially for a woman and her children (when it allows her to
have any), are anything but trivial; while its greater frequency, and
the indifference with which it is regarded, still further increase its
dangers.
About the serious nature of syphilis there is no doubt. It is a
comparatively modern disease, not clearly known in Europe before the
discovery of America at the end of the fifteenth century, and by some
authorities[2] to-day supposed to have been imported from America. But
it soon ravaged the whole of our world, and has continued to do so ever
since. During recent years it has perhaps shown a slight tendency to
decrease, though nothing to what could be achieved by systematic
methods; but its evils are still sufficiently alarming. Exactly how
common it is cannot be ascertained with certainty. At least 10 per
cent., probably more, of the population in our large cities have been
infected by syphilis, some before birth. In 1912 for an average strength
of 120,000 men in the English Navy, nearly 300,000 days were lost as a
result of venereal disease, while among 100,000 soldiers in the Home
Army for the same year, an average of nearly 600 men were constantly
sick from the same cause. We may estimate from this small example how
vast must be the total loss of working power due to venereal disease.
Moreover, in Sir William Osler's words, "of the killing diseases
syphilis comes third or fourth." Its prevalence varies in different
regions and different social classes. The mortality rate from syphilis
for males above fifteen is highest for unskilled labour, then for the
group intermediate between unskilled and skilled labour, then for the
upper and middle class, followed by the group intermediate between this
class and skilled labour, while skilled labour, textile workers, and
miners follow, and agricultural labourers come out most favourably of
all. These differences do not represent any ascending grade in virtue or
sexual abstinence, but are dependent upon differences in social
condition; thus syphilis is comparatively rare among agricultural
labourers because they associate only with women they know and are not
exposed to the temptation of strange women, while it is high among the
upper class because they are shut out from sexual intimacy with women of
their own class and so resort to prostitutes. On the whole, however, it
will be seen, the poison of syphilis is fairly diffused among all
classes. This poison may work through many years or even the whole of
life, and its early manifestations are the least important. It may begin
before birth: thus, one recent investigation shows that in 150
syphilitic families there were only 390 seemingly healthy children to
401 infant deaths, stillbirths, and miscarriages (as against 172 in 180
healthy families), the great majority of these failures being infant
deaths and thus representing a large amount of wasted energy and
expense.[3] Syphilis is, again, the most serious single cause of the
most severe forms of brain disease and insanity, this often coming on
many years after the infection, and when the early symptoms were but
slight. Blindness and deafness from the beginning of life are in a large
proportion of cases due to syphilis. There is, indeed, no organ of the
body which is not liable to break down, often with fatal results,
through syphilis, so that it has been well said that a doctor who knows
syphilis thoroughly is familiar with every branch of his profession.
Gonorrhoea is a still commoner disease than syphilis; how common it is
very difficult to say. It is also an older disease, for the ancient
Egyptians knew it, and the Biblical King Esarhaddon of Assyria, as the
records of his court show, once caught it. It seems to some people no
more serious than a common cold, yet it is able to inflict much
prolonged misery on its victims, while on the race its influence in the
long run is even more deadly than that of syphilis, for gonorrhoea is
the chief cause of sterility in women, that is to say, in from 30 to 50
per cent. of such cases, while of cases of sterility in men (which form
a quarter to a third of the whole) gonorrhoea is the cause in from 70 to
90 per cent. The inflammation of the eyes of the new-born leading to
blindness is also in 70 per cent. cases due to gonorrhoea in the mother,
and this occurs in over six per 1,000 births.