THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE OF TODAY.
By Edwin W. Sims, United States District Attorney,
Chicago.
There are some things so far removed from the lives of normal, decent
people as to be simply unbelievable by them. The "white slave" trade of
today is one of these incredible things. The calmest, simplest
statements of its facts are almost beyond the comprehension or belief of
men and women who are mercifully spared from contact with the dark and
hideous secrets of "the under world" of the big cities.
You would hardly credit the statement, for example, that things are
being done every day in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and other large
cities of this country in the white slave traffic which would, by
contrast, make the Congo slave traders of the old days appear like Good
Samaritans. Yet this figure is almost a literal truth. The man of the
stone age who clubbed the woman of his desire into insensibility or
submission was little short of a high-minded gentleman when contrasted
with the men who fatten upon the "white slave" traffic in this day of
social settlements, of forward movements, of Y. M. C. A. and Christian
Endeavor activities, of air ships and wireless telegraphy.
Naturally, wisely, every parent who reads this statement will at once
raise the question: "What excuse is there for the open discussion of
such a revolting condition of things in the pages of a published book?
What good is there to be served by flaunting so dark and disgusting a
subject before the family circle?"
Only one--and that is a reason and not an excuse! The recent examination
of more than two hundred "white slaves" by the office of the United
States district attorney at Chicago has brought to light the fact that
literally thousands of innocent girls from the country districts are
every year entrapped into a life of hopeless slavery and degradation
because parents in the country do not understand conditions as they
exist and how to protect their daughters from the "white slave" traders
who have reduced the art of ruining young girls to a national and
international system. I sincerely believe that nine-tenths of the
parents of these thousands of girls who are every year snatched from
lives of decency and comparative peace and dragged under the slime of an
existence in the "white slave world" have no idea that there is really a
trade in the ruin of girls as much as there is a trade in cattle or
sheep or other products of the farm. If these parents had known the real
conditions, had believed that there is actually a syndicate 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.
Is not this, then, reason enough for a little plain speech to parents?
The purpose of all our laws and statutes against crime is the
suppression of crime. The protection of the people, of the home, of the
individual is the purpose which inspires the honest and conscientious
prosecutor. This is what the law is for, and if this result of
protection to individuals and homes can be made more effective and more
general by a statement such as this, then I am willing to make it for
the public good. And the most direct and unadorned statement of facts
will, I think, carry its own conviction and make everything like
"preaching" or denunciation superfluous.
The evidence obtained from questioning some 250 girls taken in federal
raids on Chicago houses of ill repute leads me to believe that not fewer
than fifteen thousand girls have been imported into this country in the
last year as white slaves. Of course this is only a guess--an
approximate--it could be nothing else--but my own personal belief is
that it is a conservative guess and well within the facts as to numbers.
Then please remember that girls imported are certainly but a mere
fraction of the number recruited for the army of prostitution from home
fields, from the cities, the towns, the villages of our own country.
There is no possible escape from this conclusion.
Another significant fact brought out by the examination of these girls
is that practically every one who admitted having parents living begged
that her real name be withheld from the public because of the sorrow and
shame it would bring to her parents. One said: "My mother thinks I am
studying in a stenographic school"; another stated, "My parents in the
country think I have a good position in a department store--as I did
have for a time--and I've sent them a little money from time to time; I
don't care what happens, so long as they don't know the truth about me."
In a word, the one concern of nearly all those examined who have homes
in this country was that their parents--and in particular their
mothers--might discover, through the prosecution of the "white slavers,"
that they were leading lives of shame instead of working at the
honorable callings which they had left their homes and come to the city
to pursue. There are, to put it mildly, hundreds--yes, thousands--of
trusting mothers in the smaller cities, the towns, villages and farming
communities of the United States who believe that their daughters are
"getting on fine" in the city, and too busy to come home for a visit or
"to write much," while the fact is that these daughters have been swept
into the gulf of white slavery--the worst doom that can befall a
woman. The mother who has allowed her girl to go to the big city and
work should find out what kind of life that girl is living and find out
from some other source than the girl herself. No matter how good and
fine a girl she has been at home and how complete the confidence she has
always inspired, find out how she is living, what kind of associations
she is keeping. Take nothing for granted. You owe it to yourself and to
her and it is not disloyalty to go beyond her own words for evidence
that the wolves of the city have not dragged her from safe paths. It is,
instead, the highest form of loyalty to her.
[Illustration: AT THE LEFT WHITE SLAVE CLEARING HOUSE, AT THE RIGHT
GOSPEL MEETING
That the white slave organization is strong and wealthy is attested by
the large stone and brick building on the left. It is the respectable
appearance of the outside of this place that disarms suspicion until the
girls are inside.]
[Illustration: SORDID END OF THE LIFE OF SHAME
A few years is all that human nature can stand of the life in a resort.
Then they are cast out a mental, moral and physical wreck to live to the
end in some ramshackle building, shunned by everyone.]
Again, there is, in another particular, a remarkable and impressive
sameness in the stories related by these wretched girls. In the
narratives of nearly all of them is a passage describing how some man of
their acquaintance had offered to "help" them to a good position in the
city, to "look after" them, and to "take an interest" in them. After
listening to this confession from one girl after another, hour after
hour until you have heard it repeated perhaps fifty times, you feel like
saying to every mother in the country: Do not trust any man who pretends
to take an interest in your girl if that interest involves her leaving
her own roof. Keep her with you. She is far safer in the country than in
the big city, but if go to the city she must, then go with her yourself;
if that is impossible, place her with some woman who is your friend,
not hers; no girl can safely go to a great city to make her own way who
is not under the eye of a trustworthy woman who knows the ways and
dangers of city life. Above all, distrust the "protection," the "good
offices" of any man who is not a family friend known to be clean and
honorable and above all suspicion.
Of course all the examinations to which I have referred have been
conducted for the specific purpose of finding girls who have been
brought into this country from other lands in defiance of the federal
statute, passed by Congress February 20, 1907. This act declares that
any person who shall "keep, maintain, support or harbor" any alien woman
for immoral purposes within three years after her arrival in this
country shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be liable to a fine
of $5,000 and imprisonment for five years at the discretion of the
court. When the department of justice at Washington decided that this
law was being violated, the United States District Attorney at Chicago
was instructed to take such action as was necessary to apprehend the
violators of the act and convict them. One of the first steps required
was the raiding of the various dives and houses of ill fame and the
arrest of the girl inmates, as well as the arrest of the keepers and the
procurers of the white slaves.
While the federal prosecution is officially concerned only with those
cases involving the importation of girls from other countries--there
being no authority under the present national statutes for the federal
government to prosecute those concerned in securing white slaves who are
natives of this country--it was inevitable that the examination of
scores of these inmates, captured in raids upon the dives, should bring
to officers and agents of the department of justice an immense fund of
information regarding the methods of the white slave traders in
recruiting for their traffic from home fields.
Whether these hunters of the innocent ply their awful calling at home or
abroad their methods are much the same--with the exception that the
foreign girl is more hopelessly at their mercy. Let me take the case of
a little Italian peasant girl who helped her father till the soil in the
vineyards and fields near Naples. Like most of the others taken in the
raids, she stoutly maintained that she had been in this country more
than three years and that she was in a life of shame from choice and not
through the criminal act of any person. When she was brought into what
the sensational newspapers would call the "sweat box" it was clear that
she was in a state of abject terror. Soon, however, Assistant United
States District Attorney Parkin, having charge of the examination,
convinced her that he and his associates were her friends and protectors
and that their purpose was to punish those who had profited by her ruin
and to send her back to her little Italian home with all her expenses
paid; that she was under the protection of the United States and was as
safe as if the king of Italy would take her under his royal care and
pledge his word that her enemies should not have revenge upon her.
Then she broke down and with pitiful sobs related her awful narrative.
That every word of it was true no one could doubt who saw her as she
told it. Briefly this is her story: A "fine lady" who wore beautiful
clothes came to her where she lived with her parents, made friends with
her, told her she was uncommonly pretty (the truth, by the way), and
professed a great interest in her. Such flattering attentions from an
American lady who wore clothes as fine as those of the Italian nobility
could have but one effect on the mind of this simple little peasant girl
and on her still simpler parents. Their heads were completely turned and
they regarded the "American lady" with almost adoration.
Very shrewdly the woman did not attempt to bring the little girl back
with her, but held out hope that some day a letter might come with money
for her passage to America. Once there she would become the companion of
her American friend and they would have great times together.
Of course, in due time, the money came--and the $100 was a most
substantial pledge to the parents of the wealth and generosity of the
"American lady." Unhesitatingly she was prepared for the voyage which
was to take her to the land of happiness and good fortune. According to
the arrangements made by letter the girl was met at New York by two
"friends" of her benefactress who attended to her entrance papers and
took her in charge. These "friends" were two of the most brutal of all
the white slave traders who are in the traffic. At this time she was
about sixteen years old, innocent and rarely attractive for a girl of
her class, having the large, handsome eyes, the black hair and the rich
olive skin of a typical Italian.
Where these two men took her she did not know--but by the most violent
and brutal means they quickly accomplished her ruin. For a week she was
subjected to unspeakable treatment and made to feel that her degradation
was complete and final.
And here let it be said that the breaking of the spirit, the crushing of
all hope for any future save that of shame is always a part of the
initiation of a white slave. Then the girl was shipped on to Chicago,
where she was disposed of to the keeper of an Italian dive of the vilest
type. On her entrance here she was furnished with gaudy dresses and
wearing apparel for which the keeper of the place charged her $600. As
is the case with all new white slaves she was not allowed to have any
clothing which she could wear upon the street.
Her one object in life was to escape from the den in which she was held
a prisoner. To "pay out" seemed the surest way, and at length, from her
wages of shame, she was able to cancel the $600 account. Then she asked
for her street clothing and her release--only to be told that she had
incurred other expenses to the amount of $400.
Her Italian blood took fire at this and she made a dash for liberty. But
she was not quick enough and the hand of the oppressor was upon her. In
the wild scene that followed she was slashed with a razor, one gash
straight through her right eye, one across her cheek and another
slitting her ear. Then she was given medical attention and the wounds
gradually healed, but her face was horribly mutilated, her right eye is
always open and to look upon her is to shudder.
When the raids began she was secreted and arrangements made to ship her
to a dive in the mining regions of the west. Fortunately, however, a few
hours before she was to start upon her journey the United States
marshals raided the place and captured herself as well as her keepers.
To add to the horror of her situation she was soon to become a mother.
The awful thought in her mind, however, was to escape from assassination
at the hands of the murderous gang which oppressed her.
One recital of this kind is enough, although instances by the score
might be cited which differ only in detail and degree.
It is only necessary to say that the legal evidence thus far collected
establishes with complete moral certainty these awful facts: That the
white slave traffic is a system operated by a syndicate which has its
ramifications from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific ocean, with
"clearing houses" or "distributing centers" in nearly all of the larger
cities; that in this ghastly traffic the buying price of a young girl is
from $15 up and that the selling price is from $200 to $600--if the girl
is especially attractive the white slave dealer may be able to sell her
for as much as $800 or $1,000; that this syndicate did not make less
than $200,000 last year in this almost unthinkable commerce; that it is
a definite organization sending its hunters regularly to scour France,
Germany, Hungary, Italy and Canada for victims; that the man at the head
of this unthinkable enterprise is known among his hunters as "The Big
Chief."
Also the evidence shows that the hirelings of this traffic are stationed
at certain ports of entry in Canada, where large numbers of immigrants
are landed, to do what is known in their parlance as "cutting out work."
In other words, these watchers for human prey scan the immigrants as
they come down the gang plank of a vessel which has just arrived and
"spot" the girls who are unaccompanied by fathers, mothers, brothers or
relatives to protect them. The girl who has been spotted as a desirable
and unprotected victim is properly approached by a man who speaks her
language and is immediately offered employment at good wages, with all
expenses to the destination to be paid by the man. Most frequently
laundry work is the bait held out, sometimes housework or employment in
a candy shop or factory.
The object of the negotiations is to "cut out" the girl from any of her
associates and to get her to go with him. Then the only thing is to
accomplish her ruin by the shortest route. If they cannot be cajoled or
enticed by promises of an easy time, plenty of money, fine clothes and
the usual stock of allurements--or a fake marriage--then harsher methods
are resorted to. In some instances the hunters really marry the victims.
As to the sterner methods, it is of course impossible to speak
explicitly, beyond the statement that intoxication and drugging are
often used as a means to reduce the victims to a state of helplessness,
and sheer physical violence is a common thing.
When once a white slave is sold and landed in a house or dive she
becomes a prisoner. The raids disclosed the fact that in each of these
places is a room having but one door, to which the keeper holds the key.
In here are locked all the street clothes, shoes, and the ordinary
apparel of a woman.
The finery which is provided for the girl for house wear is of a nature
to make her appearance on the street impossible. Then added to this
handicap, is the fact that at once the girl is placed in debt to the
keeper for a wardrobe of "fancy" clothes which are charged to her at
preposterous prices. She cannot escape while she is in debt to the
keeper--and she is never allowed to get out of debt--at least until all
desire to leave the life is dead within her.
The examination of witnesses has brought out the fact that not many of
the women in this class expect to live more than ten years after they
enter upon their voluntary or involuntary life of white slavery. Perhaps
the average is less than that. Many died painful deaths by disease, many
by consumption, but it is hardly beyond the truth to say that suicide is
their general expectation. "We all come to it sooner or later," one of
the witnesses remarked to her companions in the jail, the other day,
when reading in the newspaper of the suicide of a girl inmate of a
notorious house.
A volume could be written on this revolting subject, but I have no
disposition to add a single word to what will open the eyes of parents
to the fact that white slavery is an existing condition--a system of
girl hunting that is national and international in its scope, that it
literally consumes thousands of girls--clean, innocent girls--every
year; that it is operated with a cruelty, a barbarism that gives a new
meaning to the word fiend; that it is an imminent peril to every girl in
the country who has a desire to get into the city and taste its
excitements and its pleasures.
The facts I have stated are for the awakening of parents and guardians
of girls. If I were to presume to say anything to the possible victims
of this awful scourge of white slavery it would be this: "Those who
enter here leave hope behind." The depths of debasement and suffering
disclosed by the investigation now in progress would make the flesh of a
seasoned man of the world creep with horror and shame.