WARFARE AGAINST THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE.
By Clifford G. Roe, Assistant State's Attorney of
Cook County, Ill.
There is a problem of slavery today for the people to solve. The
question is: "How shall the warfare against White Slavery be waged to
blot out this cloud upon civilization expeditiously?" Over two years ago
I learned that there was a gigantic slave trade in women, and with a
handful of people we began to fight the traders. That a system of
slavery, debasing and vile, had grown to enormous proportions before our
very doors seemed beyond belief, an impossibility, and even romantic.
Most people were skeptical of the existence of a well defined and
organized traffic in girls, and they seemed to think that those
advocating the abolition of this nefarious trade were either visionists
or fanatics. The struggle against this trade in women was a hard one at
first. The ministry, although dazed, were finally aroused to an
appreciation of the truth.
Having faith in the people, and believing that this republic lauds and
honors the chastity and sanctity of women, I believed in bringing this
hideous traffic in girls to the public notice, and when our citizens
fully realized its importance they would rise to the occasion and aid in
the warfare to exterminate white slavery. The result has been most
gratifying, for churches, clubs, associations, newspapers, men and women
in all walks of life have taken up the cause. Great armies like those of
a generation ago cannot uproot this slavery, but the slavery of today
must be eliminated by publicity, education, legislation and law
enforcement. That is the reason magazines have brought to their readers
facts concerning this hideous trade. The results of this heroic work
have been wonderful, for thousands of letters inquiring about white
slavery have been received, and associations and clubs have formed to
fight white slavery, and legislation upon the subject has been
introduced in many states. If this great good to our social life could
not be brought about by publicity, there would not be any reason for
bringing before the people and into the midst of the family circle facts
which are so black and revolting. But to know and understand we must
cast aside false modesty, take off our kid gloves and handle this great
social problem with our naked hands.
The trade in women is domestic and foreign, local and international. The
Honorable Edwin W. Sims, United States District Attorney at Chicago, and
Harry A. Parkin, his Assistant, have been waging valiant warfare against
the foreign and international trade during the past year. Articles in
leading magazines which were written by them have dealt chiefly with
that phase of the white slave trade. They have explained, also, the debt
system as a means of keeping the girls in resorts after they are
procured and sold. It is with the domestic and local trade I have been
mostly concerned. In Chicago alone there are more than 5,000 women
leading a life of shame, and statistics show that the average life of a
fallen woman is five years. One thousand persons must, therefore, be
recruited every year in Chicago alone. How many voluntarily go into this
life? It is estimated about forty per cent! This shows us that sixty per
cent are led into it by some scheme or entrapped and sold, and at least
two-thirds of this number are from our own country, being inveigled from
farms, towns and cities. One may inquire, "How is it that girls are
procured so easily without the public being aware of what is going on?"
The answer is that love and ambition are the baits which the procurers
flaunt in the faces of their proposed victims. Often it happens that
promises of positions on the stage, in stores, and various occupations
alluring to young girls cause many to fall, captives in the great net
set for them.
During the past two years there have been more than two hundred and
fifty white slave cases tried in Chicago under the Illinois law,
resulting in scores of confessions made by the procurers, and statements
by hundreds of the girls who were procured as to the methods employed
by the traders.
To show how easily it is done, let me tell you a story of a girl from
Elgin, Illinois, who was caught by the love scheme. One day this pretty
little German lass was in a Chicago store buying sheet music when a
well-dressed, handsome, young man, apparently looking at music, too,
asked her the names of some of the latest popular songs, as he wanted to
buy them. At first she turned away and did not heed him, but he was not
to be repulsed, and pressing his attentions further upon her, he finally
engaged her in conversation. A luncheon at a nearby restaurant, in which
she joined him, was the result, and there he told her how at first sight
he had fallen in love with her beauty. After lunch he suggested a visit
to his bachelor apartments, but this she refused. Seeing that this plan
was a failure, he asked her to marry him then and there. The silly girl,
believing he loved her, and enchanted by the picture he had painted of
his father's wealth and fine home in New York City, consented, and they
were married. After the ceremony he told her that he was about "broke,"
and said that he would take her to a place where she could make enough
money in a few days to pay their way to New York, where everything would
be lovely, and as they were married it would be no one's business how
she got the money. Immediately accounts of white slave procurers which
she had read came to her mind, and she then realized what she had
fallen into. Lest she might arouse in him suspicion, she consented to do
as he asked, but told him that before going out to the resort she wanted
to buy some clothing, and arranged to meet him at a certain down-town
corner toward evening. She hurried to the County Court, where an escort
was given her, and she was brought to the court where I was prosecuting.
I armed an officer with a warrant and he followed the girl to the
appointed place of meeting. The young man was there waiting for his
victim. The officer stepped up and put him under arrest, and the next
day he was tried and convicted. It was then learned that he was a well
known procurer of girls. Thus saved from a life of ruin, the Elgin girl
went home heart-broken, but wiser for her experience. Recently she
secured in the County Court an annulment of the marriage. Inquiry proved
that the girl was from a very respectable home, and that she had always
been a good, honest, industrious girl. Many similar cases have come out
in the courts; however, the girls in most instances were not favored by
the same good fortune which blessed the little girl from Elgin, and the
outcome was much more disastrous. This is an illustration of the ease
with which panderers make use of love as a means of securing girls for
immoral houses.
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.
[Illustration: "MY GOD! IF ONLY I COULD GET OUT OF HERE."
The midnight shriek of a young girl in the vice district of a large
city, heard by two worthy men, started a crusade which resulted in
closing up the dens of shame in that city. (See page 450.)]
[Illustration: A GILDED PALACE OF SIN
Showing the gay and attractive front entrance where the white slave
trader sells young girls into a life of shame]
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.