THE BOSTON HYPOCRISY.
Arraignment of False Modesty That Deters Well-Meaning
People from Fighting the White Slave Evil.
By Clifford G. Roe, Assistant State's Attorney of
Cook County, Illinois.
None of us is perfect. However, it is well to strive toward perfection.
It is well sometimes to look into the glass and see ourselves as others
see us. That is the very thing Boston needs to do at the present time.
Like the ostrich that hides her head in the sand and thinks because she
cannot see anyone no one can see her, Boston shuts her eyes to the
social evil problem and says there is no such thing here.
To learn whether or not the White Slave traffic is nation wide,
conditions in various parts of the country have been studied. From ocean
to ocean the trail of this monster can be seen. New York, Chicago and
San Francisco, and many other cities, realizing that there is a trade in
the bodies and souls of girls, are making determined efforts to blot it
out. They acknowledge its presence and they are fighting it. In New
England it is different. The good people there shun the thought of such
a subject. They have not learned that false modesty is a thing of the
past, and the time has come when we must know the social evil problem as
it is and meet it face to face.
In talking with one of the leading workers for the betterment of Boston
the above title was suggested, for he said: "The attitude of the people
here regarding social evil is plain Boston hypocrisy." The idea is to
hide the evil, if it is there. In this beautiful city there is not a
well-defined red light district or levee as the houses of ill-fame are
scattered throughout the city, often side by side with fine private
residences. Here and there is a district where perhaps a dozen or more
of the disorderly houses are located.
An idea of the volume of the vice business in Boston may be estimated
from one day in June when an observer counted 130 men who entered a
resort on Corning street between the hours of seven and twelve in the
evening.
A well-defined White Slave trade is difficult to discover in a short
time in any city. Citizens of Boston have not yet unearthed it. They say
it is not there. They tell of an isolated case which happened a long
time ago. Boston and other New England cities have all the elements
which make a traffic in girls quite certain. By going to the very bottom
and getting information from those "who know" the business from the
ground up, who live in it, and work in it, some very reliable facts have
been gathered.
Walking down Washington, Tremont or Boylston streets in Boston at night,
from say eight until ten o'clock, scores of girls are seen picking up
fellows. Some are professionals, while others flirt just to have a good
time, probably. In Providence, R. I., where Miss Margaret H. Dennehy has
revealed a White Slave traffic, conditions are just as bad in regard to
girls publicly displaying themselves as in Boston. This is the first
symptom of something wrong which any visitor cannot help but see. Now
let us look about the city a little and see what we can find. In Hayward
place, one-half block from Washington street, the main shopping street
of Boston, under the very nose of one of the largest retail stores, are
the H---- and the E----, two places such as would only be tolerated in
the lowest red light district of any city. Girls, and many young girls,
too, sit at the tables and solicit men. On Beach street, one-half block
from Washington street, is the D----, a similar place, owned by a
Frenchman. The P---- G---- on Sudbery street is much worse than any of
the others. The first three are within two blocks of Boylston and
Washington streets, the principal corner in Boston.
One has but to pick up the telephone book and find the numbers there of
at least two hundred houses of ill-repute. Chicago, one of the
acknowledged centers of vice, does not tolerate that; nor can you find
such places in the principal shopping districts of Chicago as those I
refer to in the above paragraph. One of the most glaring examples of
disorderly places--which the good citizens there overlooked--in the
business district is the B---- house of prostitution on Bulfinch street,
almost within a stone's throw of the State House and Capitol of
Massachusetts.
Taking the biography of one hundred girls in disreputable houses at
random, it was learned that about one-third come to Boston from Canada,
mainly Nova Scotia.
To one who has made a study of the White Slave traffic the first
question when one finds so many disorderly places is, where do they get
the girls from? Why do so many come from one locality? Is the supply
equal to the demand? Are there enough persons entering into such a life
voluntarily each year to keep the places going? The average life of one
of these girls is about five years, according to the best statistics.
Boston and the other New England cities have the "cadet system"--meaning
men and boys living from the earnings of girls engaged in this unlawful
business. Most "cadets" procure girls--and that is the question for New
England to solve.
Are the "cadets" there engaged in the business of trading in girls? It
is said that a certain Bobbie B----, a well known "cadet" in Boston,
procured about seventy girls to be sent to Panama. A certain Lena D----,
who was born in Quebec, is known to be procuring girls from Lowell,
Mass., and the country districts, for a fast life in Boston. She perhaps
is the greatest woman trader in human souls in New England. According to
her own statement she "trains them to be wise." This woman once worked
in Lowell in a shoe factory. The French, Jewish and Italian procurers
are not so much in evidence in New England as in other American cities.
The coast "cadets" there are mainly Canadians.
A new way of procuring girls has developed in Boston. Wayward girls who
have offended the law in one way or another are placed on probation. The
"cadets" go to the court records, find the girls' names who are on
probation and persuade them to run away in order to evade probation and
to secure freedom from the probation officers. There are instances where
these girls have been sent into houses of bad character at Lowell,
Portland, Worcester, the road house at Corderville, and other towns.
While the White Slave trade may not be as well developed in New England
as in other parts of the country--to a certain extent it is there; and
it is only to awaken the people to a realization of this fact that this
article is written. Over two and a half years ago Chicago was told that
there was a White Slave traffic, and the people were indignant. It
seemed romantic and unbelievable. But Chicago knows it only too well
today. Boston must be awakened in the same way. People will say it
cannot be true. Indeed, it is hard to find because secrecy is its
success. It keeps hidden in the darkness. Someone in Boston will drag it
out into the light, and we stand ready to aid in any way we can. White
Slavery is the system of making good girls bad or bad girls worse. It is
the modern method of men living from the loathsome earnings of
disreputable women.
Let me tell you of a twenty-one-year-old girl in Boston. She was born in
New York City. Her father is dead and her mother is an actress. She is
pretty and well educated. This girl, by living a disreputable life,
supports a Jewish "cadet" who is coarse and vulgar, and who beats her
when she fails to bring back to him as much money as he desires.
Many of the girls come from or go to Washington. There seems to be a
sort of an underground roadway between Boston and Washington which many
of these girls travel. Hundreds of these girls do not live in the
disorderly houses, but have their own apartments, and are summoned to
the houses by telephone. The houses to which they are thus summoned are
known as "call houses." At these houses descriptions of the various
girls are kept, as to height, complexion, etc. In examining the laws of
Massachusetts relating to procuring, we find the same flaws which
existed in Illinois and the other states before the passage of the
pandering laws.
In the revised laws of Massachusetts, 1902, Vol. 2, page 1785, Sec. 2,
the procuring must be fraudulent and deceitful and the woman must be
unmarried and of chaste life. If the procurer marries the girl to
circumvent the law he cannot be prosecuted; if the girl makes one
mistake in life, she cannot be protected from being procured. In many
cities the evidence in the cases shows that "cadets" are paid to marry
girls by White Slave traders so that prosecution may be avoided and they
may thus crawl through one of the many loopholes in moss-covered laws
made before pandering became a curse upon civilization. Because a girl
is not of chaste life is no reason she wants to become a prostitute. One
wrong step and she is no longer chaste, and then we say, according to
the law, let her shift for herself. We all make mistakes, so let us be
charitable. The words "previous chaste life" should be erased from the
law and all female persons should be protected from the traders.
There are four ways of combating the White Slave evil; proper laws
regulating the procuring of girls; the enforcement of these laws;
education as to this great social evil, and publicity--that is, finding
the evil and then making it known. Let New England awaken and look about
her and she will catch the true spirit of this article, which is meant
to be one of helpfulness and written only with kindest motives.
Embellished with quaint landmarks and historical retreats dear to all
the nation and beautiful in its past, let it not live in this past
alone, but be alive to modern ideas and agencies. There is one society
known as the New England Watch and Ward, with headquarters in Boston,
which has begun to pierce into the hidden mystery of the traffic in
girls. It is managed by able men, and its secretary, J. Frank Chase, is
already on the trail of the White Slave monster. Through this society
great efforts will be made no doubt in the near future to eliminate
whatever exists of this nefarious traffic in Boston. Let us hope the
Boston people will meet this problem fearlessly, candidly and honestly,
and when they do they will have gone a long way toward stamping out the
worst evil of the age.