PRACTICAL MEANS OF PROTECTING GIRLS.
By Harry A. Parkin, Assistant United States District
Attorney, Chicago.
What can be done about it?
There could be no legitimate excuse for exploiting the white slave trade
in the public prints without the definite and sincere purpose of
securing practical and substantial protection against this terrible
social scourge. Such is as surely the purpose of this article as it has
been that of the excellent articles by Hon. Edwin W. Sims which have
brought out a vast and interesting volume of correspondence.
Many of these letters have been from fathers and mothers aroused to
anxiety about daughters who have been allowed to seek a livelihood in
large cities without suitable oversight or protection. In some instances
the worst fears of these parents have been, by definite investigation,
shown to be all too well founded.
Other letters have come, by the score, from public officials and from
public spirited men and women who have at last been stirred to a
realization that there is an actual, systematic and widespread traffic
in girls as definite, as established, as mercenary and as fiendish as
was the African slave trade in its blackest days. And practically all
these letters indicate that very few of those who have been finally
aroused to the enormity of existing conditions have any clear idea of
what should or may be done to protect these daughters of our own people
from the ravages of the white slave traders.
A letter from the Mayor of a Connecticut city is typical of the common
misconception among cultivated and well informed public officials who
have not given the legal phases of the repression of the white slave
trade especial and exhaustive study. The Mayor writes:
"I should think that the Federal Government would have to pass stringent
laws providing a heavy penalty for all who are engaged in this business.
The law would then be the same in all states and people could not escape
from its provision as they would if the states tried to take up the
matter and passed conflicting statutes. An organization might secure the
passage of such an act by the Federal Government, but it hardly seems to
me that it is necessary, more than to state the facts, and have the
members of congress take immediate action that would put an end to the
whole matter."
While it is probably true that the Federal Government has power to
prohibit the carrying of women from one state to another for immoral
purposes, that power has not yet been specifically established by
actual tests in court and is therefore, in a sense, undefined. On the
other hand the states, under their police power, have a remedy in their
own hands, and it would seem both logical and natural that this power be
exercised in the protection of its own homes and daughters. As a matter
of fact we have found literally scores of cases, in our investigations
relative to the importation from foreign countries of girls destined for
immoral houses, where American born girls have been lured or kidnaped
from a home in one state and carried to some large city in another
state, there to be broken to the life of shame.
The federal investigations in Chicago and other localities have clearly
established the fact, that, generally speaking, houses of ill-fame in
large cities do not draw their recruits to any great extent from the
territory immediately surrounding them; for obvious reasons the white
slavers who are the recruiting agents for the vile traffic prefer to
work in states more or less distant from the centers to which their
victims are destined.
In view of all this it must be clearly apparent that the need of the
hour is legislation which will make it as difficult and dangerous for a
white slaver to take his victim from one state into another as it is for
him to bring a girl from France or Italy or Canada, or any other foreign
country, to a house of ill-fame in Chicago or any American city.
Therefore, it is suggested that if each state in the union would pass
and enforce severe and stringent laws against this importation, this
terrible traffic would be dealt a blow in its most vulnerable part. Such
an enactment might well be worded as follows:
"Whoever shall induce, entice or procure, or attempt to induce, entice
or procure, to come into this state, any woman or girl for the purpose
of prostitution or concubinage, or for any other immoral purpose, or to
enter any house of prostitution in this state, shall, upon conviction,
be imprisoned in the penitentiary for a period of not less than one (1)
nor more than five (5) years and be fined not more than five thousand
($5,000) dollars."
One of the strangest results brought about by the recent white slave
prosecutions in Chicago and the publicity which they have received, has
been the astonishment of thousands of persons, as evidenced by letters,
at the fact that such a wholesale traffic is actually in existence. But
what is still more astounding, not to say discouraging, is the
reluctance of the other thousands to believe that many hundreds of men
and women are actually engaged in the business of luring girls and women
to their destruction, and that this infamous traffic is being carried on
in every state of the union every day of the year.
Perhaps the actuality of this awful avocation may be made more clearly
apparent to the innocent and unsophisticated doubters whose awakening
and moral support is needed, if I cite one or two instances which have
come to my personal knowledge within the last few days.
In a comfortable farm home in a state bordering upon Illinois is an
uncommonly attractive young girl who has, almost by accident, been
delivered from the worst fate which can possibly befall a young woman.
Through secret service operations one of the most dangerous "procurers"
of this country was traced to the home in which this beautiful girl had
been adopted as a daughter. The white slaver had already ingratiated
himself into her confidence and that of her foster-parents, and
arrangements had practically been made by which she was to accompany him
to Chicago, where he had a "fine position" awaiting her. If he had not
been located and his character made known to the household at the time
when this was done, she would now be a white slave in a Chicago den.
Another case which has had a less fortunate termination is that which
involves the "fake" marriage, a subterfuge common in this wretched
traffic. A young man made the acquaintance of a handsome girl in the
North Side district of Chicago. He was polished and plausible and the
parents of the girl, who were ambitious for their daughter's
advancement, were apparently flattered that he should bestow his
attentions upon her. When, after very brief courtship, he proposed
marriage, they offered no objections and even set aside their own
wishes when he suggested that he held prejudices against being married
by a clergyman and against having a formal wedding. Consequently they
went before a "Justice of the Peace," who pronounced them man and
wife--a "fake" Justice, who was merely a confederate of the white
slaver. They went at once to San Antonio, Texas, he having claimed that
he held a very profitable position in a large business concern in that
city. When they arrived there the poor girl had her awful awakening, for
she was promptly sold into the life of shame without hope of escape from
its degrading servitude.
Another very effective regulation which every state will do well to
adopt by enactment of its general assembly is that making the premises
leased or used for a house of ill-fame liable for any and all fines
against its lessee.
The following seems to me a desirable clause covering this point:
"Whoever keeps or maintains a house of ill-fame, or a place for the
practice of prostitution or lewdness, or whoever patronizes the same, or
lets any house, room or other premises for any such purpose, or shall
keep a lewd, ill-governed or disorderly house to the encouragement of
idleness, gambling, drinking, fornication or other misbehavior, shall be
fined not exceeding one thousand ($1,000) dollars. When the lessee or
keeper of a dwelling house or other building is convicted under this
section the lease or contract for letting the premises shall, at the
option of the lessor, become void and the lessor may have like remedy to
recover the possession as against a tenant holding over after the
expiration of his term. And whoever shall lease any house, room or other
premises, in whole or in part, for any of the uses or purposes finable
under this section, or knowingly permits the same to be so used or kept,
shall be fined not exceeding one thousand ($1,000) dollars and the house
or premises so leased, occupied or used shall be held liable for, and
may be sold for, any judgment obtained under this section."
Some enactment of this nature is particularly desirable for two reasons:
First, because actual experience has shown that judgments obtained
against keepers of such houses are difficult of collection and that the
ones against whom the judgments are obtained are remarkably resourceful
in avoiding punishment even after conviction. Second, it seems obvious
that when a property owner knows that his real estate is particularly
available for houses of this character he is, if unprincipled enough to
do so, bound to encourage the use of his premises for that which will
bring him the largest money returns. This puts him in the way of
fattening upon the wages of the social vice without incurring danger of
punishment. Naturally he becomes a friend of the traffic and ready to
aid and abet it wherever and whenever he can. Therefore it seems to me
he should no longer be allowed to escape the penalties attached to
those who engage in this infamous trade. As the owner of the property on
which unlawful acts are persistently committed, and as a sharer in the
unlawful profits of those acts, he should be made to share also in its
perils and punishments; he should be made to feel that, as the owner of
the property used for the purpose of harboring fallen women he is a link
in the chain which draws innocent womanhood to its doom and that he must
suffer to the full proportion of his guilt. Again, it is the first
instinct of the lessee or keeper of such a house, on coming in contact
with the law, to flee and forfeit his or her bonds. By making the
property itself liable to forfeiture, absolute security against this
kind of thing is established, thereby preventing many a miscarriage of
justice and of just penalties.
Since the beginning of the recent prosecutions in Chicago a score of
keepers, realizing their guilt and fearing prosecution, have fled the
country and have not yet been apprehended. If both the federal and the
state governments had a law of this kind the escape of these criminals
would not have involved a complete defeat of the law in their cases, for
prosecution could have been brought against some person connected with
their establishments, and when a conviction was secured the property
occupied by them could have been closed out. A statute of this kind,
wherever enacted, can scarcely fail to prove one of the most powerful
and effective of all possible weapons against the white slave traffic.
And the smaller the city, the more effective will this weapon be
found--which is only another way of saying that the larger the city the
larger the toleration of the social vice.
One of the greatest weapons in the hands of the white slavers and of the
keepers of houses of ill-fame to prevent the escape of fresh recruits
and to submerge them into hopeless slavery is the system of indebtedness
which is practiced in these places. The one object of those concerned in
the subjugation of a girl who has become a victim of the wiles of the
white slaver is to break down all hope of escape from the life of shame
and bitterness into which she has been entrapped. Nothing has been found
so effective a means to this end as the debtor system. The first thing a
girl is compelled to do on being thrown into one of these houses is to
buy an expensive wardrobe at from five to six times its actual value. To
be more definite, I have in my possession bills rendered against certain
inmates taken from the dens. In these bills stockings costing 75 cents
have been charged at $3.00; shoes costing $2.50 are charged at $8.00,
and kimonos costing $4.00 are charged at $15.00. As the goods themselves
were seized as well as the bills for them, I am able to make this
statement. In every case I have found that the girl was compelled to
renew her outfit of finery whenever the keeper so dictated, without
regard to her need of it. Our investigations have all shown that when
a keeper imagined that a girl, an inmate, is intending to leave the
place either openly or secretly, a new outfit is forced upon her at
absurd figures and she is told that she cannot leave until every cent of
her indebtedness has been wiped out, and that if she attempts to do so,
they will "put the law on her." In the dozens of cases which I have
examined there has not been a single one which has failed to show
evidence of this kind. I have in my possession numerous copies of bills
rendered against these wretched women in which their costumes reach as
high a figure at $1,200 and even $1,500. This indebtedness system is
mutually recognized and enforced between the keepers of all houses; in
other words, no girl can leave one house and enter another unless she is
able to show that she leaves no indebtedness behind her.
[Illustration: HON. CLIFFORD G. ROE]
[Illustration: HON. HARRY A. PARKIN]
As this phase of business in the underworld is one of the main props of
white slavery it is well to go into it with definiteness and to give
examples which illustrates its operation.
In one of the recent raids a big Irish girl was taken and held as a
witness. She was old enough, strong enough and wise enough, it seemed to
me, to have overcome almost any kind of opposition--even physical
violence. She could have put up a fight which few men, no matter how
brutal, would care to meet. I asked her why she did not get out of the
house, which was one of the worst in Chicago. Her answer was: "Get
out--I can't. They make us buy the cheapest rags and they are charged
against us at fabulous prices; they make us change outfits at intervals
of two or three weeks, until we are so deeply in debt that there is no
hope of ever getting out from under. Then, to make such matters worse,
we seldom get an accounting oftener than once in six months and
sometimes ten months or a year will pass between settlements--and when
we do get an accounting it is always to find ourselves deeper in debt
than before. We've simply got to stick and that's all there is to it."
To frame an enactment which will knock this prop of indebtedness system
out from under the white slave business might appear to be a most
difficult matter, and yet I believe that the legislature which enacts a
statute of which the following clause is the essential part will go a
long way towards accomplishing this most desired result:
"And whoever shall hold, detain, restrain, or attempt to hold, detain or
restrain in any house of prostitution or other place, any female for the
purpose of compelling such female, directly or indirectly, by her
voluntary or involuntary service or labor, to pay, liquidate or cancel
any debt, dues or obligation incurred therein or said to have been
incurred in such house of prostitution or other place, shall be deemed
guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be imprisoned in
the penitentiary at hard labor for not less than two or more than ten
years."
There is only one other enactment which all legislatures should be urged
to pass, and that is one which strikes directly at the white slaver, the
"procurer," the owner or the "fellow." Keepers of houses of ill-fame
have discovered that the hideous task of keeping the unwilling white
slave in subjection is much easier if a certain ownership of her is
vested in a man. In many cases this man is the one who is directly
responsible for placing the girl in the house, but this is not
invariably the case. When it is the case he receives not only a lump
purchase price down on the delivery of his victim to the house, but he
is recognized by the keeper as her owner and master, the one to whom a
certain percentage of her income is paid and with whom all settlements
on her account are made. What is more important in the eyes of the
keeper is that this man is held absolutely responsible for the girl's
subjection, and if she attempts to escape he must cajole, threaten or
beat her into subjection. In one of the recent raids I chanced to come
upon visual demonstration of how this peculiar phase of white slavery
operates in actual practice. One of these "fellows" was disciplining a
girl whom he "owned"--and doing so by the gentle process of forcing her
against the wall with his hands at her throat.
Some of these "fellows" "own" two or three, or perhaps more, white
slaves, and on the income of their slavery these brutes live in luxury
at expensive hotels, maintain expensive automobiles and lead lives of
luxury, idleness and dissipation.
While some states have statutes directly aimed at this system, it has
been found extremely difficult to secure convictions against these most
contemptible of all white slavers, for the reason that all of the
existing statutes, so far as I am informed, make it necessary, at least
by implication, for the prosecution to establish the fact that they
derive their entire support from white slaves under their control--in
other words, it devolves upon the state to demonstrate that the man on
trial has no other visible means of support. As a consequence the
defense set up is almost invariably calculated to prove that the man on
trial is a solicitor for a tailoring establishment, a laundry or some
other legitimate business enterprise.
In view of this fact, it seems to me an enactment drawn upon the
following lines would be effective:
"Any person who shall knowingly accept or receive in whole or in part
support or maintenance from the proceeds or earnings of any woman
engaged in prostitution shall be deemed guilty of a felony and on
conviction thereof shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than
one (1) nor more than three (3) years and fined not exceeding one
thousand dollars, or both, in the discretion of the court."
Not long since I was asked how many persons I supposed Chicago contained
who would come under a statute of this kind and who ought to receive
sentence under it. My reply was this:
"Probably there are five thousand women in Chicago today following the
so-called profession of prostitution, and it would seem to me, from the
testimony obtained in the course of the recent white slave prosecutions
here that at least one-fourth that number of male parasites are
supported in whole or in part in this manner and would therefore come
within the meaning of such a statute."
So much for specific legislation which ought, as a protection to the
young womanhood of this country, to be passed by the legislature of
every state in this country not already having statutes which adequately
cover all the points involved in the clauses which I have suggested. The
next practical question to be raised--and which I hope every reader of
this article will ask--is this:
"How can the legislatures be induced to make these needed enactments?"
Or, to express myself a little differently, if each reader were to ask
me:
"What is the quickest and most practical way by which I may get action
on the legislature of my own state?"
I would suggest the following methods: Find the names of the men who
represent your district in the general assembly of your state and write
to each one of them a letter substantially as follows:
"Hon....................
"Dear Sir:--I am in hearty sympathy with the
legislation against the white slave traffic proposed
by the Woman's World and urge you to secure the
passage of laws which shall embody the clauses and
enactments suggested in the enclosed article clipped
from that journal.
"You surely will not question the worthiness or the
need of laws of this kind and I ask the further favor
of a reply from you indicating your attitude with
regard to this most important matter.
"Yours sincerely, ..............."
Also I would suggest that readers who are members of churches or
habitual attendants upon church services, take this matter up with the
pastors of their churches, each requesting his or her pastor to confer
with the other pastors of his community to the end of preparing a
petition to be sent to the representatives from that district in the
legislature, urging the passage of the enactments above suggested. If
these petitions are vigorously circulated they will receive the
signatures of practically the entire citizenship of every community and
will have a powerful, not to say compelling, influence upon the
representatives and state senators who receive them. Women's Clubs, Law
and Order Leagues, Christian Endeavor Societies, Epworth Leagues,
Grangers and Farmers' Institutes, Young Men's Christian Associations,
Young Women's Christian Associations and Women's Temperance Unions in
every city, village and hamlet of the country, scan also exert a
powerful and practical influence in securing such legislation as a
protection against the ravages of the white slavers by passing suitable
resolutions of endorsement and sending those resolutions to the men
representing their several communities in the general assembly of their
state. While, as I say, these memorials on the part of respected
organizations will do a useful work in shaping the course of
legislation, this will not take the place or do the work of the
individual personal letter, and every reader who is sincerely and
earnestly interested in securing such legislation as I have outlined
will miss the main stroke of influence if he or she fails to write a
personal letter to the men representing his or her district in the
general assembly of the state.
And whenever such a letter is written the various clauses given in this
article should be incorporated in the letter; this will put your request
in definite and explicit terms, a result greatly to be desired.
I cannot close this article without recurring to the statement made at
the outset to the effect that many persons still remain unconvinced that
the white slave traffic is a thing of widespread and actual existence;
that it is the established calling of hundreds of men to lure and kidnap
innocent girls into a life of shame and to sell them into houses of
prostitution, where they are kept against their will in the most
revolting of all human slaveries.
In my desk at this moment is a letter from which the following is taken:
"There are in that house, No. ----, two girls by the names of Annie and
Edith. One has been there for two years and is not allowed to go out of
the house. . . . is not even allowed to write to her own people, and
whose mail is opened and read before she is allowed to look at it. The
other girl has been there seven months and has never been out of the
house."
This letter was written by one who knew the facts in the case.
A very few days ago this pitiful case was, in an official way, brought
to my attention. A little German girl in Buffalo married a man who
deserted her about the time her child was born. Her baby is now about
eight or nine months old. Almost immediately after her husband ran away
she formed the acquaintance of an engaging young man who claimed to take
deep interest in her welfare, and in that of a certain girl friend of
hers. He persuaded them both that if they would accompany him to Chicago
he would immediately place them in employment which would be far more
profitable than anything they could obtain in Buffalo. Supposing that
the work awaiting her was entirely legitimate and respectable the little
mother took her baby and, in company with the young man and with her
friend, came to Chicago. The next task of this human fiend was to
persuade this "child widow" that it would be necessary for her to place
her baby temporarily in a foundling's home in order that it might not
interfere with her employment. This accomplished, he took the two young
women at once to a notorious house and sold them into white slavery.
Thenceforth this fellow has lived in luxury upon the shameful earnings
of these two victims. The young mother has attempted by every means
imaginable to escape from his clutches and at last has importuned him
into a promise to release his hold upon her on the payment of $300. She
is still "working out" the price of her release. It is scarcely too much
to say that she looks twice her age.
One other example from the current history of the white slave trade as
it is pursued today. Only a few nights since a physician was calling
professionally at one of the houses of Chicago's "Red Light" district.
Two men and a young woman entered the door just before him and took
seats at a table. A glance at her fresh and innocent face was enough to
convince him that she was out of her element and probably unaware of the
character of her surroundings. Stepping abruptly to the table, the
physician looked the young woman straight in the eye and asked:
"Madam, do you know that this is a house of prostitution?"
"No," was the trembling answer.
"Are you a woman of the street?" he persisted.
She flushed indignantly, but finally replied:
"No--I am a respectable woman and I supposed I was being taken to a
ladies' cafe."
Her companions bolted for the door and made their escape. The physician
then called a policeman, who escorted the young woman to her home and
found her statements to be true--that she was a respectable girl and had
believed her "friends" to be taking her to a respectable restaurant.
Tragedies of this kind are happening every day and all over this
country. It is time for the decent people of the United States to wake
up, realize what is going on in the underworld and to take strong
measures to protect their daughters and their neighbors' daughters from
the hands of the most despicable and inhuman of all criminals, the white
slave traders.