THE TRAGEDY OF THE "WANT AD."
In April, 1909, a peculiarly worded advertisement appeared in the
personal columns of the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Tribune. It
was worded as follows:
TRAVELING COMPANION: Widow preparing for extended tour of Europe
wants to engage young lady as traveling companion and secretary. Must
be young, beautiful, fascinating and accomplished. All expenses and
suitable salary. Z 14, Tribune.
The advertisement was what is known in newspaper parlance as a "blind"
or keyed ad. It did not give any street address, letters of application
being sent to the newspaper and there held for the advertiser.
A young Chicago girl read the advertisement and answered it. In her
letter of application she said that she had been called beautiful by
her friends, that she spoke several languages, that she was convent
bred and that she had previously traveled extensively. She also stated
her age, which was 22.
The girl inclosed her address in the letter and said that, if
considered favorably, she would be pleased to call upon the "widow."
The young Chicago girl was all that she declared herself to be. Her
beauty was a matter beyond dispute. Her charm of manner and her
accomplishments were on a plane with her innocence and purity.
The day following the mailing of the letter a caller was announced at
the young lady's home. The caller was an elderly woman. She was dressed
in black. Her adornment was rich. It bespoke an apparent command of
wealth. The woman's language and general demeanor was that of marked
social standing. She gave her name as "Schwartz."
To the young girl she made known the fact that she was the authoress
of the advertisement which the young lady had answered in the papers.
She said that her home was in southern California. She said that her
husband had been a very wealthy resident of California and that most
of her life had been spent in her own home. She said her husband had
died a few months before, leaving her alone with no relatives and
practically no friends in the world.
"I have always been a home body," she said. "My life was wrapped up in
my home and my husband. When he died there seemed nothing else on earth
to live for. God did not see fit to bless us with children. The death
of my husband left me prostrated. The first illness of my life came
then. Doctors told me that unless I sought a change in travel that I
might drag out many long years alone as an invalid.
"I have all the money I know what to do with. When the physicians told
me to leave the scene of my sorrows, and to leave at once, I packed
hurriedly and departed from Los Angeles. I have had no time to think
until I reached Chicago.
"Now that I am here I have realized that I must have a companion for
reasons that you can very easily understand. I do not want an old
person about me. It was the thought of the mental diversion that caused
me to advertise for a young and vivacious girl. At the same time I must
have some one who knows how to travel, how to attend to the endless
details that travel involves. That is why your letter came to me as a
godsend."
The widow wiped her eyes softly with a bordered handkerchief. To the
innocent young girl she seemed the picture of grief. A little while was
passed in conversation of a general nature. As the widow rose to go she
said, "I like you. You seem to me the ideal of such a companion as I
would have. The only question to be settled is whether or not you will
like me.
"If you will come with me as my little daughter I can assure you
that you will want for nothing. I will dress you as I would my own
daughter. We shall visit the world. I have already prepared to engage
passage for Europe and desire to sail Saturday, four days from today.
"In order that you may satisfy yourself as to whether or not you will
like me I want you to call at my hotel tonight and take dinner with me.
I am living at the Arena hotel, 1340 Michigan avenue. A quiet, retired
little place."
"I will be delighted," said the girl. "I don't think that there is
any question as to whether or not I will like you. You have charmed
me already. I am alone in Chicago. The only relative I have here is
my brother. He will be pleased I know to hear that there is such a
pleasant occupation in store for me."
The widow paused in her going, as women do. The conversation prattled
on. The girl spoke of her brother and, before she knew it, she was
saying:
"I never take any steps without consulting him. He knows so much. I
would love to bring him with me to meet you tonight, if you wouldn't--"
Her sentence was arrested by the cloud that passed over the widow's
face. It was a look, sharp, keen, bitter, hard as a look can be. Even
the girl, unwise as she was in the study of human nature and the ways
of the world, felt an intuitive thrill that bordered on suspicion. She
didn't finish her sentence exactly as she had meant to. Instead, she
said: "In fact my brother would hardly let me go, you know, without
first meeting you himself and talking with you. You can understand."
Quickly as it took to say it, the woman in black recovered her
self-composure. Before the girl had finished she was all asmile.
"You dear child," she said, holding out her hand, "I'm so glad to hear
you say that. Indeed, I couldn't think of taking you away from him
without having him feel certain in his heart that it would be for your
good. I'd love to have him call with you tonight. You'll both dine with
me, of course. Do you remember my address?"
"Why, no, I--"
Again a peculiar look came over the widow's face. This time it was not
hard, not sharp, not of dismay nor apprehension, but a sly, fox-like,
satisfied smile that the girl afterwards remembered and understood.
"I'll just write it down for you," said the widow. "I'll give you the
street number, too, so that you won't forget. Pardon me, I haven't a
card."
The girl produced a slip of paper and a lead pencil. On the card the
widow wrote:
"HOTEL IROQUOIS, 3035 Michigan avenue."
And then Mrs. Schwartz departed.
When the girl's brother arrived at home an hour or so later he found a
sister bounding with joy, bubbling with excess of spirits.
The brother was a man of the world. He knew, as a cosmopolitan must
know, of the guile and trickery and fraud and deceit that a great city
contains. Yet, when the girl told him the story of the California widow
and her desire to hire a traveling companion at an enormous salary, he
doubted it not. His spirits were equally as high as his little sister's
when he dressed for the trip to the Iroquois hotel. It was a smiling
young couple that tripped into the lobby of the hotel an hour or so
later and asked the clerk to notify Mrs. Schwartz that her guests were
awaiting her pleasure.
"Schwartz?" said the clerk, as he glanced over the room book a second
time. "No such person of that name here. Sure you got the name right?"
The girl produced the slip of paper in the widow's own handwriting:
"Margaret Schwartz,
Iroquois hotel, 3035 Michigan avenue."
"Maybe we've transcribed the name wrong from the register," said the
clerk. "Where is she from?"
"Los Angeles, California," said the girl.
"Nobody been here from Los Angeles since December, when we put in this
new register," said the clerk after running over the pages.
The tears that came to the young girl's eyes were tears of
mortification, of bitter dismay. Her only thought was that she had been
made the victim of some peculiar person's idea of a practical joke.
It was not until the two were back in their own apartments that the
girl remembered vaguely the conversation of the widow and the woman's
peculiar starts.
"Charlie," she said to her brother, "that woman told me a different
hotel at first. It was the Aree--, Areen--, the Arena hotel, that she
told me first. She asked me to go there first. She CHANGED THE NAME
WHEN I TOLD HER I WOULD BRING YOU WITH ME!"
"Hell!" said the brother. And there was a look on his face such as Cain
must have worn when he committed the first murder.
"Why?" you ask, in astonishment. The answer is to be found on the
police blotters of the Harrison street station.
The Arena hotel, at Thirteenth and Michigan, is the most notorious,
the most terrible assignation house in the city of Chicago. When
honest men are in bed the red lights of the Arena glare onto the
boulevard like the bloodshot eyes of a devouring dragon. The gilded
sons of fortune tear up before its yawning doors in their high
powered motor cars. The keys to the doors were thrown away long ago.
Without it is dismal and somber. Within it is pallid with the erotic
gleam of many incandescents. Its music is the popping of champagne
corks, the laughter of wine debauched women, the raucous roars of the
huntsmen--huntsmen whose sole sport is the slaughter of the innocent,
whose only game is the chastity of the maiden. A ten dollar bill is
necessary for the purchase of the meanest private dining room in the
Arena for a night of revelry. There is not a private dining room in the
place without a bedroom in comfortable proximity.
The hoi polloi, the common herd, is not admitted at the Arena. To enter
there you must be known, and you must be known as a spender.
The price of food is treble that of any other place. The cost of
liquors is double that of many. The Arena is the sporting ground of the
rich. And sport in the Arena comes high.
The brother of the young girl in question determined to probe the widow
and her mystery to the bottom. He determined, in the first place, to
give her the benefit of doubt despite his own convictions. He went to a
telephone and called the Arena hotel. He asked for "Mrs. Schwartz." A
woman answered the call.
"This is Mr. ----," he said. "I believe you called upon my sister
today."
"What is that?" the woman's voice answered. "Who are you? You must be
mistaken. Who do you think you are talking to?"
"Mrs. Schwartz, isn't it?"
There was a moment of hesitation. The man imagined it a moment of
confusion. And then the voice answered: "Oh, no, this is Miss Gartz.
You are talking to the wrong person." A mocking laugh and a click of
the receiver announced to the man that he had been rung off.
He called up the Arena again. He asked for Mrs. Schwartz. He was told
that there was no such person there. He asked the clerk for Miss Gartz
again. The man was sorry, but Miss Gartz had just left. Repeated
telephone calls for both Mrs. Schwartz and Miss Gartz were answered in
succeeding days with the information that there were no such persons
there. Miss Gartz was not on the hotel register. Neither was Mrs.
Schwartz.
The brother of the young Chicago girl went to the offices of the
Chicago Tribune and the Daily News and asked for the name of the woman
who inserted the "Traveling Companion" advertisement. He was told that
the papers were sorry, but that would be impossible. The clerks who
had charge of the want ads were under bonds to divulge no information
regarding blind advertisements. They could not tell who inserted
them, anyway, as no names were taken. The letters when received by
the newspapers were held until the advertisers called for them. The
newspapers could not maintain the integrity of their advertising
columns if they asked impertinent questions of every advertiser.
The newspaper men were sorry. No one regretted the creeping into their
columns of such matter so much as they. Both papers employed detectives
to scrutinize the want columns and to hunt down and expurgate such
advertising if the least possible suspicion was attached to it, but
many want ads were so cleverly and innocently worded that they would
creep in despite every possible precaution that might be taken.
The young man employed detectives himself. He went to a large agency
and told the manager the circumstances. Hardened as he was through
constant association with crime and its varied phases, the manager of
the agency winced when the story was finished.
"You've saved your sister from a living hell," said the crime expert.
"You've saved her from the most terrible spider that ever wove a
net for the accomplishment of ruin. 'Mrs. Schwartz' the widow, is a
procuress--the most clever and fiendish procuress known to us. She
works under a hundred aliases. So keen is she, so clever in her plots
to bring about the ruin of young girls, that we can not cope with her.
She is a rich woman. Every dollar that she has made represents a soul
blackened, an innocent metamorphosed into a drug sotted, degraded
creature of the red lights.
"Your sister is not the only girl that advertisement was meant for. It
probably has already written the ruin of a score of beautiful young
innocents. It was a lure. A lure only. There was no trip to Europe.
There was no trip planned to any place except a house in Twenty-second
street or the private chambers of some wealthy libertine.
"Mrs. Schwartz must have received many hundred answers to that
advertisement from young girls all over the city--even out of the city.
The glamour of a trip to Europe, a salary to tour the world, would turn
any young girl's head. The wording of the advertisement would arouse no
fears or suspicions in the mind of even a worldly wise person.
"When Mrs. Schwartz called upon your sister and proposed that she
take dinner with her at her hotel she wanted the girl to go alone.
When the girl accepted, Mrs. Schwartz named the Arena because she
could accomplish her purpose there. It was the after-thought of the
girl's that saved her and covered Mrs. Schwartz with confusion. She
wrote down the name of the Hotel Iroquois for the express purpose of
destroying the recollection of the Arena in the girl's mind. The Hotel
Iroquois is a quiet family hotel of good reputation.
"Mrs. Schwartz, as she calls herself, knew that the game was up when
your sister mentioned you. Daring and bold as she is, she knows better
than to try her wits with a man.
"Had the girl accepted the invitation without mentioning your name
the stage would have been set for her reception at the Arena. I doubt
if the proprietors of the place would have known anything about this.
The Arena is an assignation house, not a brothel. Had the girl gone to
the Arena alone she would have been sent to the apartments which Mrs.
Schwartz would have taken for her reception. She would have been plied
with flattery, smothered with blandishments. Her little head would have
been turned with compliments. At the psychological instant dinner would
have been served. Dinner would include wine. Did the girl refuse to
touch wine despite the subtle invitations and arts of the widow, her
food and her water would have been 'doctored.'
"Mrs. Schwartz is an adept in the gentle art of administering drugs. In
less than an hour the innocent child would have been in the throes of
delirium, wild, drunk, robbed of her morality through the insidiousness
of the widow's dope.
"Then the man would have been introduced. The scene would have changed
from the little private dining room to the adjoining bedroom."
The young man shuddered, and shut his eyes as if to close out the
picture. The big detective went on, mercilessly:
"The widow Schwartz and her male accomplice would have rejoiced in
their triumph as the drugged innocent was robbed of her chastity.
"Give the widow Schwartz two hours and the end would have been written.
Then to call a cab, carry the unconscious child out of the Arena,
bundle her off to the market place and sell her for one hundred--two
hundred--five hundred--"
"Stop!" said the young man.
After an interval he said, "I put my possessions, such as they are, at
your disposal. I want you to trap this woman. I want you to catch her.
Surely you can--"
"Catch her? Maybe. We'll try." The detective pressed a button.
"Send in Miss B----," he said.
A young woman returned with the messenger. She did not look like
a detective. A young girl she was, of good figure, of pleasant
countenance. Her eyes were large and striking. The detective held out
a copy of the "Traveling Companion" want ad for her perusal.
"Miss B----," he said, "the woman who inserted that advertisement is
a procuress. The ad is a lure. Will you be willing to take this case?
If so, I want you to write an answer on delicate stationery. Give your
address as your home. Say that you are 'convent bred,' beautiful, alone
in the world through a tragedy that wiped out both your relatives and
your fortune, that you are young, talented, a mistress of repartee,
anything that will tantalize that woman and convince her. Then, if the
trout takes the fly, you will have to go to this woman's apartments
alone, let her drug you and trust to us to be on hand for the climax. I
do not ask you to take this case unless it is of your own volition."
The girl hesitated. When she answered it was to say that she would not
only take it, but, were it necessary, she would take it without pay.
"I will inclose my photograph with the letter," she said. "My
photographs make me appear far more beautiful than I really am."
Both letter and photograph were mailed. To make sure as to whether or
not it was too late the detectives called up the newspapers and were
told that the advertisement was "paid in advance to run until Saturday."
The letter, a cunningly and alluringly worded missive, was mailed
to the newspaper office. The photograph, which betokened a ravishing
little beauty, was inclosed. Shadow men were posted at the newspaper
offices to follow the woman when she called for her mail.
Wednesday passed. Thursday, Friday and Sunday came with no response.
At the newspaper offices the publishers said there were more than 200
letters awaiting the pleasure of the woman who wanted a "traveling
companion." Yet the advertiser neglected to call for her mail.
When convinced that there would be no answer the woman operator went
to the Arena to call for Mrs. Schwartz. She was told that there was no
such person there.
The wary old spider, bold enough when maneuvering the enslavement of
innocent girls, had fled to cover at the first alarm.
"We'll have to give it up," said the detective to the young man. "She's
skipped to different quarters. She's scheming out some new bait.
Schwartz her real name? She probably has a thousand names. A different
alias for every girl she marks as a victim."
Do you want to investigate this story for yourself? Do you want
corroborative evidence? The writer of this book has affidavits from the
principals as to its truth. The want columns of any great metropolitan
daily will supply material for your investigations. Look for the
"chorus girls wanted" ads. Look for the "roommates" ads. Peruse the
personal advertisements. Look through the column headed "Wanted, Female
Help, Miscellaneous." Once in a while you'll read an innocent little
paragraph that is sending young virgins to the slaughter pens and the
slave marts. Mrs. Schwartz is not the only woman in the business.