THE TRAGEDY OF THE IMMIGRANT GIRL.
In the musty old records of United States District Attorney Edwin W.
Sims, in the federal building, is written the story of the tragedy of a
little Italian peasant girl.
The story is similar in many details to the stories told to Mr. Sims
and his assistant, Harry Parkin, by more than 200 black-haired,
sloe-eyed beauties from sunny Italy. They had all been imported,
brought through the underground railroad of the white slaver, over the
Canadian border, down the St. Claire river, through the great lakes and
into Chicago.
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.
The story of the tragedy of this little Italian peasant girl, who
helped her father till the soil in the vineyards and fields near
Naples, is but one of many of similar character, but it is expressive.
She was a beautiful little creature. Her form was that of a Venus--her
great mass of black hair hung in a dense cloud from her shapely head.
One might picture her, before she was enticed into the terrible life of
shame, as a little queen among the women of her race.
Yet when she was brought into the district attorney's office,
having been one of a number of aliens captured in a raid by federal
authorities on immoral dives in South Chicago, she was a mass of scars.
Her eyes had lost their deep expressive quality. Her nerves seemed to
be wrecked.
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.
She stoutly maintained that she had been in this country for more than
three years and that she was in a life of shame from choice and not
through the criminal act of any person.
She attempted to tell how she had come to this country alone, but was
unable to tell the name of the steamship on which she had crossed the
ocean or how she had reached Chicago. In broken English she said that
she had been in a house of ill repute in New York before coming to
Chicago and that she had received the scars on her face through an old
injury that had happened years before.
Assistant District Attorney Parkin, however, was not convinced. He
asked her several questions in quick succession. To all of them she
quickly answered "three years."
This is the length of time immigrants must be in this country before
they may be picked up and deported as aliens.
It was this answer that convinced him that the girl had been cowed
into submission and "schooled" by her procurers under threats. It was
through this answer that the white slavers rested their hope that
the girl's story would be believed and that they would be safe from
criminal prosecution.
Soon, however, the assistant district attorney 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 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 should take her under his royal care and pledge his word
that her enemies should not have revenge upon her.
Then she broke down and related her awful narrative. That every word of
it is true no one could doubt who saw her as she told it.
A "fine lady," who wore beautiful clothes, came to where she lived
with her parents. She made friends with every one. Money seemed of no
object to her. She lavished it upon the young girls of the district
and flattered them. She told the young immigrant girl that she was
uncommonly pretty 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 the simple little peasant girl and her still simpler parents. Their
heads were completely turned and they regarded the American lady almost
with adoration.
Very shrewdly the woman did not attempt to bring the little girl back
with her, but held out the 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 drivers 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 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 quite 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 is 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 became a mother. The awful
thought in her mind, however, is to escape from assassination at the
hands of the murderous gang which oppressed her.
This is only one of a score of similar cases discovered by the
authorities.
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--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 $15 and that the selling price is generally about $200--if the
girl is especially attractive the white slave dealer may be able to
sell her for $400 or $600; 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 gangplank 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 promptly 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 their 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 measures, 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 the United States authorities some time ago raided the French
resorts on the south side in search of foreign born victims of the
slave trade, some of the most palpable of slavery tactics were
discovered.
"Not one woman in one of these prominent resorts was found who could
speak English," said Assistant United States Attorney Parkin. "But in
their own tongue everything said by them showed long drilling as to
answers that should be made to inquiries. Ask any one of these women a
sudden question in English and her reply to anything asked would be
'five years,' the term of residence in the United States that would
prevent deportation.
"The typical story of the women was of having come to New York about
four years ago as companions or servants in the family of well to do
French immigrants. After several years the family had returned, leaving
the girl, who about three or four months before had come to Chicago
from a New York resort.
"But the slavery feature was bulwarked by every fact that we could
elicit from these drilled women. Not one of them knew by what steamer
she had come to the country; she could not even name the line by which
she sailed. She didn't know what the steamer fares were. She could not
name a single street in New York, which would have been a certainty had
she even stopped there for a week at liberty.
"We seized trunks in their possession on which were the stamps of the
customs officials, showing that most of the women had come in the
second cabin. In some of these trunks we found sealed letters, written
by girls to parents in France, begging them to write, and as completing
the slavery chain, we found other letters in possession of the keepers,
written long before by these girls to parents, which the keepers had
received for mailing but which they had refused to post for the
helpless prisoners.
"The girls were 18 to 22 years old and had come through Ellis Island
under assumed names. The letters in the trunks revealed the true names
of the writers. None of them could tell a date of sailing or date of
landing. One of these girls had $1,500 charged against her for clothing
furnished by the house. Another girl said the house owed her $890,
which she had been unable to collect. Once a month they were sent to
the 'summer cottage' of this resort, at Blue Island, where under guard
of their slavers, they had the freedom of an elaborate house and the
privileges of a launch and boats on the river.
"Slavery is the only logical deduction accounting for these women's
presence in these houses. None of them could tell anything about the
appearance of a steamer ticket. Everything points to their having been
imported to this country by slave traffickers and of their having been
forwarded to Chicago directly from the port of entry under charge of
some one who assumed all charge of them to every smallest detail of
transportation. In the Chicago houses raided we found that some man
was held responsible for one or more of these women. He lived off them
and was looked to to enforce discipline among them in return for the
privilege."
Only the French and the Hungarian resorts so far have been raided by
the United States district attorney. It is former Assistant State's
Attorney Roe's discovery that on the west side where ten years ago
scarcely a single Jewess was to be found in a resort, today 80 per
cent of the inmates are Russian and Polish Jews. The field here is
promising to the United States authorities, who can work only from the
statute which allows of deporting these women under certain residence
restrictions.
One fact accounting for this increase in Jewish habitues of west side
resorts is explained by a Russian exile in Chicago.
In St. Petersburg, Moscow and other capitals of Russia only the Jewess
in slavery may enter. It is the only condition under which the Jewish
girl may enter these cities.
At the first necessity for importation, how easy is the traffic?