THE KIMONA TRUST.
There is a subsidiary trust of the Vice Trust which robs the 2,000 inmates of resorts in the city.
That combine is called the Kimona Trust. It is composed of certain clothing makers who sell exclusively to the inmates of the houses of prostitution. It received its name from the fact that the prostitutes buy and wear light house apparel, consisting of kimonas, wrappers, flimsy gowns and gaudy lingerie.
The operation of this trust, the extent of its graft and the way that graft is divided, with its portion going to the vice lords is interesting and not well known.
Take for instance, the girl who is in need of a kimona. Here is a truthful story from a girl in an Armour avenue resort as to the way she was victimized by the kimona grafters. Thousands of others could tell the same story.
“I had not been in the resort very long,” said the girl to the investigator, “when I needed some clothes. I told the ‘madam’ and she said the agent of a clothing house would call within a few days. I wanted to go out and purchase the things where I desired, but she told me she had to see that her girls got them from a certain man.
“The man came and I made my selections from a number of articles of apparel which he displayed. I had worked in a department store before I entered upon this life and I knew the value of clothes.
“I was compelled to pay $15 for a kimona which I could have purchased for $3 at any department store. I paid $120 for a hat with plumes on that was worth only $30. I was forced to give up $67 for a dress whose value I knew could not have been more than $25.
“The man then showed me some jewelry which he had with him and the keeper told me I should get some to make myself look more attractive.
“He showed me some cheap rings and bracelets and earrings. I paid $20 for a bracelet, some neck beads and a ring which were not worth any more than $4. They fell to pieces a short time later.”
These girls, according to their own stories are obliged to pay two dollars for a pair of stockings that are not worth more than fifty cents.
That is the system of the Kimona Trust!
Increased value on articles of clothing sold the inmates is about the same in every instance.
Three hundred per cent excess profit is the taxation made by the agents of the kimona trust!
The purchase prices on all things are so increased as to make that enormous profit.
There are 2,000 women buying clothes at a yearly expenditure, or rather robbery, of $500.
That means $1,000,000 spent by these poor, dying, unfortunates yearly to feed the avaricious grafters!
That enormous sum is spent for materials that are worth only one fourth of that value.
That means that the Kimona Trust brings an annual harvest of graft of $750,000!
The figures are so startling as to strike one dumb with horror, yet they are as true as the annual statement of the earnings and capital of a reliable bank.
The Kimona Trust agents are satisfied to make the normal profit on the goods as if they were sold at their legitimate price. They raise the price and create the graft in return for the favor of having a big business with no competition.
The $750,000 is then split up. To the police undoubtedly a small share goes for their general work in the district, the keepers get a share for compelling the girls to buy and the big bulk goes to the directors of the Vice Trust.