The psychological urge which uproots girls from their native environments to come to Washington is the same, but its manifestations are different. The youngster who pulls strings to get a government job may be, and quite often is, prettier than her neighbor who hitch-hiked to Broadway. But apparently she hasn’t the same confidence in her charms as her brasher sister, so she goes to Washington instead.
The young ones who come to the capital to work for Uncle Sam are on the whole better educated than kids who want to make careers in show business. Most of them must have graduated from high school and business school to get a government job. There are some among the chorines who stuck a toe in a college, but all they need for success is to know the difference between the right and left leg, and remember when not to cross them.
Not all girls who come to Washington come to work for the government. Not all are high school graduates. Washington draws more street-walkers, who are strictly out for business, than any other town. They set out from the nearby hills of West Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas, and they are purposeful as to their objectives. Many aren’t bad-looking. So the question again arises, why didn’t they go to New York or Hollywood and try for bigger stakes where flexible morals pay off better and the field for a killing is bigger?
The answer again is—no confidence. They don’t feel important enough to make good in the big league. They are afraid of the megapolis on the Hudson. Washington has small-town ways and the whores are small-town girls. Street-walking requires no influential connections, deals, financial backlogs, tests, skills. They step off a bus and can be in business before they pass a crossing.
The general belief is that when girls leave home they dream of going on the stage. Washington proves that many leave home just to get away from Home.
They have one commodity they can sell. And they don’t have to carry samples in a briefcase. And they must go on the road for customers—too many complications where they are well known, have families, church connections, lovers or husbands.