Woman's work in municipalities

by Mary Ritter Beard

Publicity

When commissions make investigations or some crisis forces the issue of the social evil, women are among the first to demand full publicity and effective action. A good example of their determination in this matter is afforded by the battle of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association in Hartford, Connecticut, against a conspiracy of silence on the part of the town council. This interesting episode, which stirred the whole state, is thus described in The Survey:

The names of the Hartford Common Council will not be lost to memory if a six-foot signboard in front of the woman suffrage headquarters can prevent oblivion. The sign, which placards with startling headlines the attitude of each City Father toward the suppression of commercialized vice, is the vigorous protest of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association [led by Mrs. Thomas Hepburn] against a principle which has been largely responsible for the unsavory reputation of Hartford.

In December, 1911, the trial of the notorious white slavers, Morris and Lena Cohen, revealed the fact that a policy of toleration, extending over many years, had made Hartford a recognized market for prostitutes and a center for the white slave traffic between New York and points further east. Following this disclosure, Mayor Smith ordered all houses of prostitution closed and appointed a vice commission that the problem might be attacked still more drastically in the future.

The Common Council refused to appropriate any city funds to make an investigation possible, but the vice commission was not deterred from its undertaking. It raised its own funds, carried on its investigations and in July, 1913, published a report which probes ruthlessly into the underworld of Hartford. Among the fifteen specific recommendations dealing with local conditions, the most emphatic is, “that the present policy of keeping the houses closed be adhered to rigidly.” “The experiment,” the report continues, “if such we may call it, has certainly had no evil results. Most of those best qualified to judge affirm that it has led to better conditions. In the face of these facts, a return to the old plan of tolerating houses of ill fame would be a deliberate connivance at an illegal traffic.” Owing to lack of money but 500 copies of this report could be published and the City Council refused to appropriate funds for further editions for general distribution to make facts known to the whole city.

But the Council did not count on the determination of the Hartford suffragists to procure a widespread dissemination of facts regarding the enormity of the vice situation. To the horror of saloon-keepers, dive-keepers, complaisant citizens, and the prominent newspapers, the Woman Suffrage Association reprinted the report and placed it for sale at suffrage headquarters in the midst of the shopping district. So much publicity was given to the matter in this way that it has become difficult for an immediate return to the old condition of a segregated vice district in the city.

Nevertheless, an aroused public sentiment did not mean an aroused Common Council. It has frequently been rumored in Hartford that the connection between commercialized vice and politics was closer than the average citizen realized. But aside from continued delay there was no evidence to show that these suspicions were well founded until, at a recent meeting, the majority of councilmen practically declared their indifference toward an illegal traffic in women. At this meeting Councilman Beadle introduced a resolution “that the Court of Common Council register its approval of the policy of repression in the regulation of vice as inaugurated by former Mayor Edward L. Smith and publicly approved by present Mayor Louis R. Cheney and that the same should be rigidly adhered to.” By a vote of 24 to 5, action on the resolution was indefinitely postponed. In other words, of 29 councilmen present Messrs. Beadle, Havens, Harger, Watson and Brockway were the only ones willing to go on record as inalienably opposed to the toleration of commercialized vice.

It was this definite committal of attitude by the Common Council which precipitated the latest insurrection by the suffrage party. In their efforts to secure a cleaner, safer Hartford, the Woman Suffrage Association is distributing pamphlets which contain salient facts in the history of vice regulation in Hartford and at their doors they have erected the sign appealing to the mothers of Hartford.

Legislation

After investigations and publicity come remedial measures, legislative and social. Legislation for the protection of girls is fostered by women in nearly all the states now and much of it has been initiated by them. The Protective Agency for Women and Children, an outgrowth of the Chicago Woman’s Club, has secured legislation in Illinois, making crimes of indecent offenses against children. One of the most significant stories is that of the struggle for an adequate age of consent law in the states.