In a comfortable farm home in a state bordering upon Illinois is an uncommonly attractive young girl who has, almost by accident, been delivered from the worst fate which can possibly befall a young woman. Through secret service operations one of the most dangerous "procurers" of this country was traced to the home in which this beautiful girl had been adopted as a daughter. The white slaver had already ingratiated himself into her confidence and that of her foster-parents, and arrangements had practically been made by which she was to accompany him to Chicago, where he had a "fine position" awaiting her. If he had not been located and his character made known to the household at the time when this was done, she would now be a white slave in a Chicago den.
Another case which has had a less fortunate termination is that which involves the "fake" marriage, a subterfuge common in this wretched traffic. A young man made the acquaintance of a handsome girl in the North Side district of Chicago. He was polished and plausible and the parents of the girl, who were ambitious for their daughter's advancement, were apparently flattered that he should bestow his attentions upon her. When, after very brief courtship, he proposed marriage, they offered no objections and even set aside their own wishes when he suggested that he held prejudices against being married by a clergyman and against having a formal wedding. Consequently they went before a "Justice of the Peace," who pronounced them man and wife—a "fake" Justice, who was merely a confederate of the white slaver. They went at once to San Antonio, Texas, he having claimed that he held a very profitable position in a large business concern in that city. When they arrived there the poor girl had her awful awakening, for she was promptly sold into the life of shame without hope of escape from its degrading servitude.
Another very effective regulation which every state will do well to adopt by enactment of its general assembly is that making the premises leased or used for a house of ill-fame liable for any and all fines against its lessee.
The following seems to me a desirable clause covering this point:
"Whoever keeps or maintains a house of ill-fame, or a place for the practice of prostitution or lewdness, or whoever patronizes the same, or lets any house, room or other premises for any such purpose, or shall keep a lewd, ill-governed or disorderly house to the encouragement of idleness, gambling, drinking, fornication or other misbehavior, shall be fined not exceeding one thousand ($1,000) dollars. When the lessee or keeper of a dwelling house or other building is convicted under this section the lease or contract for letting the premises shall, at the option of the lessor, become void and the lessor may have like remedy to recover the possession as against a tenant holding over after the expiration of his term. And whoever shall lease any house, room or other premises, in whole or in part, for any of the uses or purposes finable under this section, or knowingly permits the same to be so used or kept, shall be fined not exceeding one thousand ($1,000) dollars and the house or premises so leased, occupied or used shall be held liable for, and may be sold for, any judgment obtained under this section."
Some enactment of this nature is particularly desirable for two reasons: First, because actual experience has shown that judgments obtained against keepers of such houses are difficult of collection and that the ones against whom the judgments are obtained are remarkably resourceful in avoiding punishment even after conviction. Second, it seems obvious that when a property owner knows that his real estate is particularly available for houses of this character he is, if unprincipled enough to do so, bound to encourage the use of his premises for that which will bring him the largest money returns. This puts him in the way of fattening upon the wages of the social vice without incurring danger of punishment. Naturally he becomes a friend of the traffic and ready to aid and abet it wherever and whenever he can. Therefore it seems to me he should no longer be allowed to escape the penalties attached to those who engage in this infamous trade. As the owner of the property on which unlawful acts are persistently committed, and as a sharer in the unlawful profits of those acts, he should be made to share also in its perils and punishments; he should be made to feel that, as the owner of the property used for the purpose of harboring fallen women he is a link in the chain which draws innocent womanhood to its doom and that he must suffer to the full proportion of his guilt. Again, it is the first instinct of the lessee or keeper of such a house, on coming in contact with the law, to flee and forfeit his or her bonds. By making the property itself liable to forfeiture, absolute security against this kind of thing is established, thereby preventing many a miscarriage of justice and of just penalties.
Since the beginning of the recent prosecutions in Chicago a score of keepers, realizing their guilt and fearing prosecution, have fled the country and have not yet been apprehended. If both the federal and the state governments had a law of this kind the escape of these criminals would not have involved a complete defeat of the law in their cases, for prosecution could have been brought against some person connected with their establishments, and when a conviction was secured the property occupied by them could have been closed out. A statute of this kind, wherever enacted, can scarcely fail to prove one of the most powerful and effective of all possible weapons against the white slave traffic. And the smaller the city, the more effective will this weapon be found—which is only another way of saying that the larger the city the larger the toleration of the social vice.
One of the greatest weapons in the hands of the white slavers and of the keepers of houses of ill-fame to prevent the escape of fresh recruits and to submerge them into hopeless slavery is the system of indebtedness which is practiced in these places. The one object of those concerned in the subjugation of a girl who has become a victim of the wiles of the white slaver is to break down all hope of escape from the life of shame and bitterness into which she has been entrapped. Nothing has been found so effective a means to this end as the debtor system. The first thing a girl is compelled to do on being thrown into one of these houses is to buy an expensive wardrobe at from five to six times its actual value. To be more definite, I have in my possession bills rendered against certain inmates taken from the dens. In these bills stockings costing 75 cents have been charged at $3.00; shoes costing $2.50 are charged at $8.00, and kimonos costing $4.00 are charged at $15.00. As the goods themselves were seized as well as the bills for them, I am able to make this statement. In every case I have found that the girl was compelled to renew her outfit of finery whenever the keeper so dictated, without regard to her need of it. Our investigations have all shown that when a keeper imagined that a girl, an inmate, is intending to leave the place either openly or secretly, a new outfit is forced upon her at absurd figures and she is told that she cannot leave until every cent of her indebtedness has been wiped out, and that if she attempts to do so, they will "put the law on her." In the dozens of cases which I have examined there has not been a single one which has failed to show evidence of this kind. I have in my possession numerous copies of bills rendered against these wretched women in which their costumes reach as high a figure at $1,200 and even $1,500. This indebtedness system is mutually recognized and enforced between the keepers of all houses; in other words, no girl can leave one house and enter another unless she is able to show that she leaves no indebtedness behind her.
HON. CLIFFORD G. ROE