The first and most vital step for the protection of the girls who walk in this path of pitfalls is to arouse the sleeping watchmen who are, by reason of their parenthood, responsible for the safekeeping of their daughters. This is why the "White Slave" articles by Hon. Edwin W. Sims and others, which have been published in the Woman's World, have done great good. They have stirred to a sense of alarm thousands of parents who were asleep in a false sense of security. If they accomplish nothing beyond this they will fully have justified their publication.
But it is evident that they will also result in the enactment of much needed legislation, of laws which will make it easier to convict and punish those who live from this foul traffic in the shame of girls whose natural protectors are asleep in this false sense of security. Of course, practically every state has some laws against that traffic—but I do not know of any state in which the laws now on the statute books are adequate to deal with the situation as it should be dealt with.
One of the things which comfortable and trusting parents seem to find especially hard to believe is the point upon which both United States District Attorney Sims and his assistant, Mr. Parkin, have placed so much stress—the existence of an active and systematic traffic in girls. There is no safety for the daughter of any parents who are not awake and alive to the actuality of this fact!
It is one of the satisfactions of my life to reflect that I have been one of the agents in sending a dozen—perhaps more—persons to the penitentiary for participating in this traffic.
The dragnets of the inhuman men and women who ply this terrible trade are spread day and night and are manipulated with a skill and precision which ought to strike terror to the heart of every careless or indifferent parent. The wonder is not that so many are caught in this net, but that they escape! I count the week—I might almost say the day—a happy and fortunate one which does not bring to my attention as an officer of the state a deplorable case of this kind.
Just to show how tightly and broadly the nets of these fishers for girls are spread, let me tell of an instance which occurred from this institution:
This girl, whom I will call Nellie, is a very ordinary looking girl and below the average of intelligence, but as tractable and obedient as she is ingenuous. She is wholly without the charm which would naturally attract the eye of the white slave trader.
Because of her quietness, her obedience and her good disposition, she was, in accordance with the rules of the institution, permitted to go into the family of a substantial farmer out in the west and work as a housemaid, a "hired girl"—her wages to be deposited to her credit against the time when she should reach the age of twenty-one and leave the Home.
She had been in her position for some time and was so quiet and satisfactory that one Sunday when the family were not going to church the mistress said:
"Nellie, if you wish to go to church alone you may do so. The milk wagon will be along shortly and you can ride on that to the village—and here is seventy-five cents. You may want to buy your dinner and perhaps some candy."