Do you think that I overstate the perils of places of this kind? Of these gay excursion centers, these American Gretna Greens? I hesitate to say how many girls I have had under my care who were enticed into a "runaway marriage" at these places—and then promptly sold into white slavery by the men whom they had married, the men who married them for no other purpose than to sell them to the houses of the red-light district and live in luxury from the proceeds of their shame.
Let every mother teach her daughter that the man who proposes an elopement, a runaway marriage, is not to be trusted for an instant, and puts himself under suspicion of being that most loathsome of all things in human form—a white slave trader!
CHAPTER IX.
THE TRAFFIC IN GIRLS.
By Charles Nelson Crittenton, President of the National Florence Crittenton Mission.
Twenty-six years ago in New York City when I first began to feel an interest in unfortunate girls and established the first Florence Crittenton Home, now known as the Mother Mission, one of the things which surprised and impressed me most in coming close in touch with the subject, was that almost every girl that I met in a house of sin was supporting some man from her ill-gotten earnings. Either the man was her husband, who had driven her on the street in order that he might live in luxury and ease, or else he was her paramour, upon whom with a woman's self-forgetful devotion she delighted to shower everything that she could earn. In addition to this form of slavery I also found that the majority had to pay a certain percentage of their earnings to some individual or organization who had promised them immunity from arrest and to whom they looked for protection.
These were well recognized facts. Every policeman and every judge of the police court knew the true conditions and no one thought of denying them. Although frequently the poor girls would be kept at their trade by slaps and blows and threats of death, the authorities would contend that they were "willing slaves" and that they therefore deserved no consideration or sympathy.
But when we began to get closer to the hearts of the girls, to know their true history, we discovered that the commencement of this form of slavery had been even in a baser form—that before the girls had become so-called "willing slaves" they were "unwilling slaves." Many of them had fought for their liberty and had submitted only because they had been overcome by superior force. Some of them had been drugged; others kept under lock and key until such time when either their better nature had been drugged into unconsciousness or hardened into a devil-may-care recklessness. Some had had their clothes taken from them, others had been cajoled into quietness by promise of great rewards or by intimidation, which with this young and inexperienced class is one of the most potent methods. But when we, who knew, made these statements, people began to think those interested in the welfare of these girls were going too far, that no such conditions existed. They pointed to the fact that it was beyond human possibility. Many times in those early days, when I would talk to my friends and business associates and tell them of the conditions which existed in New York City, although upon ordinary subjects they had the greatest respect for my truthfulness and conservativeness, having known me in business for a good many years, they would look at me with pity for my misguided opinions. While they would mildly express unbelief at my statement to my face, when they got behind my back they would shake their heads and say, "Crittenton has gone crazy, do you know he even believes now that girls are held in slavery in New York City, against their wills, for immoral purposes."
But I have been familiar with so many cases of this form of slavery that they are too numerous even to recall. I remember well one night, being on one of the streets in lower New York, when a girl came down a flight of steps leading from a disreputable house where rooms were rented. At the foot of the steps stood a man waiting to receive her earnings. As she stepped upon the pavement in full light of the gas above the entrance, she handed him the money. He looked at it, and finding it was less than he expected or needed, with a terrible oath he felled her to the ground and said, "I will show you how to bring me such a little amount of money as this, you ought to have gotten a great deal more."