Having faith in the people, and believing that this republic lauds and honors the chastity and sanctity of women, I believed in bringing this hideous traffic in girls to the public notice, and when our citizens fully realized its importance they would rise to the occasion and aid in the warfare to exterminate white slavery. The result has been most gratifying, for churches, clubs, associations, newspapers, men and women in all walks of life have taken up the cause. Great armies like those of a generation ago cannot uproot this slavery, but the slavery of today must be eliminated by publicity, education, legislation and law enforcement. That is the reason magazines have brought to their readers facts concerning this hideous trade. The results of this heroic work have been wonderful, for thousands of letters inquiring about white slavery have been received, and associations and clubs have formed to fight white slavery, and legislation upon the subject has been introduced in many states. If this great good to our social life could not be brought about by publicity, there would not be any reason for bringing before the people and into the midst of the family circle facts which are so black and revolting. But to know and understand we must cast aside false modesty, take off our kid gloves and handle this great social problem with our naked hands.
The trade in women is domestic and foreign, local and international. The Honorable Edwin W. Sims, United States District Attorney at Chicago, and Harry A. Parkin, his Assistant, have been waging valiant warfare against the foreign and international trade during the past year. Articles in leading magazines which were written by them have dealt chiefly with that phase of the white slave trade. They have explained, also, the debt system as a means of keeping the girls in resorts after they are procured and sold. It is with the domestic and local trade I have been mostly concerned. In Chicago alone there are more than 5,000 women leading a life of shame, and statistics show that the average life of a fallen woman is five years. One thousand persons must, therefore, be recruited every year in Chicago alone. How many voluntarily go into this life? It is estimated about forty per cent! This shows us that sixty per cent are led into it by some scheme or entrapped and sold, and at least two-thirds of this number are from our own country, being inveigled from farms, towns and cities. One may inquire, "How is it that girls are procured so easily without the public being aware of what is going on?"
The answer is that love and ambition are the baits which the procurers flaunt in the faces of their proposed victims. Often it happens that promises of positions on the stage, in stores, and various occupations alluring to young girls cause many to fall, captives in the great net set for them.
During the past two years there have been more than two hundred and fifty white slave cases tried in Chicago under the Illinois law, resulting in scores of confessions made by the procurers, and statements by hundreds of the girls who were procured as to the methods employed by the traders.
To show how easily it is done, let me tell you a story of a girl from Elgin, Illinois, who was caught by the love scheme. One day this pretty little German lass was in a Chicago store buying sheet music when a well-dressed, handsome, young man, apparently looking at music, too, asked her the names of some of the latest popular songs, as he wanted to buy them. At first she turned away and did not heed him, but he was not to be repulsed, and pressing his attentions further upon her, he finally engaged her in conversation. A luncheon at a nearby restaurant, in which she joined him, was the result, and there he told her how at first sight he had fallen in love with her beauty. After lunch he suggested a visit to his bachelor apartments, but this she refused. Seeing that this plan was a failure, he asked her to marry him then and there. The silly girl, believing he loved her, and enchanted by the picture he had painted of his father's wealth and fine home in New York City, consented, and they were married. After the ceremony he told her that he was about "broke," and said that he would take her to a place where she could make enough money in a few days to pay their way to New York, where everything would be lovely, and as they were married it would be no one's business how she got the money. Immediately accounts of white slave procurers which she had read came to her mind, and she then realized what she had fallen into. Lest she might arouse in him suspicion, she consented to do as he asked, but told him that before going out to the resort she wanted to buy some clothing, and arranged to meet him at a certain down-town corner toward evening. She hurried to the County Court, where an escort was given her, and she was brought to the court where I was prosecuting. I armed an officer with a warrant and he followed the girl to the appointed place of meeting. The young man was there waiting for his victim. The officer stepped up and put him under arrest, and the next day he was tried and convicted. It was then learned that he was a well known procurer of girls. Thus saved from a life of ruin, the Elgin girl went home heart-broken, but wiser for her experience. Recently she secured in the County Court an annulment of the marriage. Inquiry proved that the girl was from a very respectable home, and that she had always been a good, honest, industrious girl. Many similar cases have come out in the courts; however, the girls in most instances were not favored by the same good fortune which blessed the little girl from Elgin, and the outcome was much more disastrous. This is an illustration of the ease with which panderers make use of love as a means of securing girls for immoral houses.
The other method used by the traders is the one which appeals to the girl's ambitions. Sometimes the procurers have gained the parents' consent to allow their daughters to accompany the supposed theatrical or employment agent, as the case may be, to some city, thinking that through the daughter's success their station in life would be raised. A girl in a country community, or say factory town, is working for four or five dollars each week, when one of these procurers, traveling under the guise of an agent, meets her and promises ten to twenty dollars a week for work in the city. She may be perfectly sincere and honest in her intention to better her condition. She may want finer clothes, a wider knowledge of the world, or an education, and so she consents to go with him, and finally, against her will, ends up as an inmate in some immoral place.
One of the most recent cases shows how readily girls jump at an opportunity to better their station in life. This case first came before the court the day after last Christmas, when Frank Kelly was arrested for carrying a revolver, with which he tried to shoot an old man. During the trial the story developed as follows:
A year ago last summer fifteen-year-old Margaret Smith was working about the simple home near Benton Harbor, Michigan. The father, employed by the Pere Marquette Railroad, was away from home a good share of the time. One day a graphophone agent called at the house and the family became much interested in one of his musical machines. Shortly afterward this agent brought with him to the Smith home Frank Kelly, and introduced him to Maggie, as she was called by her folks. In a day or two Margaret was on her way to Chicago with Kelly, who promised her an excellent position in the city. Upon her arrival Margaret was sold into one of the lowest dives in Chicago, located in South Clark street, and owned by an Italian named Battista Pizza. Here she learned that her captor was not Frank Kelly, but an Italian whose real name is Alphonse Citro. For a year she was kept as a slave in this resort, which was over a saloon, and the entrance was through a back alley. The only visitors were Italians, who came for immoral purposes. Learning last summer that Margaret's father, who had been hunting relentlessly for his daughter, was on the track of her, the girl was taken by Alphonse Citro, alias Kelly, to Gary, Indiana. When the father came to the resort with a policeman he found that his daughter had gone. She was kept in Gary about two months, and then returned to this disreputable place, from which she escaped finally, the Monday before Christmas. A young barber took pity on her after hearing her sad story and enlisted the sympathy of his parents, who took her to their home. Alphonse Citro (Kelly) looked for her for almost a week, and at last saw her going from a store to this home, where she was staying. He went to the house and demanded at the point of a revolver that she be given up, as he said:
"I am losing money every day she is gone."
There was a quarrel over the girl, during which some people from the outside were attracted to the house by the commotion. Citro, becoming frightened, fled down the street, and as he ran threw the revolver, with which he tried to shoot the father of the barber during the quarrel, over a fence into a coal yard. After running two blocks, he was caught and arrested. Upon these facts this procurer, Citro, alias Kelly, was prosecuted and found guilty under the new pandering law in Illinois, and received a sentence of one year's imprisonment and a fine of five hundred dollars. The poor old father and mother, distressed and broken-hearted, were in court during the trial with their arms around each other, sobbing with joy because their little girl had been found. Pizza, the owner of the place, was indicted by the state grand jury, but escaped to Italy. This case is only one of the hundreds which might be told to show how the girls leave home upon the promise of securing employment and are in this way procured for places of ill-repute.