"MY GOD! IF ONLY I COULD GET OUT OF HERE."
The midnight shriek of a young girl in the vice district of a large city, heard by two worthy men, started a crusade which resulted in closing up the dens of shame in that city. (See page 450.)
A GILDED PALACE OF SIN
Showing the gay and attractive front entrance where the white slave trader sells young girls into a life of shame
The methods employed to entice young women are quite similar, but as to the particulars each case varies to some extent. After the girls are once within the resort, the stories are about the same. Their street clothes are seized and parlor dresses varying in length are put upon them. They are threatened, never allowed to write letters, never permitted the use of the telephone, never trusted outside the house without the escort of a procurer, until two or three months have elapsed, when they are considered hardened to the life and too ashamed to face parents and friends again. If they should ask some visitor to the house to help them, would he care to expose his name to the police, as he would have to, by reporting the matter? Would he want his friends, or the folks at home to know that he had visited such a place? No; he would let the girl get out the best way she could; even though he might promise to help her. Girls are told of or perhaps have witnessed others who tried to escape, have seen their failure and punishment, and are thereby cowed into submission. They are always held upon the pretense of being indebted to the house, and this indebtedness has long been the backbone of the white slave system. From the time the girl is first sold into the house she is constantly in debt. First, for the money the owner gave to the procurer for her, next, for her parlor clothes, then for the money her procurer borrows from the owner on her as his property, goods and chattel. The bonds of slavery are thus fastened upon these poor mortals by a system of debt and vice that the people of this great country little realized existed until lately.
Fighting against this slave trade under the archaic Illinois laws was quite disheartening because it was almost impossible to get more than a fine upon the charge of disorderly conduct. The laws were so full of loopholes that the traders laughed at the idea of being prosecuted. However, in Illinois, at least, we have choked the laugh. The features once wreathed in smiles begin to show the lines of worry and fear, for a new law called the Pandering Act has been passed. This went into force July 1st, 1908. The new law is good, but experience has shown where improvement is necessary. Without exception, in cases I have tried, certain wholesome-minded jurors have said after concluding the case, that the penalty was too light for the first offender. It should be made more severe. Therefore an effort is now being made to make the first offense punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary from one to ten years. Then, also, there should be a new law covering the bringing a female person of any age into the state or taking her out of the state for immoral purposes. The age limit should be omitted from the present Illinois law, which does not punish those bringing girls over the age of eighteen into the state. While other states are sending for copies of the Illinois pandering and other white slave laws, the state legislation will soon be uniform upon this subject, the United States government should be alive to the situation also. At present it has only the immigration laws regulating the importation of immoral women to fall back upon. A federal law under the interstate and foreign commerce act should be passed at once. The federal government has better and more effective machinery for getting at the facts in the foreign and interstate traffic in girls than have the various states. Commerce consists in intercourse and traffic, including in these terms the transportation and transit of persons and property, as well as the purchase, sale and barter of persons and property and agreements therefor. A federal law might be enacted as follows:
"Be it Enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that whoever shall procure, entice or encourage any female person to leave one of the states of the United States of America to go into any other state in the United States of America for the purpose of prostitution or to become an inmate of a house of prostitution or to enter any place where prostitution is practiced or allowed, or shall attempt to procure or entice any female person to leave one of the states of the United States of America to go into any other state for the purpose of prostitution, or to become an inmate of a house of prostitution or to enter any place where prostitution is practiced or allowed, or shall receive or give, or agree to receive or give any money or thing of value for procuring or attempting to procure any female person to leave one of the states of the United States of America to go into any other state in the United States of America for the purpose of prostitution or to become an inmate of a house of prostitution, or to enter any place where prostitution is practiced or allowed, shall, in every case, be deemed guilty of a felony, and on conviction thereof be imprisoned not more than ten years and pay a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars."
Under the recent federal decisions what can prevent the enactment and enforcement of such a law making the traffic in women illegal? Of course, offenses committed solely within the state could not be reached by the federal government.
Other needed legislative regulations concerning the white slave traffic, such as laws against the procuring system and the indebtedness system, have been set forth in other articles in this magazine. However, besides these laws it will be necessary in each state to create a commission in the various cities, other than the police department, which shall keep a complete record of all houses of ill-fame and their inmates. A public bureau of information should be established by law where parents and friends could easily learn the whereabouts of girls who have not been heard from, and this bureau should have the names of every inmate of a disreputable house. Such a commission should have power to inquire carefully into the life of every girl. Statements should be made, under oath, and the right to ascertain whether or not these statements were true should be given the commission. Thereby the infected spots in every part of the country could be covered, and every girl and woman in immoral places could be accounted for. The fact that this has not been done heretofore has greatly aided the slave traders because their success is accomplished by secrecy. Let us drag the monster, white slavery, from under ground and let the light of day show upon it, and then we shall have gone a long way towards extermination of this traffic.
That secrecy is maintained as to who the girls are and where they are from is evidenced by one of the many letters I have received, of which the following is a copy: