Chicago, Ill., July 13, 1908.
Mr. Clifford G. Roe,
Dear Sir:—Did you receive a letter from my mother, Mrs. Effie ——, from Eloise, Mich. If so, I wish you would come and see me so I can tell you everything. I have not been out of the house for three months. I have not got any clothes to wear on the street because I owe a debt. I wish you could come and see me and I can tell you everything then. I am a White Slave for sure. Please excuse pencil, I had to write this and sneak this out. Please see to this at once and help me and oblige,
Viola ——.
With people passing back and forth on the street and in and out of the house every day it seems astonishing that girls can be kept as slaves. However, the above appeal for help tells the story, not alone of the writer, but of the thousands of girls whose lives are being crushed, the minds depraved, and the bodies diseased by outrageous bondage. It was discovered that Viola had been given a fictitious name, all avenues of communication with the outside world were cut off, and she had lived in constant fear of being beaten if she let anyone know who she was. At last through a ruse she succeeded in getting letters to her mother and myself, which brought about her rescue and the return of the girl to her mother, who is an invalid in Wayne County Hospital at Eloise, Michigan.
The owners of the resort where she was held were brought before the bar of justice and the judge in sentencing them said: "The levee resort keepers are murdering the souls of girls and women by binding them with ropes of illegal debt; this practice must be wiped out."
The next question which confronts us is what shall we do with the girls after they are liberated from the houses? Some have parents, some are ashamed to go back home, while others are diseased. Certainly it seems a pity to turn them out and let them battle against the prejudice of a "past life." Homes and institutions for girls are often filled or the doors are barred against fallen women. The solution of the problem is a home for white slaves in every large city in the country.
Such a home should be well equipped with a hospital to cure disease contracted in disreputable houses, and then there should be schools in the institute for training the girls for useful lives, where sewing, cooking, music, art, and other things are taught. In this way the girls would be fitted to earn honest and wholesome livelihoods when they go out to face the world.
Letters are sent me from all parts of the continent asking what can be done to help the white slaves. My answer is, form organizations everywhere to fight this traffic. Through these organizations educate the girls in the rural communities to be careful how they are enticed or persuaded to go to the cities. Demand proper legislation, write the senators and representatives about it, in all places see that the laws in regard to disorderly resorts are enforced, that the foregoing proposed commission is established and help build homes for training the girls for better lives.
What mockery it is to have in our harbor in New York the statue of Liberty with outstretched arms welcoming the foreign girl to the land of the free! How she must sneer at it and rebuke the country with such an emblematic monument at its very gate when she finds here a slavery whose chains bind the captive more securely than those in the country from which she has come!