Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls; Or, War on the White Slave Trade

by Unknown

On May 18, 1904, a treaty was signed between the leading countries of Europe, for the repression of the white slave traffic. This treaty was presented to our government and after careful consideration its ratification was advised by the senate and proclaimed by the President, June 15, 1908. If I am correctly informed, this is the first treaty relating to social morality consummated between the leading civilized governments of the world. This action is of the highest significance and importance. The provisions of this treaty should be generally known by our people, which is not the case today, and we should carefully consider our obligations as citizens to its proper fulfillment. It should be hailed as a step of progress in this twentieth century, which seems destined to record great improvements in social well-being and in the removal of inequalities of condition. The most important provisions of the treaty which I will summarize are contained in the first three articles:

Article 1. Each of the contracting governments agrees to establish or designate an authority who will be directed to centralize information concerning the procuration of women and girls, for the purpose of their debauchery in a foreign country: That authority shall be empowered to correspond directly with the similar service established in each of the other contracting states.

Article 2. Each of the governments agrees to exercise supervision of railway stations, ports of embarkation and of women and girls in transit, in order to procure all possible information leading to the discovery of a criminal traffic. The arrival of persons involved in such traffic, as procurers or victims, shall be communicated to diplomatic or consular agents.

Article 3. The governments agree to inform the authorities of the country of origin of the discovery of such unfortunates and to retain, pending advices, such victims in institutions of public or private charity. Such parties will be returned after proper identification to the country of origin.

The execution of the provisions of the treaty in European countries has been entrusted to the national police service. In this country, where the police are not a department of the national government, the Bureau of Immigration, which seemed best equipped for the service pledged, has been instructed to carry out, so far as possible, the provisions of the treaty.

THE EXTENT AND POWER OF THE EVIL FORCES.

Even this exceptionally well informed audience may not be fully aware of the extent and power of the evil forces which Europe and America have through this treaty combined to oppose. That the treaty was originally drafted without the assistance of our own government, indicates that Europe first realized the necessity of governmental action. The adhesion of our own government to the treaty proves its subsequent recognition of the seriousness of the evil. Briefly stated, the status of the white slave traffic is this: It is a traffic with local, interstate, national and international ramifications. It has the complete outfit of a large business; large capital, representatives in various countries, well paid agents, and able, high salaried lawyers. Its victims are numbered yearly by the thousands. They include not only the peasant girls of European villages, but also the farmers' daughters of our own country. Some are uneducated and wholly ignorant; others have enjoyed good education. While most of them come from the homes of poverty, occasionally a child of well-to-do parentage is numbered among the victims. The alert agents of the traffic move from place to place, alluring peasant girls and farmers' daughters from their homes, entrapping innocent victims at railway stations and public resorts. Not a few girls who go to the cities to seek their fortunes and fail are caught by these harpies. And remember, I am alluding now not to those who go astray because of incidental misfortunes of circumstance, condition, or blind trust in some unworthy lover, but only to those who are entrapped by the agents of the organized white slave traffic system.

The above statements have been abundantly established by the investigations of the National Vigilance Committee within the past two years and have been confirmed by other competent authorities. These conditions have been due not to the wish or the intention of our people, but to our blindness or our ignorance. We forget that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, as one declaiming of political freedom has said. The same price must be paid for every other civic excellence or right. The liberty of woman, quite as much as the liberty of man, should be protected, and woman's moral freedom, quite as much as man's political freedom, demands for its protection unceasing vigilance.

Without going further into general conditions, I wish to present a statement regarding America's relations to the white slave traffic in China and Japan and to the yellow slave traffic in the Pacific Coast states of our own country. My information regarding China and Japan is based primarily on my own personal observations and inquiries in those countries. My information regarding conditions in California is based upon the report of a special agent of the National Vigilance Committee and upon the reports of missionaries and other workers among the Chinese and Japanese women on our Western coast.

I shall consider my subject in two divisions: First, white slave traffic in Asia; second, yellow slave traffic in AMERICA. I trust I do not seem to be stretching the application of the subject of my address in the title of the second division. It is the traffic in the bodies and souls of women, and I care not whether they are white, yellow or black. (Applause.) Our responsibility is independent of the color of the victims.