May 19, 1914, held at police station. Claims to have known Robert Smith, a colored man 64 years of age, for several years. He lives in 2 rooms.... Learning that girls went there she too went and had immoral relations with Mr. Smith at different times. On one occasion he gave her 15 cents and other occasions 25 cents.... [She said] “I went away from home that day. My uncle [father] wanted to send me away to school, so I ran away.... I stayed [away 3 days and spent the night] in front of our house in the hallway.”
Katie was sent to the House of Good Shepherd and released at her parents’ request at the end of May, 1915, and behaved until July 31, she was arrested in a rooming house with 2 young men. She had intercourse with one, 21 years old, whom she knew before she was sent away and whom the officer described as a “bum.” A social worker testified: “I met the girl at the police station ... and I suggested that she be sent to the House of Good Shepherd, but she was very much prejudiced by her past years there.... I told her that if she met boys on the street she couldn’t protect herself. She was very indignant in the police station.” At her mother’s request she was given another chance but was soon arrested for going with another girl, a saloon keeper and a photographer. When asked by the court what she had to say for herself she replied, “I don’t care what you do; I deserve it.” But she requested to be sent to Geneva instead of the House of The Good Shepherd—“they all say it is better.” She ran away from Geneva after a few weeks but was apprehended through an anonymous telephone message from a house on S. Michigan Ave. After she was sent back to Geneva she again escaped.[[67]]
66. Stella was 15 years old when she told this story to the Juvenile Court: “On the night of June 7, 1916, about 8 o’clock Helen Sikowska and I were standing at the corner.... Mike and Tomczak and another Mike came along in an automobile and Helen asked them for a ride. We went quite a ways, and then Tomczak said he wanted to [have intercourse with] me. He said if we did not do it he would not take us home.... They drove up in front of a saloon and all three of the fellows went in the saloon and stayed there about one hour. Helen and I sat in the car and waited for them. They came out and we started back for home. We drove for a ways, and when we came to a place where there was no houses they stopped the machine and said it was broke. Tomczak went to sleep. Mike, the driver of the car, got out and took me with him and walked me over the prairie. There he knocked me down and ... did something bad to me.... Then they took us back home.”[[68]]
67. Marien was arrested for acting “obstreperous” with another girl in a railway waiting room. She had no underclothing on when arrested [in June]. She was 16 years old, had left home before Easter and had been going much to shows and moving picture theaters. She told a police woman that she had been drugged on the North side and carried to a room by two men on different nights.... Marien said she had “no fault to find” with her home, her father and mother were kind to her.
The following letter was received from her while she was away: “Dear Mother, I am feeling fine. Everything is all right, don’t worry about me. I am leading high life because I am an actress. I got swell clothes and everything, you wouldn’t know me. I had Clara down town one day I was out with the manager. She had a nice time.... I never had such nice times in all my life. Everybody says that I am pretty. I paid 65 dollars for my suit and 5 dollars had [hat], 6 dollars shoe 3 gloves 2 dollar underwar 5 dollar corest. Know I have hundred dollars in the bank but I want you to write a letter and say youll forgive me for not telling the truht but I will explain better when I see you and will return home for the sake of the little ones. I will bring a hundred dollars home to you and will come home very time I can its to expensive to liv at a hotel now sent the letter to me this way General Devilery Miss Marion Stephan.”
Her father testified: “After Easter got a letter from her something like that one only more in it. She was rich and everything else, which is not so. So she says answer me quick as you can because I to go Milwaukee tomorrow. And I answer it right away to come home as soon as possible. Thought maybe the letter would reach her and heard nothing more until 3 weeks ago and then this letter come and I begging her to come home and be ... a good girl. She come home and asked if wanted to stay home now and she feel very happy that she is home and thought maybe she would behave.... Next day she said she was going for her clothes ... and I says I go with you. And I could not go and left my boy and girl to go with her Sunday. And she left them in the park and did not come home. Then she was back again Tuesday and in the evening when I come home from work she was not there.”[[69]]
68. “When I saw sweller girls than me picked up in automobiles every night, can you blame me for falling too?”
Pretty Helen McGinnis, the convicted auto vamp of Chicago, asked the question seriously. She has just got an order for a new trial on the charge of luring Martin Metzler to Forest Reserve Park, where he was beaten and robbed. The girl went on:
“I always wanted good clothes, but I never could get them, for our family is large and money is scarce. I wanted good times like the other girls in the office. Every girl seemed to be a boulevard vamp. I’d seen other girls do it, and it was easy.”[[70]]
69. Annie was brought into the Juvenile Court when she was 15 years old. Her story was as follows: She first had relations with a man 7 months before. He was an usher in the Eagle Theater. She went many times to this theater and saw him often. Once she stayed in the theater after the show and they had relations. He later left town but she had his address. Then she met a boy who sold papers in her neighborhood. Another fellow introduced him as “John Johnson” and she knew him under that name, though it was not his right one. They used to go to the park together and had intercourse once in the hallway of her home. She was not sure who the next man was but thought his name was “Nick.” She met him in a theater and knew him for two weeks.