Chapter XI

THE BOSTON HYPOCRISY.

Arraignment of False Modesty That Deters Well-Meaning People from Fighting the White Slave Evil.

By Clifford G. Roe, Assistant State's Attorney of Cook County, Illinois.

None of us is perfect. However, it is well to strive toward perfection. It is well sometimes to look into the glass and see ourselves as others see us. That is the very thing Boston needs to do at the present time. Like the ostrich that hides her head in the sand and thinks because she cannot see anyone no one can see her, Boston shuts her eyes to the social evil problem and says there is no such thing here.

To learn whether or not the White Slave traffic is nation wide, conditions in various parts of the country have been studied. From ocean to ocean the trail of this monster can be seen. New York, Chicago and San Francisco, and many other cities, realizing that there is a trade in the bodies and souls of girls, are making determined efforts to blot it out. They acknowledge its presence and they are fighting it. In New England it is different. The good people there shun the thought of such a subject. They have not learned that false modesty is a thing of the past, and the time has come when we must know the social evil problem as it is and meet it face to face.

In talking with one of the leading workers for the betterment of Boston the above title was suggested, for he said: "The attitude of the people here regarding social evil is plain Boston hypocrisy." The idea is to hide the evil, if it is there. In this beautiful city there is not a well-defined red light district or levee as the houses of ill-fame are scattered throughout the city, often side by side with fine private residences. Here and there is a district where perhaps a dozen or more of the disorderly houses are located.

An idea of the volume of the vice business in Boston may be estimated from one day in June when an observer counted 130 men who entered a resort on Corning street between the hours of seven and twelve in the evening.

A well-defined White Slave trade is difficult to discover in a short time in any city. Citizens of Boston have not yet unearthed it. They say it is not there. They tell of an isolated case which happened a long time ago. Boston and other New England cities have all the elements which make a traffic in girls quite certain. By going to the very bottom and getting information from those "who know" the business from the ground up, who live in it, and work in it, some very reliable facts have been gathered.

Walking down Washington, Tremont or Boylston streets in Boston at night, from say eight until ten o'clock, scores of girls are seen picking up fellows. Some are professionals, while others flirt just to have a good time, probably. In Providence, R. I., where Miss Margaret H. Dennehy has revealed a White Slave traffic, conditions are just as bad in regard to girls publicly displaying themselves as in Boston. This is the first symptom of something wrong which any visitor cannot help but see. Now let us look about the city a little and see what we can find. In Hayward place, one-half block from Washington street, the main shopping street of Boston, under the very nose of one of the largest retail stores, are the H—— and the E——, two places such as would only be tolerated in the lowest red light district of any city. Girls, and many young girls, too, sit at the tables and solicit men. On Beach street, one-half block from Washington street, is the D——, a similar place, owned by a Frenchman. The P—— G—— on Sudbery street is much worse than any of the others. The first three are within two blocks of Boylston and Washington streets, the principal corner in Boston.

One has but to pick up the telephone book and find the numbers there of at least two hundred houses of ill-repute. Chicago, one of the acknowledged centers of vice, does not tolerate that; nor can you find such places in the principal shopping districts of Chicago as those I refer to in the above paragraph. One of the most glaring examples of disorderly places—which the good citizens there overlooked—in the business district is the B—— house of prostitution on Bulfinch street, almost within a stone's throw of the State House and Capitol of Massachusetts.

Taking the biography of one hundred girls in disreputable houses at random, it was learned that about one-third come to Boston from Canada, mainly Nova Scotia.

To one who has made a study of the White Slave traffic the first question when one finds so many disorderly places is, where do they get the girls from? Why do so many come from one locality? Is the supply equal to the demand? Are there enough persons entering into such a life voluntarily each year to keep the places going? The average life of one of these girls is about five years, according to the best statistics.

Boston and the other New England cities have the "cadet system"—meaning men and boys living from the earnings of girls engaged in this unlawful business. Most "cadets" procure girls—and that is the question for New England to solve.

Are the "cadets" there engaged in the business of trading in girls? It is said that a certain Bobbie B——, a well known "cadet" in Boston, procured about seventy girls to be sent to Panama. A certain Lena D——, who was born in Quebec, is known to be procuring girls from Lowell, Mass., and the country districts, for a fast life in Boston. She perhaps is the greatest woman trader in human souls in New England. According to her own statement she "trains them to be wise." This woman once worked in Lowell in a shoe factory. The French, Jewish and Italian procurers are not so much in evidence in New England as in other American cities. The coast "cadets" there are mainly Canadians.

A new way of procuring girls has developed in Boston. Wayward girls who have offended the law in one way or another are placed on probation. The "cadets" go to the court records, find the girls' names who are on probation and persuade them to run away in order to evade probation and to secure freedom from the probation officers. There are instances where these girls have been sent into houses of bad character at Lowell, Portland, Worcester, the road house at Corderville, and other towns.

While the White Slave trade may not be as well developed in New England as in other parts of the country—to a certain extent it is there; and it is only to awaken the people to a realization of this fact that this article is written. Over two and a half years ago Chicago was told that there was a White Slave traffic, and the people were indignant. It seemed romantic and unbelievable. But Chicago knows it only too well today. Boston must be awakened in the same way. People will say it cannot be true. Indeed, it is hard to find because secrecy is its success. It keeps hidden in the darkness. Someone in Boston will drag it out into the light, and we stand ready to aid in any way we can. White Slavery is the system of making good girls bad or bad girls worse. It is the modern method of men living from the loathsome earnings of disreputable women.

Let me tell you of a twenty-one-year-old girl in Boston. She was born in New York City. Her father is dead and her mother is an actress. She is pretty and well educated. This girl, by living a disreputable life, supports a Jewish "cadet" who is coarse and vulgar, and who beats her when she fails to bring back to him as much money as he desires.

Many of the girls come from or go to Washington. There seems to be a sort of an underground roadway between Boston and Washington which many of these girls travel. Hundreds of these girls do not live in the disorderly houses, but have their own apartments, and are summoned to the houses by telephone. The houses to which they are thus summoned are known as "call houses." At these houses descriptions of the various girls are kept, as to height, complexion, etc. In examining the laws of Massachusetts relating to procuring, we find the same flaws which existed in Illinois and the other states before the passage of the pandering laws.

In the revised laws of Massachusetts, 1902, Vol. 2, page 1785, Sec. 2, the procuring must be fraudulent and deceitful and the woman must be unmarried and of chaste life. If the procurer marries the girl to circumvent the law he cannot be prosecuted; if the girl makes one mistake in life, she cannot be protected from being procured. In many cities the evidence in the cases shows that "cadets" are paid to marry girls by White Slave traders so that prosecution may be avoided and they may thus crawl through one of the many loopholes in moss-covered laws made before pandering became a curse upon civilization. Because a girl is not of chaste life is no reason she wants to become a prostitute. One wrong step and she is no longer chaste, and then we say, according to the law, let her shift for herself. We all make mistakes, so let us be charitable. The words "previous chaste life" should be erased from the law and all female persons should be protected from the traders.

There are four ways of combating the White Slave evil; proper laws regulating the procuring of girls; the enforcement of these laws; education as to this great social evil, and publicity—that is, finding the evil and then making it known. Let New England awaken and look about her and she will catch the true spirit of this article, which is meant to be one of helpfulness and written only with kindest motives. Embellished with quaint landmarks and historical retreats dear to all the nation and beautiful in its past, let it not live in this past alone, but be alive to modern ideas and agencies. There is one society known as the New England Watch and Ward, with headquarters in Boston, which has begun to pierce into the hidden mystery of the traffic in girls. It is managed by able men, and its secretary, J. Frank Chase, is already on the trail of the White Slave monster. Through this society great efforts will be made no doubt in the near future to eliminate whatever exists of this nefarious traffic in Boston. Let us hope the Boston people will meet this problem fearlessly, candidly and honestly, and when they do they will have gone a long way toward stamping out the worst evil of the age.