Chapter XXV

RECRUITING GROUNDS OF THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFICKERS.

By Harry A. Parkin, Assistant United States District Attorney, Chicago.

In all of the articles which have been published, and in all the addresses made respecting the white slave traffic, the public has been warned in general terms to beware lest daughters and sisters in their own towns and villages should become the prey of the white slave traffickers. In these articles it was undoubtedly thought best to spare the sense of security which the resident of a peaceful community usually has, by failing to mention specific cities where it is known that procurers and panderers of girls secure their victims. In an article which I wrote in the March number of a magazine, I transgressed to a slight extent this rule, and gave as an example the story of the little German girl from Buffalo. Those who read this will remember this pathetic case of a child widow who was persuaded to come to Chicago, with her infant in her arms, in search of more remunerative employment, and who was there sold into white slavery.

Buffalo is not the only city which is a hunting ground of white slave traffickers. I think it safe to say that every city, village and hamlet whose daughters are fair to look upon, has been or will be, as time proceeds, the hunting ground of some procurer or agent for the white slave syndicate. I do not say this rashly, nor for the purpose of startling villagers where the church bell and the school bell are practically the only sounds which break the peace and quiet of the community, but I make the statement for the purpose of sounding a warning to that very resident, that very mother, that daughter, who sits in that schoolhouse or in that church pew and believes that she is safe from the snares of the traffickers because of the remoteness or the inaccessibility or otherwise of her peaceful village. It is not alone the large cities that furnish beautiful girlhood to lives of shame and debauchery. It is not necessary to go to New York, Pittsburg, Philadelphia or Kansas City to procure beautiful and attractive girls. It is well known that out on the prairies, in Texas, in Missouri, in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, in fact all over our great west, there are as beautiful types of womanhood as ever graced God's footstool. It is these that the trafficker is seeking. They it is who furnish the easiest victims for his snares.

As a prosecuting officer I personally can testify to the fact that very many cities and villages now have in the red light district of Chicago and other cities, daughters who, if their names were mentioned in their home cities, would bring shame and disgrace to prominent and honest people. There are girls from cities in the interior, girls from small villages with hardly a thousand inhabitants, and girls from villages of this size and cities of varying population from that on up to cities of the size of Boston and Pittsburg and other great commercial and social centers. There are of course some cities which furnish more women for prostitution than others. I shall not publish a comparative list, but will suffice by giving a list of cities scattered broadcast from which have come girls and women to the great white slave market in Chicago within my own personal experience. Cities which have furnished girls and women for this purpose are as follows: Toledo, Ohio; Youngstown, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Muskegon, Michigan; Montreal, Canada; Troy, New York; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Peoria, Illinois; Bloomington, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; New York; Davenport, Iowa; Moline, Illinois; Livonia, Pennsylvania; Whitehall, Michigan; Waseca, Minnesota; Charleston, Illinois. I know that the above statement will cause a thrill in some of the cities which I have mentioned, but I believe that the agitation upon the white slave question has reached a point where false modesty should no longer prevent the public from knowing the exact situation however much it may cause them to feel a sense of regret that their city or village has furnished at least one victim to the sisters of scarlet.

The list of cities is not confined to the great group of cities having thousands of population, but, as you will note, includes small villages where it would hardly seem possible that girls could go astray. I might, if I had the time and space, make a list five or six times as large, but the one which I have given will serve my purpose—that of sounding a warning to those who least suspect that their daughters and sisters are in danger.

To those of you who do not reside in the cities which I have mentioned, I warn you not to conclude from the fact that I have omitted the name of your city or village from the list, that no girl has come from your community. It may be that I shall include your city in a future list—at any rate do not permit yourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security.

As I have said, some of the cities, much to their shame, have furnished for the houses of prostitution in Chicago more girls than others. For example, I have personally known for a long time that the cities of Montreal, Canada, Toledo and Youngstown, Ohio, and Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, have furnished probably a greater average by one-third than any of the other cities. This of course does not include New York; for probably more women come from New York to Chicago for the purpose of entering a house of prostitution than from any other city in the United States. This is true because it has an extremely large population, and also because of the fact that it is largely through the port of New York that the alien prostitutes are brought into the United States, and thence to Chicago. Some of the other cities which I have mentioned have furnished one, two three, or more, as the particular case might be. This to me is sufficient proof of the fact that there is and probably always will be to a greater or less extent, until we crush it out, a syndicate or system which is continuously operating and seeking new fields for the purpose of ensnaring innocent victims and selling them into lives of shame.

Troy, New York, is a prolific source from which Chicago houses of ill fame receive women. In a case recently tried in the Federal courts, the testimony showed that one girl who had been found in a house of ill-fame in Chicago had originally been taken to a house at Troy and from that day, when she was eighteen years of age, until she was arrested in Chicago some five years later, she had been in the clutches of or under the control of the different members of a single family who had kept her earning money for them during all these years. The peaceful village of Charleston, in southern Illinois, has furnished to the panderers of lust a beautiful Norwegian girl, whose parents imagine that she is engaged in a legitimate occupation in Chicago, and whose peace of mind I would not disturb by furnishing them with her name. Muskegon, Michigan, is a field to which the white slave operator sends at frequent intervals for fresh girls. It is not a large city, but seldom does the procurer go there without returning with his victim.

Now a word as to the method used in procuring girls from our American cities. Some of the various schemes, which are used by the procurer, have been detailed in these pages in preceding articles, and I need not worry the reader with a repetition of their details. It is not always necessary for the procurer to go from the city to the country village to get the girl he is seeking. Indulgent parents very often permit their daughters to come to the great city unaccompanied by any protector; the Sunday excursion, the fat stock show, a world's fair, some theatrical production, a monstrous convention—these are the lights which allure the daughter and sister to the city. Perhaps she has never been in the city before and has no relatives or friends to whose house she may go. Perhaps she has been in the city once or twice before and has met a supposed woman friend, who has taken her to her house and shown her every courtesy. If the former, she will oftentimes be met at the railroad station by a young man, well dressed, pleasant and affable, who offers to spend his money to procure her a cab to take her to some respectable hotel. Unexperienced in the ways of the city, she accepts only to find that instead of a protector she has found in the affable young man a procurer for some vile house of prostitution. Many, many times have instances like this occurred, and the innocent young girl has awakened the next morning to find herself situated in a gaudy bedroom, without clothing, the prey and victim of her procurer. Her clothes have been taken away from her, and upon inquiry she finds that she is in debt and will not be permitted to leave the house until she has earned sufficient money to pay back what the affable young man has spent upon cab fares and hotel bills, and, in addition to that, to repay the price which the keeper of the house gave to her seducer. An instance of this kind, in which a girl had been procured by this identical method, was related by Mr. Sims in a magazine article. She has since been rescued and is leading a respectable life back home with her parents.

Or it may be that the girl from the country is making a second or third visit to the city and has been invited to again visit the kind and elderly lady who met her in a department store and so kindly cared for her upon her last visit. This kindly elderly lady usually occupies a flat at some distance but within easy reach of the red light district. It is sumptuously furnished and, as the elderly woman explains, is a home for several young ladies who are working in stores in the city. Here the country maiden is given every luxury free of expense, is entertained royally, and, alas, very many times before she attempts to leave for her home has been caught unawares and so compromised that she dare not face her home folks again. The city of Chicago in certain sections is full of apartments of this kind, where an elderly lady, usually a semi-retired keeper of a house of prostitution, has furnished an apartment and runs a supposed respectable home for working girls. Three to five girls live with her. Her telephone number is furnished to hotel employees and elevator operators, to "steer" male inquirers who are in search of a "pleasant evening" to the flat in return for a commission of fifty cents or a dollar for each customer. The girls who live in this class of places are girls who come from the country and who have fallen, but who are not low enough to go to the regular houses of prostitution in the red light district. Clerks from department stores, whose meagre salaries are not sufficient to support them while away from their parents, seek these houses as a means of supplying the deficiency in their weekly earnings. They are thus enabled to dress tastily and just a little bit better than the virtuous girl who works next to them upon the same salary but who does not sell herself for lust. In such places as these I have known of girls who came to the city to study painting, stenography, bookkeeping and other occupations, and who, while ostensibly pursuing their daily labor, are all of the time going to these houses of assignation whenever there is a dollar to be gained which will place them in a position to dress better or go to some place of amusement which costs money.

What, then, shall we do to protect our daughters and our sisters? That is the question which is puzzling not only prosecuting officers and police officials, but one upon which economists and charitable organizations are spending months debating. One safe and sure protection we all have. That is, do not permit the daughter or the sister to go from the country village to the large city unless you know absolutely and beyond the peradventure of doubt, that the hotel where she shall stay, or the people whom she shall visit, are absolutely above reproach of any kind. Advise your daughter and your sister of the snares which lay in her path before it is too late. Forewarn her so that she shall be advised in time to spare her the great anguish and the pain to which she may be otherwise subjected.

If the procurer comes to the village in search of his victim, teach the daughter and the sister to have no confidence in affable strangers, well dressed and fluent of speech, but to confide always in her mother when she makes an engagement to go driving, to visit an ice cream parlor or to go to the city with a male escort.