Chapter IV · THE DEMORALIZATION OF GIRLS (continued 2)

79. Five pimps were playing cards in a restaurant on Seventh Avenue. The day was very hot. During the afternoon the girl who is “hustling” for one of them came into the restaurant wearing a heavy velvet suit. The wife of the proprietor asked, “What are you doing, wearing a suit like that in this kind of weather?” She replied that though she was bringing home eight, ten, and twelve dollars every night, she could not afford a new dress. “He needs it for gambling,” she said, pointing to her pimp. Leaving the table in anger he deliberately slapped her in the face. “Didn’t 144you pay $32 for that suit?” he said. “What more do you want?”^[88]

80. I met [a police officer] in June 1917.... I fell in love with him right away, to tell the truth. I had been having trouble with my husband and had tried to divorce him, but couldn’t. Anyhow, we were separated. When I was with my husband I was a good girl, and didn’t go out with other men.... I won’t say that he asked me to go into the life I began to lead. That was my own choice. I wasn’t any innocent child. But he told me he could “help” me a lot in the life. He told me, first, to keep within the bounds of his inspection district, and to walk Broadway between 42d Street and 109th, but never to go beyond those lines, or else he couldn’t protect me.... After I had taken a man home, and then the man had left the apartment, Ginton would come in and get some money. How much? Oh—25 per cent, sometimes, or 50 per cent, or maybe even 100 per cent. He was always saying, “Honey, I need money. I have to have $25”, or sometimes he would ask for $10 or $20—never less than $10. Oh, I couldn’t begin to figure how much I gave him. But I didn’t mind that. I loved him, and I always had plenty of money for myself, anyhow.... I don’t mind the money, but I do mind his saying he doesn’t know me. I’d have given him anything I had—I would even now, I think. See this ring? Well, that’s worth $3000. He asked me for it once, and I was going to give it to him, except the other girls wouldn’t let me. I’ve bought him lots of clothes—and you might ask him about the belt with the gold buckle I gave him for a present. Oh—he knows me, all right.

After seeing my folks and talking to them and having them treat me nicely, I made up my mind that when I got back to New York I was going to give up the life I had been leading and get a job and go straight. So I got a place in a 145hairdresser’s shop at 85th Street and Broadway that paid me $25 a week.

He didn’t like that, and told me so. I guess it was because he wasn’t getting any more money from me. Anyhow, I hadn’t been at work long before he came into the hairdresser’s and said to the boss, “You’d better get rid of that girl; she’s a prostitute.” So I was discharged.

I made another try and got a job in a millinery shop on Broadway, near 95th Street. The same thing happened. He told the people I was working for that I was a street woman, so they had to let me go. He had me discharged from a third job in a store in the same neighborhood. It was impossible for me to get any kind of straight work because of him. I had to go back to the street.^[89]

Italians and Jews have been noticeably identified with white slavery. The Italian methods are particularly atrocious, showing the same desperation as their black-hand operations. At the same time Italian girls and Irish are the most intractable among the nationalities. The Jewish operations tend to the form of business organization.

81. I come to this country when I fourteen years old with my mother and father and brothers and sisters. My father go back to Italy three years ago when sick. I work as operator and earn $3 a week. Then I get $6 and for two years I make $9. I walk with my friend Florence who live in same street and we meet Frank Marino drinking soda. He ask me if I have a drink and I say “No”, and he say, “Come on, don’t be bashful, take a drink.” After we take a drink he say, “I take you girls to moving pictures.” I say, “No, I can’t.” He say, “Oh, come on; I own a moving picture place; it do you no harm to go.” We went into a place after a while. When we come out, he say, “You come again to-morrow; I take you again.” I say, “No, I 146can’t go, my mother would not like.” He walk home with me and I say to him, “If you want to know me, come in; here’s the house; I live here.” He say, “No, you meet me on Wednesday and I take you to moving pictures.” I told him “No.” He say, “Yes, you come.”

Florence say, “You go; maybe he’s your luck; you get married. He seem like a nice fellow.” So I say, “You go with me and I go. I afraid to go alone.” Wednesday we go again and I not tell my mother. Saturday I go with him again and Florence too. He introduce her so she had man, called Jim, to take her. When we come out he say, “I take you now to see my mother and sisters on Charles Street.” I not want to go; I was afraid, but he say, “Florence and Jim go too; my mother and sisters want to see you.”

So we go and he want me to go upstairs and I say, “No, I afraid.” He say, “Oh, you have a bad mind; you think bad. My mother is upstairs waiting for you; come on.” I step into the hall and he shut the door and Florence outside. Then he say, “Come upstairs; don’t have such a bad mind,” and I say, “Why not Florence come too?” and he say, “Oh, Jim got a key, he come.” We get upstairs, he push me in a room and lock the door. He say, “Now I got you here I do what I want,” and I say “No”, and I try to get out and I can’t. Then he takes out a pistol and hold it right up against my ear. He know I was a good girl, and I say, “Are you going to marry me? If you don’t, I kill myself. I will jump out the window.”

I go home to my mother and I tell her. She faint. I most crazy and she too. She says, “He must marry you and your brother must not know or he kill him.” We are a respectable family and my father he has property. I see Frank after this and tell him he must marry me now that he knows I a good girl, and he say he would and on next Tuesday we go to City Hall. He takes out license and we was married by some man there. Then he takes me to a furnished room. All the time we was in this room he just bring me things to 147eat like crackers, cheese and a little wine. He twice try to make me go on the streets and the first time he beat me and pull my hair and knock me around; he show me a pistol till I faint on the floor and then he throw water over me and tell me not to be so foolish.

One day he take me out with his cousin Jim and his wife Rosie. She’s bad; she goes on the streets. She say, “Why don’t you do what he wants you? Look at me! I have good clothes,” and she showed me a diamond pin. “I get that by doing bad business.” I say, “I go to my mother if he not want to take care of me, or I go to work, and Frank go to work and we have rooms. We buy a little furniture. We not need things so fine.” And my husband, he say, “What you look like with this kind of clothes.” I say, “My mother buy me this suit, it good enough.”

One day he comes in, he bring me a little short dress and red garters and big red bows for my hair. He say, “You put on.” I say, “No, I not put on. I shamed.” Then he slap me and beat me and put pistol to my face and I go way from him and I go down to Carmine Street to Mary, who is a good woman and some relation to him, and I tell her about it. She say, “My God! Is he so bad?” She send for him and say, “What you mean when you get a good girl? What for you want to put her in this bad life?” And he say, “Oh, I don’t want to; I just crazy,” and he say, “Come home, I not ask you any more.”

We go home and his cousin Jim is there and we have coffee to drink and he put something in the coffee. And by and by my head go round and I stupid and he say, “Come out in the air”, and I go out and get on the car and we go some place on the Battery in a house and he leave me there. Pretty soon a man come and he say, “Why you not undressed?” and I say, “I not undress. I not bad girl. I married. I not want to be bad.” And he say, “Then you get out of my house. I not want to get into trouble,” and I go back. I afraid to go home because I get married without my brother seeing the man I marry.

148Then Frank say, “I got work in a barber-shop, come.” We go down to Houston and Mott Street and there he get ticket and money and then we go to Gran Central, and get on train. This was Wednesday of the next week when we married. It was six o’clock and we rode and it gets to be nine o’clock and I say, “Where we go? How long it takes?” He say, “We going to Chicago!” Then I cry, “Now I know you put me in the bad life.” He say, “You make noise on train, I kill you.” We get to Chicago and he take me to a house where a man live, his name is Nino Sacco. There he show me razors and pistols and say, “You do not do what I tell you, you be dead.” One day I get out, but that man Sacco, he come after me and take me back. Another time I get out of the house, but every time they catch me and take me back. Then I get sick and cannot do business, and they say, “She no good”, and my husband he write to my brother and say, “You want your sister back, you be on Bleecker Street in drug store, and I give you back your sister. You bring $100 and I give you your sister.”

Then he bring me to New York. He say to me, “You put police on me you be dead girl. I not ’feard for myself, I can get free. I know how. I have had other girls; but you try and I kill you.” Then we met my brother. He gave Frank $100 and he took me home. I wait two days, then I tell police. Frank he get arrested and then we found he had another wife. I was only one month in Chicago, but my life is spoiled and my family ruined and I sick and can’t work. [Marino and Sacco were sentenced to five years in prison.]^[90]

82. I am a girl from Galicia. I am neither old nor young. I am working in a shop like other girls. I have saved up several hundred dollars. Naturally, a young man began to court me and it is indeed this that we girls are seeking. I became acquainted with him through a Russian [Jewish] matchmaker who for a short while boarded with a countryman of mine. He is really handsome and, as the girls call 149it, “appetizing.” But he is poor, and this is no disgrace. He became dearer to me every day. One day he told me he was in want owing to a strike, so I helped him out. I was never stingy with him and besides money also bought him a suit of clothes and an overcoat.... Who else did I work for if not him? In short we became happily engaged.

Some time after, we hired a hall in Clinton Street and we were on our way to the bank to draw some money for the wedding expenses and also to enter the savings in both our names. On the way we passed some of his countrymen who were musicians, and we needed music, so we stopped in. He introduced me as his bride. I offered to have them play at our wedding. Incidentally, I inquired about my fiancé and they gave good opinions of him. Only a musician’s boy pitifully gazed at me and remarked, when my fiancé was not near us: “Are there not enough people from the old country to ask for their opinion?” I understood the hint and asked him for an address, which he gave me. Meanwhile, we were late for the bank, and fortunately, too. I could hardly wait for evening when I rushed over to his countryman and inquired about him. They were surprised at my questions and told me he had a wife and three children in —— Street. As I later found out she was the same woman whom he introduced me to as his boarding mistress.... I cannot describe my feelings at that time. I became a mere toy in the mouths of my countrymen. But what more could I do than arrest him? But his wife and children came to court and had him released.

I found out of the existence of a gang of wild beasts, robbers who prey upon our lives and money. I then advertised in a Jewish newspaper, warning my sisters against such a “fortune” as befell me. I was not ashamed and told of my misfortune wherever I came and gave warnings. The East Side has become full of such “grooms”, “matchmakers”, “mistresses”, “sisters”, and “brothers.” Inquire of their countrymen. There are plenty of their kind.

A girl from my country has also married one of the band, 150the one who was my former matchmaker. To the warnings that he had a wife and child in Europe, she replied, “Well, if she comes she will be welcome.” And good countrymen did indeed send for her and she came with a four-year-old boy. Her predicament is horrible to describe. She is poor and lonely and my countrywoman did not welcome her as she boasted, and her husband said: “Whoever sent for you may support you.”^[91]

White slavery has never been a quantitatively important factor as the beginning of delinquency and together with the cadet system it is passing out, partly as the result of public indignation and severe penalties, and partly as the result of the changing attitude of the women concerned, who have become “wise” and are going more “on their own.” Many of them scorn the pimp. The change is a part of the general individualization.

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