A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil | Page 6

since been conducted.
When the decision on the immigration clause rendered in 1909 threw
the burden of prosecution back upon the states, Mr. Clifford Roe, then
assistant State's Attorney, within one year investigated 348 such cases,
domestic and foreign, and successfully prosecuted 91, carrying on the
vigorous policy inaugurated by United States Attorney Sims. In 1908
Illinois passed the first pandering law in this country, changing the
offence from disorderly conduct to a misdemeanor, and greatly
increasing the penalty. In many states pandering is still so little defined
as to make the crime merely a breach of manners and to put it in the
same class of offences as selling a street-car transfer.
As a result of this vigorous action, Chicago became the first city to look
the situation squarely in the face, and to make a determined
business-like fight against the procuring of girls. An office was
established by public-spirited citizens where Mr. Roe was placed in
charge and empowered to follow up the clues of the traffic wherever
found and to bring the traffickers to justice; in consequence the white
slave traders have become so frightened that the foreign importation of
girls to Chicago has markedly declined. It is estimated by Mr. Roe that

since 1909 about one thousand white slave traders, of whom thirty or
forty were importers of foreign girls, have been driven away from the
city.
Throughout the Congressional discussions of the white slave traffic,
beginning with the Howell-Bennett Act in 1907, it was evident that the
subject was closely allied to immigration, and when the immigration
commission made a partial report to Congress in December, 1909, upon
"the importation and harboring of women for immoral purposes," their
finding only emphasized the report of the Commissioner General of
Immigration made earlier in the year. His report had traced the
international traffic directly to New York, Chicago, Boston, Buffalo,
New Orleans, Denver, Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake City, Ogden, and
Butte. As the list of cities was comparatively small, it seemed not
unreasonable to hope that the international traffic might be rigorously
prosecuted, with the prospect of finally doing away with it in spite of
its subtle methods, its multiplied ramifications, and its financial
resources. Only officials of vigorous conscience can deal with this
traffic; but certainly there can be no nobler service for federal and state
officers to undertake than this protection of immigrant girls.
It is obvious that a foreign girl who speaks no English, who has not the
remotest idea in what part of the city her fellow-countrymen live, who
does not know the police station or any agency to which she may apply,
is almost as valuable to a white slave trafficker as a girl imported
directly for the trade. The trafficker makes every effort to intercept
such a girl before she can communicate with her relations. Although
great care is taken at Ellis Island, the girl's destination carefully
indicated upon her ticket and her friends communicated with, after she
boards the train the governmental protection is withdrawn and many
untoward experiences may befall a girl between New York and her
final destination. Only this year a Polish mother of the Hull House
neighborhood failed to find her daughter on a New York train upon
which she had been notified to expect her, because the girl had been
induced to leave the New York train at South Chicago, where she was
met by two young men, one of them well known to the police, and the
other a young Pole, purporting to have been sent by the girl's mother.

The immigrant girl also encounters dangers upon the very moment of
her arrival. The cab-men and expressmen are often unscrupulous. One
of the latter was recently indicted in Chicago upon the charge of
regularly procuring immigrant girls for a disreputable hotel. The
non-English speaking girl handing her written address to a cabman has
no means of knowing whither he will drive her, but is obliged to place
herself implicitly in his hands. The Immigrants' Protective League has
brought about many changes in this respect, but has upon its records
some piteous tales of girls who were thus easily deceived.
An immigrant girl is occasionally exploited by her own lover whom
she has come to America to marry. I recall the case of a Russian girl
thus decoyed into a disreputable life by a man deceiving her through a
fake marriage ceremony. Although not found until a year later, the girl
had never ceased to be distressed and rebellious. Many Slovak and
Polish girls, coming to America without their relatives, board in houses
already filled with their countrymen who have also preceded their own
families to the land of promise, hoping to earn money enough to send
for them later. The immigrant girl is thus exposed to