The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1909-05-18
MODEL WHITE
SLAVE STATUTE
The Illinois Legislature Will
Probably Pass One Before.
Its Adjournment

Chicago, May 1S.-Passage of the
Lederer white slave bills by the Illi-
nois house of representatives was the
signal for renewed efforts in their be-
half by the committee which drafted
them and secured their endorsement
by the Illinois Federation of Women's
clubs, the Union league, Iroquois,
Press, City and several other Chicago
clubs, the Illinois Vigilance associa-
tion and Chicago Law mad Order
league. This committee on legisla-
ton, appointed by the Woman's World
to follow up exposures by the federal
and state prosecutors, Immediately
sent representatives and telephone
and telegraph messages to Springfield
to insure passage of the bills in the
senate in spite of deadlocks and Chi
cago charter bills. Word came back
that the bills would pass without SER
ious change. Governor Deneen will
sign them without delay.
Writing on warfare against the
assistant states attorney and men,
ber of the committee declares in the
Woman's World: I'm Chicago alone
there are more than $4,000 women
leading life of shame, and statistics
show that the average life Of a fallen
woman is five years. Five thousand
persons must, therefore, be recruited
every year in Chicago alone. How
many voluntarily go into this life? 1t
is estimated that about twenty per
cent! This shows us that eighty per
cent are led into it by some scheme
or entrapped and sold, being in
veigled from farms. towns and cities.
| "One may inquire, How is it that
girls are procured so easily without
the public being aware of what is
going on?' The answer is that love
and ambition are the bats which the
prccurers fiaunt in the faces of their
proposed victims Often it happens
that promises of positions on the
stage, in stores, and various occupa-
tions alluring to young girls cause
many to fall captives in the great net
set for them.
| "The methods employed to entice
young women are quite similar. but
as to the particulars each case varies
to some extent. After the girls are
once within the resort, the stories are
about the same. Their street clothes
are seized and parlor dresses varying
in length are put upon them. They
are threatened, never allowed to write
letters, never permitted the use of the
| telephone, never trusted outside of
the house without the escort of a pro-
curer, until two or three months have
elapsed, when they are considered
hardened to the life and too ashamed
to face parents and friends again. If
| they should ask some visitor to the
house to help them. would he care to
expose his name to the police, as he
ter? Would he want his friends or
the folks at home to know that he had
| visited such place? No; he would
let the girl get out the best way she
could; even though he might promise
to help her.
"Girls are told OF or perhaps have
witnessed others who tried to escape.
have seen their failure and punish
ment. and are thereby cowed into sub
mission. They are always held upon
the pretense of being indebted to the
house and this Indebtedness has long
been the backbone of the white slave
system. From the time the girl is
first sold into the house she is con-
stantly in debt. First, for the money
the owner gave to the procurer for
her, next, for her parlor clothes, then
for the money her procurer borrows
from the owner on her as his prop
erty, goods and chattel. The bonds
of slavery are thus fastened upon
these poor mortals by a system of
debt and vice that The people of this
great country little realized existed
until lately" Mr. Roe gives in detail
the methods employed by which sew
eral girls. whose procurers have been
prosecuted, were captured. Love and
ambition are the bats most of them
often used. he says.