Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1909-03-26
q White Slave Confarsrce.

/ LIE Nhlte Slave Conference.
Among all the meetings ANA confer
! enceS of Lincoln centennial week in
/ Chicago, none was of greater significance
! thau the conference for the suppression
/ OF The white slave trattic held in con
/ nection with the annual meeting of the
| Illinois Vigilance association in the Cen
! trail y. NJ. {. ~ auditorium One
! speaker Clifford G. Roe. assistant states
| attorney for Cook county, who has had
a prominent part in bringing the white
| slave traffic to the attention of the pub
| lie. discussed Legislative Achievements
Against the White Slavers." He said
in part:
The spirit of Lincoln is among us
| today. How appropriate this occasion
TO pay tribute and homage to the great
emancipation of slaves! He advocated
the abolition of slavery. Our father be-
ileVed IN him. and fought and died for
| his principles.
Now, generation later. we are face
! 10 race with the slave question again
Two years ago | said that there was Il
gigantic slave traffic in women. 1t
seemed beyond belief. an impossibility.
| Last year in this auditorium | tried to
awaken the ministry to a full realization
OF this terrible cloud upon civilization.
ms vigilance association. meeting here
| today, was formed at that time. But
the nauseating traffic still thrives. The
masses are doubling, though many have
been aroused to an appreeiat ton of the
truth. Churches, clubs, associations and
newspapers have taken up the cause.
Editorials denouncing the traffic are be-
ing written, and in column after column
teh startling pictures of this slavery are
being portrayed.
Great armies like those of a genera
ton ago cannot uproot and blot out this
slavery it must be eXterminated by
legislation, law enforcement, publicity,
and education. 1t is the legislative
phase we are to look into today
Under old, moss covered laws. the deal
ers in women slaves have grown rich and
powerful The laws We're so full of
! lOopholes that the traders for time
Illinois, at least, we have chOked the
laugh. A new law has been passed
called the pandering law, which went
into force July l, 1908.
This new law is good, but experience
has shown that Improvement is neces-
Sary. Without exception, in cases |
have tried, certain WholeSome-minded
jurors have said, after concluding the
case, that the penalty Zone year in peni-
| Tertiary or $1,000 fine, or BOTH was too
light for the first offender. 1t should be
made more severe. Those of you who
have been in the courtroom where |
have tried cases have perhaps heard me
made mistake for the first time and
had fallen thcughtlessly into a crime
tn. Ough inadvertence or ignorance of the
law. But never will | raise my voice
to ask for other than the severest penal
ty under the law for one who has pro-
cured and sold human being body and
soul into the fOuleSt kind of slavery. (Ap-
plause. The first offense clause should
be erased. and the penalty should be
penitentiary first and eternally. Then
also, there should be a new law covering
the bringing of u female of any age
into the state or taking her out of the
state for immoral purposes. The age
limit should be omitted from our present
law, which does not punish those bring
ing into the state girls over the age of
Is years.
While the other states are sending for
copies of our new pandering or white
slave law, and state legislation will
soon be uniform upon this subject. the
United States government should be
alive to the situation also. 1t has only
the immigration laws to fall back upon.
regulating the importation or holding of
immoral women. A federal law under
the interstate and foreign commerce act
should be passed at once. The govern
ment has better and more effective ma
chinery for getting at the facts in the
foreign and interstate traffic in girls
than have the various states.
In Chicago alone there are more than
10000 women leading a life of shame
Statistics show that their average life
is FIVE years. Six thousand persons must
therefore be recruited every year. How
many voluntarily go into this life2 About
20 per cent. 1t follows, therefore. that
so per cent. are entrapped and sold
Is this commerce? Commerce consists
in intercourse and traffic, including in
these terms the transportation and tran
sit of persons and property. as well as
the purchase, sale and barter of per-
sons and property, and agreements there
for Under the recent federal decisions
and the recognized definition of inter
state commerce, what can prevent the
enactment and enforcement of a law
making the traffic in women illegal? OF
course. Offenses committed solely within
the state could not be reached by the
federal government.
While | know that to oblterate for
ever this slavery, far more debasing than
that of the blacks, will take years of
patient and consistent social warfare;
while | appreciate the fact that resolu-
tiOns may help arouse public feeling, vet
only a sound. farrec ching, business-like
policy will in the end wipe out this traf-
fic.
The success of white slavery is secrecy
keeping the facts and truth hidden
Let us drag the monster from under
ground and let the light of day shine
upon it. and then we will have gone
long way towards its determination.
Love and ambition are the bats which
the procurers tlaunt in the faces of their
proposed victims. Control the love by
proper marriage regulating conditions
surrounding the working girl, prosecute
the procurer with severe laws-and of
course we all realize the Importance of
proper home influence and training.
The trade in women is domestic and
foreign. local and international. What
mockery it is to have in our harbor
of New York the statue of Liberty with
out-stretched arms welcoming the for
egn girl to the land of the free, How
she must sneer at it, and rebuke a coun-
try with such an emblematic monument
ut its very gate when she finds here
slavery whose chains bind the captive
more securely than those in the country
from which she has come. What Il
travesty. as the spirit of Lincoln hovers
among us. 10 wrap the flag of America
around our girls, and extol virtue and
purity freedom and liberty, and then
not raise hand to protect our own girls
who are being procured by white slave