Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1913-06-17

annually known to be taking no less
than 100000 girls into lives of ut
ter abandonment and shame. How
many more are sacrificed yearly no
one can tell but at least this many
are known to be living lives of this
kind. These numbers include only
those living in the public licensed
red light districts and open brOthels.
Were these public places abolished,
Mrs. Law believes the white slave
traffic, or the wholesale buying and
selling of girls for this purpose,
could be stopped, for it is upon them
that the dealers depend for their
market. There have been organized
in recent years in the larger cities
slave warehouses where the girls
may be purchased not by ones and
twos and threes but in wholesale
lots by keepers of these public dives.
There are also syndicates of COM
panies parading as employment
bureaus who are annually decoying
something like 100000 girls into
lives of this kind. AS proof of
this latter statement Mrs. Law told
of her own experience as a detective
in ferreting out place of this kind
in the lumber camps of the upper
peninsula of Michigan. In this To-
cality one girl was found one night
in dead of winter wandering lightly
clad, in the snow outside the city, a
ball and chain attached to her ankle
vainly trying to make her escape
from one of those stockades under
the cover of night. When cared for
by the officers and sufficiently re-
vived to tell her story she said she
had been caught trying to escape
and since that time had been forced
to carry about this ball and chain
to prevent her further escape. But
upon this particular night in quas-
ton the inmates of the stockade had
been so drunk that she had been
able to evade them. This is but ono
of many thousands of cases which
come up annually. The governor of
Michigan finally ordered an official
investigation of this upper peninsu-
l., o.
We're closed.
Aside from the 100000 girls thus
led away every year with promises
of honest employment in various
sections Of the country, some AGO.
900 are induced in various ways to
enter these dives and when once in
are never allowed to get out again.
In summarizing, Mrs. Law said
there is beyond the shadow of a |
doubt such a thing as white slave |
traffic in this country which has at
least 100000 victims to its credit
every year. There are. in the cities
wholesale warehouses selling girls
in job lots to the keepers of licensed
red light districts and open broth
els in the various cities Of the Unit
ed States. The average life of girls |
in these dens used to be five years |
but during the last few years, since
the spread of the terrible disease in
separable from this life, three years
is the sum total of each girls days
in these institutions. When death |
finally comes their bodies are gath |
cred up in the death wagon like so
many cattle and thrown into a ere
matory and burned.
Legislation has done very little to
eradicate this danger threatening
the physical and moral life of thet
nation. Of late years many inves-I
legations have been ordered by leg
islatures and in a few states a pen
atty has been fixed for dealing in
white slavery. The penalty, howev-
er, is about the same as that given
to one who has raided chicken
coop. He is imprisoned for short
time or fined and then left to go
about his business again.
knights Attend Banquet.