The menace. [volume] (Aurora, Mo.) 1911-1920, 1917-05-26

all outside-even to those courts
which send 30 many. Circumstances
indicate that there are from one hun
dred to two hundred girls in the
House Of the Good Shepherd at q
time, the number depending more up
on the amount Of work and volume of
business on hand than on any other
consideration. Just now there is q
decided slump in business at the old
stand, and likewise a diminution of
inmates. The institution is running
on low pressure until it gets by some
of the inconveniences that loom large
in the immediate future.
+ Poor Girls the Victims
When the Milwaukee Juvenile Court
is properly adjusted, with a Roman
Catholic judge and a plentiful sup
ply of Roman Catholic probation Off
GERS on duty, it is a very easy mat
ter to supply the laundry and other
workshops Of the q. o. G. s. with all
the slave labor needed. All that il
needed for the juvenile court to take
a girl away from home and parents
and turn her over to these profit
mongers is to establish the charge
that the girls home surroundings are
not conducive to her welfare.
And it is remarkable how easy it
Is to establish that charge with ref
erence to thousands of good girls
whose chief shortcoming is poverty.
1t goes without saying that the con-
ditions in the over-crowded homes Of
working-class families are not ideal.
There Is much to be wished for that
is not forthcoming or possible. 1t is
therefore an easy matter for proba-
ton officers, or others with an Interior
purpose, to find fault with the home
conditions Of some girl who Is needed
in the Il. o. G. S. laundry or sew
ing room.
In Milwaukee, the victims Of such
informers are often Of Polish or other
foreign families who know no English
and are bewildered into signing docu-
ments which they do not understand,
and the true purport of which is not
revealed to them. The result Is that
a constant stream Of young girls
(some at fault but many wholly
blameless) flows from the municipal
courts of Wisconsin to this metropoli-
tan prison. If girl of sixteen is
railroaded on the convenient charge
Of "incorrigible" she is usually SEN
fenced for five years or until twenty
one years of age. The effect of this
will appear when we take up individ-
ual cases.
Must Use False Name
New arrivals at the House of the
Good Shepherd are deprived of any
good clothing they may have, and are
dressed in the cheaper garb of the
institution. They even lose their
names; and each is assigned a name
by which she is to be known through
out her Imprisonment. For instance
when Daisy Scheiderer, whose story
will hereafter be considered in detail
was brought into the II. o. G.. s. BY
way of the Milwaukee juvenile court
she was named "Desales" and was 81
known and is so remembered by fel
| low prisoners.
We shall also tell about Mary
Dalzin, who likewise lost her nam'
at the entrance to this bastile, ant
was known therein as "Alice." Fol
lowing are few of the names givel
recent and present inmates: Stanis
laus, Adelaide, Bessie, Mira, Wabur
ia, Ethel, Evelyn, Grace, Loretto
\ Camilla, etc. 1t is clear that all thi
remaining is to keep all inmates n
ignorance concerning the identity o
each other, and to interfere with an!
Investigations that might be under