The Watertown news. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1917-1919, 1917-06-25

: THE STROLLER E:

New York city is now stirred up over
the finding Of the body of Ruth Cruger,
a girl who disappeared some months
ago, and was presumably the victim
of sO-called white slavers."
At the same time Mrs. Grace Hum
iston, a woman lawyer is getting quite
bit of notoriety out of the matter, in
asmuch as she compelled a search
and found the body after the police
had given the job up.
If she can do any real good along
this line, we say let her go to it. II it
is a scheme of the so-called reformer
to boost the lady in the 1imelight at
the expense of the police, we simply
say, another bid for publicity" How
ever, we are of the opinion that Mrs
Humiston is in earnest, and has start
ed something-at the same time we
are not inclined to lay all the blame on
the police.
A police officer in the discharge of
his duty, even in a very small town a
thousand miles away from New York
city sees things and hears things that
never get into print. The sO-called
white slave traffic covers a wide field,
and the meaning is much-if there is
any meaning at all to the term. The
term was coined by reformers, and is
meant to refer to girls forced into a
life of shame against their will. There
is no doubt whatever that hundreds
ire yearly caused to disappear" in
his way, and the punishment meted
out to traffickers in these girls cannot
)e too severe.
On the other hand, there are hun
ireds of girls who of their own free
Jill disappear" each year, and who,
[ they had the opportunity and good
OBJ offered them would not take it.
they like the life of idleness, and take
10 heed of the morrow and the ever
deepening slide down which they are
headed
And then along comes the reformer
and publicity seeker and gets an in
terview with these girls of the latter
sort. The girls, keen for newspaper
notoriety, for most of them are going
under an assumed name, tell hair
raising stories which are printed in
the papers along side the pictures of
the high society persons who are head
ing the movement" to clean up the
town.
The reformers call on the mayor,
turns over the police force to the re-
formers for the time being, and the
whole thing finishes by scattering the
district" and mourning the everlast-
ing wrath of the police department
and nothing of any Importance is &C
complished
In a certain southern city last sum-
mer, the reformers suddenly "discov-
cred" sad state Of affairs. A woman
shot her husband in a gambling joint
over another woman, and was Of
course arrested She happened to be
good looking, and the picture in the
papers reused the reformers to the
duty they had to perform They
interviewed the woman gun fighter in
her cell, and were rewarded with a
sob story which was nightly satisfac-
tory, and made columns of free dope
Tor the refOrmers. All this, nOtWith-
standing the fact that the woman in
jail had tried to poison former hus-
band.
Then the mayor was appealed to-,
and he, answering the call of the next
election, and the state being a suf-
iragette state, turned over the police
force to the reformers.
The state also being a dry state it
was decided to go after the bootleg
gers at the same time the girls were
being driven out. -
The campaign was success for a
couple OF weeks. The police were
driven well-nigh distracted, and new
locations for bootlegger's joints were
established which took the police a
month to locate. The red light women
had lot of lodging to do, but soon
became comfortably settled in the res
idence districts near respectable fami-
lies.
Then the reformers found a new
toy, and laid off. Incidentally it may
be mentioned that during the time the
police were busy with the reform
wave, over thirty automobiles were
stolen off the streets and not one was
recovered. The police were too busy
with reform work-besides a reform
er does not break into print by recov-
ering stolen auto. Let the police do
that, but strange to say the average
reformer does not think the police
have brains enough to manage booze
and red-light women.
We are for anything to break up the
white slave traffic where it exists, but
the police usually know more than the
reformer, and if not hampered, will
produce results as a rule, and ask for
no brass bands or torch light process
siOns