Evening star., 1927-04-24
mpahec Interest of Dorothy Dix Factor in Many Cases

came to me after / wrote the story
of Ruth Wheeler's murder Rutf
was the sweetest. prettiest, most
charming little girl YOU could imagine.
She had finished school and took a
course in stenography. The business
college gave her some names of places
to apply for a jo5. She went ou
bright and smiling and full of hope,
go eager and independent. to get that
first job. And at one of the places
she went there was young desener.
ate, who had used the Camoutiage OF
hiring stenographer in order to get
A victim. He had specified that ne
wanted a toung girl, saying that the
work he had did not justify him hiring
an older girl with experience and with
the higher pay she would naturally
ask. He pretended to he an author
in need of girl to type his manu-
scripts.
Into that obscure little office little
Ruth Wheeler went. She never came
out alive. That degenerate flend at
tackled her and murdered her and cut
up the body. 1 wrote that story, piay.
ing up the warning to young girls Orc
in search of work. 1t was grueSCF1e
story. They probably never would
have detected the murder had not an
ashman discovered part of one of the
young girls hands in an ash can and
remembered where he got 1t.
- In the midst of that story a man
came to me--a man never heard OF
or saw before or since. He said: Miss
Dix, I've always cursed what | called
yellow journalism and l wouldn't let
yellow journal into my house. But
I've read about this Ruth Wheeler
case and it converted me. / know
now that ignorance is not innocence.
| have daughters. ] know that girls
| can't know too much if they are to
protect themselves from such fiends
as the man who killed Ruth Wheeler.
| I've done more than bring what / call
/ yellow journals into my house. I've
insisted that my daughters read
| them.
DOROTHY DIX leaned back in
thought. There were cases we
| never could solve she said, neither
| reporters nor the best detectives in
| the world One of them was the
famous Sigel case. Elsie Sigel young,
| blonde and beautiful, granddaughter
| of the Gen. Franz Sigel who fought
| for the North I'm the Civil War and
| whose statue stands on Riverside
! Drive. was bitten by the bug of social
! service aud went down to Chinatown
| in New York to teach the Chinese.
| She was murdered by some young
| Chinese who tried TO get the beautiful
| white college girl to marry him. We
! never found the murderer. But on
/ that assignment ] comhed Chinatown
| from one end to the other.
| There was the mystery of Dorothy
| Arnold too, on which ] worked my
head off, and l never solved it. Dor
| othy Arnold was i'm her twenties, a
NaSSar graduate, rich. She left her
home i'm New York one afternoon.
She went downtown to Park & Til
fOrd's and bought box of candy.
She went to Brentano's and bought
book. And that was all. She vanish
ed off the face of the earth and she
never has been found. More than
that, never word has been heard OF
her.
white sIavers? Wel1-I wouldn't
exactly say that, I just don't know,
of course. But l do know that have
been out on uncounted assignments
where a girl was supposed to have
been the victim of white slavers and
held in captivity against her will
and l never found one yet who went
for any reason except that she want
ed to. Those white slave cases are
much like those cases where a girl
tells her parents an unidentified brute
seized her and cut off her hair Usual.
ly you find the parents wouldn't let
her bob her hair and she did it her
self and cooked UP the story to save
herself a spanking"
(ConvriSht 1927