Clifford G. Roe

“ Does one for a moment believe that this white slave business could have grown to such importance if it had not been protected by officials who often maintain systems of blackmail, graft and tribute as revolting as they are dangerous to the general welfare of society. It is fairly safe to say that wherever houses of vice are operating in defiance of the laws, and most of them are so doing, some one is getting protection money. This is the political sore which women should help cure. ”

“ The white slave market is the traffic in girls for immoral demands. This market is governed by the laws of supply and demand. There are various social and economic causes for this supply and demand and the result has been the opportunity for trading in the bodies and souls of our daughters. ”

“ It should be understood that it is not suggested that Chicago is worse than any other large city. In fact Chicago, in proportion to its population, has less vice than many other cities, and white slavery is practically broken up there. ”

“ Those creatures, both male and female, who trade in human flesh to fill resorts of vice are called panders, procurers and white slave traders. The methods employed by these traders are varied. In fact all the ways and means for luring victims to shameful occupations have not been fathomed. Each day one who studies the question becomes more appalled at the magnitude of the problem and the innumerable and intricate avenues that must be followed to reach those engaged in this despicable business. ”

“ It is the widely accepted term for the procuring, selling or buying, inveigling or encouraging of women for the purpose of holding, forcing or enticing them into a life of prostitution. The term white slavery, perhaps, is a misnomer, and not really descriptive, since the traffic reaches to every race and color, originating in Europe, where its victims are white; however, it is generally used to designate the business by which the vice merchant is kept supplied. ”

“ He is human and interprets the laws according to the standards of life about him. The trouble lies with the people who create and mould these standards, the people who allow public officials to value a dollar bill at a higher rate than they value a human being.
The foregoing number of cases prosecuted in one city within a few months, proved by court records, demonstrates that white slavery is a real issue. These cases illustrate the more common artifices used by the procurers. They show us how subtle is the evil business. They prove how futile are prosecutions alone. ”

“ The total prison sentences was five years and ten months, and the total fines, twenty-seven hundred dollars. This simply means that even in Chicago, which thus far has been unique in its ardent prosecution of white slave traders, in most cases minimum sentences have been imposed. In the city where the leading men and women, both socially and commercially, are using money and influence against vice, and are supporting an office that will not compromise in its fight against white slavery it is quite the exception to have the maximum sentence meted out by the courts. ”

“ More important than the law against panders is the injunction and Abatement Law which has been passed by Iowa and Nebraska, because it gets right down to bed-rock, to the very source of the white slave evil. ”

“ It is not our belief that by prosecuting white slaves they will be exterminated. We do know that in so doing we cut off the source of supply of new recruits and thereby diminish the total number. However, the abolition of the white slave traffic is impossible, under existing conditions, through court prosecutions alone. ”

“ The most dangerous and the meanest of the white slave traders are the women who have entered this lucrative vice field. Snug fortunes have been made by these beasts who prey upon their sisterhood. Women panders are often creatures of superior culture and intelligence, who carry on their wretched business with cunning and dispatch. ”

“ White slavery is the outgrowth of a stimulated demand, incited and encouraged by men and women, low and degenerate as they are grasping and avaricious. Newspapers and court records for several years past tell of the vast number of girls that are inveigled into disreputable resorts. Therefore, we must assume that the voluntary supply is not sufficient to meet the demand. ”

“ They are procured into disreputable lives with or without their consent, and they are held slaves by the conditions which surround them. These conditions range from forcible detention to ingenious deception with discouragement and disease as intermediary stages. "They become slaves to their keepers, slaves to their patronage, slaves to the habit of drink, slaves to cigarettes, slaves to drugs, slaves to the very despair that shame and moral wreckage bring." ”

“ In Seattle, where it was believed that the laws against vice were not enforced, the women shared honors with the men in electing officials pledged to rigidly enforce these laws.
In our efforts to abolish the traffic in girls, it does not seem fair to fight the unfortunate women who either gravitate or are tricked into lives of shame. The persons to fight are those who encourage, maintain and protect the social evil. That is where the laws of supply and demand enter into the question. ”

“ Most American girls have too little knowledge of the world before marriage, and too much afterward. Knowledge of the right sort has been veiled too much with mystery both for the boys and the girls. Mothers and fathers have inherited affected prudery, false modesty and hypocritical innocence. ”

“ An American author living in Paris is quoted as saying: "The usual American girl of today is a half-sophisticated, wholly self-assured babe, with too much knowledge of the world before she is married, and not enough of it after she is married." ”

“ Casting all these aside is the greatest step forward to better morals and cleaner citizenship which the public men and women and the progressive educators of our time have made. Of course, education in this direction must be conducted along safe and intelligent lines. It may take generations to mould the habits and train the minds in the right channel. ”

“ In the nerve racking race for money and power, the dollar has been glorified above all things else. Let some one steal a pocket book containing a dollar, and this some one is very likely to get the limit when he or she stands before the judge for sentence. ”

“ No longer are women the serfs, nor the toys of men, but through education and changed economic conditions they have entered into the commercial and industrial life and are becoming more and more independent. ”

“ Even a former school teacher, Dora Douglas, was convicted and sentenced to prison in Chicago in December of 1908, for procuring girls from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and other places.
One would think that women who are naturally more sympathetic than men would shrink from such a business. However, transactions which involve outrages such as cannot be surpassed in the worst annals of historic misrule, these women procurers often will perform without the quiver of a lip, or the droop of an eyelash. ”

“ Richly attired, of fascinating manner, sometimes possessing remnants of former beauty, and withal keen as razors, and sharp as steel traps, these women are almost the most dangerous creatures extant in the civilized world. ”

“ And men, knowing this, have not felt the need of being scrupulous. Therefore, girls of the tenderest up-bringing, the most unquestionable purity, have been willingly given by ambitious parents, or have given themselves, in marriage with men whose relations to the social evil were notorious. ”

“ Having secured a law against the traffic in girls, see that the public officials enforce the law. Too often political influence will be used to prevent the active and sincere enforcement of these laws. ”

“ In the homes and in the schools and colleges the knowledge of life that young people deserve to know should be given them. Young men will then have a higher respect for womanhood. To boys and girls life and its wonderful development and its holiness should be explained in the right way and at the right time. ”

“ Therefore, if both the Pandering Law and the Injunction and Abatement Law can be passed, you will have excellent weapons for the attack you should make in your State. The women of Idaho having helped to pass a law against pandering, are now busily working to secure an Injunction and Abatement Law. ”