Part 9

Moreover, although Miss Robins’ experience in working for women and the woman’s cause in England had brought to her knowledge many life histories more unspeakable than this, after she had finished this book she said to herself, “Now here is a story that I know to be absolutely true, but how valuable is it to give to the world an individual instance of this kind; how far can it be generalized?” To test this she went, with that sincerity of spirit that characterizes all she does, to a noted police justice in London and laid the story before him, asking him what he would do if a person came to him with such a story. He answered sadly, with no show of being at all roused by anything unusual, that he would begin to take evidence immediately and see what he could do about it. He added that the story was really a commonplace.

Such is the reticence of the English press, and such is the stern family pride concerning the “blot on the scutcheon,” and all those traditions which grow out of the double moral standard whereby the escapade of the son of the house can even be repeated lightly while the slightest shadow on the name of the daughter is an unspeakable disgrace, that no one knows how many tragedies of this kind are hidden from sight in the records of numerous respectable families.

To satisfy herself more completely that the story was susceptible of extensive application, Miss Robins took it to several London police inspectors. No one for a moment stopped to doubt or question the facts. The most horrible stories that the human mind can conceive are old stories to them. When the Home Secretary was asked a question on this subject in the House of Commons only a few weeks ago, he answered that in London city alone, to his knowledge, there had been reported fifty-three girls lost and never heard of within a few months. Such facts as this explain the tragic intensity with which the book is written.

Danger! Danger! Danger! That is the dominant note that sounds throughout the narrative. How pathetically the mother’s poignant fears contrast with her ineffectiveness. Ever this haunting danger, whether mother and daughters are walking in the sunset, or planting in the garden, or sitting by the hearth. What a wonderful picture Miss Robins gives of the mother’s desperate dependence on the four walls of her home—“Soon home, now, little girl, soon safe in our dear home.” The danger signal of the night-bird’s note is introduced with inimitable art—a subtle suggestion, even in those early days, of the gray hawk whose shadow hovers over bright young lives.

The unutterable sadness of it all and the stern warning to mothers that children’s homes are not just in four walls, but are in towns and cities and nations! How utterly ineffectual seem an individual mother’s effort for the safety of her child. How evident is it that a mother’s care must have back of it power—power in council and legislative hall. How strongly the lack of social sympathy is brought out; the mother’s indifference to the great crying needs of the world. This mother’s “place was the home,” and to what did all her negative efforts avail in shutting the danger away from her cherished daughters in a nation, in a world, which holds a traffic system of such Machiavellian adroitness, a system which can afford, so great are its profits, to reach into the inner recesses of a home, to work with endless patience and resourcefulness and which can enlist on its side such power that even the London police, perhaps the least corrupt in the world, can answer evasively to the frantic cry, “Do you know such a house?”—“We have a great many on the list, but not many such as you describe;” and follow this statement with the maddening inactivity which Miss Robins describes with vivid accuracy.

Her book is a terrific arraignment of the conditions which make such a tragedy possible. Respectability and indifference are personified scathingly in the monumental aunt, deaf to the world voices of agony. All society is arraigned as the Elder Sister storms at her aunt, “sitting massive, calm, with a power of inert resistance.” Her bewildered answer to the mad cry for help,—“It isn’t possible, this is England,”—sounds strangely natural to us. It is the burden of so many recent New York editorials, “such things don’t happen”!—and that in our land where the record of the Chicago Immigration League tells of 1,700 girls between the railroad terminals of New York and Chicago alone, reported lost in one year. Thus wails the Elder Sister,—“So old and unbelieving, I felt she had looked on unmoved at evil since the world began.... She rose, O! but slowly;—slow, stiff and ponderous. I felt in her all the heaviness of acquiescence since time began.”

Thus is the unbelievable apathy of society pictured! Thus Miss Robins touches lightly, pitifully on the problem of a girl’s handicap in the lack of preparation for life. What a picture she gives of the sheltered girl—“Such a little thing, my not knowing how to telephone, yet it might cost my mother her life.” Again this motive is sounded when the daughter is begging her mother for knowledge about her experiences, and the great gray danger—“It is not the kind of thing you need ever know,” answers the mother with fatuous finality.

Nor does she make our heart bleed for girlhood alone, but for manhood, as that blood-curdling conversation, unparalleled in literature, is gasped out between the Man and the Elder Sister as they crouch in the shadow in that ghastly room in what he himself tells her is “one of the most terrible houses in Europe.” Here we see manhood disfigured, draggled beyond recognition, sitting in the dust and ashes of a charnel house. How sodden the words fall from his lips as depraved and perverted manhood defends itself. “This is a commonplace in the world, in every capital of every nation on earth. Bishops, old ladies, imagine you could alter these things.” “Human nature—human nature,” muses the Elder Sister, “like the tolling of a muffled bell.” Thus are the wickedest, most deadly of the world’s platitudes on this subject uttered in this glaring scene of abnormality, so that automatically they are given the lie.

The unbelieving will say, “But how is it possible that we do not hear oftener of such cases?” Two elements especially conspire to suppress such knowledge, both based on a false attitude towards women. First the double standard of morals which holds men’s purity so much lower than woman’s; second, the unjust attitude towards women reflected in the press which is more likely to seize upon a disappearance story in such a way as to make it reflect upon the girls’ character rather than to acknowledge it a possible case of abduction or white slavery.

As I write, Miss Robins sends me letters which she has recently received from people interested in her book. One speaking of the “awful traffic that is going on” tells how two girls, daughters of a clergyman, have disappeared on their journey home from school and have never been heard of since.

A letter from Miss Robins herself adds the following to her remarks on her book. “Of all the official people I consulted, not one of these experts doubted my story, _and all had known similar cases_. We do not need to be told that the people to whom these things happen, if they are refined and sensitive, are not eager to make known their ruin. The natural impulse is to cover the horror from every eye, even to deny it.”

“If you will consult the findings of your own commissions you will see that in America ‘no girl of any class is safe.’”

I myself know at first hand an appalling number of cases—wives, women of standing, college girls on journeys, young girls on their way to boarding school, and working girls trapped and sold. In Rose Livingston’s mail in the last few weeks have come heartrending letters from parents for help in finding their lost daughters. A letter I read yesterday from a doctor’s wife in Indiana was so terrible in the lingering pathos with which the mother dwelt on the beauty and sweetness of this lost daughter that I handed it back without reading to the end.

In connection with Miss Robins’ letter, I offer the following quotation from a paper by Stanley Finch of the Federal Department of Justice where he speaks of the operation of the Federal White Slave Traffic Act. “The number of complaints and prosecutions is rapidly increasing.... Such crimes are more numerous than was first believed possible.... It has become evident that thousands of people[11] in practically all parts of the country were violating the law.... [We found] girls were being transported in such interstate and foreign commerce solely for the purpose of prostitution and were being treated as mere articles of merchandise for the profit of those who handled them and who were willing for the profit involved to sacrifice both the bodies and the souls of their victims.... As we extend this work [of federal prosecution] throughout the country the awful interstate trade in women and girls for immoral purposes which for years has been going on almost without let or hindrance, has now become a very dangerous occupation.... The practices of people engaged in the white slave traffic involves in a considerable number of cases the actual physical detention of women and girls against their will in this vilest form of involuntary servitude.”

Would that there were space to reinforce these remarks by New York newspaper headlines dealing with such cases for the month of March 15 to April 15.

How many fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, friends and lovers throughout this country, have lived through the agony endured by the Elder Sister and the lover in Miss Robins’ book? That which had been their greatest care and burden, the frail health of Bettina, becomes the Elder Sister’s one comfort and hope. How many a bereft father and mother today not only cling in anguish to that hope, but desperately refuse to believe but that their girl is dead! And with reliable students estimating the life of the white slave in this country at five years, we know that many a flower-like highly organized Little Sister has met mercifully her release in a few weeks—a few months.

To those who know how considerable a factor in the whole problem of the white slave traffic is the girl who is taken, not the girl who goes, the girl who is under compulsion, not the girl who stays, this book is a great contribution. THE SURVEY printed some time since a poster that has been used in this country from ocean to ocean: “Danger! Mothers, beware! 60,000 innocent girls wanted to take the place of 60,000 white slaves who will die this year in the United States.” If My Little Sister will only make the truth of this warning more real, more individual more poignant, then, in the pain-soothing words that close this book, “She will not have suffered in vain, and others will thank her too.”

Such a book is not merely a literary production, an exquisite work of art: it is a high, sincere human service. Front a literary point of view it is a great book. One is reminded of the Aeschylean definition of tragedy: “That which purifies the heart through pity and terror.” But this book not only reaches great tragic and dramatic heights, but its subtle art is such that it blends with the tragedy in an almost eerie way a lyric chord which echoes throughout, an unbroken strain of hope and pity, of the essential dignity and sanity and rightness of life.

MOTHERHOOD

ISABEL KIMBALL WHITING

_I see them come crowding, crowding, Children of want and pain, Dark sorrow their eyes enshrouding Where joy’s touch should have lain._

_They stand in silence beseeching, Gaunt faces lifted up And wan little hands outreaching For Love’s forbidden cup._

_Their hearts are restless with yearning. The hearts of my own are stilled, Their lips are parched and burning The cups of my own are filled!_

_I cry in love unsatisfied For these without the fold, My mother’s arms are open wide These weary ones to hold._

_What though my arms are open wide, Only mine own lie near. Without still stand those long denied, Compassed in want and fear._

_Bowed with the crown of Motherhood, I seek that Shepherd of old; “How can mine own receive the good With some left out of the fold?”_

IN THE HANDS OF THE POLICE

A PLEA FOR A NEW LEGISLATURE TO MAKE AND ENFORCE LAWS AGAINST VICE

A. LEO WEIL

[_Mr. Weil, one of the best known attorneys of western Pennsylvania, is known outside of his profession as the militant President of the Pittsburgh Voters’ League, the organization which exposed the graft scandals of three years ago, sent councilmen and bankers to jail and brought new and invigorating spirit into Pittsburgh municipal life. Last Year the Voters’ League successfully brought charges against the head of the Department of Public Safety, and provoked a situation which led to the creation of the Pittsburgh Morals Commission, a semi-official body without governmental authority, and the cleaning-up of the big numbered district._

_It is on the basis of this experience that Mr. Weil reaches the conclusions here set forth. He was a witness before the Wagner commission which has recommended legislation now pending in New York (with every prospect of passage) that will create a separate public welfare department, largely divorce it from the city administration and entrust its commissioners, appointed by the mayor, with powers with respect to vice somewhat similar to those held by the Board of Health with respect to sanitary conditions._—Ed.]

The police, a body of men selected primarily to preserve order, protect life, prevent crime, apprehend the criminal, and perform other administrative duties—men perhaps wholly unfitted as a body for anything else—have been expected to solve, by legislation, problems which have confounded the wisest from the time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.

That the police have failed could not be otherwise.

That they have aggravated the evil was to be expected.

That ultimately legislation must be placed in competent, qualified hands, must be apparent.

That it will require the greatest minds, the best thought, the highest statesmanship, and almost a divine perception, to apprehend and deal with those complex, involved, intricate questions having to do with the passions of men and the strongest laws of nature, urging defiance of human laws, seems to be axiomatic.

Nevertheless, on the subject of vice as generally understood in our cities, the police are expected not only to administer the laws, but to make them; not only to enforce enactments, but to frame them. And herein lies, in my judgment, the root of the evil in present day conditions which has brought our police into disrepute.

All countries, from the most despotic to the most liberal, from the most conservative to the most radical, have left this question of the social evil to the police, and have not dared, through their legislative bodies, to thoroughly consider and pass laws to eradicate it. Such meager legislation as has been passed has been ignored in the congested centers of population, and generally such legislation has not been supported by the public sentiment of those communities. Legislation has been generally of a merely prohibitive character, ignoring existing conditions, together with the army of human beings living upon vice, for whom some provision must be made.

Even if the legislatures could be induced to take up this question and pass general laws, it would necessarily follow that such laws in their generality must look to the future, rather than to the present, and existing conditions would have to be left to some other authority.

In every large city there are thousands engaged in prostitution. They can neither be exterminated by the fiat of law nor reformed by the passage of proclamations. Public morals, like private morals, can be improved only gradually. It is not so much the theoretical question of to be or not to be, but the practical situation summed up in such phrases as: It is—it will for a time remain. The future—what is it to be?

Would it not be wise to ask the legislature to pass a law requiring every city to appoint a body of men to draft, and from time to time revise, a code of laws to regulate, suppress, exterminate, and generally to deal with, this problem of prostitution? To it must be given authority. It must be vested with legislative power. It should have its own employes—call it a morals police force, if you wilt—to carry into effect the rules, regulations and laws passed by this commission. That men could be obtained to act upon such a commission, public-spirited, representative students of social questions, I fully believe. No one would accept a place on such a board who was not interested in the welfare of his community. The responsibilities would be fearful; the criticism would be severe. No one without a blameless life would dare to act. Whether or not ultimately the regular police force could be used by such a commission would be a question of policy. At any rate, for the present, I believe it would be unwise.

Such a commission would collect data of inestimable value, data that was reliable, and of which there is now none worth while. Such a commission would doubtless make mistake after mistake, perhaps would depart from all its preconceived notions at the start. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that step by step it would gradually and slowly work out a solution. Looking the country over, we see that voluntary organizations have accomplished temporary good, but their effort has never been persistent, continuous, permanent, authoritative, legal.

The adoption of the plan suggested would take out of the hands of those wholly unfitted for so great an undertaking this momentous question, and place it in the hands of others who we would have the right to assume would ultimately be found to deal with it, so far as human intelligence, study, observation and experiment can enable and qualify men to deal with it.

Another and a greatly to be desired result would also be accomplished. It would remove from the police that which today contaminates the organization, so that in every city they have been brought under a suspicion unfortunately too frequently deserved, an opprobrium too justly applied.

The casting of this burden upon the police, more than any other cause, sows the seed of corruption, furnishes the opportunity for profit, brings into alliance the law officers and the law-breakers, disgraces the police force, and keeps off of it many men who would otherwise be glad to serve their communities in a position that should command the respect and consideration of the people.

This police burden has in turn been the biggest rock upon which self-government has capsized in our American cities.

THE BELGIAN STRIKE

[_The mass strike of the Belgian workers was carried to an issue last week. The motion of the Liberal member which brought the strike to a close, while it does not specifically grant the reform asked for by the Socialists, is considered such a lien on government action as to amount to a victory for them. These interpretations of the larger significance of the strike from different angles were, of course, written while the struggle was going on._

_Mr. Walling, who is a member of the radical wing of the Socialist party, is a student of international Socialism, his most recent book being The Larger Aspects of Socialism. He was in Russia during the Revolution, and knew intimately the details of the great Russian general strike of 1905._—Ed.]

I. GRAHAM TAYLOR

The nation-wide strike for manhood suffrage in Belgium which paralyzed the industries and almost suspended the normal life of the people was foreshadowed in a spectacular demonstration in Brussels two years ago.

On August 15, 1911, the streets of that gay, medieval capital witnessed scenes which every American who looked on knew were making history. Over 60,000 men, from larger and smaller places throughout Belgium, took a day off without wages and paid their way to the capital of their country, in order to voice their protest against the unjust inequalities of the suffrage. The show of force by the extraordinary police and military precautions betrayed the furtive apprehension of both the municipal and national governments as to what might happen. With no sign of timidity or intimation of being overawed, this vast industrial army marched ten abreast for hours—silent, grim, determined, united, unarmed—between long files of armed soldiery which lined the curbs, and past stronger detachments of all arms of the service massed at strategic centers.

The great procession assembled at the Socialist headquarters, a large and impressive building bearing the significant name _Maison de Peuple_, the House of the People. The permanent background of the stage in the assembly hall of that building is a colossal head of Jesus of Nazareth, the reverent work of a Belgian Socialist. This House of the People is the most practical expression, or perhaps demonstration, of the co-operative commonwealth in miniature, which is to be found anywhere in the world. Starting with a sack of potatoes and a bag of flour, these wage-workers in ten years erected a building costing $250,000. Of this sum, which was loaned by the national bank, they had then paid $100,000 and had assets worth three times as much as the balance due on the mortgage, which they continue to reduce by annual payments.

In this four-story semi-circular building, at one of the principal business centers, ample accomodations are provided for a great variety of practical agencies. A café, which paid a profit of $2,400 in three months, shares the front of the ground floor with a large co-operative department store, where dry goods, house furnishings, clothing, meats, groceries, butter and milk, hats, hosiery and shoes are sold. A bakery, with a capacity of 125,000 loaves of bread a week; a coal depot, with twenty-nine delivery carts; a laundry, and a clothing manufactory are among the business enterprises conducted here.

The 19,000 co-operating families receive as their share of the profits 12 per cent of the money they pay for bread, 6 per cent of what their groceries cost them and 5 per cent of the purchase price of their clothing. Among the protective features are an employment bureau for men and women, a pharmacy and a corps of thirteen physicians rendering free service to all members of one year’s standing, and a sick benefit society with 8,000 members. Singing and ethical classes are maintained for children and a well-trained orchestra and choral club for adults. Small halls adequately provide for the meetings of the trade sections, and a great auditorium, seating 2,436 persons, rallies the festival gatherings and supplies room for political mass meetings.

From this national center the procession of mid August took up its line of march, carrying banners which took the keynote of their inscriptions from the following figures emblazoned everywhere:

993,070 have 1 vote;

395,866 have 2 votes;

704,549 voters, having two, three or four votes, cast 1,717,871 votes, a majority of 88,523 over those having one vote;

One man one vote!