nl_e17

Finch, White Slave Traffic, 1912
These traffickers are generally shrewd, careful observers of human
nature, and they are quick to perceive and to single out girls who-while
as yet honorable and virtuous--are inclined to be somewhat
careless, and those who, through lack of or distaste for parental
restraint, undertake to select their own companions, amusements, and
occupations. Among such young women and girls the white slaver
finds a limitless and fertile field for his awful trade. In this connection
the theatre, the moving picture show, the cafe, the skating rink, and the
dance hall,--while in themselves often useful and beneficial for
education, entertainment, and exercise, become instruments which
enable these conscienceless fiends to accomplish the downfall and
eternal ruin of even the most innocent and virtuous of our young
women and girls.
Only a few months ago a young country girl, twenty years of age,
while attending a moving picture show in this very city, met a woman
whom she thought to be a friend, and who offered to secure domestic
employment for her in a distant southern city. The young girl, herself
innocent of any wrong, and unsuspicious, accepted the offer and,
using the railroad ticket furnished her by her false friend, went to the
address given, and not until she was imprisoned in that house and
forcibly overpowered and ravished in the infamous effort to reduce her
to that most awful slavery did this pure, brave-hearted girl realize that
this woman here in Louisville was but the tool of a set of fiends to
whom adequate punishment can never be administered by any of the
processes of modern law. Through a fortunate chain of circumstances
this young girl escaped the dreadful pit which is devouring thousands
of other girls all over our land, but the awful business remains, a crying
disgrace to our great country. Among the many other cases shown by
our records is one involving a girl seventeen years of age, of good
character, who lived in one of the smaller cities on Lake Michigan. This
girl, while employed as a telephone operator, attended a dance where
she met a young man of good appearance and apparently of good
character. This young man was, however, a procurer for a house of ill
repute in one of our large cities and while accompanying this young girl
along the country road to her home, he forcibly ravished and
subsequently placed her in a house of ill fame. This young man is now
serving a term of five years in the penitentiary. The girl was rescued
from the life of shame and returned to her parents. In another instance
a girl of sixteen, while spending the afternoon at a seaside resort of
one of our largest cities, was approached by two white slave procurers,
who exhibited bogus police badges and pretended to place her under
arrest as a truant. Supposing that they were acting under proper
authority she made no outcry, and accompanied them to a street car
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