through the mental anguish and moral indignation aroused by marital unfaithfulness, has done more to ruin homes than any other single cause. Of those women who are already prostitutes when they enter the country, a very large percentage are diseased. Those who are not physically diseased when they enter the life usually soon become so. This means suffering and a shortening of life to them and the transmission of the disease to others. The best experts in this field have no hesitancy in saying that as a source of physical degeneration alone these diseases are to be guarded against even more than tuberculosis, typhoid, or any other of the infectious diseases. While these diseases are common with all prostitutes, those coming from abroad contrary to law are new sources of infection. The economic loss, from this shortening of life and from the expenditure of the large sums of money in all the multifarious ways of vice, which can not be considered even indirectly productive economically but which rather are mere waste from practically every point of view, is great. It is unnecessary to comment on the ruinous influence of prostitution upon domestic and social life, or on its horrible effects which come alike to the guilty and the innocent. But the horrors of the evil are accentuated and its practices made more terrible in their results by the importation of women for purposes of prostitution, with its attendant system of brutal degeneracy and cruel slavery. The women who come into the country innocent, and are placed in this business, either against their will or otherwise, enter upon a life of such physical ills and moral degradation that relatively few find it possible to regain any status of respectability or comfortable living. Here and there the agents of the Commission have found one and another who have been rescued from the slavery, others who have gladly abandoned the life, and a few who have married, but these cases are rare. The usual history is one of increased degradation until death. Both from the investigation of the Commission and from those of the Bureau of Immigration, it is clear that there is a beginning, at any rate, of a traffic in boys and men for immoral purposes. The same measures employed for the restriction of the traffic in women should be applied with even greater rigidity, if possible, in the case of men. The need of checking this importation is urgent. The vilest practices are brought here from continental Europe, and beyond doubt there have come from imported women and their men the most bestial refinements of depravity. The toleration with which continental races look upon these evils is spreading in this country an influence perhaps even more far-reaching in its degradation than the physical effects which inevitably follow the evils themselves. SOME TANGIBLE RESULTS OF THE INVESTIGATION. It has been a source of satisfaction to the Commission to know that while the purpose of the investigation was primarily to secure a knowledge of conditions on which to base legislation, nevertheless it was possible so to use these facts that justice could be meted out to some of the nefarious offenders and results be secured of substantial value in correcting evil conditions which had been discovered. In many instances when information had been secured it was necessary to delay the presentation of the facts to the prosecuting officers in order to prevent the checking of the progress of the investigation which would have resulted from a discovery of the Commission's agents by the criminals. Later, however, both to test the reliability of the evidence secured and to bring offenders to justice as soon as it could properly be done, the evidence was laid before the proper officials in order that they might institute proceedings. In the city of New York one of the most unscrupulous and successful importers and harborers, as the result of information supplied by the Commission, plead guilty and was sentenced to prison, while several other cases were prosecuted by the district attorney, resulting in the breaking up of the houses and the discontinuance of the business, even though in two or three instances, in spite of favorable charges by the presiding judge, conviction was not secured on account of disagreement of the jury. In Seattle a score or more of arrests were made and prosecutions instituted with which the Commission's agents had a more or less close connection, while in Chicago the United States district attorney, Edwin W. Sims, goes so far as to give credit to the agents of the Commission for the remarkable success of numerous prosecutions instituted by him on their information. In a letter to a member of the Commission under date of February 3, 1909, Mr. Sims says: Information and data furnished us and the assistance given to us by the special agents of the Commission were invaluable. The cooperation of the Commission made possible the institution and successful prosecution of many of the cases brought in this district. I have always felt that without the aid which the Commission was able to give it would not have been possible for us to have accomplished what has been done. An interesting fact in this connection is that in one case alone the district attorney collected in forfeited bail and fines enough money to pay twice over the cost of the Commission's entire investigation of the subject. TABLE 1. Number of alien seamen deserting at the ports of New York, Phila- 3. Number of deserting alien seamen reported to immigration authori- 5. Number of stowaways reported to the immigration authorities and 359 360 360 362 364 |