fact generally accepted that the girls and disorderly-house keepers regularly pay the police for protection; but high police officials, prosecuting officers, and social workers in all quarters assert that in many, if not all, of our large cities much corruption of this kind exists. Most of the girls questioned on this point by the Commission's agents said that payments were made to the police to insure their protection from too frequent arrests. It is, of course, a violation of the law for the police to demand or receive such money; but, according to the persons interviewed, the woman who did not pay for protection was frequently arrested, while the woman who did pay was only arrested when the policeman must "make good" at headquarters. When the women understood this situation they did not complain. When a police officer, a plain-clothes man, was shifted, he naturally felt obliged to make arrests. Under the circumstances he would, of course, arrest the women to whom he was under no obligations. When a house of prostitution was raided, the police usually did not bring the woman practicing prostitution to court. They arrested instead the woman ostensibly managing the house. The real proprietor is comparatively seldom found within reach of arrest, although he pays the fine and furnishes bail. The women arrested for practicing prostitution or for soliciting on the streets and brought into the magistrate's court in New York City soon learned to know, or their men did for them, the temper of each magistrate. For example, they knew that one magistrate would release all women without fines, another would place them on probation, a third would send them to the workhouse, a fourth would fine them $2, and a fifth would invariably fine them $10. It was a matter of common knowledge when a certain magistrate would be sitting. The severe judge had few cases-women paid more to the police or kept out of sight when he was holding court-and the lenient one had his court room filled every evening. In the latter case women were arrested frequently, sometimes twice in one month. It was a common occurrence for women to be placed on probation, even though they had previously served several times in the workhouse. So quickly were cases disposed of that many women within ten minutes after being brought into the court were placed on probation and had disappeared, not to be heard from until the next time they were arrested. Sometimes from 50 to 100 of these cases were disposed of in one night. RESULTS OF THE TRAFFIC. This importation of women for immoral purposes has brought into the country evils even worse than those of prostitution. In many instances the professionals who come here have been practically driven from their lives of shame in Europe on account of their loathsome diseases; the conditions of vice obtaining there have even lowered the standard of degradation of prostitution formerly customary here. Unnatural practices are brought largely from continental Europe, and the ease and apparent certainty of profit have led thousands of our younger men, usually those of foreign birth or the immediate sons of foreigners, to abandon the useful arts of life to undertake the most accursed business ever devised by man. This traffic has intensified all the evils of prostitution which, through the infection of innocent wives and children by dissipated husbands and 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 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. |