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Mathematical methods in survival analysis reliability and
quality of life 1st Edition Catherine Huber Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): Catherine Huber, Nikolaos Limnios, Mounir Mesbah, Mikhail
Nikulin
ISBN(s): 9781848210103, 1848210108
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 2.74 MB
Year: 2008
Language: english
This page intentionally left blank
Mathematical Methods in Survival Analysis, Reliability and Quality of Life
This page intentionally left blank
 Mathematical Methods in
Survival Analysis, Reliability
and Quality of Life

Edited by
Catherine Huber
Nikolaos Limnios
Mounir Mesbah
Mikhail Nikulin
First published in Great Britain and the United States in 2008 by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as
permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced,
stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers,
or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA.
Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the
undermentioned address:

ISTE Ltd John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

6 Fitzroy Square 111 River Street
London W1T 5DX Hoboken, NJ 07030
UK USA
www.iste.co.uk www.wiley.com

© ISTE Ltd, 2008

The rights of Catherine Huber, Nikolaos Limnios, Mounir Mesbah and Mikhail Nikulin to be identified as
the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mathematical methods in survival analysis, reliability and quality of life / edited by Catherine Huber ...
[et al.].
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 978-1-84821-010-3
1. Failure time data analysis. 2. Survival analysis (Biometry) I. Huber, Catherine.
QA276.M342 2008
519.5'46--dc22
2007046232

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-84821-010-3

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire.
 Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

PART I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Chapter 1. Model Selection for Additive Regression in the Presence of

Right-Censoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Elodie B RUNEL and Fabienne C OMTE
1.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.2. Assumptions on the model and the collection of approximation spaces 18
1.2.1. Non-parametric regression model with censored data . . . . . . 18
1.2.2. Description of the approximation spaces in the univariate case . 19
1.2.3. The particular multivariate setting of additive models . . . . . . 20
1.3. The estimation method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.3.1. Transformation of the data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.3.2. The mean-square contrast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.4. Main result for the adaptive mean-square estimator . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.5. Practical implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.5.1. The algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.5.2. Univariate examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.5.3. Bivariate examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1.5.4. A trivariate example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.6. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Chapter 2. Non-parametric Estimation of Conditional Probabilities, Means

and Quantiles under Bias Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Odile P ONS
2.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.2. Non-parametric estimation of p . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.3. Bias depending on the value of Y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
6 Mathematical Methods in Survival Analysis, Reliability and Quality of Life

2.4. Bias due to truncation on X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

2.5. Truncation of a response variable in a non-parametric regression model 37
2.6. Double censoring of a response variable in a non-parametric model . 42
2.7. Other truncation and censoring of Y in a non-parametric model . . . 44
2.8. Observation by interval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.9. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Chapter 3. Inference in Transformation Models for Arbitrarily Censored

and Truncated Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Filia VONTA and Catherine H UBER
3.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.2. Non-parametric estimation of the survival function S . . . . . . . . . 50
3.3. Semi-parametric estimation of the survival function S . . . . . . . . . 51
3.4. Simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.5. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Chapter 4. Introduction of Within-area Risk Factor Distribution in Eco-

logical Poisson Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Léa F ORTUNATO, Chantal G UIHENNEUC -J OUYAUX, Dominique L AURIER,
Margot T IRMARCHE, Jacqueline C LAVEL and Denis H ÉMON
4.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.2. Modeling framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.2.1. Aggregated model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.2.2. Prior distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.3. Simulation framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.4. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.4.1. Strong association between relative risk and risk factor, corre-
lated within-area means and variances (mean-dependent case) . 67
4.4.2. Sensitivity to within-area distribution of the risk factor . . . . . 68
4.4.3. Application: leukemia and indoor radon exposure . . . . . . . . 69
4.5. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.6. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Chapter 5. Semi-Markov Processes and Usefulness in Medicine . . . . . . 75

Eve M ATHIEU -D UPAS, Claudine G RAS -AYGON and Jean-Pierre DAURÈS
5.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5.2. Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.2.1. Model description and notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.2.2. Construction of health indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
5.3. An application to HIV control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.3.1. Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.3.2. Estimation method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
 Contents 7

5.3.3. Results: new indicators of health state . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

5.4. An application to breast cancer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5.4.1. Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5.4.2. Age and stage-specific prevalence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.4.3. Estimation method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
5.4.4. Results: indicators of public health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
5.5. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5.6. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Chapter 6. Bivariate Cox Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Michel B RONIATOWSKI, Alexandre D EPIRE and Ya’acov R ITOV
6.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.2. A dependence model for duration data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.3. Some useful facts in bivariate dependence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6.4. Coherence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
6.5. Covariates and estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
6.6. Application: regression of Spearman’s rho on covariates . . . . . . . 104
6.7. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Chapter 7. Non-parametric Estimation of a Class of Survival Functionals 109

Belkacem A BDOUS
7.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
7.2. Weighted local polynomial estimates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
7.3. Consistency of local polynomial fitting estimators . . . . . . . . . . . 114
7.4. Automatic selection of the smoothing parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
7.5. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Chapter 8. Approximate Likelihood in Survival Models . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Henning L ÄUTER
8.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
8.2. Likelihood in proportional hazard models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
8.3. Likelihood in parametric models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
8.4. Profile likelihood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
8.4.1. Smoothness classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
8.4.2. Approximate likelihood function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
8.5. Statistical arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
8.6. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

PART II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Chapter 9. Cox Regression with Missing Values of a Covariate having a

Non-proportional Effect on Risk of Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Jean-François D UPUY and Eve L ECONTE
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that the robbery had been committed by some one of the guests,
although this seemed incredible, as every name upon the list of
those present seemed to forbid the thought of suspicion. The affair
was put into the hands of private detectives, who were unable,
however, to obtain the slightest clew to the thief of the property.
Yet it is not the professional thieves that those who get up
fashionable entertainments chiefly fear. The most dangerous class,
because the most numerous, are included among the invited guests
and are called, when detected, kleptomaniacs.
 The White Slave Traffic
The revelations made by investigators should be given as wide a
currency as possible. The extent of the White Slave traffic and the
machinery by which it is maintained, should be brought home, not
only to the officials sworn to deal with crime, but to parents sworn
under higher law to guard their young.
Thousands of girls from the country are entrapped each year, and
the pitiful fact is that the parents of a large majority of these
unfortunates are unaware of their fate. As a consequence of this
state of public ignorance, the traffic proceeds unchecked, save by
the efforts of persons willing to give time and money for the
procuring of evidence and prosecuting the offenders.
What is greatly needed as a supplement to vigorous prosecution
of offenders is a campaign of education. Writers, clergymen and
officials should take up this appalling evil and instruct parents as to
the reality and extent of the danger. In small towns there is virtually
no knowledge of this terribly increasing traffic of buying and selling
and securing girls for houses of prostitution.
The problem is enormous, but by educational means it can be
largely solved. The responsibility for a broad and systematic
campaign of enlightenment rests chiefly with the parents, who
should become enlightened upon the subject by reading and inquiry,
and then instruct their children upon the educational lines to the end
that they may know the sad realities and gravity of the evil and its
conditions.
The vampires who deal in human bodies must and will be
punished. These wretches, who, for a few dollars, will dig so low
down in the quagmire of rottenness must be sent to prison. If
fathers and mothers could be brought to a realization that thousands
of young and tender girls are being sold to vultures for immoral
purposes, they would raise a wave of indignation that would sweep
around the world.
It is notable, and a commendable fact that the government,
through its agents and courts, is accomplishing results that will, it is
hoped, forever crush this awful business, and drive the keepers of
these cess-pools of vice and shame into the sea of everlasting
ignomy.
The sole aim in writing upon the White Slave subject is to
definitely call the attention of the men and women of the United
States, and especially those of the larger cities, to the vicious, and
thoroughly organized white slave traffic of today, and its attendant,
far-reaching, horrible results upon the young man and womanhood
of our land. During a constant investigation, covering several years’
time in the central slum districts of Chicago, I have gained much
actual knowledge of the questions of poverty, drink and prostitution
among the lost men and women of this great city. Have become
personally acquainted with very many of them, visiting them,
listening to their heart stories and growing to know much of their
inside lives and have learned a real tender interest and pity for them
in their remorseful, helpless, hopeless condition. Statistical
references have been taken from the writings of United States
District Attorney Sims, Ernest A. Bell, Judge John R. Newcomer,
Clifford G. Roe and others engaged in prosecuting and reform work,
all of whom I thank earnestly and wish well in what they are
accomplishing for good where it is so desperately needed in this
submerged underworld of our city.
After these years of experience, and after having visited in various
capacities, disguised, etc., many of the worst haunts of vice and
houses of prostitution in Chicago, I personally came to this
conclusion: There is small chance for a girl, once having been sold
into or entered upon a life of prostitution, to ever escape therefrom.
Invariably she is kept in debt to her masters, excessive bills for
parlor clothes, board, dentistry, laundry and all conceivable expenses
are kept charged up against her. She is under constant threat of
personal violence and blackmail in every form (her owners securing,
whenever possible, some knowledge of her home and friends and
continually holding this knowledge as a dagger over her), and then
there are the ever-present whoremasters and madams with drugs
and drinks and bolts and bars, guarding every possible avenue of
escape with blows and curses and brutality beyond conception. Very
few young girls enter a life of prostitution voluntarily, and few, once
entering, ever escape.
The recent examination of more than two hundred “white slaves”
by the office of the United States District Attorney of Chicago has
brought to light the fact that literally thousands of innocent girls
from the country districts are every year entrapped into a life of
hopeless slavery and degredation because parents in the country do
not understand conditions as they exist and how to protect their
daughters from the “white slave” traders who have reduced the art
of ruining young girls to a national and international system. I
sincerely believe that nine-tenths of the parents of these thousands
of girls who are every year snatched from lives of decency and
comparative peace and dragged under the slime of an existence in
the “white slave” world have no idea that there is really a trade in
the ruin of girls as much as there is trade in cattle or sheep or the
other products of the farm. If these parents had known the real
conditions, had believed that there is actually a syndicate which does
as regular, as steady and persistent a “business” in the ruination of
girls as the great packing houses do in the sale of meats, it is wholly
probable that their daughters would not now be in dens of vice and
almost utterly without hope of release excepting by the hand of
death.
It is only necessary to say that the legal evidence thus far
collected establishes with complete moral certainty these awful facts:
That the white slave traffic is a system—a syndicate which has its
ramifications from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific ocean, with
“clearing houses” or “distributing centers” in nearly all the larger
cities; that in this ghastly traffic the buying price of a young girl is
$15.00 and that the selling price is generally about $200.00—if the
girl is especially attractive, the white slave dealer may be able to sell
her for $400.00 or $600.00; that this syndicate did not make less
than $200,000 last year in this almost unthinkable commerce; that it
is a definite organization sending its hunters regularly to scour
France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Canada for victims; that the
man at the head of this unthinkable enterprise is known among his
hunters as “The Big Chief.”
Judge John R. Newcomer of Chicago, said before the National
Purity Congress at Battle Creek, Michigan:
“Within one week I had seven different letters from fathers, from
Madison, Wisconsin, on the north, to Peoria, Illinois, on the south,
asking me in God’s name to do something to help them find their
daughters, because they had come to Chicago and they had never
heard from them afterward.
“If you mean by the 'white slave’ traffic the placing of young girls
in a brothel for a price, it is undoubtedly a real fact, based upon
statements that have been made in my court during the past three
months by defendants, both men and women, who have pleaded
guilty to that crime, and in a sense it is both interstate and
international.
“Not one, but many shipments, of which I have personal
knowledge, based upon testimony of people who have pleaded
guilty, many shipments come from Paris and other European cities to
New York; and from New York to Chicago and other western points;
and from Chicago as a distributing point to the West and Southwest;
and on the western coast coming into San Francisco and other ports
there. No, it is a real fact; and it is something that we have got to
take notice of, and something that, while it may have been
developed largely during the past ten years, the national
government itself has recently taken notice of its existence.”
 Mr. Clifford G. Roe, formerly Assistant State’s Attorney, who has
prosecuted very many cases against the traffickers in women, said
before the union meeting of ministers called to consider the white
slave traffic, at the auditorium of the Young Men’s Christian
Association, February 10, 1908:
“A great many persons are yet skeptical of the existence of an
organized traffic in girls. They seem to think that those advocating
the abolition of this trade are either fanatics or notoriety seekers.
They doubt the truth of the impossibility of escape and content
themselves with the thought that girls use the plea of slavery to
right themselves with their parents and friends when their cases are
made public.
“However, if these same people could have been in the courts of
Chicago during the past year their minds would be disabused of the
idea that slavery does not exist in Chicago.
“The startling disclosures made in nearly a hundred cases ought to
arouse not only the citizens of Chicago, but the whole country to the
highest pitch of indignation.”
Chicago’s Soul Market.
“O, he keeps a bunch of 'fillies’ in the shanty down near the corner
of Monroe and Peoria streets, and they’re not foreigners, either.
They’re your nice American girls. No wonder he can make a bet like
that on a mere chance, from a roll of yellow-backs.” The speaker
was a madam of a Peoria street resort, the listeners a motley crowd
of women gathered in the rear room of a popular saloon and
gambling house not far from the corner of Green and Madison
streets on the seething, congested west side of Chicago. These
women assembled in that screened back room to risk their hard-
earned or evil-gotten money on the horses of the Louisville race
track.
There sat the little eighteen-year-old, brown-eyed milliner, her
dissipated face hollow and drawn from worry and lack of sleep and
an insufficient quantity of nourishing food, while near her a white-
haired old woman in shabby black was tightly grasping two quarters,
her entire worldly possession. Just across sat a well-dressed woman
restaurant keeper, a young Eastern Star, and half a hundred others,
above all of whom shone the yellow-haired madam of the Peoria
street resort, the star patron of that great gambling room for
women, each one of whom was eagerly beckoning the well-groomed
bookmaker, feverishly anxious to get her pittance on the race track
favorite, when a connecting door was pushed suddenly open and in
rushed a fashionably-dressed, brutal-faced young Russian Jew,
holding loosely an immense roll of money. Tens, twenties, hundreds
—he came with them until three hundred dollars had been placed to
win upon a “clocker’s tip” in that day’s last race in Louisville.
There was a grim, deadly silence, eating, unbearable silence in
that gambling room as they waited the ring of the telephone and the
name of the winner. Again the yellow-haired madam’s voice
screamed shrilly out, for she was indeed ill at ease, her money was
on the favorite—“Yes, a bunch of American 'fillies’ peddled out at
fifty cents an hour to all comers, black and white, sick or sound. No
wonder he can make a play like that on an outside chance.”
Three hundred dollars! My heart stood still almost. The thought
flashed through my brain that that wager meant hundreds of hours
of shame and slavery and horror to those girls in the shanties down
on Peoria Street, some mother’s girl, every one of them. I sat still for
a little while and watched the fevered, anxious throng about me. My
heart kept going faster and faster until I could bear it no longer.
American “fillies” and body and soul under a brutal Russian Jewish
whoremonger! I slipped quietly out into the street; night was coming
on as I walked down Madison street and south on Peoria. Yes, there
were the shanties—poor, wretched hovels, every one of them. Out
shone the flickering red lights, out came the discordant, rasping
sound of the rented piano, out belched the shrieks of drunken
harlots, mingled with the groans and curses of task-masters in a
foreign tongue, attracting the attention of the hundreds of laborers,
negroes and boys, as they walked home on Peoria street from their
day’s work. On I went until I came to the little shed just north of the
slum saloon occupied by one S——, and checking my steps I looked
around me on the squalid, wretched scene. I was in the midst of
prostitution at its lowest—the heart-breaking dregs of Chicago’s
twenty-two thousand public women. Yes, there they were—the fair
young American girl, the stolid Russian Jewess, the middle-aged,
syphilitic harlot, living, prostituting, dying, like so many hurt, broken
moths around that great Red Light—Chicago’s west side soul market
—their poor, wretched bodies, sold day and night at from twenty-five
to fifty cents an hour to all comers who could pay the pitiful price
demanded by their brutal, soulless masters; and as I looked the
burning fire of intense pity entered my soul for these drug and drink-
sodden, diseased, chained slaves—my sisters in Christ in this great
free American Republic—and so with a heart full of consuming desire
to know more of the real lives of these scarlet women and to help
them, if possible, I began at once a thorough personal investigation
of Chicago’s public slave market, visiting these people in various
capacities whenever occasion offered; talking with them, gaining
their much-abused confidence until I gradually learned the inside
lines of the saddest story America has ever known since the black
mothers of our Southland were torn from their black and white
babies and with shrieks of agony and heartstrings bleeding and souls
rent with blackened horror were sold to death on the plantations of
Louisiana and Mississippi, and I want to tell you who read this and
who think there is little truth in the now much agitated question of
white slavery in America, that in the dives and dens of our city’s
underworld I have heard shrieks and heart cries and groans of
agony and remorse that have never been surpassed at any public
slave auction America has ever witnessed, as these girls, many of
them, oh! so young, realizing their awful fate with scalding tears and
moans of horror, shut out from their hearts and lives father or
mother, or husband and child and turned their sob-shaken, tortured
bodies to face the months or years of final, relentless wretchedness
and woe, to be at last thrown out sick and broken to die in some
alley or be carted off to Dunning poorhouse to gradual physical
decay and a pauper’s burial, and grave and obliteration, while those
who sold them just a few years before go out in their diamonds and
fine linen and their great automobiles to buy up more girls (it might
be your daughter—father, mother—or it might be mine) to fill up the
vacancy in the ranks of this vast army of white slaves. A woman said
to me the other day, and it was a lofty, sneering tone, too: “I doubt
if these women are ever coerced or even imposed upon.” Listen!
read, then listen! Sitting in my office one afternoon, I listened, my
blood almost freezing, to the following story, vouched for by Mr. C
——, an immigration inspector and brother of a well-known Chicago
reform-worker, and here it is as he told it to me: “One evening some
time ago I was looking up a case down in the Twenty-second street
red-light district, and visited and inspected, looking for immigrant
girls held illegally at a certain house of the lower class in that
neighborhood of prostitution. While in the house I noticed a young
woman lying very ill (in the last stages of consumption, if I
remember the story exactly) and in a semi-conscious condition, and
to my horror upon inquiry I learned that in the rush hours of
business this helpless, painracked young woman was open to all
comers holding an accredited room check.” My friends, there are
true stories heard and known every day around the city’s seething,
blood-red soul market that cannot be put in print—stories though,
that, were they to become known, would make decent Chicago rise
as one man and cry with a voice outspeaking Fort Sumpter, “White
Slavery in Chicago and America must cease!”
During my years of study of this question of prostitution I learned
to know personally many of the characteristic white slaves of the
west and south side “levees.” One “Alice” I shall never, never forget.
Beautiful, aside from her dissipation, a high-school graduate,
grammar and syntax perfect, manner exquisite, “Alice,” seduced at
eighteen, was at the age of twenty-one away down the line in the
west side levee underworld. I used to talk many times with Alice as
she sat in the back parlor of the “house” on Peoria street that gave
her shelter, awaiting her call of “next” to go “upstairs” with
whatsoever—negro, white or Chinese—might buy possession for one
dollar (one of our dollars of the Republic on which is eternally
stamped the blessed words, “In God we trust”) of her beautiful body
for one hour. Smoking, always smoking her doped Turkish cigarette,
Alice told me much of her life, both in years gone forever and of a
daily “levee” existence. She told me of a father and mother and a
beautiful home, of a lover who came into it and led her away by
night into “levee” slavery—of awful disgrace and inheritance, of a
little baby that she only knew one hour, of hours of insane remorse
and anguish, until at last she would stand and scream and scream
with mental pain until some whoremonger knocked her senseless,
and then she told me how she would crawl away to a nearby shanty
saloon and drink herself helpless, to forget. As far as I know, Alice is
still on Peoria street, and oh, men and women, there are twenty-two
thousand of these “Alices,” your sisters and mine, in Chicago’s great
blasting soul market today. United States Attorney Sims puts the
average life of a prostitute at ten years or less, while other excellent
authorities as low as five years, as these women must constantly
drink any and all drinks purchased for them (as much of the
business revenue is from the sale of these drinks) by visitors, thus
forcing them at all times into a continual half-drunken condition,
rendering them helpless to control or resist the abnormal, sickening,
mind and body-wrecking demands made upon them. Very few
women live therein an average more than three, four or six years,
and at the end of that time twenty-two thousand pure young girls
gathered from prairie homes and village firesides and from our own
suburban and city families must march out in this great soul market
to take the place of the broken wretches whose decaying bodies are
cast into the refuse of our alleys and sewers to become the menace
of every girl and boy and drunken man who comes within their
clutches or sets foot within their alley hovels.
The End of the Way.
At about ten o’clock on Saturday evening, September 19th, I
boarded a West Madison street car and, transferring north at Halsted
street, alighted at Lake and walked west to L——'s saloon. I
discovered in the wine and back rooms of the wretched place a
crowd of perhaps fifty drunken, dirty men and women, young white
girls, huddled in with the worst mob of negroes, whites and Chinese
I have seen in Chicago’s slums, all cursing, drinking, singing and
blaspheming in plain view and hearing of the street. I stopped a
moment to make sure I was making no mistake in what I saw and
then crossed the street to interview the dark-eyed little foreigner
who at its door was boldly soliciting trade for the saloon and its
adjacent evils just opposite. I walked down to Peoria and south on
that notorious street. In the row of houses running from Lake to
Randolph street there are approximately 300 white slaves, and
diseased, crippled prostitutes of the lowest class, dumped from the
city’s cleaner dives. And on that night it was almost impossible to
push one’s way through the mass of men and boys—whites,
negroes, Turks and Pollocks, gathered in front of these public
abominations. At the corner of Randolph and Peoria streets several
earnest looking men and women were holding a little gospel street
meeting, and stopping with them, I counted during the thirty
minutes I stayed there, six hundred and forty (approximately) men
and boys stop in front of or enter this horrible flesh market. As I left
the scene a young girl in a drunken, filthy condition, slipped out of
an alley and followed me, asking me to help her, and as we sat on
the steps of Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, corner of Washington
boulevard and Peoria street, she told me the worst, heart-breaking
story of wrong and vice and ruin I have ever listened to. As I left
that West Side levee of vice I knew I had seen prostitution at its
lowest ebb and that out from these holes of horror finally went those
awful alley women of the night to sell their souls to any young boy
or drunken man who could give them a few cents or even the price
of a drink of whiskey.
This girl was turned over to the Chicago Rescue Mission, cleaned
and clothed and fed and pointed to Jesus Christ. Her story was
investigated and found true and after receiving medical attention she
was quietly returned to her country home.
 Mr. J. J. Sloan, when he was superintendent of the John Worthy
School (which is the local municipal juvenile reformatory), reported
that one-third of the street boys sent to him were suffering from the
loathsome diseases and distempers of the red-light district, nor is
this to be wondered at when we consider the fact that sexual
commerce may be purchased almost anywhere in the South State
street and West Side alleys for the remarkably low price of ten cents,
or even a glass of beer or whisky from the gonorrheal and syphilitic
denizens thrown out long ago from the better class houses of
prostitution to live off the half drunken men and young boys to be
found in swarms along South State, Halsted and South Clark streets.
Almost invariably the street boy hunting these underworld sections
of our city is first led into sexual sin by one of the crippled, half
rotten, yet painted vampires of the street whose only care or hope is
a crust of free lunch and enough whisky or “dope” to drown for a
time at least, the last throb of heart and conscience and keep life a
few days longer within her wretched body, and the boy, having
purchased for the small fee his own destruction, trails out again into
the night and on into disease and crime and prison, and finally
death.
The average parent of today has little idea of the temptations
which constantly surround and beset the growing boy. I recall a case
in Des Moines, Iowa, where a little degenerate girl of sixteen, caused
the moral, and in several cases physical, ruin of five young boys, all
this happening in an exclusive east side neighborhood and under the
watchful care of honest parents and friends, so what must be the
temptation thrown out to the young boys of our city when through
block after block of our certain districts they must come in direct
contact with those whose only mission is to ruin and debauch. It
should be the direct object morally and politically, of every father
and mother in this city to banish these human parasites—these
leeches who suck the life blood of our boys—from Chicago’s streets.
Listen, father, mother, there are twenty-two thousand poor, dearly-
beloved young girls growing up in our midst today who within five
years must, under the present business system of white slavery, put
aside father, mother, home, friends and honor and march into
Chicago’s ghastly flesh market to take the place of the twenty-two
thousand helpless, hopeless, decaying chattles who now daily behind
bolts and bars and steel screens, satisfy the abominable lust of
(approximately) two hundred and ten thousand brutal, drunken
adulterers.
I believe, as I write, that the final solving of this reeking, hideous
question lies in the moral and Christian teaching and protection of
the growing girls of our land. I believe in a rigidly enforced law that
keeps girls under legal age and unattended off the down-town
streets at night after a reasonable hour. Harry Balding, the convicted
white slaver, in his confession before Judge Newcomer and Assistant
State’s Attorney Roe, says: “We would be sent out by resort keepers
to work up some girls, for whom we were paid from $10 to $50
each, though the cash bonus was much more. The majority of them
were girls we met on the street. We would go around to the penny
arcades and nickle theatres and when we saw a couple of young
girls we would go up and talk with them. I will say this for myself—I
never took a girl away from her home; the girls I took down there I
met in the stores or on the streets.” There is a league of masonry
worldwide that makes it possible for a mason anywhere in trouble or
distress, to raise his hand toward the heavens with a certain sign
and if there be a brother mason within reach, that brother, no matter
of what nationality, kindred or tongue, is sworn to give him all
needed protection. Listen, father, mother, sister, listen brother! Today
from beneath Chicago’s awful moral sewerage which has sucked
their hearts and souls and bodies under, a thousand trembling hands
are held up to high heaven, and to you for help, hands reeking with
the blood on which some whoremonger has fattened; the hands
though of your sisters and of mine, and I believe that here in
Chicago, the greatest market for white slaves on the continent,
should be formed a league that would become worldwide, of
earnest, law-abiding men and women whose efforts united with
those of the proper police, municipal and Federal authorities, would
make it practically impossible for a girl to be sold into or compelled
to lead an immoral life, and through whose influence such open
public flesh markets as our “red-light” and levee district would be
banished forever from Chicago streets. I believe in helping, God
knows, with heart and hand and money, every fallen woman in our
land whom there is the slightest chance to help in any way, but I
believe first of all in using every known measure to keep our girls
from falling. You and I live beneath the only flag in all the world that
has never known defeat, and the very basic principle upon which
that flag is builded is human liberty and human protection, and so by
personal work, by song, prayer and by the power of the cross let us
set ourselves to help these helpless ones in our midst until the
angels shall take up the story of shame and bitterness and wrong
and bear to all the world and to heaven itself the swift
acknowledgement that you are your brother’s keeper.
 Smashing The Traffic
There are some things so far removed from the lives of normal,
decent people as to be simply unbelievable by them. The “white
slave” trade of today is one of these incredible things. The calmest,
simplest statements of its facts are almost beyond the
comprehension or belief of men and women who are mercifully
spared from contact with the dark and hideous secrets of “the under
world” of the big cities.
You would hardly credit the statement, for example, that things
are being done every day in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and
other large cities of this country in the white slave traffic which
would, by contrast, make the Congo slave traders of the old days
appear like Good Samaritans. Yet this figure is almost a literal truth.
The man of the stone age who clubbed a woman of his desire into
insensibility or submission was little short of a high-minded
gentleman when contrasted with the men who fatten upon the
“white slave” traffic in this day of social settlements, of forward
movements, of Y. M. C. A. and Christian Endeavor activities, of air
ships and wireless telegraphy.
Naturally, wisely, every parent who reads this statement will at
once raise the question: “What excuse is there for the open
discussion of such a revolting condition of things in the pages of a
household magazine? What good is there to be served by flaunting
so dark and disgusting a subject before the family circle?”
Only one—and that is a reason and not an excuse! The recent
examination of more than two hundred “white slaves” by the office
of the United States district attorney at Chicago has brought to light
the fact that literally thousands of innocent girls from the country
districts are every year entrapped into a life of hopeless slavery and
degradation because parents in the country do not understand
conditions as they exist and how to protect their daughters from the
“white slave” traders who have reduced the art of ruining young girls
to a national and international system. I sincerely believe that nine-
tenths of the parents of these thousands of girls who are every year
snatched from lives of decency and comparative peace and dragged
under the slime of existence in the “white slave world” have no idea
that there is really a trade in the ruin of girls as much as there is a
trade in cattle or sheep or the other products of the farm. If these
parents had known the real conditions, had believed that there is
actually a syndicate which does as regular, as steady and persistent
a “business” in the ruination of girls as the great packing houses do
in the sale of meats, it is wholly probable that their daughters would
not now be in dens of vice and almost utterly without hope or
release excepting by the hand of death.
The purpose of all our laws and statutes against crime is the
suppression of crime. The protection of the people, of the home, of
the individual, is the purpose which inspires the honest and
conscientious prosecutor. This is what the law is for, and if this result
of protection to individuals and home can be made more effective
and more general by a statement such as this, then I am willing to
make it for the public good. And the most direct and unadorned
statement of facts will, I think, carry its own conviction and make
everything like “preaching” or denunciation superfluous.
The evidence obtained from questioning some 250 girls taken in
Chicago houses of ill repute leads me to believe that not fewer than
fifteen thousand girls have been imported into this country in the
last year as white slaves. Of course this is only a guess—an
approximate—it could be nothing else—but my own personal belief
is that it is a conservative guess and well within the facts as to
numbers. Then please remember that girls imported are certainly
but a mere fraction of the number recruited for the army of
prostitution from home fields, from the cities, the towns, the villages
of our own country. There is no possible escape from this conclusion.
 Another significant fact brought out by the examination of these
girls is that practically every one who admitted having parents living
begged that her real name be withheld from the public because of
the sorrow and shame it would bring to her parents. One said: “My
mother thinks I am studying in a stenographic school,” another
stated, “My parents in the country think I have a good position in a
department store—as I did have for a time, and I’ve sent them a
little money from time to time; I don’t care what happens so long as
they don’t know the truth about me.” In a word, the one concern of
nearly all those examined who have homes in this country was that
their parents—and in particular their mothers—might discover,
through the prosecution of the “white slavers,” that they were
leading lives of shame instead of working at the honorable callings
which they had left their homes and come to the city to pursue.
There are, to put it mildly, hundreds—yes, thousands—of trusting
mothers in the smaller cities, the towns, villages and farming
communities of the United States who believe that their daughters
are “getting on fine” in the city, and too busy to come home for a
visit or “to write much,” while the fact is that these daughters have
been swept into the gulf of white slavery—the worst doom that can
befall a woman. The mother who has allowed her girl to go to the
big city and work should find out what kind of life that girl is living
and find out from some other source than the girl herself. No matter
how good and fine a girl she has been at home and how complete
the confidence she has always inspired, find out how she is living,
what kind of associations she is keeping. Take nothing for granted.
You owe it to yourself and to her and it is not disloyalty to go
beyond her own words for evidence that the wolves of the city have
not dragged her from safe paths. It is, instead, the highest form of
loyalty to her.
Again, there is, in another particular, a remarkable and impressive
sameness in the stories related by these wretched girls. In the
narratives of nearly all of them is a passage describing how some
man of their acquaintance had offered to “help” them to a good
position in the city, to “look after” them, and to “take an interest” in
them. After listening to this confession from one girl after another,
hour after hour, until you have heard it repeated perhaps fifty times,
you feel like saying to every mother in the country: Do not trust any
man who pretends to take an interest in your girl if that interest
involves her leaving your own roof. Keep her with you. She is far
safer in the country than in the big city, but if, go to the city she
must, then go with her yourself; if that is impossible, place her with
some woman who is your friend, not hers; no girl can safely go to a
great city to make her own way who is not under the eye of a
trustworthy woman who knows the ways and dangers of city life.
Above all, distrust the “protection,” the “good offices” of any man
who is not a family friend known to be clean and honorable and
above all suspicion.
Of course all the examinations to which I have referred have been
conducted for the specific purpose of finding girls who have been
brought into this country from other lands in defiance of the federal
statute, passed by Congress February 20, 1907. This act declares
that any person who shall “keep, maintain, support or harbor” any
alien woman for immoral purposes within three years after her
arrival in this country shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be
liable to a fine of $5,000 and imprisonment for five years at the
discretion of the court. When the department of justice at
Washington decided that this law was being violated, the United
States district attorney at Chicago was instructed to take such action
as was necessary to apprehend the violators of the act and convict
them. One of the first steps required was the raiding of the various
dives and houses of ill-fame and the arrest of the girl inmates as
well as the arrest of the keepers and the procurers of the white
slaves.
While the federal prosecution is officially concerned only with
those cases involving the importation of girls from other countries—
there being no authority under the present national statutes for the
federal government to prosecute those concerned in securing white
slaves who are natives of this country—it was inevitable that the
examination of scores of these inmates, captured in raids upon the
dives, should bring to officers and agents of the department of
justice an immense fund of information regarding the methods of
the white slave traders in recruiting for the traffic from home fields.
Whether these hunters of the innocent ply their awful calling at
home or abroad their methods are much the same—with the
exception that the foreign girl is more hopelessly at their mercy. Let
me take the case of a little Italian peasant girl who helped her father
till the soil in the vineyards and fields near Naples. Like most of the
others taken in the raids, she stoutly maintained that she had been
in this country more than three years and that she was in a life of
shame from choice and not through the criminal act of any person.
When she was brought into what the sensational newspapers would
call the “sweat box,” it was clear that she was in a state of abject
terror. Soon, however, Assistant United States District Attorney
Parkin, having charge of the examination, convinced her that he and
his associates were her friends and protectors and that their purpose
was to punish those who had profited by her ruin and to send her
back to her little Italian home with all her expenses paid; that she
was under the protection of the United States and was as safe as if
the king of Italy would take her under his royal care and pledge his
word that her enemies should not have revenge on her.
Then she broke down, and with pitiful sobs related her awful
narrative. That every word of it was true, no one could doubt who
saw her as she told it. Briefly this is her story: A “fine lady” who
wore beautiful clothes came to where she lived with her parents,
made friends with her, told her she was uncommonly pretty (the
truth, by the way), and professed a great interest in her. Such
flattering attentions from an American lady who wore clothes as fine
as those of the Italian nobility, could have but one effect on the
mind of this simple little peasant girl and on her still simpler parents.
Their heads were completely turned and they regarded the
“American lady” with almost adoration.
 Very shrewdly the woman did not attempt to bring the little girl
back with her, but held out hope that some day a letter might come
with money for her passage to America. Once there she would
become the companion of her American friend and they would have
great times together.
Of course, in due time the money came—and the $100 was a
most substantial pledge to the parents of the wealth and generosity
of the “American lady.” Unhesitatingly she was prepared for the
voyage which was to take her to the land of happiness and good
fortune. According to the arrangements made by letter the girl was
met at New York by two “friends” of her benefactress who attended
to her entrance papers and took her in charge. These “friends” were
two of the most brutal of all the white slave drivers who are in the
traffic. At this time she was about sixteen years old, innocent and
rarely attractive for a girl of her class, having the large, handsome
eyes, the black hair and the rich olive skin of a typical Italian.
Where these two men took her she did not know—but by the most
violent and brutal means they quickly accomplished her ruin. For a
week she was subjected to unspeakable treatment and made to feel
that her degredation was complete and final.
And here let it be said that the breaking of the spirit, the crushing
of all hope for any future save that of shame, is always a part of the
initiation of a white slave. Then the girl was shipped on to Chicago,
where she was disposed of to the keeper of an Italian dive of the
vilest type. On her entrance here she was furnished with gaudy
dresses and wearing apparel for which the keeper of the place
charged her $600. As is the case with all new white slaves she was
not allowed to have any clothing which she could wear upon the
street.
Her one object in life was to escape from the den in which she
was held a prisoner. To “pay out” seemed the surest way, and at
length, from her wages of shame, she was able to cancel the $600
account. Then she asked for her street clothing and her release—
only to be told that she had incurred other expenses to the amount
of $400.
Her Italian blood took fire at this and she made a dash for liberty.
But she was not quick enough and the hand of the oppressor was
upon her. In the wild scene that followed she was slashed with a
razor, one gash straight through her right eye, one across her cheek
and another slitting her ear. Then she was given medical attention
and the wounds gradually healed, but her face was horribly
mutilated, her right eye is always open and to look upon her is to
shudder.
When the raids began she was secreted and arrangements made
to ship her to a dive in the mining regions of the west. Fortunately,
however, a few hours before she was to start upon her journey the
United States marshals raided the place and captured herself as well
as her keepers. To add to the horror of her situation she was soon to
become a mother. The awful thought in her mind, however, was to
escape from assassination at the hands of the murderous gang
which oppressed her.
Evidence shows that the hirelings of this traffic are stationed at
certain points of entry in Canada, where large numbers of
immigrants are landed, to do what is known in their parlance as
“cutting out work.” In other words, these watchers for human prey
scan the immigrants as they come down the gang plank of a vessel
which has just arrived, and “spot” the girls who are unaccompanied
by fathers, mothers, brothers or relatives to protect them. The girl
who has been spotted as a desirable and unprotected victim is
properly approached by a man who speaks her language and is
immediately offered employment at good wages, with all expenses
to the destination to be paid by the man. Most frequently laundry
work is the bait held out, sometimes housework or employment in a
candy shop or factory. The object of the negotiations is to “cut out”
the girl from any of her associates and to get her to go with him.
Then the only thing is to accomplish her ruin by the shortest route.
If they cannot be cajoled or enticed by promises of an easy time,
plenty of money, fine clothes and the usual stock of allurements—or
a fake marriage, then harsher methods are resorted to. In some
instances the hunters really marry the victims. As to the sterner
methods, it is of course impossible to speak explicitly, beyond the
statement that intoxication and drugging are often used as means to
reduce the victims to a state of helplessness, and sheer physical
violence is a common thing.
When once a white slave is sold and landed in a house or dive,
she becomes a prisoner. The raids disclosed the fact that in each of
these places is a room having but one door, to which the keeper
holds the key. In here are locked all the street clothes, shoes and
the ordinary apparel of a woman.
The finery which is provided for the girl for house wear is of a
nature to make her appearance in the street impossible. Then added
to this handicap, is the fact that at once the girl is placed in debt to
the keeper for a wardrobe of “fancy” clothes, which are charged to
her at preposterous prices. She cannot escape while she is in debt to
the keeper—and she is never allowed to get out of debt—at least
until all desire to leave the life is dead within her.
The examination of witnesses have brought out the fact that not
many of the women in this class expect to live more than ten years,
after they enter upon their voluntary or involuntary life of white
slavery. Perhaps the average is less than that. Many die painful
deaths by disease, many by consumption, but it is hardly beyond the
truth to say that suicide is their general expectation. “We’ll all come
to it sooner or later,” one of the witnesses remarked to her
companions in the jail, the other day, when reading in the
newspaper of the suicide of a girl inmate of a notorious house.
A volume could be written on this revolting subject, but I have no
disposition to add a single word but what will open the eyes of
parents to the fact that white slavery is an existing condition—a
system of girl hunting that is national and international in its scope,
that it literally consumes thousands of girls—clean, innocent girls—
every year; that it is operated with a cruelty, a barbarism that gives
a new meaning to the word fiend; that it is imminent peril to every
girl in the country who had a desire to get into the city and taste its
excitements and its pleasures.
The facts stated here are for the awakening of parents and
guardians of girls. If I were to presume to say anything to the
possible victims of this awful scourge of white slavery it would be
this: “Those who enter here leave hope behind;” the depths of
debasement and suffering disclosed by the investigation now in
progress would make the flesh of a seasoned man of the world
creep with horror and shame.
 Why Girls Go Astray
Right at the outset let me say in all frankness that I would never,
from personal choice, write upon a subject of this character. Its
sensationalism is personally repellant to me and cannot fail to be of
actual protective benefit to many homes; and to withhold the facts
and disclosures which have come to me as investigator would be to
deprive the innocent and the worthy of a protection which might
save many a home from sorrow, disgrace and ruin.
The results of this work and of the explanations of the conditions
uncovered in this book have brought to me a gratifying knowledge of
the practical rescue work being done by the settlement and “slum”
workers of Chicago. They are not only specialists in this field, but
they are as devoted as they are practical.
So far as the matter of sensationalism is concerned, that may be
disposed of in the simple statement that the naked recital, in the
most formal and colorless phraseology, of the facts already brought
to light by the “white slave” prosecutions are in themselves so
sensational that the art of the most brilliant orator, or the cunning of
the cleverest writer, could not add an iota to their sensationalism.
And it may as well be said here that it is quite impossible to even
hint in public print of the revolting depths of shame disclosed by this
investigation. Behind every word that can be said in print on this
topic is a world of degradation of which the slightest hint cannot be
given.
If there are any who are inclined to feel that the term “white
slave” is a little overdrawn, a little exaggerated, let them decide on
that point after considering this statement: “Among the 'white
slaves’ captured in raids since the appearance of this book, is a girl
who is now about eighteen years of age. Her home was in France,
and when she was only fourteen years old she was approached by a
'white slaver’ who promised her employment in America as a lady’s
maid or companion. The wage offered was far beyond what she
could expect to get in her own country—but far more alluring to her
than the money she could earn was the picture of the life which
would be hers in free America. Her surroundings would be luxurious;
she would be the constant recipient of gifts of dainty clothing from
her mistress, and even the hardest work she would be called upon
to do would be in itself a pleasure and an excitement.
“Naturally she was eager to leave her home and trust herself to
one who would provide her with so enriching a future. Her friends of
her own age seasoned their farewells to her with envy of her rare
good fortune.
“On arriving in Chicago she was taken to the house of ill-fame to
which she had been sold by the procurer. There this child of fourteen
was quickly and unceremoniously 'broken in’ to the hideous life of
depravity for which she had been entrapped. The white slaver who
sold her was able to drive a most profitable bargain, for she was
rated as uncommonly attractive. In fact, he made her life of shame a
perpetual source of income, and when—not long ago—he was
captured and indicted for the importation of other girls, this girl was
used as the agency of providing him with $2,000 for his defense.
“But let us look for a moment at the mentionable facts of this
child’s daily routine of life and see if such an existence justifies the
use of the term 'slavery.’ After she had furnished a night of servitude
to the brutal passions of vile frequenters of the place, she was then
compelled to put off her tawdry costume, array herself in the garb of
a scrub-woman, and, on her hands and knees, scrub the house from
top to bottom. No weariness, no exhaustion, ever excused her from
this drudgery, which was a full day’s work for a strong woman.
“After her scrubbing was done she was allowed to go to her
chamber and sleep—locked in her room to prevent her possible
escape—until the orgies of the next day, or rather night, began. She
was allowed no liberties, no freedom, and in the two and one half
years of her slavery in this house she was not even given one dollar
to spend for her own comfort or pleasure. The legal evidence
collected shows that during this period of slavery she earned for
those who owned her not less than eight thousand dollars!”
If this is not slavery, I have no definition for it.
Let us make it entirely clear that the white slave is an actual
prisoner. She is under the most constant surveillance, both by the
keeper to whom she is “let” and the procurer who owns her. Not
until she has lost all possible desire to escape is she given any
liberty.
Before me, as I write, is a letter from a father which is a tragedy
in a page. He begins the note by saying that the warning has
aroused him to inquire after his “little girl.” There is a pathetic pride
in his admission that she was considered an uncommonly “pretty
girl” when she left her home to take a position in Chicago. Her
letters, he states, have been more and more infrequent, but that she
does occasionally write home, and sometimes encloses a small
amount of money. From the tone of the father’s note it is evident
that, while he is a trifle anxious, he asks that his daughter be
“looked up” rather to confirm his feelings of confidence that she is all
right than otherwise.
A glance at the address where she was to be found left no
possible question as to the fate which had overtaken this daughter
of a country home. So far as a knowledge of the girl’s mode of life is
concerned, no investigation was necessary—the location named
being in the center of Chicago’s “red-light” district.
However, the case was placed in the hands of a settlement worker,
and at this moment the girl is waiting, in a place of safety, for the
arrival of her father, who is on his way to take her back to the
mother and brothers and sisters who have supposed that she was
holding a respectable, but poorly paid position. They will, however,
welcome a very different person from the “pretty girl” who went out
from that home to make her way in the big city. She is pitifully
wasted by the life which she has led and her constitution is so
broken down that she cannot reasonably expect many years of life,
even under the tenderest care. What is still worse, the fact cannot
be denied that her moral fibre is much shattered, and that the work
of reclamation must be more than physical.
The “White slaves” who have been taken in the course of the
present prosecution have, generally, been very grateful for the
liberation and glad to return to their homes. It has been necessary
for their own protection as well as for other reasons—to commit
some of these unfortunates to various prisons pending the trial of
the cases in which they are to appear as witnesses, and practically
every one of them gives unmistakable evidence that imprisonment is
a welcome liberation by comparison with the life of “white slavery.”
Now, as to the practical means which parents should use to
prevent this unspeakable fate from overtaking their daughters. They
cannot do it by assuming that their daughter is all right and that she
will take care of herself in the big city. In a large measure it seems
impossible to arouse parents—especially those in the country—to a
realization that there is in every big city a class of men and women
who live by trapping girls into a life of degredation and who are as
inhumanly cunning in their awful craft as they are in their other
instincts; that these beasts of the human jungle are as unbelievably
desperate as they are unbelievably cruel, and that their warfare
upon virtue is as persistent, as calculating and as unceasing as was
the warfare of the wolf upon the unprotected lamb of the pioneer’s
flock in the early days of the Western frontier.
I cannot escape the conclusion that the country girl is in greater
danger from the “white slavers” than the city girl. The perusal of
testimony of many “white slaves” enforces this conclusion. This is
because they are less sophisticated, more trusting and more open to
the allurements of those who are waiting to prey upon them.
 It is a fact which parents of girls in the country should remember
that the “white slavers” are busy on the trains coming into the city,
and make it a point to “cut out” an attractive girl whenever they can.
This “cutting out” process consists of making the girl’s acquaintance,
gaining her confidence and, on one pretext or another, inducing her
to leave the train before the main depot is reached. This is done
because the various protective and law and order organizations have
watchers at the main railroad stations who are trained to the work of
“spotting,” and quickly detect a girl in the hands of one of these
human beasts of prey. Generally these watchers are women and
wear the badges of their organizations.
But suppose that the girl from the country does not chance to fall
in with the “white slaver” on the train, that she reaches the city in
safety, becomes located in a position—or perhaps in the
stenographic school or business college which she has come to
attend—and secures a room in a boarding house. No human being,
it seems to me, is quite so lonely as the young girl from the country
when she first comes to the city and starts in the struggles of life
there without acquaintances. All her instincts are social, and she is,
for the time being, almost desolately alone in a wilderness of strange
human beings. She must have some one to talk to—it is the law of
youth as well as the law of her sex to crave constant companionship.
And the consequences? She is sentimentally in a condition to
prepare her for the slaughter, to make her an easy prey to the wiles
of the “white slave” wolf.
The girl reared in the city does not have this peculiar and insidious
handicap to contend with; she has been—from the time she could
first toddle along the sidewalk—educated in wholesome suspicion,
taught that she must not talk with strangers or take candy from
them, that she must withdraw herself from all advances and, in large
measure, regard all save her own people with distrust. As she grows
older she comes to know that certain parts of the city are more
dangerous and more “wicked” than others; that her comings and
goings must always be in safe and familiar company; that her
acquaintanceships and her friendships must be scrutinized by her
natural protectors and that, altogether, there is a definite but
undefined danger in the very atmosphere of the city for the girl or
the young woman which demands a constant and protected
alertness.
The training is almost wholly absent in the case of the country
girl; she is not educated in suspicion until the protective instinct acts
almost unconsciously; her intercourse with her world is almost
comparatively free and unrestrained; she is so unlearned in the
moral and social geography of the city that she is quite as likely, if
left to her own devices, to select her boarding house in an
undesirable as in a safe and desirable part of the city; and, in a
word, when she comes into the city her ignorance, her trusting faith
in humanity in general, her ignorance of the underworld and her
loneliness and perhaps home-sickness, conspire to make her a ready
and an easy victim of the “white slaver.”
In view of what I have learned in the course of the recent
investigation and prosecution of the “white slave” traffic, I can say in
all sincerity, that if I lived in the country and had a young daughter, I
would go to any length of hardship and privation myself rather than
allow her to go into the city to work or to study—unless that
studying were to be done in the very best type of an educational
institution where the girl students were always under the closest
protection. The best and surest way for parents of girls in the
country to protect them from the clutches of the “white slaver” is to
keep them in the country. But if circumstances should seem to
compel a change from the country to the city, then the only safe way
is to go with them into the city; but even this last has its
disadvantages from the fact that, in that case, the parents would
themselves be unfamiliar with the usages and the pitfalls of
metropolitan life, and would not be able to protect their daughters
as carefully as if they had spent their own lives in the city.
 More About the Traffic in Shame
The dragnets of the inhuman men and women who ply their
terrible trade are spread day and night and are manipulated with a
skill and precision which ought to strike terror to the heart of every
careless or indifferent parent. The wonder is not that so many are
caught in this net, but that they escape! “I count the week—I might
almost say the day—a happy and fortunate one which does not bring
to my attention as an officer of the state a deplorable case of this
kind,” said Mrs. Ophelia Amigh.
Just to show how tightly and broadly the nets of these fishers for
girls are spread, let me tell you of an instance which occurred to a
girl from this institution:
This girl, whom I will call Nellie, is a very ordinary looking girl, and
below the average of intelligence, but as tractable and obedient as
she is ingenuous. She is wholly without the charm which would
naturally attract the eye of the white slave trader.
Because of her quietness, her obedience and her good disposition,
she was, in accordance with the rules of the institution, permitted to
go into the family of a substantial farmer out in the west and work
as a housemaid, a “hired girl”—her wages to be deposited to her
credit against the time when she should reach the age of twenty-one
and leave the Home.
She had been in her position for some time and was so quiet and
satisfactory that one Sunday when the family were not going to
church, the mistress said:
“Nellie, if you wish to go to church alone you may do so. The milk
wagon will be along shortly and you can ride on that to the village—
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