It may startle you, though not necessarily stop you, to know what very few know—it is a felony to transport a female one step up or down or sideways in the District of Columbia with what grandma used to call “dishonorable intentions.”

The Mann Act was invented by a Chicago blue-nosed representative named Mann, after a hophead parlor-whore in melodramatic mood threw a note out of the window of the late Harry Guzik’s cathouse on which she had written “I am a white slave.” A milkman found it and turned it in at the 22nd Street police station. A puritanical young prosecutor named Clifford Roe, instead of laughing, made it so scandalous that the term “white slave” became the common synonym for a prostitute. Mona Marshall, the girl, was no slave at all, and when she came out of her fog she proved it. Her case history showed that she had been seduced in Wisconsin and brought to Chicago and placed in the house, quite willingly, by a traveling man who thought it was wasteful to give it away.

That came out in testimony and Congressman Mann fathered the law making interstate transportation a penitentiary offense. Too many jokes about crossing state lines have gone into the legend since then for anyone not to understand the possible consequences of taking ’em in one state and making ’em in another. But what has been very sparsely advertised is a phrase in the Mann Act which states, “or on federal territory.” Washington is federal territory.

So, if you meet one in the lobby and take her up in the elevator, you’re a candidate for Atlanta.

This clause has been enforced with ultimate results. But for many years, by unwritten policy, the Department of Justice stopped paying attention to private, non-commercial infractions. But in no way has the letter been ameliorated, and at any time this statute could be applied, as the income tax evasion law was used to convict murderous gangsters, if an Attorney General so instructs. It can be used without even the technical provisions required to substantiate an attempted rape. The language states, “for immoral purposes.” Such purposes need not be successful. There is a mistaken notion that paying a female’s fare has something to do with it. It has not, except as evidence of the intent, which is the res gestae.

Let it not be assumed that this is a major deterrent for the Washington wolf, before whom is spread a field alabaster with white lambs generously interlarded with black sheep. Yet the fine art of subtle, sophisticated flirtation, with skill, poise and aplomb, which has illuminated the finest works of the masters through the ages in every form of expression, seems extinct here.

Those in residence are boors; the transients are in a hurry; and the distaff defense being negligible, no true swordsman deigns to fence when he can hit a broad on the head with the handle.

Chief among Washington ladies’ men is handsome Warren Magnuson, bachelor Senator from the state of Washington, where some of his I.W.W. constituents would probably kick over the traces if they saw the highfalutin’ fillies he runs with in Washington. The Senator is a man among men, with the reputation of seldom wooing one girl at a time. He often entertains several in one evening in his Shoreham apartment. We know. They talk.

Not all wolves are single. We will not divulge names, or tell how they cover up. Your imagination will picture how easy it is in a town where so many are seeking favors, to get a stooge to come along as the cutie’s alleged “date,” while the principal apparently came along only for the ride.

Not all wolves, of course, are Senators or such with official immunity.

A simple way to get acquainted is to watch the papers for announcements of State Society dances. Most lonesome G-gals belong to these societies, composed of expatriates from their home states. Once every week, throughout the year, one of these groups throws a party or a dance. Admission is open to all. The Officers’ Service Club dances are swell, too.

At this writing there are no public ballrooms of the type of Roseland in New York or the Aragon in Chicago, not because they’re illegal, but because they have been unprofitable. In the summer this lack is filled by moonlight cruises of the Wilson Steamship Line on the river. The boats leave from the 7th Street wharf nightly, at 8:30, and the charge, including dancing, is one buck. Plenty of unattached women go.

The Potomac is mighty important to wolves. Practically the last of the night-boats in the country plies from Washington to Old Point Comfort and Norfolk, Virginia, summer and winter.

In years gone by, the fabled Albany and Fall River boats to Boston could have told such stories.

Steamers of the Old Bay Line charge $4.67 each way, with staterooms at from $1.50 to $5.50.

Last fall, a couple of evangelists chartered a Wilson liner for an evening prayer service on the Potomac. Many pious people showed up, but so did a swarm of scarlet sisters.

With all the game flying low you’d scarcely think it worth while for entrepreneurs to promote stag-parties. Yet many hotel ballrooms are engaged for shows at which talent, imported from Baltimore, is seen and appropriately appreciated. These nude nymphs perform also at Waldrops on Rhode Island Avenue, across the Maryland line.

Lots of smooth, mysterious guys in Washington, not pimps, make livings introducing lonesome men to pretty babes. One, named Al Walters, ran a series of dances called the “UN Victory Girls.” He was investigated by the Washington vice-squad, which found nothing illegal, though it did determine that his net income from promoting these get-togethers was $325 a week. Walters is still around town, always surrounded by eight or ten pretty bimbos, usually blonde, and he can get to the right people because he is a great introducer.

Young love gets a break in Washington, too, because the burg with its environs is small-town in construction, with front and back porches, lawns and alleys, and plenty of dark streets and nearby country nooks to drive to. Chief among the lovers’ lanes are Hains Point and the Anacostia Flats, along the Anacostia River, where the Bonus Army of ’32 made camp. Not all who court Eros in these secluded spots are juveniles. Many adults take their occasionals there, especially white men afraid or ashamed to check into free-for-all assignation houses.

We got the following story from a cop who worked the case. A blonde waitress at the Copacabana restaurant, a rendezvous for Latin-Americans, went with a stranger in his car to the Anacostia Flats. A woman’s screams tore the night air. Startled householders in the vicinity, rape-conscious because of the front-page sex murder of a girl the day before, phoned police. The squad car cops sped to a surprised girl and an embarrassed gent. “I always scream at a time like that,” she elucidated, with indignation.

WISDOM OF A WASHINGTON WOLF

When you see someone waiting for a bus or streetcar, it’s considered polite to offer a lift in your car. Washington gallants are very polite, especially if the hitch-hiker is cute.

We noticed Washington wolves seldom ply their dates with flowers. This may be because the girls are so anxious they’d give the guy orchids. Or maybe because Washington is an Eastern city, and in the East—New York especially—few well-dressed women wear corsages.

Most G-gals start work early in the morning. The wise Washington lupo learns to date them for cocktails at five in the afternoon.

Some characters tap the female college alumnae lists for recent graduates resident in Washington, then pick names at random and phone with an invitation to a Yale or Princeton hop which never seems to come off.

HOTELS FOR WOMEN ONLY: Hattie M. Strong Hall, (YWCA) phone ME 2100, Meridian Hill, CO 1000; All States (cooperatively owned) NA 2483. (If the gal you’re phoning isn’t home, ask the switchboard operator if anyone else wants a date. She could know one.)

The abortion racket is wide open in Washington, with illegal practitioners protected from high-up. Prices run from $35 to $500 a job, depending on your color and your bank-book. The lowest charge is for Negroes. Unmarried G-gals can get by for $75. Married women with husbands who work are charged $100. Single ones in a jam who have rich or important paramours are nailed for as much as $500. (In New York $1,000 isn’t unusual.)