The Tragedy of the Immigrant Girl.

In the musty old records of United States District Attorney Edwin W. Sims, in the federal building, is written the story of the tragedy of a little Italian peasant girl.

The story is similar in many details to the stories told to Mr. Sims and his assistant, Harry Parkin, by more than 200 black-haired, sloe-eyed beauties from sunny Italy. They had all been imported, brought through the underground railroad of the white slaver, over the Canadian border, down the St. Claire river, through the great lakes and into Chicago.

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.

The story of the tragedy of this little Italian peasant girl, who helped her father till the soil in the vineyards and fields near Naples, is but one of many of similar character, but it is expressive. She was a beautiful little creature. Her form was that of a Venus—her great mass of black hair hung in a dense cloud from her shapely head. One might picture her, before she was enticed into the terrible life of shame, as a little queen among the women of her race.

Yet when she was brought into the district attorney's office, having been one of a number of aliens captured in a raid by federal authorities on immoral dives in South Chicago, she was a mass of scars. Her eyes had lost their deep expressive quality. Her nerves seemed to be wrecked.

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. She stoutly maintained that she had been in this country for more than three years and that she was in a life of shame from choice and not through the criminal act of any person.

She attempted to tell how she had come to this country alone, but was unable to tell the name of the steamship on which she had crossed the ocean or how she had reached Chicago. In broken English she said that she had been in a house of ill repute in New York before coming to Chicago and that she had received the scars on her face through an old injury that had happened years before.

Assistant District Attorney Parkin, however, was not convinced. He asked her several questions in quick succession. To all of them she quickly answered "three years."

This is the length of time immigrants must be in this country before they may be picked up and deported as aliens.

It was this answer that convinced him that the girl had been cowed into submission and "schooled" by her procurers under threats. It was through this answer that the white slavers rested their hope that the girl's story would be believed and that they would be safe from criminal prosecution.

Soon, however, the assistant district attorney 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 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 should take her under his royal care and pledge his word that her enemies should not have revenge upon her.

Then she broke down and related her awful narrative. That every word of it is true no one could doubt who saw her as she told it.

A "fine lady," who wore beautiful clothes, came to where she lived with her parents. She made friends with every one. Money seemed of no object to her. She lavished it upon the young girls of the district and flattered them. She told the young immigrant girl that she was uncommonly pretty 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 the simple little peasant girl and her still simpler parents. Their heads were completely turned and they regarded the American lady almost with adoration.

Very shrewdly the woman did not attempt to bring the little girl back with her, but held out the 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 degradation 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 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 quite 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 is 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 became a mother. The awful thought in her mind, however, is to escape from assassination at the hands of the murderous gang which oppressed her.

This is only one of a score of similar cases discovered by the authorities.

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 of the larger cities; that in this ghastly traffic the buying price of a young girl is $15 and that the selling price is generally about $200—if the girl is especially attractive the white slave dealer may be able to sell her for $400 or $600; 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."

Also the evidence shows that the hirelings of this traffic are stationed at certain ports 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 gangplank 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 promptly 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 their 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 measures, it is, of course, impossible to speak explicitly beyond the statement that intoxication and drugging are often used as a means to reduce the victims to a state of helplessness and sheer physical violence is a common thing.

When the United States authorities some time ago raided the French resorts on the south side in search of foreign born victims of the slave trade, some of the most palpable of slavery tactics were discovered.

"Not one woman in one of these prominent resorts was found who could speak English," said Assistant United States Attorney Parkin. "But in their own tongue everything said by them showed long drilling as to answers that should be made to inquiries. Ask any one of these women a sudden question in English and her reply to anything asked would be 'five years,' the term of residence in the United States that would prevent deportation.

"The typical story of the women was of having come to New York about four years ago as companions or servants in the family of well to do French immigrants. After several years the family had returned, leaving the girl, who about three or four months before had come to Chicago from a New York resort.

"But the slavery feature was bulwarked by every fact that we could elicit from these drilled women. Not one of them knew by what steamer she had come to the country; she could not even name the line by which she sailed. She didn't know what the steamer fares were. She could not name a single street in New York, which would have been a certainty had she even stopped there for a week at liberty.

"We seized trunks in their possession on which were the stamps of the customs officials, showing that most of the women had come in the second cabin. In some of these trunks we found sealed letters, written by girls to parents in France, begging them to write, and as completing the slavery chain, we found other letters in possession of the keepers, written long before by these girls to parents, which the keepers had received for mailing but which they had refused to post for the helpless prisoners.

"The girls were 18 to 22 years old and had come through Ellis Island under assumed names. The letters in the trunks revealed the true names of the writers. None of them could tell a date of sailing or date of landing. One of these girls had $1,500 charged against her for clothing furnished by the house. Another girl said the house owed her $890, which she had been unable to collect. Once a month they were sent to the 'summer cottage' of this resort, at Blue Island, where under guard of their slavers, they had the freedom of an elaborate house and the privileges of a launch and boats on the river.

"Slavery is the only logical deduction accounting for these women's presence in these houses. None of them could tell anything about the appearance of a steamer ticket. Everything points to their having been imported to this country by slave traffickers and of their having been forwarded to Chicago directly from the port of entry under charge of some one who assumed all charge of them to every smallest detail of transportation. In the Chicago houses raided we found that some man was held responsible for one or more of these women. He lived off them and was looked to to enforce discipline among them in return for the privilege."

Only the French and the Hungarian resorts so far have been raided by the United States district attorney. It is former Assistant State's Attorney Roe's discovery that on the west side where ten years ago scarcely a single Jewess was to be found in a resort, today 80 per cent of the inmates are Russian and Polish Jews. The field here is promising to the United States authorities, who can work only from the statute which allows of deporting these women under certain residence restrictions.

One fact accounting for this increase in Jewish habitues of west side resorts is explained by a Russian exile in Chicago.

In St. Petersburg, Moscow and other capitals of Russia only the Jewess in slavery may enter. It is the only condition under which the Jewish girl may enter these cities.

At the first necessity for importation, how easy is the traffic?