Chapter 4

Listen, father, mother, there are thirty thousand pure, dearly beloved young girls growing up in our midst to-day 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 thirty thousand helpless, hopeless, decaying chattels who now daily, behind bolts and bars and steel screens (see note[5]), 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 nights after a reasonable hour. Harry Balding, the convicted White Slaver, in his confession before Judge Newcomer and State's Attorney Roe, said:

"We would be sent out by resort keepers to work up some girls, for whom we were paid from $10 to $50 dollars each, though the cash bonus was much more. The majority of them were girls we met on the streets. We would go around to the penny arcades and nickel theaters, and when we saw a couple of young girls we would go up and talk with them. I will say 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!

To-day from beneath Chicago's awful moral sewerage system, which has sucked their hearts and souls under, thirty thousand trembling hands are held up to High Heaven and to you for help, hands reeking with the blood on which some whore monger 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 world-wide, 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, publicly-protected flesh markets as our red-light and levee districts would be banished forever from Chicago streets. And I believe with all my heart that this can only be accomplished by education, by agitation, by legislation, by the ballot and by the power of God, directing a great national army of well informed, moral and Christian men and women against this vast, thoroughly organized, well administered and heavily financed public horror of our Republic.

I believe in helping, God knows, with heart and hand and money every fallen, or as one has put it, every "knocked down" 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 built is human liberty and human protection, and so by personal work and co-operation with every other reform and labor organization for the uplifting of womanhood, by song and by prayer and 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 acknowledgment that you are your brother's keeper.

The Only Place of Its Kind In Chicago

_Five Thousand and Forty Night's Lodging_ and over Six Thousand Meals furnished to _Homeless Women_ by the

WOMAN'S SHELTER

733-735-737 Washington Boulevard (near Halsted)

during the year ending September 1, 1911.

Seventy per cent of these women have been aided into _honest employment_.

A Hundred Girls

have been _Saved from Lives of Sin and given a chance to earn a Respectable Living_.

Our Doors are Never Closed

We are in touch with every _Slum_ and _Vice District_ in the city--every Prison and Hospital, and with the Poorhouse at Oak Forest.

We are Non-Sectarian and Co-operative with all Reform and Christian Works

A dozen Christian Homes and a Municipal Lodging House care for the friendless down-and-out man. The

Chicago Rescue Mission's Woman's Shelter

cares for the Friendless "down-and-out" Woman. Our Shelter is not a "Rescue Home" in the ordinary sense of the word, but

A Place where a Clean Bed, Food, Coffee and Clothing may be Obtained by any Homeless Woman

not a subject for Police interference, for One or More nights as she needs; and where she is given Definite Aid to Immediate Employment and assured of shelter until she receives her week's wages.

FIVE THOUSAND AND FORTY NIGHT'S LODGINGS TOGETHER WITH OVER SIX THOUSAND MEALS

have been furnished to cold, hungry, Stranded Girls and Women this year by Our Institution.

Seventy per Cent of These Have been Aided to Secure Honest Employment,

but scores have been turned away because we lacked Equipment, Warmth, Funds, etc., to aid them.

Our Work Reaches Every Slum and Redlight District in the City

the Hospitals, Prisons, Poorhouses, everywhere unfortunate women are found.

We co-operate with Churches, Missions, Employment Bureaus, Charitable Institutions, etc., throughout the City

Our Institution has Thirty-one Large Rooms

What We Need--

We need to add _Forty More Beds_. We need a _better Hot Water System_. We need a _Systematic Employment Bureau_. We need another good Outside Worker. We need Coffee, Clothing, Coal.

We need _Your Help, generously_, in a supreme effort to raise _One Thousand Dollars_ with which to accomplish all these things.

Schedule of Work

Year ending August 31st, 1911.

Number of Nights Lodgings Furnished by the Chicago Rescue Mission's Woman Shelter 5,040

Number of Meals 5,200

Special Lodgings 489

Special Meals 677

Calls and Distribution of Fruit at Oak Forest Poor House 4,914

Religious Services White Cross Woman's Shelter 26

Jail, Court and Slum Visits 1,210

Reform Literature Distributed, pages, about 300,000

Yours and His,

CHICAGO RESCUE MISSION

733-735-737 Washington Blvd., NEAR HALSTED CHICAGO, ILL.

PHONE MONROE 4833

Mrs. Jean T. Zimmermann, M. D.

President Chicago Rescue Mission and Woman's Shelter.

Superintendent Department of Health and Heredity of the Cook County and Chicago W. C. T. U.

Footnotes:

[1] Through the effort of the writer and the aid of the agent of the building this woman was made to move a little further west.

[2] N.B.--G. P.'s is strictly authentic. The Chicago Rescue Mission will give you details and take charge of any help you may care to give her.

[3] NOTE.--Baptista Pizza, it was discovered, did not go to Italy, but after a few months of hiding, again engaged in his nefarious business. He was recently arrested for selling an American girl, fined $1000.00 and sentenced to two years in the House of Correction.

[4] 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.

[5] Visit any of the great line of abandoned houses in the red-light district of Custom House Place or Plymouth Court and note the bars and screens and underground steel doors.

Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.

Passages in bold are indicated by =bold=.

Footnote markers have been added on pages 38 and 45.

The following misprints have been corrected: "neigborhood" corrected to "neighborhood" (page 23) "Squlid" corrected to "Squalid" (page 32)

Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation usage have been retained.