by luring innocent and inexperienced women into the most degrading slavery.
There were many events that favored the development of the white slave trade. The discovery of gold in California and the construction of many transcontinental railroads were followed by the opening of the rich mining- and lumber-districts in the northwestern and western parts of the United States, and in Canada. In more recent years came the opening of the gold and diamond fields in South Africa, of the gold grounds in Alaska, the construction of the Panama Canal and the great transcontinental railroads through Siberia and Africa. All these great undertakings attracted many thousands of men, who were ready to squander their earnings in gambling, drinking and any other kind of dissipation. Women, of course, stood at the head of things in demand. And as there are always people eager to profit by catering to such passions, the white slave trade assumed most threatening proportions.
To ensnare victims, the slave dealers insert enticing advertisements offering profitable positions to waitresses, chambermaids, servants, governesses, and other female help in hotels, boarding houses and private families. They send their "procurers" or agents to the dance-halls and cheap pleasure resorts, and to those industrial towns, where large numbers of poorly paid young girls toil in mills and factories. Here they approach their prey under all kinds of disguises and pretenses. One especially ingenious procurer of New York has been credited with gaining the acquaintance of young girls in the garb of a priest. And George Kibbe Turner in an article "The Daughters of the Poor" (published in 1910 in McClure's Magazine) made the statement that a gang of such fiends worked under the name "The New York Independent Benevolent Association"!
However, the chief recruiting-grounds for the white slave trade are the miserable Jewish Ghettos of Poland, Russia, Galicia, Hungary, Austria and Roumania, where always numbers of degraded men can be found, ready to sell their own kindred for any price offered. With the help of such procurers four principal centers of the white slave trade were created: Lemberg, London, Paris and New York, with branches in all parts of America, Africa and Asia.
Of course such a villainous trade would not be possible without the silent protection of corrupt officials and political machines, who share in its enormous profits. Inside information on this subject was received through the disclosures, made during the latter parts of the last century about conditions in the mining and lumber regions of Michigan and Wisconsin. In January, 1887, Representative Breen appeared before the House Judiciary Committee of the legislature of Michigan
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