Page:Roe 1911 What women might do with the ballot.djvu/7

 procurers often will perform without the quiver of a lip, or the droop of an eyelash. Richly attired, of fascinating manner, sometimes possessing remnants of former beauty, and withal keen as razors, and sharp as steel traps, these women are almost the most dangerous creatures extant in the civilized world. They gain the confidence of girls more readily than do the men procurers. They may be "Madams" procuring for their own resorts; or they may be mere agents, getting a stipulated price for every girl they "land."

Alma Kendall, who kept a house in Chicago, induced two girls to leave their homes in Memphis, Tennessee, and go to live in her house. They were there for two weeks before the facts came to light, and the Kendall woman was arrested. She was tried in court, convicted and sentenced by Judge Hopkins to serve six months in prison, and pay a fine of three hundred dollars.

In all, during the summer months, eleven persons were convicted in Chicago for pandering. The total prison sentences was five years and ten months, and the total fines, twenty-seven hundred dollars. This simply means that even in Chicago, which thus far has been unique in its ardent prosecution of white slave traders, in most cases minimum sentences have been imposed. In the city where the leading men and women, both socially and commercially, are using money and influence against vice, and are supporting an office that will not compromise in its fight against white slavery it is quite the exception to have the maximum sentence meted out by the courts.

What is the reason? It is the same reason which keeps other cities from instituting any prosecutions at all. It is the same reason which has nourished this white slavery in its infancy and unwittingly encouraged it to wax fat and grow powerful. The reason is a sleeping public conscience. In the nerve racking race for money and power, the dollar has been glorified above all things else. Let some one steal a pocket book containing a dollar, and this some one is very likely to get the limit when he or she stands before the judge for sentence. But let this same some one steal one of our daughters and sell her