Part 5 (1/2)

It is indeed a matter of common knowledge that professional prost.i.tutes make a practice of soliciting on excursion boats for immoral purposes. The women make regular trips and have a business understanding with porters and waiters, who aid in securing customers. On July 20, 1912, as the boat for New Haven was about to leave the dock, two prost.i.tutes who solicit in a cafe on West 44th Street[104] came aboard. A street walker who solicits on Broadway and has a home in the Bronx took the trip to New Haven on August 25, 1912. Six prost.i.tutes were soliciting young men on the trip to Block Island on August 11, 1912, one of them formerly an inmate in a house of prost.i.tution in West 47th Street.[105] Her companion solicits on Broadway. These girls said they had rooms in a Block Island hotel,[106]

where they invited the men to meet them.

Some of the waiters and porters on these boats act as solicitors for prost.i.tutes. A colored porter[107] on a boat running to Block Island, August 11, 1912, said there were many couples on board having immoral relations. He offered to introduce two men to two girls. On August 8, 1912, a colored porter on a boat for Providence, Rhode Island, told a man that a ”wise young girl” occupied stateroom No. 68, and that she would receive men. Robert,[108] a waiter on one of them, declared that immoral conditions were most flagrant on the Sunday trips. He described in detail the actions of couples in the staterooms when he served them drinks.

Amus.e.m.e.nt parks are similarly abused. Seven such parks in the vicinity of New York City were visited during the summer of 1912, and vicious conditions were found to exist to a greater or less extent in all of them.

In the drinking places prost.i.tutes sit on the stage in short skirts and sing and dance for the entertainment of men and boys drinking at the tables. The girls are paid very low salaries, and therefore depend upon making extra money from prost.i.tution. The waiters aid in securing customers and receive commissions from the girls on the stage for this service. In some concert halls the girls have signs which they use to indicate the time they are free to leave the stage or the price they require. If they succeed in persuading a man to buy wine in the balcony of the hall, they receive a commission on the sale. In the winter time some of these prost.i.tutes join burlesque shows or continue to carry on their immoral business otherwise in the city.

An investigator visited a concert hall connected with an amus.e.m.e.nt park on Long Island, July 23, 1912. There were eighteen girls seated on the stage in short skirts, the majority of them intoxicated; in their wild efforts to entertain the crowd of men and boys they exposed their persons.

Twenty-five girls sing and dance in a concert hall at another popular amus.e.m.e.nt park. They are divided into two s.h.i.+fts, each s.h.i.+ft working a stated number of hours during the afternoon and night. One of the singers was recognized by a man who had seen her in a house of prost.i.tution in a city in Pennsylvania; one of her companions solicits for immoral purposes on Broadway. Many of these concert halls and similar places are connected with the hotels to which the entertainers take their customers. A very notorious hotel of this character[109] adjoins a disreputable concert hall in an amus.e.m.e.nt park on Staten Island.

The conditions in dance halls in connection with certain amus.e.m.e.nt parks are similar to those described under the heading ”Public Dance Halls.”

Here young and thoughtless working girls and boys often yield themselves to the degrading influence of liquor and suggestive dancing; and here also are found the prost.i.tutes and their pimps.

In reference to public parks, it may be stated that the police force is entirely inadequate to their proper surveillance. Shocking occurrences by the score are reported in Central and other parks by different investigators under the date of July 15, August 5, July 20, July 12, etc.

Not infrequently boys and girls of sixteen and seventeen are involved in these affairs,--and cases implicating still younger children are reported.

The benches in certain sections of Central Park, between 10 P. M. and 1 A.

M., presented a most demoralizing spectacle to the observation of every one who walked through the Park during the months of July and August.[110]

CHAPTER IV

THE EXPLOITERS

The present investigation has established the fact that the business of prost.i.tution in New York City is exploited and, for the most part, controlled by men, though women are also involved. The names and addresses of over 500 men so engaged have been secured, together with personal descriptions and the records of many of them. Some are owners, others, procurers, the rest mainly cadets or pimps,--younger men who have a single girl, at times a ”string” of girls, ”working” for them on the street or in houses. The woman exploiter is at times, herself a proprietor; usually, however, she is employed by men on a salary to operate a resort.

(1) OWNERS

The men proprietors have reached their present vocation by many paths.

They have been wrestlers, prize-fighters, gamblers, ”politicians,”

proprietors of ”creep houses,”[111] fruit venders, p.a.w.nbrokers, pickpockets, crooks, peddlers, waiters, saloonkeepers, etc. Some of them pose as ”business men,” carrying cards and samples, to serve as a subterfuge when they are arrested as vagrants or for living off the proceeds of prost.i.tution. Not a few, however, without concealment, devote their entire time and energy to managing parlor houses and other resorts of prost.i.tution. Some of the latter own a business outright; others have partners who share in the profits. One man, for instance, conducts a house with from fifteen to twenty-five inmates, and, in addition, has an interest in several other ventures of the same character. In some cases the firm is a family affair, including brothers, brothers-in-law, uncles, and cousins.

For several years thirty one-dollar houses of prost.i.tution in the Tenderloin have been operated as a ”combine,” under the direct control of fifteen or more men. The individuals in question have been in business for many years in New York City, as well as in other cities both in this country and abroad. They buy and sell shares in these houses among themselves, and it is seldom that an outsider, unless he be a relative, can ”break” into the circle and share in the profits. The value of the shares depends upon the ability of the owners to maintain conditions in which the houses, being unmolested, are permitted to make large profits.

The man who proves himself capable of achieving this through business sagacity and political pull is called the ”king.” Upon him falls the responsibility of ”seeing” the ”right” individuals.

Owners follow the trend of public sentiment with a keenness and foresight truly remarkable. If a new official indicates by orders or by sentiments expressed in public that he is in favor of an ”open town,” there is great rejoicing among the promoters. Agitation in the opposite direction reacts on the value of their properties: prices drop and there is a scramble to ”get under cover.” If spasmodic efforts at reform are made, the more prominent owners meet in council with their lawyers and solemnly discuss what their policy should be. If their houses are closed, they still keep on paying rent, ready to open again--when a favorable word comes or when the moral outbreak subsides. For the owner has no faith in reformers.

”They get tired and quit”; ”all this will blow over”; ”they are sick of it already”;--such are his reflections as he recalls past experiences.

The majority of men exploiters of prost.i.tution in New York City are foreigners by birth. Some of them have been seducers of defenseless women all their lives. In one instance, at least, a whole family is engaged in the business,--the parents[112] conduct a restaurant, which is a ”hangout”

for pimps, procurers, crooks, and prost.i.tutes; the daughters are prost.i.tutes, the two sons, pimps and procurers. The father and mother are constantly on the lookout for girls whom their sons may ruin and exploit on the street or in houses. Another family[113] has already been referred to as conducting a delicatessen store in Seventh Avenue: they occupy the upper floors as their dwelling; the shop below is the favorite rendezvous of owners, madames, procurers, pimps, and prost.i.tutes. The children of this family, one a girl just reaching womanhood, mingle freely with them.

The father keeps an eye on the handsome procurers who talk with his children; though he listens daily to their schemes for securing women and girls he would ”cut to pieces” any man among them who attempted to defile his own daughters.

The owners in question did not all come directly to America. Some of them drifted to other parts of Europe with young girls whom they had secured in the small towns or cities of their own countries. South Africa was a favorite destination--especially Johannesburg. Many, going thither during the Boer War, are reputed to have made large profits from their business with soldiers as customers. The authorities, however, beat them with whips and drove them from the cities. They fled to South America and then to North America. Their trail of seduction and corruption may be traced through Argentine, Brazil, Cuba, Canada, Alaska, and the large cities of our own country--San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, b.u.t.te, Denver, Omaha, St. Louis, Chicago, Pittsburg, Philadelphia; finally they realize their hopes in New York City. Here they have made a center, and from this center they go back over the old trail from time to time.

If a composite photograph could be made of typical owners of vice resorts, it would show a large, well-fed man about forty years of age and five feet, eight inches, in height. His clothes are the latest cut, loud in design, and carefully pressed. A heavy watch chain adorns his waistcoat, a large diamond sparkles in a flashy necktie, and his fat, chubby fingers are encircled with gold and diamond rings.

On April 6, 1912, a group of owners were parading up and down Seventh Avenue in front of the above-mentioned delicatessen store, discussing ”business.” They were all dressed in their best and looked prosperous.

One, a large man with a black mustache, wore a very fine English suit and a hat which was said to have cost eight dollars. A large diamond ring sparkled on his fat hand, a diamond horse shoe pin flashed in his tie, and a charm set with precious stones hung from a heavy gold watch chain. His brother-in-law, part owner with him of a house of prost.i.tution in West 25th Street,[114] was also dressed in the height of fas.h.i.+on,--a smart suit, a black derby hat, and patent leather pumps. A third partner presented an equally dignified appearance. There were eight other owners in the group, making a very imposing appearance as they eagerly waited to talk over matters of ”business” with the representative of the ”boss,”--a certain official who, as the men claimed, was on this day to send word whether or not the owners could proceed with their nefarious business.