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Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 14, 1913
The White Slave Traffic for Sex Commerce in Free America
From The Progressive Woman of April 1913:
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THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC
by Agnes H. DowningWHILE all can see that women are sold for sex commerce, until very recently it was believed that the women were themselves the sellers. It was thought that either for love of luxury, or discouragement after seduction, or through their hunger needs women have consented to sell themselves promiscuously. But in late years and through accumulated evidence, it has been proved that the great business of supplying inmates for evil institutions has been and is carried on by persons who make a business of securing the girls for this traffic…..
In 1907 the United States government, through a special committee of the Immigration Commission, made an investigation of the importation and harboring of women for immoral purposes. The report says (Senate document 196, pages 8 and 9):
“…..The procurer may put his woman into a disorderly house, sharing the profits with the madam. He may sell her outright; he may act as an agent for another man; he may keep her, making arrangements for her hunting men. She must walk the streets and secure her patrons, to be exploited, not for her own sake, but for that of her owner…..”
They secure such power over the girls, first, because the girls are young and ignorant of their legal rights, and again because a girl is always suspicioned for being led into such a place. Though she be perfectly innocent, people are not ready to believe her. Lastly, when the punishment is beating or death, girls and men, too, can be forced into almost anything…..
It is just as much the duty of Socialists here and now to combat the white slave traffic as it is to strive for higher wages, rights of asylum, universal peace, or any of the other measures for which we all contend. It is in this broadness of spirit that our best good is to be found.
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WHO ARE WHITE SLAVES?
by Jessie AshleyTODAY the whole country talks and writes unceasingly of white slavery. As a descriptive title it is striking, and this fact helps to give it publicity; it attracts attention and sticks in the mind. But it is not wholly accurate. Slaves there are, but they are not always white; many black women and little yellow ones are also slaves in a world that should be free.
Slaves! What is a slave? A human being who has no freedom of choice, one who must live according to the will of another. Technically, when we speak of white slaves, we mean unwilling prostitutes. It is this phase of the matter that is arousing the just rage of a slowly awakening world. No rage can be too great for the crime, it must indeed become so great that it will sweep the horror from the face of the earth…..
Slaves, every woman of them today, whether prostitutes held unwillingly, or prostitutes gone willingly “astray,” whether submissive wife or rebellious virgin. Slaves every one, because there is no freedom of choice, but only a blind, cruel, stupid master, the social system, that without reason and without sympathy enslaves its womanhood.
But the cure is on its way. Women are becoming thinkers and are testing for themselves the chains that bind them. They are learning how to break them. They are at last beginning to realize that they are slaves, and that this is not a necessary condition; just as the working class is beginning to see that wage slavery is not necessary.
So on with the fight against white slavery and black, on with the working class rebellion against wage slavery, but let women especially keep up the rebellion, demanding fearlessly and incessantly sex freedom and economic freedom.
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WOMAN’S ENSLAVER
by Grace D. BrewerEVER since the days when the “good” of olden times decreed that the “bad” woman should be “stoned to death,” womankind has been divided into two groups-the good and the bad. The man-made rules of society has had a tendency to widely separate these two classes and keep them apart, making one antagonistic to and unsympathetic with the other.
Because of the prevailing economic system, making woman dependent upon man, the “good” woman has had to conform to all man-made laws and customs, and has been unable to assist her fallen sister without danger to herself…..
Nothing that we can now do will give back to the world-to the broken-hearted mothers and to shattered homes-the thousands of innocent girls lured to lives of shame and death. All we can do is to face the facts, resolve, and act. Do what common sense tells us is necessary to protect the children of the future. Let the mothers of the race-the home makers of the world-make of the world a home for every human being.
Woman has already heard the call of the future-the call for a broader life for woman-kind. Her economic emancipation will follow her political emancipation. She is now entering upon the class-consciousness of the latter. She is beginning to understand why her sisters have been enslaved, why they have been degraded, why the army has grown in increasing numbers, even in the midst of progressive civilization.
The cry of the woman in bondage has finally reached the ears of her age-deaf sisters and they are blunderingly trying all ways and means to rescue her. The human cry of distress always touches the nation-mother-heart first…..
Women to work with a will! Heed the cry of the fallen, the groans of outraged and suffering womankind, whose whole life is a living hell, and whose death is the only means of escape.
Their blood is upon our hands! The red blood of innocent girlhood is dripping from the mighty, gnarled hands of the gigantic monster, Profit!
He tries to threaten the women of the world, good and bad alike, by threats of what would befall the world should he be banished or undone. Let us turn a deaf ear to his mouthings and listen only to the entreaty of our sisters, asking for deliverance….
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[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Joe Hill, White Slave, Girls in this way, LRSB 1913
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iw/v5n03-w211-apr-10-1913-IW.pdf
The Progressive Woman
(Chicago, Illinois)
-April 1913
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/socialist-woman/130400-progressivewoman-v6w70.pdf
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 13, 1913
Published in Latest Edition of I. W. W. Songbook-“The White Slave” by Joe Hill
Socialist Woman, 1907/Progressive Woman, 1909/Coming Nation, 1913-1914
-Josephine Conger-Kaneko, Editor
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/socialist-woman/index.htm
Woman’s Voice, an Anthology
-ed by Josephine Conger-Kaneko
Boston MA, 1918
https://archive.org/details/womansvoiceanan00kanegoog/page/n4/mode/2up?view=theater
“Woman’s Awakening” by JCK, pages 177-179
https://archive.org/details/womansvoiceanan00kanegoog/page/n216/mode/2up?view=theater
Tag: White Slavery
https://weneverforget.org/tag/white-slavery/
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The White Slave – Fellow Worker Carlos Cortez (1923-2005)
Lyrics by Joe Hill