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Sin in the Second City

Page 34

by Karen Abbott


  Another woman, dressed as: Will Irwin, “The First Ward Ball,” Collier’s, February 6, 1909.

  Courtesans lay facedown: Chicago American, December 15, 1908.

  A harlot swung a whip: Ibid.

  “We saw as many”: Chicago Daily News, December 15, 1908.

  “Keep it up, Minnie!”: Wendt and Kogan, 279.

  DISPATCH FROM THE U.S. IMMIGRATION COMMISSION

  U.S. Congress, Senate, Importing Women for Immoral Purposes: A Partial Report from the Immigration Commission on the Importation and Harboring of Women for Immoral Purposes, 15, 40; U.S. Congress, Senate, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Final Report on the Importation and Harboring of Women for Immoral Purposes, 123; U.S. Congress, Senate, Importing Women for Immoral Purposes: A Partial Report from the Immigration Commission on the Importation and Harboring of Women for Immoral Purposes, 59.

  JUDGMENT DAYS

  “I am not a reformer”: Chicago Tribune, May 16, 1909.

  Minna’s court date: Chicago Tribune, March 14, 1909.

  “trade in rum”: Chicago Tribune, February 1, 1909.

  “spitting evil”: Chicago Tribune, February 17, 1909.

  Stick to the “small stuff”: Asbury, 277.

  “They have us in the middle”: Washburn, Come into My Parlor, 101.

  One night in April: U.S. v. Johnson, General Records of the Department of Justice, File Number 16421, Record Group 60; Ward, 146–148.

  “Even if I am a Virginian”: Wallace, 60; 57–58.

  Inviting Scott Joplin: Rudi Blesh, “Maple Leaf Rag,” American Heritage 26, no. 4 (June 1975).

  When Jack Johnson invited five of them: Ward, 148.

  He traveled to Iowa: Iowa City Daily Press, February 18, 1909.

  Pennsylvania State Legislature: Pennsylvania Daily Gazette and Bulletin, February 26,1909.

  “That there is a systematic traffic”: Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, March 21, 1909.

  “whole thing looks queer”: Chicago Tribune, February 18, 1909.

  William Lloyd Garrison: Roe, The Great War, 19.

  HAVE YOU A GIRL TO SPARE?

  “It is a conceded fact”: Goldman, 4.

  “keep books”: Roe, The Great War, 119.

  “know what kind of a place”: Ibid.

  “Madam Maurice”: Chicago Tribune, November 28, 1909.

  “bad place”: Roe, The Great War, 115.

  Fern: Ibid., 196.

  “Now, when you go”: Ibid., 126.

  “It was discovered”: Chicago Daily Socialist, June 30, 1909.

  “The story printed about Miss Barrette”: Chicago Tribune, June 30, 1909.

  Mark A. Foote agreed: Chicago Daily Socialist, July 3, 1909.

  “servant girl”: Roe, The Great War, 119.

  fifteen-foot snake: Chicago Tribune, June 17, 1909.

  As Mollie had promised: Roe, The Great War, 120.

  “I realized that Van Bever’s”: Ibid., 121.

  “that Jew girl”: Chicago Tribune, November 10, 1909.

  “You’re a good-looking”: Ibid.

  “I want to go”: Ibid.

  “You’ll like it”: Ibid.

  “I believe Inspector”: Chicago American, July 22, 1909.

  both men were members: Chicago Tribune, September 1, 1909.

  “The revelations made at”: Chicago Tribune, October 4, 1909.

  Commercial Club of Chicago: Roe, The Great War, 192; Chicago Tribune, September 26,1909.

  the architect’s City Beautiful movement: Grossman, Keating, and Reiff, 30–32.

  “There is nothing political”: Chicago Tribune, September 1, 1909.

  Roe had an initial: Roe, The Great War, 193.

  private secretary: Chicago Tribune, September 29, 1909.

  “Well, dear”: Roe, The Great War, 112; Panders, 189.

  DISPATCH FROM THE U.S. IMMIGRATION COMMISSION

  U.S. Congress, Senate, Importing Women for Immoral Purposes: A Partial Report from the Immigration Commission, 23.

  SO MANY NICE YOUNG MEN

  “We have struck a blow”: Lewis and Smith, 342.

  “it is not always the fault”: Roe, Panders, 180.

  “Now rest as long”: Letter to Mary, October 11, 1909, Ernest Bell Papers, box 2, folder 2-11.

  “Gracious God”: Ernest Bell Papers, box 6, folder 6-13.

  $400 advance: Letter to Mary, October 11, 1909, Ernest Bell Papers, box 2, folder 2-11.

  “score of resorts”: Bell, War, 261–262.

  “When Mollie and Mike”: Roe, The Great War, 113.

  Roe’s best sleuth: Ibid.

  “Your name is”: Ibid., 113–114.

  “If the Hart woman”: Chicago Inter Ocean, October 14, 1909.

  “underground railway”: Chicago Tribune, October 17, 1909.

  consult with Congressman James R. Mann: Duis, The Saloon, 264.

  “Chicago at last”: Ibid.

  Chicago’s chief of police, Leroy Steward: Lewis and Smith, 340; Lindberg, Chicago by Gaslight, 139.

  “primal topics”: Chicago American, August 17, 1909.

  “inherently vicious”: Asbury, 281; “huge slumming party” and “sensational advertising scheme”: Chicago Inter Ocean, October 17, 1909.

  “If you show yourself”: Chicago American, October 18, 1909.

  “decentize”: Chicago American, October 12, 1909.

  “The women have to”: Wendt and Kogan, 288.

  “A girl in our establishment”: Washburn, Come into My Parlor, 104. Washburn didn’t specify when Minna made this speech.

  propose a raucous toast: Ibid., 107.

  “A man who visits”: Ibid.

  “To Evangelist Smith’s young crusaders”: Ibid.

  Colonel MacDuff: Masters, “The Everleigh Club,” Town & Country, April 1944.

  “Dear Sir”: Roe, Panders, 170.

  “How a woman”: Roe, The Great War, 111.

  “sphinx like and brazen”: Ibid., 125.

  “He kills his victims”: Chicago Tribune, November 11, 1909.

  Van Bever’s attorney, Daniel Donahoe: Chicago Tribune, November 10, 1909.

  “Sarah came to Chicago”: Roe, The Great War, 135.

  “Van Bever’s lawyer”: Ibid., 141.

  “Gentlemen”: Ibid., 142.

  “thousands of dollars”: Ibid., 124.

  “We have positive evidence”: Chicago Tribune, November 28, 1909.

  “could not be reached”: Asbury, 268.

  “Time will show that”: Ibid., 283.

  “I haven’t done as much”: Chicago Daily News, October 19, 1909.

  “We had to shut our doors”: Ibid.

  “Greatest business”: Ibid.

  “You’da thought”: Chicago Tribune, March 15, 1949.

  “We were certainly glad”: Wendt and Kogan, 287–288.

  IMMORAL PURPOSES, WHATEVER THOSE ARE

  “I deplore the Mann Act”: Nabokov, Lolita, 150.

  “You are leading yourself”: Lewis and Smith, 341.

  “hoodoo” of the number 13: Chicago Tribune, December 14, 1909.

  “the head form”: U.S. Congress, Senate, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Changes in Bodily Form of the Descendants of Immigrants, 7.

  “In explanation of the act”: Oakland Tribune, December 10, 1909.

  “I greatly regret to have to say”: Washington Post, December 8, 1909.

  A new branch: Langum, 49.

  Sims drafted the bill: Ernest A. Bell, “New and Pending Laws,” Light, May 1910.

  “purpose of prostitution”: Langum, 261.

  “Personally I feel that”: Bell Daniels, 72.

  seventy thousand copies: Donovan, 63.

  PART THREE: FIGHTING FOR THE PROTECTION OF OUR GIRLS, 1910–1912

  MILLIONAIRE PLAYBOY DEAD—MORPHINE OR MADAM?

  “I was the pet of Chicago”: Chicago Tribune, March 14, 1949.

  “I know it will mean”: Chicago Tribune, January 10, 1910.

  The boy was a drunk and an add
ict: Chicago Tribune, January 11, 1910.

  It was Nat’s birthday: Chicago Tribune, January 10, 1910.

  a Levee morphine salesman: Washburn, Come into My Parlor, 91.

  Diamond Bertha: Ibid., 165.

  “So damned suspicious”: Ibid., 92.

  “Nat was the biggest”: Chicago Tribune, January 11, 1910.

  “Hattie, you’re tired”: Ibid.

  “They’re framing you”: Washburn, Come into My Parlor, 92.

  “What’s going on”: Ibid., 93.

  “to China”: Chicago Tribune, January 10, 1910.

  long purple robe: Chicago Tribune, January 11, 1910.

  “I was at the Studebaker”: Chicago Tribune, January 10, 1910.

  “I have been here”: Ibid.

  “In the afternoon I was told”: Chicago Tribune, January 11, 1910.

  “apparently under the influence”: Washburn, Come into My Parlor, 96.

  “bound to be blamed”: Ibid., 98.

  GIRLS GOING WRONG

  “Many a working girl”: Addams, A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil, ix, 72–73.

  Mrs. Emily Hill: Asbury, 284.

  “determination”: Chicago American, January 28, 1910.

  “Let the men take”: Chicago Tribune, January 25, 1910.

  “Mr. Busse, you are the mayor”: Wendt and Kogan, 289.

  “I may pray”: Chicago Tribune, January 28, 1910.

  “vice problem is exactly like that”: Vice Commission of Chicago, The Social Evil in Chicago, 3.

  “Now Lord”: Bell Daniels, 78.

  On March 7, he would wed: Chicago Tribune, March 8, 1910.

  four hundred thousand people had bought: Bell Daniels, 63.

  George Kibbe Turner: Turner, “The Daughters of the Poor,” McClure’s Magazine, November 1909.

  “You owe it as a duty to the city”: Chernow, 552.

  The arrangement was a setup: Ibid.

  “I never worked harder”: Ibid.

  Roe cut out several newspaper clippings: John D. Rockefeller Jr. to Clifford Roe, March 8, 1910, reel 314, series 3, Bureau of Social Hygiene Records, Rockefeller Archive Center.

  “admired the ostrich”: Washington Post, February 16, 1909.

  Clifford Roe push successfully: Vigilance 24, no. 5 (May 1911).

  “The white slave traffic”: Quoted in Langum, 43.

  “a thousand times worse”: Ibid.

  “headquarters and distributing”: Ibid., 44.

  “a beautiful girl taken”: Ibid.

  “every pure woman”: Ibid.

  “Now let’s hope”: Bell Daniels, 74.

  “a tower of strength”: Mansfield (Ohio) News, October 1, 1910.

  “segregation provides the best”: Letter from the Midnight Mission to the Chicago Vice Commission, October 15, 1910, Ernest Bell Papers, box 5, folder 5-1.

  A LOST SOUL

  “I do not mind”: Wallace, 56.

  “A Republican is a man”: Miller, 445.

  Roy Jones…was back in business: Chicago American, July 11, 1910.

  Clifford Roe had tried to implicate: Chicago Tribune, July 8, 1910.

  donations to reformers: Asbury, 254.

  Brick Top: Sheboygan Press Telegram, September 27, 1923.

  twelve of whom had syphilis: Vice Commission of Chicago, The Social Evil in Chicago, 77.

  “too vile and disgusting”: Ibid., 71.

  “highest-grade resort”: Taylor, Pioneering on Social Frontiers, 88.

  “I found the twenty or more”: Ibid., 88–89.

  The call from one: Chicago Tribune, November 20, 1910.

  eleven printings: Langum, 33.

  “I am sorry not to comply”: John D. Rockefeller Jr. to Clifford Roe, October 26, 1910, reel 353, series 3, Bureau of Social Hygiene Records, Rockefeller Archive Center.

  “I propose”: John D. Rockefeller Jr. to Clifford Roe, January 26, 1911, reel 24, series 3, Bureau of Social Hygiene Records, Rockefeller Archive Center.

  “The Everleigh Club, Illustrated”: Lawrence J. Gutter Collection of Chicagoana, Department of Special Collections, University of Illinois at Chicago.

  THE SOCIAL EVIL IN CHICAGO

  “Here’s the difference between us”: Lindberg, Quotable Chicago, 81.

  campaign flyer: Grossman, Keating, and Reiff, 633, 650.

  “I have never been afflicted”: Harrison, 308.

  prompting Hinky Dink to remark: Wendt and Kogan, 291.

  Hyde Park reformer Charles Merriam: Duis, The Saloon, 281.

  “Hinky Dink has put aside”: Wendt and Kogan, 292.

  carter harrison elected: Ibid., 293.

  another $5,000: Vice Commission of Chicago, The Social Evil in Chicago, 9.

  detailed every facet: Ibid., 13–17.

  $16 million: Ibid., 32.

  “The (X523), at (X524), (X524a)”: Ibid., 152.

  “gregarious” men: Ibid., 297.

  “These women”: Ibid., 169.

  “It is undoubtedly true”: Ibid.

  “Nine were seduced”: Ibid., 170.

  “One madame testified”: Ibid., 97.

  “A Dearborn Street resort”: Ibid., 78.

  “Pervert methods”: Ibid., 73.

  “absolute annihilation”: Asbury, 289.

  “Praise God”: Bell Daniels, 81.

  When Edwin Sims and Dean Sumner: Ibid.

  “enthusiastically looking forward”: Roe to Rockefeller, January 30, 1911, folder 42, box 7, series 3, Bureau of Social Hygiene Records, Rockefeller Archive Center.

  “If the methods”: Rockefeller to Roe, February 4, 1911, reel 206, series 3, Bureau of Social Hygiene Records, Rockefeller Archive Center.

  They had an ingenious: Clifford Barnes Papers, Chicago History Museum, box 1, folder 1910–1915.

  “[Roe] himself does not care”: Heydt to Rockefeller, May 12, 1911, folder 42, box 7, series 3, Bureau of Social Hygiene Records, Rockefeller Archive Center.

  “They had little fountains”: Washburn, Come into My Parlor, 188.

  “all of the rules issued”: Chicago Tribune, June 17, 1911.

  “Those women have got to”: Ibid.

  Time to update: Washburn, Come into My Parlor, 191.

  PAINTED, PEROXIDED, BEDIZENED

  “Girls will be”: Ibid., 31.

  “sudden longing”: Harrison, 307.

  “with all attendant privileges”: Ibid.

  “lit up like”: Ibid., 308.

  so that one breast escaped: Nash, Look for the Woman, 152.

  “Vic Shaw”: Harrison, 308.

  “notorious brothel keeper”: Ibid.

  “serve merely to gratify”: Connelly, 107.

  “sex must be confined”: Ibid., 110.

  Dean Sumner was at it again: Chicago Record Herald, October 15, 1911.

  “far from my ideas”: Harrison, 308.

  Move all disreputable women: Lindberg, Chicago by Gaslight, 140.

  Death of Herbert Swift: Chicago Tribune, October 20, 1911.

  “Women have no minds”: Washburn, Come into My Parlor, 151.

  “Did one of your girls”: Ibid., 194.

  The Hawkeye State had passed: Roe, The Great War, 358.

  “an unpleasant happening”: Washburn, Come into My Parlor, 194.

  “Mind your own business”: Ibid.

  “I’m afraid”: Ibid.

  “Pretty snappy town”: Ibid., 193.

  “terrible pair of sisters”: Harrison, 309.

  “painted, peroxided, bedizened”: Ibid., 307.

  “truly historic”: Ibid., 309.

  “Close the Everleigh Club”: Wendt and Kogan, 297.

  YOU GET EVERYTHING IN A LIFETIME

  “How dear to my heart”: Edgar Lee Masters to Carter Harrison, April 14, 1939, Carter Harrison IV Papers, Newberry Library.

  “On the square”: Wendt and Kogan, 297.

  “rather sharp language”: Harrison, 310.

  “The most persistent gossip”: Ibid., 311.

  “infamy, the au
dacious advertising”: Asbury, 259.

  “well known as Chicago itself”: Chicago American, October 25, 1911.

  “cool and comical”: Washburn, Come into My Parlor, 151.

  “You mustn’t believe”: Ibid., 195.

  “Is the report”: Chicago Tribune, October 25, 1911.

  Dearborn Street was alive: Chicago American, October 25, 1911.

  “Gibraltar”: Bell Daniels, 85.

  at the Hotel Vendome in Columbus: Bell to Mary, October 24, 1911, Ernest Bell Papers, box 2, folder 1909–1928 (correspondence with wife).

  “speaking partner”: Chicago Tribune, October 25, 1911.

  “I know the mayor’s order”: Ibid.

  “I don’t worry”: Ibid.

  “If they don’t want me”: Chicago American, October 25, 1911.

  “Well, boys”: Washburn, Come into My Parlor, 202.

  “It may be”: Ibid.

  “It’s only 10”: Chicago Tribune, October 25, 1911.

  “Sorry, girls”: Wendt and Kogan, 297.

  “We’ve been expecting”: Washburn, Come into My Parlor, 203.

  “Clear out”: Ibid.

  “You’ll be going strong”: Ibid.

  “Go away for a few”: Ibid., 204.

  “What do you think”: Ibid.

  “We’re going from bawd”: Hibbeler, 121.

  “Let’s go to Europe”: Washburn, Come into My Parlor, 204.

  “What about us”: Ibid.

  “I’m afraid there never will”: Ibid., 204–205.

  “And neither of you did”: Ibid.

  “Poor kid”: Ibid., 206.

  “We’re all nervous”: Ibid.

  about $1 million: Ibid.

  Chief McWeeny telephoned: Chicago American, October 25, 1911.

  “Vice in Chicago”: Chicago Record Herald, October 25, 1911.

  close “a score”: Chicago American, October 25, 1911.

  “Two French blondes”: Washburn, Come into My Parlor, 207.

  “Until I get”: Ibid.

  Delft Candy Shop: Viskochil, 53. This book aided me in describing several Chicago street scenes.

  “Don’t you recognize”: Harrison, 313–314.

  visit from Taft: Chicago Inter Ocean, October 25, 1911.

  “going strong”: Washburn, Come into My Parlor, 212.

  “You ain’t got a thing”: Wendt and Kogan, 298.

  “Do the best you can”: Washburn, Come into My Parlor, 212.

  DANGEROUS ELEMENTS

  “It is the code of honor”: Lindberg, Quotable Chicago, 30.

  “known to reside”: Langum, 50.

  Congress…played stingy: Ibid., 52.

  Bell in Europe: “Some Observations in Europe,” Ernest Bell Papers, box 4, folder 4-8.

 

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