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Show M POVERTY fiS PRINCIPAL CAUSE DP I Illinois Senate White Slave Investigation Committee Reports After Making Exhaustive Inquiry. SPfiJXGFIELD. 111., Jan. 19. Poverty Pov-erty is t ho principal cause of immorality, immor-ality, the minimum wage for girls and women is fixed at $8 a week, and unequal un-equal conditions of domestic employment em-ployment render the home, in many 'flses, s breeding place of commercialized commercial-ized vice, according to the Illinois senate wrme slave investigation committee's com-mittee's report, made public tonight, tvhen formally presented to the state iwenate. That poverty is the principal cause, direct or indirect, of immorality, is the most strongly emphasized finding ot j the commission. i Industrial oppression of the hapless j . is declared by the report to be directly direct-ly responsible for a large part of ex- I isting immorality. Thousands of girls, it says, are driven into prostitution "because of the sheer inability to keep body and soul together ou the low wages received by them. 'J The system of domestic 'employment in America is condemned in positive terms. " Unregulated conditions oi domestic employment, uncertain hours, absence of definite social status and lack of creative opportunities render the home, in many cases, for the women wom-en servants a breeding place of immorality, immor-ality, M says the commission 's report. Percentage Is Large. Investigations conducted by the com--mittec, the report says, disclosed the tact that more women of the underworld under-world fall into dishonor from domestic employment thau from any other work. Of I SI girls sent to the state training M-hool at Geneva, 111., who bad worked tor a wage previous to commitment .the committee found that 115, or 63.55 per cent, had been engaged in domestic service. ''ft is a peculiarly significant coin-plirnent coin-plirnent to trie sensing 1 acuity of the female, ' ' says the report, ' ' and her iutiiitive avoidance of sexual danger, t iiat the occupation proved by actual stati.-tics to be productive of most prostitution is the occupation she most shuns. In this manner, the commit-ri-c accounts for the constant unfilled runnel for domestks. Kight dollars a week Is fixed by the cummiUee as the least amount that meet the necessary items of a bare living for a girl employed in a large city. The report says Wages Nvverc found "to be discouragingly shert f" this figure.'' Attcntiou is called to testimony taken by the committee, ' of wages running as . low as $2 a week; ot foremen who abuse girls in short dresses, shake them until tlr.nr a.rms are blackened, and occasionally hurl boxes at them, and of tho manager, mana-ger, who found his factory besiegod with the agents of professional white slavery. ' ' ."Call Girl" System. A couclition which tho report declares de-clares strikes directly ;it the home is found in what is termed the " call girl" system. On this subject the report re-port savs in part: "A detective told of a 'call' lisr which he had se'i.ed in a raid. More 1 lia u twenty ua me verr on the list ; first names only being given, then opposite op-posite the telephone numbers. He checked up the names and numbers. !Some uf tho women were ' respectable ' married women. Two were youug daughters. Others were working girls The case of a young mother serving as 'call girl and using the money she made in bu.viug necessities for her baby is merely illustrative of the character of some of the women in t h i s system." sys-tem." ' High-class cafes asc hafd hit in the report. The conspicuous place of intoxicants in-toxicants in the undoing of many girls ts dismissed as a mat ter of such genera gen-era 1 knowledge as to require no elaboration. elabo-ration. The report says there can be no disagreement as to the effects on tho voung women of the alternate drinking and dancing as practiced in many fashionable restaurants. "The free and easy manner of introductions in-troductions adds to the danger. Most of the girls who frequent the popular restaurants given over to dauciug are very young. ' ' School Girls Moral. The committee found that the high- est standard of morals exists among j I he girls in the high schools, colleges and universities of the state. As a result of its investigation the committee makes the following recommendations: recom-mendations: 1 . Enactment of a minimum w ft g e law. '2. h'epeal of social laws fallen into disuse and strict enforcement of all others. H. Kncourngcmeut of uniform state social legislation. 1 . 1 improvement of condit ions for girls in domestic service, 5. Kst ahlishment 0f homes for moral and industrial schooling of reformed women. ti. 1'iX tension of vocational education. educa-tion. 7 Abolition of the "fining" svs-tem svs-tem in the treatment 0f immoral women. 8. registration of minor bovs and iirls i" employment. !. Prohibition of printing in newspapers news-papers of details of court cases involving in-volving moral lapses. 0. 'creation ot a state athleti.-. association as-sociation tVr the encouragement of healthful pastimes. phe report concludes an mvestignt ion that, began in August. lOI.'i, and covered cov-ered oxtcusive inquiries into condition? existing in Chicago, pringtield, Peoria. It on, 'East .t. Louis and several other Illinois cities. ill Kfc Eddie Toy and the seven little Foys, gleeful, hilarious youngBters, with their daddy, next week at the Orpheum. |