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Show IMMORALITY IN ILLINOIS HOMES White Slave Investigation Includes In-cludes the "Call Girl" and Domestic Servants. Springfield, 111., Jan. 19. Poverty is the principal cause of immorality, the minimum wago for girls and women wom-en is fixed at $S a week and unregulated unreg-ulated conditions of domestic employment, employ-ment, render the homo, In many cases breeding places of commercialized vice, according to the Illinois senate white slave investigation committee's report, made public tonight when formally for-mally presented to the state department. depart-ment. Industrial oppression of the helpless is declared by the report, to be directly di-rectly responsible for a large part of existing Immorality. Thousands of girls, it says, aro driven into prostitution prosti-tution "because of the sheer inability to keep body and soul together on the low wages received by them The system of domestic employ- inufiL in iiuiuuta 10 cunucmneu in positive terms "Unregulated conditions condi-tions of domestic employment, uncertain uncer-tain hours, absence of definite social status and lack of creative opportunities opportu-nities render the home, in many cases, cas-es, for the woman servants, a breeding breed-ing place of immorality," says the commission's report Investigations conducted by the committee, the report says, disclosed the fact that more women of the underworld un-derworld fall into dishonor from domestic do-mestic employment than from any other work. Of 181 girls sent to the state training school at Geneva, 111 , who had worked for a wage previous to commitment, the committee found that 115, or 63.55 per cent, were engaged en-gaged in domestic service. "It is a peculiar compliment to the sensing faculty of the female," says the report, re-port, "and her intuitive avoidance of sexual danger, that the occupation proved by actual statistics to bo productive pro-ductive of most prostitution is the occupation she most shuns." i Eight dollars a week is fixed by ! the committee as the least amount ( that will meet the necessary items of a bare living for a girl employed in a 1 1 large city. The report says wages were dlscouragingly short of this fig- 1 ure. 1 A condition of which the report de-claies de-claies strikes directly at the home, I Is tound in what is termed the "call girl" system. On this subject the report re-port says, in part: "A detective told of a 'call' list which he had seized in a raid. More than 20 names were on the list; first names only being given, then opposite oppo-site the telephone numbers. He checked up the names and numbers. Some of the women were 'respectable' inairied women. Two were young daughters. Others were working girls. The case of a young mother sorving as 'call girl' and using the money she made in buying necessities for her baby, is merely illustrative of the character of some of the women wom-en in this system." High-Class Cafes. High-class cafes aro hard hit in the report The conspicuous place of intoxicants in the undoing of many girls, is dismissed as a matter of such general knowledge as to require no elaboration. The report says there can be no disagreement as to the effects ef-fects on the young women with alternate alter-nate drinking and dancing as practiced prac-ticed in many fashionable restaurants "The free and easy manner of introductions in-troductions adds to the danger. Most of the girls wno frequent the popular rpstaurants given over to dancing are very young " Ai a result of its investigation the committee recommends: 1 Enactment of a minimum wage law. 2 Repeal of the social laws fallen 'nto disuse and strict enforcement of all others. S Encouragement of uniform state social legislation. 4 Improvement of conditions for girls in domestic service. 5 Establishment of homes for moral mo-ral and industrial schooling of reformed re-formed women. 6 Extension of vocational education. educa-tion. 7 Abolition of the "fining" system in the treatment of immoral women 8 Registration of minor boys and girls in employment & Prohibition of printing in news- papers of details of court cases involving in-volving moral lapses. 10 Creation of a state athletic commission for the encouragement of healthful pastime. Tho report concludes an investigation investiga-tion that began in August, 1913, and covered extensivo inquiries into conditions con-ditions existing in Chicago, Springfield, Spring-field, Peoria, Alton, East St. Louis and several other Illinois cities. |