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Show VICE RUN BY TRUST G. J. Kneeland Gives Secrets of White Slave Traffic "Well Kept Man Decked With Genu" Is Typical Owner of Resorts in Gotham, Writer Asserts Business Busi-ness Is Specialized. New York. Commercialization of vice in New York city is described in the first four studies of the social evil to be published by the New York bureau bu-reau of social hygiene. The book, published pub-lished by the Century company, is entitled en-titled "Commercialized Prostitution in New York City" and is written by George J. Kneeland, the chief investigator investi-gator of the bureau, who was also the chief of the workers under the Chicago Chi-cago vice commission. The report, which is introduced by a foreword by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., says 15,000 women of the underworld under-world ply their trade in one borough of New York alone. It scores the low dance hall as a chief cause of vice. Poverty is given a secondary place as a cause. Mr. Kneeland holds that of-tener of-tener women are victims in their ignorance ig-norance of the agents of commercialized commercial-ized vice. "It Is Idle," he says, "to explain away the phenomena on the ground that they are the results of the inevitable inevit-able weakness of human nature; human hu-man weakness would demand far fewer few-er and less horrible sacrifies. "Most of the wreckage and the worse of it Is due to persistent cunning cun-ning and unprincipled exploitations; to the banding together in famous enterprises en-terprises of madame, procurer, brothel keeper and liquor vender to carry on deliberately a cold blooded traffic for their joint profit, a traffic, but it added, add-ed, from which the girl Involved procures pro-cures at the most, with few exceptions, excep-tions, her bare subsistence, and that only so long as she has a trade value." "Prostitution has become a business," busi-ness," Mr. Kneeland writes, "the promoters pro-moters of which continually scan the field for a location favorable to their operations, and the field is the entire civilized world. No legitimate enterprise enter-prise is more shrewdly managed from this point of view; no variety of trade adjusts itself more promptly to conditions, condi-tions, transferring its activities from one place to another as opportunities contract here and expand there. "While keepers of houses are also procuers, there is a group of men who devote themselves singly to this work. These are the typical 'white slavers,' whose trade depends entirely upon the existence of houses of prostitution. The cadet has not yet developed into a professional procuer or keeper of a house. He enters the business when ihe either ruins a young girl for his future profit or becomes the lover and protector of a prostitute already in the business. "The women who run houses have, as a rule, risen from the ranks. They were once street walkers or parlor house Inmates, who possess unusual business talents. They have learned the scerets of the trade; they know the kind of inmates to get and where to get them. They know how to deal with customers and how to make them spend money. "For several years thirty $1 heuses of prostitution In the tenderloin have been operated as a 'combine' under the direct control ol 15 or more men. The individuals In question have been in ousiness for many years in New York city as well as In other cities, both in country and abroad. They buy and sell shares In these houses among nemselves, and it is seldom that an utsider, unless he be a relative, can reak Into the circle and share in the rolits. "The value of the shares depends upon the ability of the owners to .laintnin conditions in which the 4 X houses, being unmolested, are permitted per-mitted to make large profits. "If a composite photograph could be made of typical owners of vice resorts it would show a large, well fed man about 40 years of age and 5 feet 8 inches in height. His clothes are the latest cut, loud In design, and carefully careful-ly pressed. A heavy watch chain adorns his waistcoat, a large diamond sparkles in flashy necktie, and his fat, chubby fingers are encircled with gold and diamond rings. |