The black plague of the American continent

Introduction

I have but one reason for writing this little volume, and that is that it may bless those who read it. I write to save the boys, the girls, the young men and the young women/ the home, the wife, mother and her children; to save them from the scorching, withering and blighting effects of the liquor traffic and the trapping and selling pure, innocent white girls into the worst slavery ever known to this or other lands; to save them from ruin, remorse and death.

I write to warn the fathers and mothers of this land, into whose care the Heavenly Father has so graciously given their tender offspring, and whose homes have been blessed with children, against the crime — and it is a crime, though done in ignorance — of giving their children alcohol before they can walk or talk or during the young and tender years, thereby creating an appetite for strong drink which may consume them in the years to come, and bring your own gray hairs down to the grave in trouble and sorrow. I write to save the homes from mourning and tears, wives and mothers from broken hearts, and children from poverty and ruin. I write to save the pure, innocent and sweet girls from being trapped and sold for immoral purposes and to save the boy and young man from the death of the gin mill. I write to scatter sunshine and gladness and happiness into the lives of the disconsolate and the broken-hearted. I write to save my country and her people from the awful and fearful calamity and doom which is coming and which will overtake us unless the whisky and white girl slavery is abolished.

I shall not make the story long, for the whole is like unto the parts given you in this little volume. The cases mentioned are not isolated ones, hut are samples of thousands of others like them. They are not the result of the imagination, but real, and took place just as stated. May you read this book in the fear of the Lord and with an honest heart, bent on doing everything you can to help rid this country of these great, destroying evils. And now, may God bless you.

D. F. SUTHERLAND.

THE BLACK PLAGUE OF THE AMERICAN

CONTINENT.

CHAPTER I. The Worst Form of Slavery that Ever Existed Upon the American

Continent.

Why have we been so long asleep? Have we been dreaming? What is the matter with us that we sit still amidst such awful conditions and amidst such heartrending and soul-destroying scenes: in the midst of the darkest,, the blackest and most damnable plague that ever infested this or any other land? It is enough to make the heart's blood run cold and congeal in the veins as we look out upon this blighting, scorching and withering monsoon which is daily sweeping over this fair land — sweeping on to destruction the purest, the fairest and the best; sweeping on to a fearful and everlasting doom, year after year, thousands and thousands of innocent girls just budding into womanhood. Shall our people sleep on and dream on in the very midst of a slavery too horrible for description? Shall the destroyer of home and chiklhood be allowed to continue to devour the pure girls of this country, from the north to the south, and from the east to the west? Xot if I can help it. May the God of love, mercy and truth put it into the hearts of the American people to arise and assert their manhood and their womanhood, and in the name of the love they bear for home, happiness, virtue and purity, and in the name of the God whom they serve and worship, strike this monster destroyer down. In this little volume I appeal to the purest, the noblest and the best that is within you. and my prayer is now. while I write, that I shall not make this appeal in vain. I make it in the name and for the sake of home, happiness and virtue; in the name and for the sake of our girls and our mothers; in the name of all that is pure, holy, lovely and good. I make this appeal to every true man and to every noble woman; to the churches, pastors and to church members. I make it in the name of Christ and His religion. Shall I make it in vain? Dear reader, under God, where do you stand in the coming conflict to save the girls of this country from a life ten thousand times worse than death?

After the war was over, when the smoke of battle had cleared away, when the cannon's last roar had died on the distant hills, when Lee and

Grant shook hands over the bloody chasm of four long years of blood and death and met as foes no longer, when the soldiers, clothed in their tattered garments of the blue or the gray, came back to the old home and to loved ones, to fight no longer the battles of war, but the battles of peace, we then thought that slavery had ended, but, instead of negro slavery, there came another of a different kind, the awfulness of which can never be told; a slavery of thousands and thousands of as pure, asinnocent white girls as ever lived in any land. Oh, dear God in Heaven, look down upon these dear girls with great and tender compassion, and put it now into the hearts of the people to end this slave trade, which wrecks thousands of once happy homes and thousands of girls in the pure morning of life, dragging these dear ones down, down, down to the awful black depths of despair.

I have sometimes thought that I had a fair command of language, but I can find no words which will portray this destruction of virtue, of home, of happiness, and of all that is the nearest and dearest to the precious mothers of this land — their own dear children. If all the sticks were pens and all the oceans were ink; if all the men of the earth, the angels in heaven and the demons in hell were to write for a thousand years, they could not portray the awfulness, the blackness and the damnableness of this modern-day white slavery — this traffic in innocent white girls.

Do you ask me if girls — pure, innocent and unsuspecting white girls — are bought and sold? I tell you that there is now going on in this country an organized and systematic traffic in pure American girls which should cause our people more alarm than any one thing in all our history, the like of which has no parallel upon the face of the earth. Girls, many of whom are yet wearing short dresses, trapped and sold like cattle; sold into houses of prostitution to satisfy and gratify the wild, mad and surging passions of men, heated up to the boiling point by the demon alcohol! Girls sold for profit in this civilized, Christian land! In a land of Bibles, schools, churches and colleges! Yea, under the very shadows of our churches and in hearing of the gospel of peace and good will to men. A likely negro slave would bring a thousand dollars into the pocket of his legal owner before the war, but now our own dear girls, as pure as the snow and who never sinned, are trapped and sold by procurers, foul fiends incarnate^ to madams of houses of ill-fame for twenty -five dollars to one hundred dollars each. Reader, suppose one of these were your own little girl, the one you had held in your arms and pressed to your bosom so tenderly and fondly! Would your heart not break? God! what if it were my own little girl! When I saw other dear mothers' girls, whom they love as dearly as I love my own sweet girls, then my heart almost broke for them. I can see them now, in their lonely, sad and darkened homes, with the light and joy of their lives all gone out of them, sitting by their desolate firesides and, like Rachel, "weeping for their children and will not be comforted because they are not."

Many of these dear ones, before they were trapped and sold away from home and mother, would kneel in the nighttime by her side and say her little prayer:

"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep; If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."

Thousands and thousands of girls who are as pure as the morning dewdrops are annually decoyed, snared, trapped and sold in this land over which Old Glory floats as it waves and bends in the winds of heaven. Trapped by fiends incarnate and sold into the slavery of the brothel, to become the forced and unwilling chattels of the worst tyrannical masters and monsters that ever disgraced any civilized land.

I ask you, dear reader, to join in with me in labors of love and mercy, and let us work to save these mothers from broken hearts and their children from the agony of the dark days of desolation and their lives from ruin.

We are standing today face to face with a slave traffic and its ally, the liquor traffic, which will sweep this government from its very foundations unless there is an end put to both. We may sleep on and dream on if we will, but the awakening time will come in all of its fearfulness and terror. Nations, like individuals, must reap what they sow, and the reaping time is sure to conp. Perchance it may be delayed, but the longer delayed the more fearful will be the consequences. The liquor traffic and the traffic in pure, innocent girlhood are Siamese twins, both born in hell, and the devil is their father. It is impossible to discuss the one without discussing the other. The saloon is the front door of the brothel. The traffic in virtue and the legalized liquor traffic must end, or else this government must fall. On their annihilation hinges the destiny of the American people, the perpetuity of their institutions, the safety of their children, the progress of Christianity, the prosperity and happiness of the people, and the continuation of this Republic. This government was founded to establish justice, to insure domestic tranquility and to promote the happiness and general welfare of the people — men, women and children — and to guarantee to them and to their homes safety and protection. These inalienable rights were vouchsafed to the people by the founders of this government, and these rights can not be impaired or destroyed without impairing or destroying the government itself.

The three sure pillars on which this government stands are the home, the church and the school. Injure or destroy these pillars and the government will be injured or destroyed. The three great enemies of the home, church and school are the liquor traffic, the house of prostitution and the gambling hell. The sale of liquor destroys the inalienable rights of the people, their happiness and their prosperity; destroys home, property, virtue and life itself. It is a dangerous and destructive policy for this government to vouchsafe to the people certain inalienable rights and then sell, for so much money, a permit to a few of its citizens to destroy thousands of others of its citizens, and which has never failed to destroy these same inalienable rights. A government divided against itself can not stand. It is no prophecy when I say that one of two* things must happen — one is that the government must cut loose from the liquor traffic, stop granting privileges to one class of its citizens which enables them to prey upon and destroy another class of its citizens, or else this government must fall. I say this is no prophecy; it is an inevitable conclusion based upon sound logic, facts and all history. No free government can long survive a policy which annually destroys over one hundred thousand of its citizens, wrecks homes in every part of its territory; which leaves thousands of helpless women and children begging for food, shelter and clothing, fills our jails and penitentiaries with its criminals and our asylums with its insane; which is in league with a traffic, a slave trade in pure, innocent girls and which sends over forty thousand of them every year to houses of prostitution; which fills the land with broken-hearted mothers and many once happy homes with mourning and tears, the cemeteries with the bodies of its victims and hell with the shrieks of the damned, and which leaves nothing in its wake but desolation and ruin in this world and woe and despair in the world to come. I repeat again, that this government can not long survive such a policy. If the liquor traffic and the traffic in purity and virtue are not destroyed, then these traffics will destroy this government as sure as the waters run and the sun shines.

"Thou shalt not kill" is one of the prohibitory laws which does not prohibit a licensed rum -seller from dealing out his instruments of death and hell.

What does it mean to the government, State or National, in legalizing and authorizing the liquor traffic? Only one thing — to get revenue, about, one hundred and forty million dollars annually. This is a vast sum of money, but not as much as one billion and four hundred million dollars, which sum is annually spent in this country for alcohol, and which had better be sent up in the names a thousand times. Nearly a billion and a half dollars spent and nothing in return but one hundred thousand dead victims, one hundred and fifty thousand widows and orphans, three hundred and fifty thousand reduced to poverty or pauperism; wives weighed down with grief, sorrow and want; broken-hearted and helpless children growing up in ignorance, beggary and vice; men reduced to wretchedness, poverty and dishonor, degraded and polluted; millions of dollars invested in this business of making men and boys drunkards and in producing the desolation and ruin of women and children, which, if employed in the useful pursuits of life and directed by the talents and the time wasted in drinking houses, would add untold millions to our aggregate wealth and make as many thousands of happy families as are now made miserable by the liquor traffic.

But this is not all of the fearful destruction caused by this traffic. Not content with destroying our men and boys by the tens of thousands; not content with making thousands of widows and orphans, broken-hearted wives, sisters and mothers and wrecked homes; not content with filling the land with sorrow, mourning and tears, with the direst of poverty and sore want; not content with filling jails, penitentiaries and asylums with its victims; not content with taking from the people other untold millions to prosecute the crimes it causes to be committed and the injury done to society by these same crimes; not content with all of these things, the liquor traffic, in league with the procurers, fiends incarnate, enters thousands of happy homes and takes therefrom thousands of pure, happy and innocent girls and sells them to houses of ill-fame to gratify the wild, surging passions of those urged on by alcohol taking possession of the brain and hearts of men, adding fuel on which to feed the flames of unholy lusts.

No, my friends, our government can not afford, or long be a partner in such an awful iniquity, for the sake of revenue.

Chapter II

I shall state some of the facts as they exist now in this, the dawn of the Twentieth Century, and I shall state nothing but the facts as they have been gathered together by this writer and others, who would not misrepresent anything under any circumstances whatever. For four years I have been in this investigation, and I shall put the reader in possession of information, awful as it is, which will be of untold value to the homes of this country; to fathers, mothers and their children.

There is one thing that I want the reader to know now, before I proceed any further, and that is out of the three hundred and fifty thousand girls and women now in houses of ill-fame, three out of every four of them are not there from choice, not there of their own free will and accord, but they are there as the work of some villain or other. Over forty thousand of them are annually trapped and sold into this slavery and, without their knowledge or consent, sold for immoral purposes by fiends incarnate. Over four hundred thousand pure and innocent girls trapped and sold in ten years! This is the truth. Does it not make your blood boil within your veins? If not, then may God have mercy on your soul. You ask me how is this done, and what are the means employed? I am going to tell you. This destruction of our girls is carried on by some one or more of the following ways or channels :

First, by promise of marriage and seduction; second, by mock marriage; third, by marriage and desertion; fourth, by saloons and wine-rooms; fifth, by the dance and high wines; sixth, by drugs; seventh, by bad and vile companions; eighth, by children not being properly instructed as to the use and abuse of the sexual organs by their parents at an early age in life, and, ninth, by starvation wages.

One of these procurers, or fiends incarnate, comes into some town or country village. He gives it out that he is a traveling man taking a vacation and wanted to get to some quiet place where he could rest up. He soon takes his bearings and fixes his mind on a certain victim, often the daughter of some poor widow woman or some girl he thinks he can work without any immediate danger of a shotgun in the hands of her father or brothers. He is well dressed, polite, a smooth talker, one of these all-round good fellows. He manages to get an introduction to this unsuspecting girl, who knows nothing of the ways of the world beyond the ^circle of her home. Xot very long till you will find him taking her to parties, to picnics, and. if she is religiously inclined, he will take her to prayermeeting, Sunday school and church, and make out that he, too, is full of religion to the brim. He shows her every courtesy and attention, and the poor girl finds that she is in love with him, the very thing he intended and wanted, and, strange to say, that very often her own silly and unsuspecting mother is positively delighted that her girl has so far outstripped all her girl friends. They become engaged, and now how her poor heart beats for joy. He sits down and writes a letter to the "madani v of a house of ill-fame, for whom he is working, and tells her that he will soon land his victim. She knows what kind of an answer to send him. She makes out like she is his sister and will be so delighted to have a little sister-in-law. He shows this letter to this poor, unsuspecting girl. He tells her that his sister wants them to get married at her house, and that he wants her to go on to his sister's and get ready, and that he will come by that time and then they will get married. If the girl's mother objects to her daughter's going, he manages in some way or tells her some big lie and gets the girl off. She goes with him to the depot: he puts her on the train for some city. When she arrives, she is met by some one as per agreement, put into a closed carriage and whirled away to a house of ill-fame, and lost to the world forever. There she is locked up, drugged, red liquor forced down her throat, forced to submit to some human beast, till at last she is utterly crushed. The mother, back in the old home, weeps on and on. day and night, and dies of a broken heart. The destroyer of this girl goes elsewhere to trap another victim for destruction. If she was young, pretty and of good physique, the '•'madam'' of this house of ill-fame paid this fiend 8100 and expenses so soon as she got the key turned on her. Some girls are sold for $25: some $50: some $75, and those just blooming into womanhood sell for as much as $100 when pretty and of good form.

Dear girls, if you value your home, your happiness and your life, you had better be careful and have nothing to do whatever with strange young men of whose life and character and history you absolutely know nothing. This is good advice, and you will be wise to take it. If you say that you are in no danger, you say just what thousands of others have said whose lives have been destroyed and whose happiness has been crushed out of their hearts forever. Mothers, you had better be careful as to whom yon admit into your homes. You had better know who they are and what their business is. I shall speak more fully to mothers and their daughters in another part of this book. »

There is another class of these villains whose avocation is also to traduce and destroy the lives of innocent girls. The first part of their methods is somewhat like that above described, the difference being that a pretended marriage ceremony is gone through with. The girl's consent to marriage being had, this viper persuades her to run away with him. He takes her to some strange city where a pretended marriage license is procured, gives the license to one of his "pals" who is onto the job and pretends to be a clergyman. This "pal" pretends to marry them, and the poor girl thinks that she is really married. This wretch soon tires of her, and the first thing that this poor, unsuspecting girl knows, she is landed into a house of ill-fame and is there informed that she was never married at all. Here she is lost to the world, red liquor and drugs poured down her throat and forced to submit to the beastly passions of all callers, or turned over and kept as the mistress of some wealthy libertine till he tires of her.

Thousands of pure and innocent girls are going to ruin over this rnockmarriage route. Girls, let me say to you that if a young man refuses to marry you in your own home, in the presence of your own people and by your own minister, or some one else whom you know, you give him his walking papers and tell him to never let you lay eyes on him again while he lives.

Only a short time ago two young girls, one 14 and the other 15 years old, were running away to get married at Hot Springs, Arkansas, to two worthless scoundrels who had not the remotest idea of marrying them. An officer in Arkansas came across these two girls while they were waiting at the depot for the Hot Springs train. This officer saw that these girls were not grown and that they were alone and had never traveled but little, if any. This he judged from their actions, as any one well can do. He questioned them as to where they lived, who they were, where they were going and why. They were not inclined to talk or tell him anything till he told them that he had a telegram from their parents, asking him to be on the lookout for two girls and that he would have to take charge of them. He carried them to a hotel and gave them their dinner. Soon a sure -enough telegram came from their parents in answer to one sent by the officer. They requested the officer to care for the girls till they could reach them, which was the next day. These girls had been persuaded to leave home by two strange young men who had promised to marry them at Hot Springs. Had it not been for that kind officer these girls would have landed at Hot Springs and this would have been the last of thein, for Hot Springs is a hot town in more ways than one. These two girls were glad enough to get back to their Texas home with papa and mama, and are there now. yet pure, contented and happy.

Girls, your homes may be humble and you may not have as fine clothes on want, but, listen, there is no spot on this earth which is as dear and as sate as is home., and no name or friend so kind and true as mother. Is, don't, for your sake, please don't leave home, be it ever so humble. and mother and go away to the city for employment. Dangers are lurking there at every turn. Parents, keep your children in the home. It is safer thefe than out in the cold and wicked world.

Another method by which unsuspecting girls by the thousands are decoyed, trapped and sold into houses of ill-fame and for immoral purposes is by decoy advertisements. Some of them read about as follows: "Wanted — A nice young girl as a companion for wealthy lady; good wages to the right party." "Wanted — A nice girl for traveling companion of a rich lady: good, wages: give full description of yourself in first letter.'- •"Wanted — Nice gii for companion for lady who is alone: good place if found suitable: give fuli particulars as to yourself. " "Wanted — A country girl to do light house work in the city: good wages to the right party: in answering give full particulars: girl preferred having no incumbrance.'''

A girl reads one of these advertisements and makes up her mind that this is the very thing she wants, and that, if she can get the place, it will help her to aid her parents to support her little brothers and sisters. She answers one of these advertisements and tells all about herself. Soon she gets an answer, telling her that she is the very girl wanted, and to come right along at once. She writes again and tella them that she is coming and when she will start. She gets ready, the time comes when she is going to leave the old home. She kisses papa good-by: her mother takes her child in her arms and covers her with kisses, as great tears. like no one can shed but a mother, roll down her cheeks. Then she clasps brothers and sisters in her arms. and. last of all. the baby: says farewell, and she is gone out into the dark world, little knowing the awful fate which awaits her. Mother, dear mother, if she is not your child she is some mother's child. The train whirls her on and on. carrying her to a fearful, living death. Would to God that she had died when she was a little child. At last she reaches her destination, and with her heart filled with joyous expectations, she alights from the train. Better that she drop dead here. She is met by some one. as per agreement, who puts her in a closed carriage anl carries her to a house of ill-fame, and here she is lost to the world as completely as if the grave had swallowed her up. In the awful agony and bitterness of her prison home — no, not home, but an earthly hell — her mind goes back to the dear old home, back to papa, back to mama, back to the little brothers and sisters and back to the little babe in mother's arms.

Would to God that I could picture here her memories now. Sweet girl, broken-hearted, disconsolate and crushed in your prison house, let others turn their backs upon you now if they will, but, God being my helper, I will never do it. I would rather have my right arm severed from my body than to turn from you now in this awful hour. Some fiend incarnate got $25, $50, $75 or '$100 for this piece of work. I don't want to be understood as saying that all advertisements like the above are decoy advertisements, for they are not. I do want to say that no girl in the world should think for one moment of accepting employment from those who advertise for help without having a full and thorough investigation made of the place, the business and the person advertising. Fathers and mothers should see that this investigation is made. Write to the pastor of your church, to the secretary of the Young Women's Christian Association, or to the secretary of the W. C. T. U., and ask one of these parties to make a personal investigation of the person and the place and to tell you whether or not it is a desirable position which has been offered you. Any of these parties will gladly do this for you. This has been done, and the place when located was found to be none other than a house of ill-fame. Best of all, however, is to stay at home with your parents and brothers and sisters, unless you are forced to make your own way in the world.

The wine-rooms of saloons are the avenues which lead straight to houses of prostitution, and they are enough to forever damn the saloon business in this country. If the reader could only know of the awful, dark tragedies which take place in these wine -rooms, the revelation would be shocking because of its blackness.