I’ve only browsed bits of it, but I think its purpose is political. The writer’s trying to whip people into a frenzy so that they’ll demand action, The Mann Act can be passed, and politicians who sponsored and voted for it can say “We protected the virtue of white Christian womanhood!” come election time. It’s happened before and since (take a real problem [girls being forced into prostitution], grossly exaggerate it [it’s not isolated instances but it happens everyday in every city!], work in some properly despicable villains [swarthy foreigners in ice cream parlors and grocery stores], and let the public take it over).
It reminds me of the Satanic Panic of the late 80s and 90s: there really was child molestation going on- always has been always will be, there really were gruesome unsolved murders- always have been and always will be, and there really are people into the occult- always have been always will be. Probably, law of odds and averages, you could probably find people into the occult who molested kids or committed murders (just as you could find people of any other religious bent who did), but generally the three things (murder/child molestation/occultism) weren’t connected UNTIL concerned citizens like Geraldo brought it to our attention and then exploded it with anecdotal evidence and hyperbolic language and the [ahem] “science” of recovered memories and unsubstantiated claims and soon sacrifice to Satan was somewhere up there with heart disease and cancer just about as a cause of death and action had to be taken and in some places it was (Wenatchee, Washington has a “witch hunt”- almost literally- in which 43 people and many more investigated for ritual abuse fo children/The West Memphis Three are arrested because clearly the three horrible unsolved murders of children in the area were committed by Satanists and clearly the defendants were Satanists because they wore black, were weird, and listened to heavy metal, etc.).
Sometimes a fine line between democracy and demagoguery, alas alas.
You’re exactly right, Sampiro. HD, what exactly do you intend for us to get out of this? I have skimmed about 2/3 of it (it’s a slowday) and there is nothing in there I believe. Yes, women have been coerced into prostitution and it’s happening ever day. But it’s telling that there is an anecdote (and make no mistake, all I find in that silly book are anecdotes, no verifiable facts) of a young girl who was in one of these “white slave” rings. So they rescue her, and at first she says she was willing, then she says she was tricked, and after hours of discourse and brow-beating she confesses it was all a big white slave thing. Most teens - hell most people - will agree to lots of stuff after several hours if it will jut smake you shut up!
Oh, Sampiro, now I get your joke. Is slow on the uptake apparently. Too late for a comeback though.
I’m reminded too of Fr. Bruce Ritter, the disgraced founder of the Covenant House youth shelter. According to a book I read on him, his fundraising appeal letters dwelt at suspicious length on anecdotes about strapping young blond middle-class Midwestern boys who came to New York only to fall into the hands of chickenhawks (the book’s author also noted that demographically, the homeless kids in New York generally didn’t meet this profile but were instead poor, black, Hispanic, etc.). When Ritter got in trouble for pederasty with young blond boys in his care, hindsight seemed to indicate that his lurid portrayals of the child sex trade were based more in fantasy than in fact.
I can’t take it anymore. I learned White Slavery wasn’t what I originally thought it was. Knowing how wrong attitudes in this book are by today’s standards is why I asked to not debate in this thread and fight about what was read. I really did want this to be a notice of a book being available. It certainly provides a point of view from that period, that makes me choke. I looked at some other links and read spots. Thanks for the family antidote too. I now know we can thank the white slavery bit for the laws against the transport of women over state lines for sex. Also we can blame white slavery for the FBI. The white slave trade isn’t only the stuff I’ve seen depicted of women whisked to Arabia for the harem. I’m glad some people tried to read this like I did (try).
Here’s an unintentionally-revelatory sample paragraph from the book linked in the OP:
Sounds like the demons he was grappling with were his own obsession with the spectre of degrading young white girls.
The tone of the book is almost comical (farcical might be a better word) in its assumption of universal female virtuousness. Occam would need only one viewing of the female scrum crowding the Girls Gone Wild bus, eager to disrobe or engage in faux lesbianism in exchange for a free t-shirt, to begin suspecting that there was no need to posit swarthy foreign criminal masterminds as the explanation for why some subset of women, throughout history, would act whorishly.
I don’t quite know why this is in Cafe Society? However, I grant you, I can’t think where else it might fit, so I’m going to just leave it here with a shrug of the proverbial shoulders.