Had Olga yielded to the solicitations of bad men and had the immigration
authorities in the federal building of Chicago discovered her in the
disreputable hotel in which her captors wanted to place her, she would
have been deported to Sweden, sent home in disgrace from the country
which had failed to protect her. Certainly the immigration laws might do
better than to send a girl back to her parents, diseased and disgraced
because America has failed to safeguard her virtue from the machinations
of well-known but unrestrained criminals. The possibility of deportation
on the charge of prostitution is sometimes utilized by jealous husbands
or rejected lovers. Only last year a Russian girl came to Chicago to
meet her lover and was deceived by a fake marriage. Although the man
basely deserted her within a few weeks he became very jealous a year
later when he discovered that she was about to be married to a
prosperous fellow-countryman, and made charges against her to the
federal authorities concerning her life in Russia. It was with the
greatest difficulty that the girl was saved from deportation to Russia
under circumstances which would have compelled her to take out a red
ticket in Odessa, and to live forevermore the life with which her lover
had wantonly charged her.
May we not hope that in time the nation's policy in regard to immigrants
will become less negative and that a measure of protection will be
extended to them during the three years when they are so liable to
prompt deportation if they become criminals or paupers?
While it may be difficult for the federal authorities to accomplish this
protection and will doubtless require an extension of the powers of the
Department of Immigration, certainly no one will doubt that it is the
business of the city itself to extend much more protection to young
girls who so thoughtlessly walk upon its streets. Yet, in spite of the
grave consequences which lack of proper supervision implies, the
municipal treatment of commercialized vice not only differs in each city
but varies greatly in the same city under changing administrations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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