Chicago leaves no room for doubt upon this point
The very valuable report recently issued by the vice commission of
Chicago leaves no room for doubt upon this point. The report estimates
the yearly profit of this nefarious business as conducted in Chicago to
be between fifteen and sixteen millions of dollars. Although these
enormous profits largely accrue to the men who conduct the business side
of prostitution, the report emphasizes the fact that the average girl
earns very much more in such a life than she can hope to earn by any
honest work. It points out that the capitalized value of the average
working girl is six thousand dollars, as she ordinarily earns six
dollars a week, which is three hundred dollars a year, or five per cent.
on that sum. A girl who sells drinks in a disreputable saloon, earning
in commissions for herself twenty-one dollars a week, is capitalized at
a value of twenty-two thousand dollars. The report further estimates
that the average girl who enters an illicit life under a protector or
manager is able to earn twenty-five dollars a week, representing a
capital of twenty-six thousand dollars. In other words, a girl in such a
life 'earns more than four times as much as she is worth as a factor in
the social and industrial economy, where brains, intelligence, virtue
and womanly charm should bring a premium.' The argument is specious in
that it does not record the economic value of the many later years in
which the honest girl will live as wife and mother, in contrast to the
premature death of the woman in the illicit trade, but the girl herself
sees only the difference in the immediate earning possibilities in the
two situations.
