United States v. Long, 14524.
| Decision Date | 28 September 1936 |
| Docket Number | No. 14524.,14524. |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. LONG. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Illinois |
Grendel Bennett, Pros. Atty., of Danville, Ill., for the United States.
Thomas Graham, of Danville, Ill., for defendant.
Defendant was jointly indicted with one Davis in two counts charging violation of the so-called White-Slave Traffic Act, § 2, 18 U.S.C.A. § 398, in the transportation of two girls from Illinois to Indiana for the purpose and with the intent condemned by the statute. Davis pleaded guilty. Long pleaded not guilty and waived a jury trial.
Long and Davis were associated in the show business, being interested in a dancing show then part of a carnival in the small village of Hymera, Ind. Long apparently was the proprietor of this show, conducting it in a tent. Being in need of girls, he procured a note from one of the employees of the carnival who resided in Paris, Ill., to a girl there and proceeded with Davis to Paris, where he presented the note to the young lady to whom it was addressed. She replied that she was unable to go, but introduced the two men to the two girls named in the indictment, each of the age of fifteen years. Long and Davis told them that they were to join Long's show and sell tickets for him. Relying upon this statement, the mother of one of the girls consented to her daughter going.
Long and Davis then took the girls in an automobile to Hymera, arriving about one o'clock in the morning. The girls slept in a trailer by themselves, and the next day learned that they were to participate in the show as dancing girls. With little or no instruction they joined the wife of Long in a dance presented to the public wherein the three women did so-called muscle or "hootchie-coochie" dances. They were dressed in shorts, a skirt that reached their knees and a brassiere. They were also told by Long and his wife that they should participate in an "after-show," in which the girls testified that Mrs. Long removed her shorts and, at a certain time in the dance, drew open her skirt so that she stood nude before the audience. The price of admission to the after-show was 25 cents; that to the preliminary 10 cents. The girls refused to do the nude dance, and Mrs. Long proceeded with it herself. A number of shows were given each evening. The girls stayed with the carnival some three days and then said they were going home. They never participated in the after-show. One of the girls had sexual intercourse with Davis while she was with the carnival.
The essential question for decision is whether the girls were transported by defendant for the purpose of "prostitution or debauchery or any other immoral purpose" or with the intent upon the part of the defendant to induce them "to become prostitutes or to give themselves up to debauchery" or to engage in any other practices within the meaning of the act. Section 398, title 18 U.S.C.A.
Under the reasoning of United States v. Bitty, 208 U.S. 393, 28 S.Ct. 396, 52 L.Ed. 543, the words "other immoral purposes" mean such other immoral purposes as belong to the same genus as prostitution or debauchery. "Debauchery" contemplated within the act evidently includes corruption of sexual moral principles. In its common meaning "to debauch" is to lead astray morally into dishonest and vicious practices; to corrupt; to lead into unchastity. Debauchery is ordinarily thought of as an excessive indulgence of the body; licentiousness; the taking up of vicious habits. As used in this statute it connotes sexual immorality; it contemplates that character of life which will lead eventually, or tends to lead eventually, to sexual immorality. Athanasaw v. United States, 227 U.S. 326, 33 S.Ct. 285, 287, 57 L.Ed. 528, Ann.Cas. 1913E, 911. As indicated by the court in the case...
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