The White Slave Trade By Emma Goldman - 1021 Words

One of Comstock’s targets was Emma Goldman, whom he unsuccessfully tried to have imprisoned for her unconventional writings about â€Å"the white slave trade.† Indeed, Goldman was one of the few public figures who challenged the assertions in the newspapers at that time surrounding the white slave panic. She was truly prophetic when she described that movement as a â€Å"toy† that â€Å"serves to amuse the people for a little while, and it will help to create a few more fat political jobs--parasites who stalk about the world as inspectors, investigators, detectives, and so forth.† Goldman rejected the ideals of Progressive Era abolitionists. She insisted, â€Å"To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock.† Contrarily, Maude Miner Hadden, wished for prostitutes to be sent to reform schools or institutions for the feebleminded during the Progressive Era. Hadden said, â€Å"These girls have not been, except in rare instances, physically enslaved; but through the loss of freedom and of action, they have been bound to prostitution. Their demoralization of character has constituted moral enslavement.† Goldman was, instead, more concerned about society’s indifference to the main cause of prostitution -- economic and social conditions. As a side note, Goldman tried to once work as a prostitute to help raise money for her fellow anarchist and partner, Alexander Berkman. He was well-known for shooting one of