Siren of the Screen Studios

NZ Truth, Issue 1001, 31 January 1925, Page 3

Siren of the Screen Studios

Pathetic Tragedies Of Lured Girls Degradation Follows Disillusionment

More than 5000 persons, mostly women, disappear through the mysterious Gateway of Missing Persons m Los Angeles, California, every year. From every part of the United States, and on almost every incoming train, they arrive. Where most of them go to nobody ever knows, but many of them, discouraged, broken-hearted, and ruined, sink for ever m the sea of oblivion. A few, chastened and repentant, rise out of their misfortunes or degradation and return to the land of their friends and families to take up life anew. Still others who have thus returned to respectability, fall again and are then lost for ever among the denizens of the Underworld. ,

but, take it from me, I don't want to go crooked. I'll stay straight if I can.

The public officials of the city of Los Angeles whose duty it is to give attention to all "missing persons" cases .assert that of the somewhat more than 5000 who disappear every year, , the greater number are young girls m their 'teens. The cases of these minor girls come under the eye of Mrs. Nellie Schriner, who for fifteen years has been a policewoman m Los Angeles, and for the last five years has been m charge of the work of the Juvenile Bureau. It is a matter of daily routine for Mrs. Schriner and her aides to look for runaway girls from Eastern cities and country towns who have headed for Los Angeles with the hope of becoming motion picture The girls from the dull country towns of the East and South and Central States are easily discovered. Their glorious careers usually get no further than one of the railroad' stations, where the watchful eyes of the Juvenile Bureau officers spot them the moment they get off the train. If their youthful appearance and homemade^ clothes do not reveal their identity and purpose, they are betrayed by their immediate question as to where the great motion picture studios are located. Many of these girls are picked up with only a handful o£ cheap jewellery aimed to captivate the sheiks of Hollywood, the great motion picture colony. Some arrive with little or no clothes or luggage, but with a collection of actors' and actresses' photographs. Mrs. Schriner's experiences with these young women have been varied and interesting. Uncongenial home life, she, thinks, is one of the chief reasons why girsl run away . from home and become "missing." "In my experience I have talked with thousands of girls and thousands of mothers," said Mrs. Schriner, "and sometimes I think that they are both caught m the general spirit of unrest and are simply types m a nations progress. ' ELUSIVE LULU. "I recall the case of Lulu, who was seventeen when : I first met her — the daughter of a well-to-do widow. Apparently she' should have been a happy, contented girl, but there was constant discord between herself and mother. The girl, a brilliant thinker and as beautiful as the girls that poets praise, brought good marks home from school. &ood books, good music, good plays appealed to her. "The first time I talked to Lulu was when she failed to return from a dance until 4 o'clock m the morning. "'Don't you 1 know nice girls don't keep those hours?' I asked her. " 'Nice girls,' she snapped. 'What do you mean— the goody, goody kind, the 1 girl that wants a' chaperone and asks her mother every time she wants to go out for the evening? They are the weak girls without strength of character, the kind that need to be watched.' . "I did hot see Lulu again .until her eighteenth birthday. She had been away from home for two days 'with girl friends.' ...■ ■■. " 'You do not trust me,' she told her mother, 'or you would know I am able to take care of myself. You stay at home and, let the fun of life go by and expect me to do the same. I can read good books. after I come, m at night. No man has anything on me.' "I believed her — I couldn't help it. "Several months went by and I did not hear from Lulu. Then one night, the mother came to me m tears' and tola me Lulu had gone. "One night Lulu had remained home. She tried to talk, but the conversation failed, as the mother and daughter had nothing m common. At 10 o'clock Lulu put down her book, walked across the room and kissed her mother goodnight. " 'What's the big idea — you haven't kissed me since you were a child?' the mother said. "Without stopping to explain, Lulu went to her room. "The next morning she did not appear for breakfast. Her mother found this note on her pillow: , "'Dear Mother, — Our life is not happy and we are not congenial. Neither of us has tried to see the other's viewpoint. I am going out to seek my own happiness. Do not try to find me, for I will not return home. I have met a man whom I think I love, and we are going to be married and go away from here for ever. If we could have relented the least bit toward each other things might have been different, but it's over now, so good-by.' "That was two years ago. Since that time there has not been the slightest trace of Lulu. ' REVOLT FROM POVERTY. "Then there was Jennie and her two sisters. The three girls left home within' a year. When I last saw Jennie she was too calloused to care. She was just twenty-one. "Since the first disappearance of the ■ girls five years ago their lives have been seething whirlpools, m which have mingled all the sordid things that could possibly happen to girls between their fifteenth and twentyfirst years. . . •. . "Jennie was a beauty of sixteen. She was warm, emotional and loving. She was the first- one to depart and the only one to return. To-day she has launched herself m her own way. " 'I've gone .straight,' she said, x and I believed her, although all of the circumstances were against her. "The' girls lived m a wretched home. There were five other children. .The father, was a teamster making four dollars a day. He was slovenly, and had no ambition. The ramshackle roof was the best he could furnish, and the poorest of food and semi-rags were doled out to the children. "Jennie, at sixteen, revolted. We lost sight of her m the next, few years, but' recently we located her dancing m a cheap cabaret. The other sisters are lost m tlie maelstrom, and for two years we .haven't had the slightest trace of them." "Jennie told their story to me the other night m the cabaret. "'I wish you wouldn't tag me so,' she said. "'I won't if you get out of this place and earn a living m a respectable way,' I told her. "'What do you mean?' she asked. 'The wishy-washy kind of a girl who is willing to sit by arid let the good things of life be grabbed aip by someone else? "Well, that's not my type. Good hose cost five dollars a pair, fur coats run into money, lingerie with real lace comes high. Why shouldn't I have it if I can get it?' " 'Silk hose and fur coats aren't everything, and dancing m such surroundings will surely lead to grief.' '"Look here,' she said. 'I'm twentyone. For sixteen years I had only rags and not enough food to warm my stomach. Dad and mother' aren't to blame. We* are just victims of miserable circumstances. ." 'I could not stand oar_;hard life,

" 'We were ignorant children, so ignorant that we did not know the simplest things about life. Girls ought to be told the things that will at least save them from suicide. " 'There's Marie, the sister next to me. She left home a few months after I did. You know that old gag, 'the easiest way.' I don't know where we got the idea, but we all wanted good clothes, jewellery, and- furs. Marie tried to get them by work, but she wasn't happy. She had a nice disposition and made friends. " 'When I came back a year later Marie had the clothes, but she didn't look right. She said there was only one way to get them, but I told her she was on the wrong track. But she didn't see it that way. "'I heard from her the following year and the next, and then I didn't hear again. Her last note said if things didn't get better soon she'd commit suicide. " 'Sally was my other sister. A fatal automobile ride with a boy friend when she was fourteen sent her away for a year. I heard from her about two years ago and she was going straight. But I don't know where she Is now.' • . PARENTAL. CARELESSNESS. Lack of parental restraint m some homes and too much of it m others is given as one big reason for girls losing themselves m the maze of city life. One girl will set forth on her own career at too tender an age m order to break the yoke imposed on her at home. Another becomes lost because with too much freedom she steps too far from the bounds of convention. In a majority of the cases handled by Mrs. Schriner there is a young lovei responsible. Her experience has shown that the suave youth of the Southland, with the blood of Castilian ancestors running through his veins, proves an irresistible lure to many young American girls. ■' The problem of the "over-sexed" girl is the most difficult to manage of any that come before the policewoman's eye. Repentance and firm resolutions to do right seem to be for naught m these instances. These girls comprise the bulk of those disappearance cases that are constantly recurring. Their fate seems to be as inevitable as that of the dope fiend or the chronic drunkard. To the siren of movie-land, of course, is charged the responsibility for luring most of the girls that become missing m Los Angeles from every other section of the country. That Los Angeles m the last few years has become the goal and expected paradise of missing persons, particularly girls from all over the country, is explained by Mrs. Schriner Dy the theory that California is a magic word to them. Los Angeles, with its sunshine, luring mountain trails, and irresistible wave-lapped beaches, is a dream m the mind of most missing girls arrested m the. Southland from outside points. ' ■ Most tragic of all circumstances surrounding missing girls that come to the attention of the officers, are the cases of those who are devoured by the Gargantuan monster of vice m the dives of Tia Juana and Mexican, down on the Mexican border. Of the thousands of persons who disappear from the ranks of well-regulated society, the majority are" located, oven though many of those found later slip again into the mire of oblivion. But this is not itrue of those whosetrail is traced to the Mexican border, where they have been lured or dragged by evil companions. ACROSS THE BORDER. ' White- slavers operating along the coast cities, and particularly m the Southland, are responsible for many of these tragedies, and once the door of shame closes upon these girls m the border divea they are hopelessly marked "Lost." • Mrs. Schriner illustrates one of the causes for a girl becoming "missing" by the case of a fifteen-year-old girl, living m a suburban town, whose stepfather and mother compelled her to work and turn over her pay envelope every week. She had no clothes and no liberties. She ran away and went to Los Angeles, securing employment m a laundry, and was getting along nicely until her mother induced her to return home again. The previous treatment was continued. The girl left again, got another job, and secured lodging at the W.C.T.U. home. ' . Then came the disturbing influence. Mary, a runaway of about the same age from Oregon, made the girl's acquaintance. Mary was addicted to dope and liquor. Her lurid tales of her many experiences fascinated her unsophisticated companion. The concluding chapter came when the two girls ran away with two Mexican boys. The trail ended at Tia Juana. There was the case of Mildred. Her mother was of loose character, and her daughter never had known a wholesome home environment. Finding herself m a delicate condition, Mildred induced a girl friend to run away with her. Their goal was the interior of Mexico. They made their way as far south as Enseriada, a Mexican port on the coast of Lower California, where they were cruelly treated by a band of Mexicans, and finally made their way back to the American border. As compared with instances of too rigid discipline m the home, Mrs. Schriner tells of the case of Lucille, a pretty girl, who had found employment m motion pictures. . She was eighteen when her case came before the officers.. Her mother from childhood had granted her every whim. She had allowed her daughter to attend all sorts of entertainments at night 'iinchaperoned, and permitted her to return at all hours of the morning without a word. • Then came over-night trips to the beach with mixed parties. The girl was. allowed to dance at questionable entertainments m bizarre and scant> costumes. In her gay whirl of unrestricted pleasm-es she had become an inveterate cigarette smoker, before she was eighteen. • Finally she was brought before Mrs. Schriner, who told her of the pitfalls she was exposing herself to and of the almost certain results of compromising- situations. Her mother, came m for. upbraiding because of her lack of proper -restraint and home training. The case is closed so far with that incident. ' A surprisingly large number of the .cases of missing girls .are from good homes, m which one would expect to find contentment and happiness. '■' In these cases it is more often than not too little restraint that results m girls going astray.

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