Yesterday, my husband and I went on the Pendleton Underground Tour http://pendletonundergroundtour.com and a number of thoughts went through my mind.
It was VERY interesting and sombering to think about the Chinese men who were brought over to build the railroads, made to live underground (because of racism and prejudism), and while living in the underground, consequently made many miles of tunnels under our city, which are still being discovered today! They had opium dens down there, often worked 2 to 3 jobs a day to be able to send money home and simultaneously repay the debt of being brought to America.
We also learned about Stella Darby . . . the madam of the famous Working Girls Hotel until 1953. According to the tour guide, whom I enjoyed immensely, you couldn't find a bad thing to say about Stella - she treated her ladies fairly, she gave them their own bedroom seperate from the business rooms, the split was 50/50, and she gave her girls something she never had - a mother. She was an incredible businesswoman with connections all over town (hmmmm) and a large donor and supporter of The Salvation Army.
An interesting side story - Stella had a son in 1923 and gave him up for adoption to an agency in Portland. She was able to keep track of him without him knowing about it and knew that his life was better than what she could have given him. I'm wondering if the White Shield in Portland didn't play a bigger role in Stella's life than anybody knows - perhaps that's why she was so generous to us.
However, back to the story - the Cozy Rooms Hotel had a thriving business that kept the city supplied with payoffs and revenue, contributed to keeping men off the street and away from the young daughters, and all in all was a fairly respectable establishment that was recognized by most community members. That is, until a new minister came to the United Presbyterian church.
As the story goes, within two weeks time, he went to the mayor and said he had two lists in his hands - one list with the girls names and another list with their clients names. If "those girls" weren't out of town by Sunday, he would read both lists in church on Sunday morning. Saturday night, three school buses drove up and took the girls away . . . (all three buses just relocated the girls to other towns where they found the same job).
So here are the thoughts that went through my mind . . .
1. What a difference one man made.
2. How can we accept prostitution as an acceptable trade by claiming that the pay was reasonable and the girls were treated fairly?
3. What would God's response to them have been?
4. Stella had a chapel in her bordello, so that the girls could learn religion and have Sunday School taught to them - and she paid a traveling minister to come and preach to them. I wonder if The Salvation Army would have been one of those ministers?
5. Would that be a compromise? Or a show of love?
6. What are we doing for these same girls today?
7. Are we still on the tour? Or are we going to get off the bus and do something?
I'm still turning things over in my mind about all this when I go to a Native American pageant (the whole week is celebrating the rodeo = it's Round Up week - the largest rodeo of them all - literally, our town went from 15000 to 60000 in two days) - and several of the scenes have dancing hall girls and can-can dances with lots of skirts flying over the heads. Everyone laughs and applauds. The parade the next morning has stage coaches driving with young teenage girls wearing stage hall negligees and shaking legs in webbed stockings. GIRLS! People cheer and the girls turn around and literally MOON us (with very little underwear on!). Because they are younger, it is "cute."
I am at a loss for words. I am promoting a campaign to Stop Sexual Trafficking to a world that promotes it for free.
What can I do about this? It's not like when the Presbyterian minister came to town - he was speaking to a world that was still outraged by this - at least on the surface. We don't even have that pretense anymore.
I'm troubled.
Martha
