The Mann Act

the road to hell is paved with mere intentions

Let's suppose that you live and work in the Oranges, New Jersey. One bright morning at the office you spot a new addition to the staff: soft auburn hair, cute face, big wide-set eyes and a lovely pneumatic figure. It turns out that she lives in your town too; she's 23, a B.A. from Bennington. You move in and your enterprise is rewarded with a date on the following Friday for dinner and a play in Manhattan. You pick her up on the appointed night and you roll through the Lincoln Tunnel into the glittering world of midtown Gotham after dark. You stuff her with seafood coquille and tournedos at Le Chanteclair and get her to the theatre just as the curtain rises. So far, so good. But you really have no idea of how far you can get with this girl. Being basically a pessimist, you don't expect much more than a few kisses at her doorway. But as the evening progresses, so do you: the dear little thing proves far friendlier than she looks, and you end the evening in a small suite in a Gramercy Park hotel.

Next day you discreetly describe the girl's warm and affectionate nature to your best buddy, who promptly decides that he is just as deserving as you are. He makes a date and takes her across the Hudson too, fully expecting to follow in your fortunate footsteps. Alas, he scores a goose egg; he leaves her at her doorstep with the warm memory of a sincere-type handshake to speed him on his way.

A serious Federal offense has been committed here. By you? Not at all. By your friend, who could be dragged off to the penitentiary for five years and fined $5000 to boot. He has violated the Mann Act, though he got nothing but a handshake for his pains. You, who enjoyed the fullest pleasure the lady had to offer, could not be booked for so much as jaywalking. You are completely in the clear.

Ridiculous? Certainly. But that's the way the law reads. Everyone has heard of the Mann Act -- the misbegotten brain child of turn-of-the-century Representative James Robert Mann -- but few know anything about it except that it is ominously concerned with sex and state lines. Thousands of men violate it every day, quite unwittingly. It's wise to know what the Act really stands for.

The Mann Act (or the White-Slave Traffic Act, its official title) makes it a crime to transport any female across a state line with the intent that she shall be engaged in "prostitution, or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose." Further, it makes it a crime to persuade or force, or in any other way induce any female to be transported across a state line for the same purpose. The penalty is a fine of up to $5000, or a jail sentence up to five years, or both; if the girl involved is under 18, up to $10,000 and 10 years.

The "crime" the Act condemns is not "immorality." It is the transportation of a woman with an immoral intent. Once you take her across a state line (with the lurking thought that you may score), the crime has been committed, no matter what happens next -- or doesn't happen. Your friend broke the law because he had an "immoral" intent when he took Miss Bennington through the Lincoln Tunnel. You, not even considering the possibility of making out (until after the transportation was over), are in the clear. You see? The pure in spirit shall triumph.

This peculiar law was enacted in 1910 under peculiar conditions. At that time, due to the unemancipated attitude of the average American female, and other factors, commercial prostitution was a big deal in America. The term "vice ring" had real meaning, and some of the organizations were so powerful that state governments couldn't destroy them. The national government stepped in. Since the Constitution narrowly limits the right of Congress to concern itself with state matters, a circuitous approach to the problem had to be made, something akin to sending a three-time killer to prison for non-payment of income tax. Congress undertook to regulate the interstate aspects of commercial prostitution, and the Mann Act was the result.

So why is an active, average young man from New Jersey imperiled, when the idea of commercial prostitution has never entered his head? Because of the (continued on page 73) Mann Act (continued from page 69) vague phrase in the Act which reads, "for any other immoral purpose." In the first test case, the Supreme Court interpreted this to mean non-commercial extramarital or premarital intercourse. The unfortunate first victim was a Californian named Caminetti who took a high school girl to Reno with him for a weekend. Clearly, it had not been the intent of Congress to apply the Mann Act to this kind of peccadillo -- but in order to revise the law to conform to its original purpose, some brave Congressman would have had to propose an amendment which would surely result in his being tagged throughout the land as an advocate of sin. A Congressman that brave was not to be found at the time, and none has appeared since.

Appellate courts have consistently ruled, therefore, that premarital intercourse comes under the heading of "any other immoral purpose," even though it isn't even illegal in many states -- New York for one. Thus, in that state it is not illegal to crawl into the sack with a girl, but it is a serious crime to drive her there from another state with the intention of doing so.

The courts have also limited the application of the phrase to sexual immorality. Let's suppose you know a girl in Connecticut who is extraordinarily skilled at poisoning people. You wish to do in your great-aunt Hepzibah, whose last will and testament will bring you a great bundle of loot. The old dear lives in Brooklyn Heights, so you have your little friend gather up her wolfsbane and her strychnine-laced mint tea and you transport her across the state line for the purpose of homicide. No violation of the Mann Act here.

On the other hand, the courts have not laid down any definite ruling about where sexual immorality begins. Presumably, the hope of a kiss, even an ardent kiss, is not immoral, but beyond that the lover's path is studded with booby traps. For example, if you take a girl into circumstances that might tend to "lead her into immorality," you are violating the Act. This precedent was established in the case of an agent who booked some dancers into a Mexican cabaret. Although the girls' contracts specifically provided that they would not be obliged to engage in prostitution, the atmosphere of the cabaret was so degrading that he was convicted under the Mann Act merely for having taken them into the place. This doctrine could be extended. Many a drive-in movie is locally known as "the passion pit" and for good reason. If you take a girl to such a place, does it tend to lead her into immorality? Could be. A notorious lover's lane could be equally dangerous. Under a rigid interpretation a man could be racked up for persuading a girl to get into the back seat of a parked car. All on the condition that a state line was crossed, of course.

For those unfortunates who live in the District of Columbia, things are worse still. There, you don't even have to cross a state line to set yourself up for trouble. All you have to do is transport -- with an immoral intent, of course. If you are taking your girl home in a Washington taxi and the possibility of spending the night with her flits through your mind, you have just violated the Mann Act. If you walk her home, however, you're safe -- but don't get gallant and carry her into her apartment. (To be really and truly safe, you can do no better than follow the dictum of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which recently held that "about the only place where sexual intercourse can take place without running athwart the local law is in an anchored balloon.") As a matter of fact, you need not even transport a girl in the District of Columbia or anywhere else in the Federal jurisdiction to find yourself in contravention of the Act. It is enough to "persuade, induce, entice or coerce," to quote the statute, or for that matter, "cause to be persuaded, induced, enticed, or coerced," or even "aid or assist in persuading, inducing, enticing, or coercing" any woman or girl to go from one place to another for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery or for any other immoral purpose. If you write to a girl in another state and invite her across the line for a weekend of mumblety-peg, it's wise not to bother trying to make out -- unless you're prepared to prove you had no such idea when you wrote the letter.

If you make arrangements with a young lady to spend the night in a hotel room in another state, and you and she travel there in separate cars, at different times, you have nevertheless broken the law if you "persuaded, induced, enticed, or coerced" her to go. (Money, incidentally, is readily recognized as a powerful "persuader," etc.) On the other hand, if the whole thing was her idea in the first place, there is no violation. Nor can a woman be convicted under the Mann Act for transporting herself across a state line, but she can be held liable for transporting another woman. There is no section in the Act which makes it a Federal crime for either a man or a woman to transport a man across a state line for immoral purposes.

These are the facts. Now, what about actual practice? For one thing, the FBI hasn't yet worked out a way to tap minds, so your intention, as long as you keep it to yourself, is invulnerable. And even if it could be demonstrated that you harbored "evil" intent when you brought your petite amie across the Wisconsin-Illinois line for an evening of fun and games in Chicago, a jury would probably not convict you. United States attorneys have bigger game to worry about. Additionally, they are wary of the blackmail potential in the Mann Act. However, if "immorality" actually does take place, there is always the danger that the girl herself, or her parents, will demand action -- and get it. For example, the original transgressor, Mr. Caminetti, found that his weekend in Reno cost him 18 months in prison and a $1500 fine. But most prosecutors, knowing that the Mann Act was intended to curb commercial prostitutes only, try to use it solely or at any rate primarily for that purpose.

A rundown of several cases that have been tried under the Mann Act since Caminetti shows not only that the wording of the Act is vague and the Supreme Court's interpretation of it appallingly literal, but that individual courts' applications of the law have been contradictory, quixotic and unpredictable. Consider the case of a kindly couple who ran a brothel in Nebraska. They decided to close up shop for a while and take a vacation in Salt Lake City. They took two of the girls, hard-working and deserving types, along with them. It was in no sense a business trip and no play-for-pay took place during the course of it. Still, they were convicted under the Mann Act, on the ground that while the trip to Salt Lake City had been innocent, the trip back had not been, since the girls went back to work when they got home. The Supreme Court upset the verdict, ruling that the trip had to be considered as a whole, and as such it was innocent.

There is a common, but mistaken, idea that you can evade the Act by interrupting the trip just short of the state line and having the girl walk across it alone. One court case involved the madam of an Iowa house who had her chauffeur drive her to Nebraska to pick up a couple of prospective employees. When they got to the bridge between the two states, the girls got out and walked across part of it. In the dark they became confused, however, and there was a great deal of conflicting testimony as to whether the short distance they walked actually included the state line. The judge brushed the whole argument aside and ruled that it was all one trip. It therefore made no difference if the girls walked a few feet in the course of it, even if those few feet contained the state boundary.

Consider the case of the Unlucky Hypnotist. This was a businessman who took his secretary along on a trip, a legitimate business occasion. They quarreled after their return, and he found himself in court, listening to the girl testify that she had been compelled to take the trip, much against her will, by some mysterious force emanating from her boss. She blamed everything on the fact that he was an amateur hypnotist. She argued that she would never have accompanied him, much less allowed him to have carnal knowledge of her, had she been free. Displaying blithe ignorance of the fact that no one can be hypnotized without knowing that he is being hypnotized, that it is almost impossible to hypnotize a person without that person's active cooperation, and that only a very few of the world's most skilled hypnotists can compel a subject to act against his will, the court entered a conviction under the Mann Act.

Finally, the case of the Reverend Grace, bishop of "The House of Prayer for All Peoples." On ecclesiastical business in New York, the bishop was attracted to a woman he met there and offered to drive her to her home in Philadelphia. While traveling through New Jersey the reverend attempted to have intercourse with his guest on the floor of the car (a chauffeur was driving) but did not make out. He stayed with her for two weeks of dalliance in Philadelphia, where, as it was later legally stated, "he took various immoral liberties with her person" but did not have intercourse with her. They proceeded to Baltimore, and finally to the reverend's home in Washington, D.C., where, finally, and for a fee of five dollars, he was allowed to possess her, as the saying goes. She became pregnant, and when the bishop returned to New York, he was prosecuted and convicted under the Mann Act.

The conviction was upset, the appellate court finding that the bishop had had no "immoral purpose" before leaving New York State. Immoral purpose he had later, and in plenty, but that didn't count.

And there, fellow felons, you have it. In brief, Congress used unnecessarily broad language in trying to stop commercial prostitution, the Supreme Court interpreted it literally, and gentlemen amateurs are put in hazard as a result. The Declaration of Independence asserts that every man has an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Congress and the courts have insisted through the vehicle of the Mann Act that if happiness is just a thing called woman, best you don't think about her or take her across a state line.