[Indexed as: “Babies Sold As Slaves – Chicago Official Makes Charge Against Institutions. – Children Taken From Their Mothers and Turned Over to Farmers – Profit in the Traffic.” The Washington Post (D.C.), Apr. 21, 1911]

Springfield, Ill., April 20. – Traffic in “baby slaves” is practiced, was alleged today by William H. Dunn, deputy clerk of the circuit court of Chicago, who appeared before the committee on labor and industrial affairs of the house, and in a bitter arraignment of Chicago reform institutions charged that babies were forcibly taken from poor mothers in Chicago and sold in all parts of the country and Canada for about $50 a head.

The attack of Mr. Dunn was brought out by Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House, who urged the committee to pass a bill prohibiting children from selling wares in the streets.

“Under this act any child attempting to help an invalid mother by selling gum or shining shoes can be stopped,” said Mrs. Dunn. “If he repeats his offense he can be torn from the mother, and sent to another home. I have proof that children have been sent to farms in all parts of the country, and there made to work as farm hands.”

“They are slaves, baby slaves, sold and bartered, just as negroes were before the civil war. I can prove that there is an organized traffic in babies throughout this country by these private reform institutions. In Illinois they collect $50 a head from each county for each poor child they take out of it.”