In 1937, Lucille and Janette walked quickly to the house on Brady Street in Davenport, Iowa. Their shoes clicked on the wooden steps as they went up to the front porch and to the front door.
They knocked loudly and stood, talking idly as they waited. A few moments later, an older man answered the door.
He smiled at them, greeting them warmly and inviting them inside. The three knew each other well. Lucille and Janette had been there several times before, and quickly made themselves at home.
They talked for a while, but when the conversation started to die down, Lucille took the older man by the arm and left the room.
Now by herself, Janette looked around the living room. She examined the pictures hanging on the wall, scanned the titles of the books on the shelf. Ten minutes later, Janette had to face the fact that she was bored. Sighing, she took one last look around, then went to look for Lucille.
Janette found her companions a few minutes later. She stood in the doorway, watching what they were doing. She didn’t know it then, but what she saw would soon scandalize the city of Davenport.
Howard sat in the jail cell, looking down at his hands. He had been here for what seemed like weeks, but it had only been the day before.
He was minding his own business when a couple of Davenport Police officers had come and arrested him. Shocked, he had demanded to know the charges. When they told him, he couldn’t speak for a few moments.
It was outrageous! How did they think that he was even capable of doing such a thing?
He looked around the cell. Three other men sat near him. They all sat, not speaking, preoccupied with their own thoughts. Every so often one of them would make eye contact with one of the others, then quickly look away.
Howard couldn’t believe that he was here.
Howard was a barber. He ran a modest shop and did alright for himself. Times were hard, and there were a lot of people who couldn’t say that.
In 1937, Davenport, like the rest of America, was in the middle of what came to be known as the Great Depression.
A chain of events had led to an economic crisis across the United States in about 1929; Howard didn’t really know all of the details.
Local stores and large factories had been forced to close their doors, leaving thousands of people without jobs. Some were lucky enough to find jobs someplace else, but most weren’t. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anywhere they could go to find another job.
Families lost their homes and farms when they couldn’t afford to pay taxes or rent prices. Hell, there were a lot of people out there that couldn’t even afford to buy food.
Howard counted himself as lucky. He might not be rich, but at least he had a full belly when he went to sleep at night.
Now he was in a jail cell. It smelled like mildew and urine. He didn’t want to be there. This had to be some kind of mistake, and as soon as the police figured out what it was, he could go back to his life.
Suddenly a loud bang made him aware of his surroundings. A police officer, an older man with a face that looked like it had been carved from stone was banging his club on the bars.
“Howard Long?” he shouted.
Howard looked up. With a slight tremor in his voice, he identified himself.
The officer stared at him for a moment, then said, “Step to the door.”
As Howard approached, the policeman took a key from his belt and unlocked the door. He swung it open and told Howard to stop out. Howard did, and the officer closed the door behind him with a loud bang. After locking it again, he grabbed Howard’s arm and began to guide him through the building.
A short time later they walked into a dim, windowless room, where two men wearing collared shirts and ties were waiting. The only furniture were three chairs and a small table.
They told Howard to sit. He noticed that the two men had revolvers holstered on their hip and guessed that they must be detectives. Maybe now he could get this whole mess cleared up and get out of there.
One of the detectives asked him if his name was Howard Long. Howard said he was.
They then asked him his address, and if he owned a barber shop, which he also confirmed. One of them sat down, leaning forward over the desk.
“Do you know a girl named Lucille Schneider?”
Howard sighed. He nodded his head and said that he did. He always knew that girl was trouble, and it looked like he had just been proven right.
“What did she do?” he asked.
The detective met Howard’s gaze. After an uncomfortable moment, he spoke.
“It’s not what she did so much as what you did, Mr. Long.”
That took Howard by surprise. What he did? What did that mean?
“Did you have sexual relations with Lucille Schneider?”
“Sexual relations? What the hell do you mean? What did she say?”
The detective’s gaze didn’t waver. “Did you know that Ms. Schneider just turned 16 recently? That means she was only 15 when you approached her.”
Howard’s mouth fell open. He didn’t know what to say. He denied ever having slept with her.
He said that he knew her, but didn’t know how old she was; just that she was a teenager. He was a married man! He would never sleep with a girl that young! She was young enough to be his daughter.
He explained that, yeah, he knew Lucille. His shop wasn’t far from where she lived, and she used to come in from time to time. He knew that her parents, like a lot of other people, were having a hard time making ends meet. He felt bad for her, so he used to give her little amounts of money to help her out. A quarter here, a dime there. Nothing much, but enough for her to get some food or to take home to help her parents.
One day Howard had caught Lucille doing things that he felt were “improper.” He wasn’t going to have that at his shop, and he told her to leave.
After that, he hadn’t seen her again.
The standing detective spoke. “Was that last summer, about July 1936?”
Howard thought for a moment, and then said that it probably had been.
“Are you sure that it wasn’t you doing something ‘improper’ with Lucille?” the standing detective asked.
Howard said that yes, he was sure. There hadn’t been anything “improper” between the two of them.
“Did you pay Ms. Schneider in exchange for sexual favors?”
Howard couldn’t believe this. How could this be happening? He said that no, he hadn’t. He stated again that he had felt sorry for her and wanted to help her out.
“That’s odd,” said the detective seated on the other side of the table. “She said that’s exactly what she did.”
The week before, the Davenport Police Department had started to hear rumors of a group of young girls that were allegedly exchanging sexual favors in exchange for payment from older men in the community. In other words, there was allegedly a child prostitution ring run by the children themselves.
Prostitution was not new to the Davenport Police during the Great Depression. Often called the world’s oldest profession, women – and men – had been selling sexual acts in exchange for money since the earliest days of civilization.
Davenport had had it’s fair share of people engaging in the sex trade, but police had seen an increase since the Depression had started a few years prior.
American society at that time expected men to go to work. Women were to stay at home and take care of the children and the needs of the household. That had worked for many people, but now there were a lot of men that had been laid off and couldn’t find work.
Government programs like the Works Progress Administration, where the United States Government paid out of work men to do odd jobs like building retaining walls or painting, did help, but for some people it wasn’t enough.
Sometimes women had to step outside of the home to make ends meet. Unfortunately for them, preference was given to men for the few jobs that were available. With no other options and desperate, some of those women turned to prostitution.
However, those women were adults. According to the rumors the police were told, these girls were as young as thirteen. Even most of the veterans of the police department had never heard of girls that young doing that.
But they were just rumors. Still, if there was any truth behind them, the police wanted to know about it. Starting in March 1937, they started taking a serious look at it.
One name kept coming up: Lucille Schneider. She was a sixteen-year-old girl who lived with her mother, Bessie Schenk, her stepfather, Otto, and several siblings. Like Howard told them, money was tight for the family.
They approached Lucille and carefully asked her about the rumors. To their immense surprise, she quickly confessed and confirmed that nearly everything they had heard was true.
Lucille explained that she was the ringleader of a small group of girls that she had encouraged to join her in selling sexual services to older men around the city. For the most part, their clientele consisted of only four men. She was the oldest girl at sixteen, and the youngest was only eleven-years-old.
When asked, Lucille gave the police the names of the girls and the men who had paid them.
After Lucille’s confession, several officers had investigated the accused men in an effort to back up Lucille’s claims. When they felt confident that the men were guilty, they had arrested them and brought them in for questioning. One of these men was Howard Long.
The two detectives talked with Howard for a while longer, then sent him back to the cell.
The police had a similar conversation with the next man, Edward C. Phelps. Like Long, he denied the accusations. It was the same with the next man, Andrew Verre. He ran a shoe repair shop and the had the girls meet him there for their interactions.
Finally, the last man was brought in. He was the oldest, and the detectives couldn’t help but feel that his name looked familiar to them.
Like the others, he denied having done anything sexual with the girls. However, as the questioning progressed, he finally caved.
He explained that he had the girls come over to his house on Brady Street on several occasions. They would have sex that he would pay them for it. It was his house that Lucille and Janette had gone to just a short time before.
When Janette had gotten bored in the living room and went to find Lucille, she had found the two of them having sex in the man’s bedroom.
Janette had already had sex with the man twice before then. Instead of being embarrassed by the scene in front of her, she just stood there and watched.
As he confessed, one of the detectives suddenly realized why his name looked so familiar. His name was Henry Warren.
Henry Warren was a carpenter and hotelier who had been a Davenport sensation in 1907. Years later, in 1933, he was revealed to be a child predator who had been preying on the young girls of his Brady Street neighborhood. He had been sent to Iowa State Penitentiary to serve a three-year term.
After his release, he had returned to his boarding house, which had been maintained by one of his nieces while he had been in prison.
Now that the detectives remembered who he was, it came as no surprise that Warren had gotten involved in a child prostitution ring.
Henry, having pled guilty to the charges, was sent back to his cell to await sentencing.
Howard, Phelps, and Varre continued to say that they were innocent.
Howard Long was the first to stand trial a few weeks later.
On the witness stand, he gave the same testimony he had to police. He had given Lucille Schneider money because her family were financially suffering, not in exchange for sex. Lucille Schneider and another girl, however, stated that he had.
Howard had difficulty remembering important details. His attorney tried to argue that his mental capacity was impaired, which made it difficult to remember certain things. By contrast, Lucille spoke candidly and with great attention to detail.
At the end of a few days, the jury found Long guilty of Lewd and Lascivious Acts with children. He was sentenced to six months in the Scott County Jail. Andrew Varre and Edward C. Phelp’s trails both ended the same way.
Henry Warren, however, wasn’t so fortunate this time.
He was charged with Rape, which he pled guilty to. In today’s court system, the charge would have been statutory rape, which is an adult having sex with a minor when both agree to the sex act.
Because he pled guilty and had already served prison time for a similar charge, Henry was sentenced to 25-years in prison and returned to Iowa State Penitentiary within a few days of his confession.
Sources
Warren Gets 25 Years; 4 Others Plead in District Court. Davenport Democrat and Leader, 4/8/1937
Warren Is Sentenced to 25 Year Term in Ft. Madison. The Daily Times, 4/8/1937
Group Jams Court Corridors for Glimpse of Defendants. The Davenport Democrat and Leader, 4/4/1937
Trio Held in Juvenile Vice Probe Face Grave Charges; Bond of Each is $10,000. The Davenport Democrat and Leader, 4/2/1937
File Additional Charges Against Three Local Men. The Daily Times, 4/2/1937
4 Held For Acts With Girls. The Davenport Democrat and Leader, 3/31/1937
Four Men Held as Results of Stories Told by Children. The Daily Times, 3/31/1937
Verre Bound Over On Rape Charge; Bond is $10,000. The Daily Times, 4/10/1937
Mother; Child Faint; Tense Nerves Break. The Davenport Democrat and Leader, 4/11/1937
Phelps Will Plead Guilty to Lewdness. Davenport Democrat and Leader, 6/24/1937
Girl Committed to Mitchellville by Judge Scott. Davenport Democrat and Leader, 6/2/1937
Sex Defendants to Face Court; 4 More to Plead. The Daily Times, 4/15/1937
Arraignment of Eight Under Way Before Judge Kelsey. The Davenport Democrat and Leader, 4/15/1937
Long Asks for Venue Change; Denies Guilt. Davenport Democrat and Leader, 4/19/1937
Move to Transfer Sex Trials Due to Public Sentiment. The Daily Times, 4/19/1937
Long Jurors Hear 13; Then State Rests. Davenport Democrat and Leader, 4/27/1937
Girls Testify as Long is Forced to Trial; One Faints. The Daily Times, 4/27/1937
Jury Ponders Lewd Charges Against Long. Davenport Democrat and Leader, 4/28/1937
Guilt of Long on Girl’s Charges is Pondered by Jury. The Daily Times, 4/28/1937
Howard Long Found Guilt of Lewdness. Davenport Democrat and Leader, 4/29/1937
Long, Found Guilty in Sex Case, Will Ask for New Trial. The Daily Times, 4/29/1937
Call 50 Special Jurors for Rape Trial of Phelps. The Daily Times 5/3/1937
Girl Admits Taking Money From Phelps. The Davenport Democrat and Leader, 5/4/1937
Phelps Faces Second Trial on Sex Count. Davenport Democrat and Leader, 5/6/1937
Six Months in Jail for Long; Deny Re-Trial. Davenport Democrat and Leader, 5/11/1937
Long Sentenced to Six-Months in County Jail. The Daily Times, 5/11/1937
Jury Out Eight Hours Finds Verre Guilty of Lesser Charge. The Daily Times, 5/22/1937
Andrew Verre Found Guilty of Lewd Acts. Davenport Democrat and Leader, 5/23/1937
Transferman Sentenced to Six Months. Davenport Democrat and Leader, 6/25/1937
Schenk. The Daily Times, 2/4/1949
Essay on Prostitution in the Great Depression. 123helpme.com