ugh in all conscience, but they are
so partisan in their origin and so pathetically unattached to any
recognized ideal of public policy that it seemed better to look
elsewhere. Conservation had the virtue of arising out of a provident
statesmanship, but its problems were largely technical.

The real choice narrowed itself finally to the Pittsburgh Survey and the
Chicago Vice Report. Had I been looking for an example of the finest
expert inquiry, there would have been little question that the vivid and
intensive study of Pittsburgh's industrialism was the example to use. But
I was looking for something more representative, and, therefore, more
revealing. I did not want a detached study of some specially selected
cross-section of what is after all not the typical economic life of
America. The case demanded was one in which you could see representative
American citizens trying to handle a problem which had touched their
imaginations.

Vice is such a problem. You can always get a hearing about it; there is
no end of interest in the question. Rare indeed is that community which
has not been "Lexowed," in which a district attorney or a minister has
not led a crusade. Muckraking began with the exposure of vice; men like
Heney, Lindsey, Folk founded their reputations on the fight against it.
It would be interesting to know how much of the social conscience of our
time had as its first insight the prostitute on the city pavement.

We do not have to force an interest, as we do about the trusts, or even
about the poor. For this problem lies close indeed to the dynamics of our
own natures. Research is stimulated, actively aroused, and a passionate
zeal suffuses what is perhaps the most spontaneous reform enthusiasm of
our time. Looked at externally it is a curious focusing of attention. Nor
is it explained by words like "chivalry," "conscience," "social
compassion." Magazines that will condone a thousand cruelties to women
gladly publish series of articles on the girl who goes wrong; merchants
who sweat and rack their women employees serve gallantly on these
commissions. These men are not conscious hypocrites. Perhaps like the
rest of us they are impelled by forces they are not eager to examine. I
do not press the point. It belongs to the analyst of motive.

We need only note the vast interest in the subject--that it extends
across class lines, and expresses itself as an immense good-will. Perhaps
a largely unconscious absorptio