(Volume 32, page 32), says truly: "Though it may
coexist with national vigor, its extravagant development is one of the
signs of a rotten and decaying civilization * * * a phase which has
always marked the decadence of great nations."

But though we thus speak we are confident that this is truly the land of
the free--free, glad, safe womanhood--and the home of the brave--men
brave enough to protect our girls and to deal with the White Slave
traders and all their sort as they deserve.

INTRODUCTION.

By Edwin W. Sims,
United States District Attorney, Chicago.

I am firmly convinced that when the people of this nation understand and
fully appreciate the unspeakable villainy of "The White Slave Traffic"
they will rise in their might and put a stop to it. The growth of this
"trade in white women," as it has been officially designated by the
Paris Conference, was so insidious that it reached the proportions of an
international problem almost before the people of the civilized nations
of the world learned of its existence.

The traffic increased rapidly, owing largely to the fact that it was
tremendously profitable to those depraved mortals who indulged in it,
and because the people generally, until very recently, were ignorant of
the fact that it was becoming so extensive. And even at this time, when
a great deal has been said by the pulpit and the press about the horrors
of the traffic, the public idea of just what is meant by the "white
slave traffic" is confused and indefinite.

It is my hope and belief that this work, edited by the scholarly and
devoted Ernest A. Bell, whose life of toil for the wayward and the
fallen has endeared him to all who know of him and his work, will do
much to make the nature, scope and perils of this infamous trade better
understood.

The characteristic which distinguishes the white slave traffic from
immorality in general is that the women who are the victims of the
traffic are forced unwillingly to live an immoral life. The term "white
slave" includes only those women and girls who are actually
slaves--those women who are owned and held as property and
chattels--whose lives are lives of involuntary servitude. The white
slave trade may be said to be the business of securing white women and
of selling them or exploiting them for immoral purposes. It includes
those women and girls who, if given a fair chance, would, in all
probability, have been good wives and mothers and us