eful citizens.

Only a little time ago there were many thousands of our best citizens
who were unable to bring themselves to believe that an international
traffic in white women really existed. The statement seemed too
sensational for their acceptance. If any readers remain who are still
unconvinced that such an international traffic is a fact, let them
consider the following, quoted from the annual report for 1908, of Hon.
Oscar S. Straus, the Secretary of Commerce and Labor:

"An international project of arrangement for the suppression of the
white-slave traffic was, on July 25, 1902, adopted for submission to
their respective governments by the delegates of the various powers
represented at the Paris conference, which arrangement was confirmed by
formal agreement signed at Paris on May 18, 1904, by the Governments of
Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, France, Great Britain, Italy, the
Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Norway, and the Swiss Federal
Council. This arrangement, after submission to the Senate, was
proclaimed by President Roosevelt June 15, 1908, and is printed in full
in the report of the Commissioner General of Immigration. The purpose of
the arrangement is set forth in the preamble, which states that the
several governments, 'being desirous to assure to women who have
attained their majority and are subjected to deception or constraint, as
well as minor women and girls, an efficacious protection against the
criminal traffic known under the name of trade in white women ("Traite
des Blanches"), have resolved to conclude an arrangement with a view to
concert proper measures to attain this purpose'."

It is, of course, inconceivable that the distinguished representatives
of these great governments would have entertained for consideration any
subject not of vital and international importance.

There is still another point upon which I feel moved to place all
possible emphasis--the hideous depravity and the fiendish cunning of
the criminals who engage in this most abhorrent and revolting of all
criminal pursuits.

Kipling said in one of his poems, describing the doings of lawless
people in the camps of one of the Northern countries, that, "There is
never a law of God or man runs north of Forty-nine." That and more too
might be said of the districts where the white slaver grows rich from
his traffic in girls. The men and the women who engage in this traffic
are more unspeakably low and vile than any o