there is no peace."

As one whose daily duty it is to deal with wayward and fallen girls, as
one who has had to dig down into the sordid and revolting details of
thousands of these sad cases (for I have spent the best part of my life
in this line of work) let me say to such mothers:

In this day and age of the world no young girl is safe! And all young
girls who are not surrounded by the alert, constant and intelligent
protection of those who love them unselfishly are in imminent and deadly
peril. And the more beautiful and attractive they are the greater is
their peril!

The first and most vital step for the protection of the girls who walk
in this path of pitfalls is to arouse the sleeping watchmen who are, by
reason of their parenthood, responsible for the safekeeping of their
daughters. This is why the "White Slave" articles by Hon. Edwin W. Sims
and others, which have been published in the Woman's World, have done
great good. They have stirred to a sense of alarm thousands of parents
who were asleep in a false sense of security. If they accomplish nothing
beyond this they will fully have justified their publication.

But it is evident that they will also result in the enactment of much
needed legislation, of laws which will make it easier to convict and
punish those who live from this foul traffic in the shame of girls whose
natural protectors are asleep in this false sense of security. Of
course, practically every state has some laws against that traffic--but
I do not know of any state in which the laws now on the statute books
are adequate to deal with the situation as it should be dealt with.

One of the things which comfortable and trusting parents seem to find
especially hard to believe is the point upon which both United States
District Attorney Sims and his assistant, Mr. Parkin, have placed so
much stress--the existence of an active and systematic traffic in girls.
There is no safety for the daughter of any parents who are not awake and
alive to the actuality of this fact!

It is one of the satisfactions of my life to reflect that I have been
one of the agents in sending a dozen--perhaps more--persons to the
penitentiary for participating in this traffic.

The dragnets of the inhuman men and women who ply this terrible trade
are spread day and night and are manipulated with a skill and precision
which ought to strike terror to the heart of every careless or
indifferent parent. The wonder is not that