erstate and foreign commerce act
should be passed at once. The federal government has better and more
effective machinery for getting at the facts in the foreign and
interstate traffic in girls than have the various states. Commerce
consists in intercourse and traffic, including in these terms the
transportation and transit of persons and property, as well as the
purchase, sale and barter of persons and property and agreements
therefor. A federal law might be enacted as follows:

"Be it Enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, that whoever shall
procure, entice or encourage any female person to leave one of the
states of the United States of America to go into any other state in the
United States of America for the purpose of prostitution or to become an
inmate of a house of prostitution or to enter any place where
prostitution is practiced or allowed, or shall attempt to procure or
entice any female person to leave one of the states of the United States
of America to go into any other state for the purpose of prostitution,
or to become an inmate of a house of prostitution or to enter any place
where prostitution is practiced or allowed, or shall receive or give, or
agree to receive or give any money or thing of value for procuring or
attempting to procure any female person to leave one of the states of
the United States of America to go into any other state in the United
States of America for the purpose of prostitution or to become an inmate
of a house of prostitution, or to enter any place where prostitution is
practiced or allowed, shall, in every case, be deemed guilty of a
felony, and on conviction thereof be imprisoned not more than ten years
and pay a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars."

Under the recent federal decisions what can prevent the enactment and
enforcement of such a law making the traffic in women illegal? Of
course, offenses committed solely within the state could not be reached
by the federal government.

Other needed legislative regulations concerning the white slave traffic,
such as laws against the procuring system and the indebtedness system,
have been set forth in other articles in this magazine. However, besides
these laws it will be necessary in each state to create a commission in
the various cities, other than the police department, which shall keep a
complete record of all houses of ill-fame and their inmates.