nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right.
And the choice goes on for ever 'twixt that darkness and that light."

CHAPTER III.

THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE OF TODAY.

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

There are some things so far removed from the lives of normal, decent
people as to be simply unbelievable by them. The "white slave" trade of
today is one of these incredible things. The calmest, simplest
statements of its facts are almost beyond the comprehension or belief of
men and women who are mercifully spared from contact with the dark and
hideous secrets of "the under world" of the big cities.

You would hardly credit the statement, for example, that things are
being done every day in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and other large
cities of this country in the white slave traffic which would, by
contrast, make the Congo slave traders of the old days appear like Good
Samaritans. Yet this figure is almost a literal truth. The man of the
stone age who clubbed the woman of his desire into insensibility or
submission was little short of a high-minded gentleman when contrasted
with the men who fatten upon the "white slave" traffic in this day of
social settlements, of forward movements, of Y. M. C. A. and Christian
Endeavor activities, of air ships and wireless telegraphy.

Naturally, wisely, every parent who reads this statement will at once
raise the question: "What excuse is there for the open discussion of
such a revolting condition of things in the pages of a published book?
What good is there to be served by flaunting so dark and disgusting a
subject before the family circle?"

Only one--and that is a reason and not an excuse! The recent examination
of more than two hundred "white slaves" by the office of the United
States district attorney at Chicago has brought to light the fact that
literally thousands of innocent girls from the country districts are
every year entrapped into a life of hopeless slavery and degradation
because parents in the country do not understand conditions as they
exist and how to protect their daughters from the "white slave" traders
who have reduced the art of ruining young girls to a national and
international system. I sincerely believe that