ere can be no
disputing the fact that these two working together, and perhaps
superinduced by other compelling influences, do bring about a condition
the upshot of which is prostitution. Such supine reports as those of the
Consumers' League, an organization of well-disposed dilletantes, and of
superficial purposes, give no insight into the real estate of affairs.
In his rather sensational and vitriolic raking of Chicago, W. T. Stead
strongly deals with the effects of department store conditions in
filling the ranks of prostitutes. He quotes Dora Claflin, the
proprietress of a brothel, as saying that such houses as hers obtained
their inmates from the stores, those in particular where hours were long
and the pay small.[174]

Mockery of mockeries that in this era of civilization, so-called, a
system should prevail that yields far greater returns from selling the
body than from honest industry!

It has been estimated that the number of young women who receive $2,500
in one year by the sale of their persons is larger than the number of
women of all ages, in all businesses and professions, who make a
similar sum by work of mind or hand.[175] But one of the most
significant recognitions of the responsibility of department stores for
the prevalence of prostitution, was the act of a member of the Illinois
legislature, a few years ago, in introducing a resolution (which failed
to pass) to investigate the department stores of Chicago on the ground
that conditions in them led to a shocking state of immorality. The
statement has been repeatedly made that nearly one-half of the outcast
girls and women of Chicago have come from the department stores.[176]

It was not only by these methods that the firm of Marshall Field & Co.
was so phenomenally successful in making money. In the background were
other methods which belong to a different category. Whatever Field's
practices--and they were venal and unscrupulous to a great degree, as
will be shown--he was an astute organizer. He understood how to
manipulate and use other men, and how to centralize business, and cut
out the waste and junket of mercantile operations. In the evolutionary
scheme of business he played his important part and a very necessary
part it was, for which he must be given full credit. His methods, base
as they were, were in no respect different from those of the rest of the
commercial world, as a whole. The only difference was that he was more
conspicuous and mor