While this experience was most distressing, I was, on the other hand,
much impressed and at times fairly startled by the large and diversified
number of people to whom the very existence of the white slave traffic
had become unendurable and who promptly responded to any appeal made on
behalf of its victims. City officials, policemen, judges, attorneys,
employers, trades unionists, physicians, teachers, newly arrived
immigrants, clergymen, railway officials, and newspaper men, as under a
profound sense of compunction, were unsparing of time and effort when
given an opportunity to assist an individual girl, to promote
legislation designed for her protection, or to establish institutions
for her rescue.

I therefore venture to hope that in serving my own need I may also serve
the need of a rapidly growing public when I set down for rational
consideration the temptations surrounding multitudes of young people and
when I assemble, as best I may, the many indications of a new
conscience, which in various directions is slowly gathering strength and
which we may soberly hope will at last successfully array itself against
this incredible social wrong, ancient though it may be.

Hull House, Chicago.




CHAPTER I

AN ANALOGY