which thousands of them annually inherit, and which is directly
traceable to the vicious living of their parents or grandparents. This
slaughter of the innocents, this infliction of suffering upon the
new-born, is so gratuitous and so unfair, that it is only a question of
time until an outraged sense of justice shall be aroused on behalf of
these children. But even before help comes through chivalric sentiments,
governmental and municipal agencies will decline to spend the
tax-payers' money for the relief of suffering infants, when by the
exertion of the same authority they could easily provide against the
possibility of the birth of a child so afflicted. It is obvious that the
average tax-payer would be moved to demand the extermination of that
form of vice which has been declared illegal, although it still
flourishes by official connivance, did he once clearly apprehend that it
is responsible for the existence of these diseases which cost him so
dear. It is only his ignorance which makes him remain inert until each
victim of the white slave traffic shall be avenged unto the third and
fourth generation of them that bought her. It is quite possible that the
tax-payer will himself contend that, as the state does not legalize a
marriage without a license officially recorded, that the status of
children may be clearly defined, so the state would need to go but one
step further in the same direction, to insist upon health certificates
from the applicant for a marriage license, that the health of future
children might in a certain measure, be guaranteed. Whether or not this
step may be predicted, the mere discussion of this matter in itself, is
an indication of the changing public opinion, as is the fact that such
legislation has already been enacted in two states, which are only now
putting into action the recommendation made centuries ago by such social
philosophers as Plato and Sir Thomas More. A sense of justice outraged
by the wanton destruction of new-born children, may in time unite with
that ardent tide of rising enthusiasm for the nurture of the young,