The Social Emergency | Page 5

are mentally defective and should be wards of
society. Any plan which fails to take care of these women--adequately,
permanently, and humanely--ignores one of the greatest of the
problems which history, with the sanction of society, has made a factor
of the present emergency.
The medical phase of the present situation is not often ignored, except
by those who hold that there is no such thing as disease. All countries
are alarmed over the prevalence of venereal infection. Definite
information, however, concerning the extent of these diseases, the
sources and conditions of contagion, and the complications and results,
is not to be had; because society still persists in treating venereal
diseases as not subject to public registration and control, in spite of
their terrible attacks on tens of thousands of innocent victims.
The fear of contracting disease has long been used in attempts to
promote a single standard of chastity. Such fear has no doubt played its
part and will continue to keep many prudent men away from prostitutes.
But in looking forward to the work of the next generation, we must face
the need of higher motives than the fear of disease, for science may at
any time discover positive safeguards against contagion, thus
diminishing one of the factors of the present emergency and by the
same stroke accentuating others.
Of the economic phases of the emergency, there are some which
directly affect the wage-earner. One is the failure of wages to keep pace
with the higher cost of living; another is the increase in the number and
proportion of wage-earning women and the resultant keenness of
competition for places; another is the fact that women workers are for
the most part unorganized and unprotected; another is the occasional
effect of supplementary wages of vice in lowering the wages of women
in industry; still another is the constant temptation of shop-girls to
imitate their patrons' vulgar displays of finery. But of all the economic
factors contributing to the moral breakdown of girls, the most general
and inexcusable is the failure of our public schools to provide
vocational training, although it is certain that above fifty per cent of all

girls leave the schools to become wage-earners. Failure to gain a living
wage is undoubtedly one of the causes, though seldom the sole cause,
of the first delinquency of some girls.
Other economic conditions serve to promote and intrench the business
of prostitution. These conditions are as real as any other factors and
will block reform until they are squarely met. One of these is the
excessive profit on property used for immoral purposes. The fact that
such property is often owned by persons who pass as respectable
members of society does not make the problem easier. Then there is the
intimate connection between the sale of intoxicating liquors and
commercialized prostitution, as definitely revealed by the
investigations of every vice commission.
Another economic factor intrenching prostitution as a business is the
commercial organization which continues to do an international and
interstate business, partly because of our inadequate white-slave laws
and inadequate appropriation for enforcement.
Most important among the economic aids to prostitution as a business
are the high immediate wages of vice in contrast with the low wages of
virtue. A girl in the shop, or factory, or office may be capitalized at six
thousand dollars; in the clutches of a procurer, she may become worth
twenty-six thousand dollars. As a prostitute, she "earns more than four
times as much as she is worth as a factor in the social and industrial
economy, where brains, intelligence, virtue and womanly charm should
bring a premium." In an average lifetime, to be sure, the wages of one
woman in industry are greater than the earnings in the short life of one
prostitute; but from the viewpoint of the man who pockets most of the
earnings, it is more profitable to kill off a dozen women than to keep
one at decent work through an average lifetime. This economic
condition is revealed to the cast-out woman after a few years, on the
brink of the grave; but at the outset of her brief career, she sees the
immediate gain, not the ultimate ruin.
There are other economic factors which will aid all movements for
social hygiene when they are more clearly perceived by those engaged
in reputable business: first, the loss to honest industry due to the

reduced efficiency of sexual perverts, of the diseased, and of those who,
through their ignorance, have been kept in worry by "leading
specialists"; and, in the second place, the inevitable reduction in the
profits of legitimate business due to the excessive profits of illegitimate
business.
The recreational pursuits of young people are other factors of
immediate concern to those who would see the problems of social
hygiene