FEBRUARY 1, 1916 



127 



A. I, Root 



OUR HOMES 



Editor 



Thou Shalt not kill. — ExODUS 20:13. 



Thou shalt not commit adultery. — ExoDUS 20:14. 



There is none other name under heaven, given 

 among men, whereby we must be saved. — Acts 

 4:12. 



A few years ago a book came out entitled, 

 I think, "The Traffic in Girls," and it made 

 quite a sensation, especially among certain 

 lines of people. Later on came another 

 book, perhaps from the same author, en- 

 titled, " The Traffic in Little Girls." Since 

 then our nation has been stirred up by the 

 war against the " white-slave " traffic, and 

 some of us began to think it was pretty 

 well done away with; but every little while 

 our daily paj^ers in the great cities have 

 given occasional glimpses to the effect that 

 things are not always as they look on the 

 outside. 



Dear friends, it is my sad duty to show 

 you in this Home paper that something 

 worse than the traffic in little girls is still 

 going on in some of our great cities — some- 

 thing worse, if possible, than the great war 

 across the seas, and, I might almost say, 

 worse than the liquor business, were it not 

 that it is a part and an outcome of this 

 same hellish combination. I mean that there 

 is a traffic going on in poor innocent and 

 helpless motherless and fatherless babies — 

 babes from a day old to a week old, and 

 that these poor helpless and homeless in- 

 fants are being murdered, not only by the 

 hundreds but by the thousand's. How de- 

 voutly I wish some one could tell me it is 

 not true, and that I have been misinformed ! 

 It is a rather long story that leads up to it, 

 but is something the whole wide world 

 should know about. The gradual steps that 

 have led up to it should be a warning to 

 those who are about to take the first steps 

 that look so harmless, out of the " straight 

 and narrow path." 



Some good friend mailed me a su^Dple- 

 ment to the Baltimore Star, dated Dec. 20. 

 The large heading reads : 



Startling Facts in Report of Governor's Vice Com- 

 mission ; Social Fabric of Baltimore City Seriously 

 Undermined; Leaders of Professional, Church, 

 and Social Circles Involved in Exposure; Traffic 

 in Girls and Babies is Astounding ; Open Vice 

 Conditions Pale before Orgies of the So-called 

 Best People. 



A group of leading physicians, social workers, and 

 business men of Maryland, named about three years 

 ago by Gov. Phillips Lee Goldsborough to study and 

 report on vice conditions in Baltimore city and the 

 state at large, have just affixed their signatures and 

 forwarded to the Chief Executive of Maryland one 

 of the most remarkable documents ever compiled in 

 the history of the country. 



Below I have clipped brief extracts, 

 taken here and there, which might indicate 



that it would be nothing strange if the Al- 

 mighty should (if there is no let up) send 

 down fire and brimstone on Baltimore as he 

 did on Scdom and Gomorrah. 



The tremendous social sore is of such gi-eat scope 

 that members of the commission consider publica- 

 tion of the general conditions of the same impor- 

 tance to the community as would be the vital neces- 

 sity of the surgeon's knife to the individual in an 

 extreme appendicitis case. 



VAST PUBLIC MENACE. 



Starting out from the report with a horrible leer 

 into the face of the community are the facts that a 

 heavy percentage of the local population is suffering 

 in some form from the most horrilile and loathsome 

 disease known to the medical world, and that most 

 inadequate facilities are provided by the hospitals 

 for the treatment of this public menace. 



Men and women of all races and colors are in the 

 grip of this monster, and even children are by no 

 means free from its grasp. 



Thru the efforts of Dr. Walker, these horrible 

 facts so aroused the sympathies of .John D. Rocke- 

 feller, -Jr., that the latter has contributed $6500 for 

 each of the next three years to maintain a clinic at 

 the John Hopkins Hospital to handle this disease. 



A separate examination of the professionally fast 

 women showed that 96.61 per cent indicated the 

 presence of this terrible disease or one only slightly 

 less loathsome. 



" We found that," continues the report, " accord- 

 ing to our rough estimate, 24 per cent of the girls 

 in tJiese houses are feebleminded; that is, have not 

 intelligence enough really to realize what they are 

 doing. It is nothing short of monstrous for such 

 persons to be found in such a life; they are abso- 

 lutely nonresistant, and are an easy prey to con- 

 ,scienceless madams and victims of the degraded ap- 

 petites which many men possess. 



" There are inadequate facilities for the detention 

 and segi-egation of feeble-minded boys and girls 

 above 16 years of age. The practical significance of 

 their being at large is that when free they are al- 

 lowed to propagate their kind. We have numerous 

 examples of feeble-minded girls who have had two 

 or three children, and some who have had four or 

 five. Their offspring are nearly always of the same 

 type. It is of economical value to the state to put 

 a stop to such propagation, to say nothing of the 

 humane aspect of the case." 



" It is this woman's business to acquire and to 

 exhibit the youngest and most innocent girls that 

 can be procured," savs the report. " The greater 

 their delicacy or charm or beauty the greater profit 

 she can count upon their yielding her. Once they 

 are captured and under her sinister subjection, she 

 sees that they are on hand and accessible whether 

 they are sick or well, in season and out of season. 



The above is only part of the prelimi- 

 nary to the " Traffic in Babies." Omitting 

 several columns of details, we come to the 

 following : 



" There are two well-known institutions in Balti- 

 more which will receive infants immediately after 

 their birth and keep them permanently. The par- 

 ents, by paying to either of these institutions from 

 .$100 to $125, are relieved of all responsibility, and 

 velinquish all right and claim to the child, The 



