[8] Neither should they ever have been born.
It is our business to see that they are not born; and that, if they are,
they are at least placed under due social guardianship, so that we may
not be tempted to make laws for society in general which are only needed
by this feeble and infirm folk. Thus it is that when we seek to deal
with the White Slave Trader and his victims and his patrons we have to
realise that they are all very much, as we have made them, moulded by
their parents before birth, nourished on their mothers' knees. The task
of making them over again next time, and making them better, is a
revolutionary task, but it begins at home, and there is no home in which
some part of the task cannot be carried out.
It is possible that at some period in the world's history, not only will
the White Slave Traffic disappear, but even prostitution itself, and it
is for us to work towards that day. But we may be quite sure that the
social state which sees the last of the "social evil" will be a social
state very unlike ours.
[1] The nature of prostitution and of the White Slave Traffic and their
relation to each other may clearly be studied in such valuable
first-hand investigations of the subject as _The Social Evil: With
Special Reference to Conditions Existing in the City of New York_, 2nd
edition, edited by E.R.A. Seligman, Putnam's, 1912; _Commercialised
Prostitution in New York City_, by G.J. Kneeland, New York Century Co.,
1913; _Prostitution in Europe_, by Abraham Flexner, New York Century
Co.
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