Page:Roe 1911 What women might do with the ballot.djvu/8

 body and soul, and in the great majority of cases the sentence is the lowest possible.

It is not the judge who should be blamed for this. He is human and interprets the laws according to the standards of life about him. The trouble lies with the people who create and mould these standards, the people who allow public officials to value a dollar bill at a higher rate than they value a human being.

The foregoing number of cases prosecuted in one city within a few months, proved by court records, demonstrates that white slavery is a real issue. These cases illustrate the more common artifices used by the procurers. They show us how subtle is the evil business. They prove how futile are prosecutions alone. ProsecusionsProsecutions [sic] serve only to focus the public mind on an atrocious evil that has crept into our social structure.

It is not our belief that by prosecuting white slaves they will be exterminated. We do know that in so doing we cut off the source of supply of new recruits and thereby diminish the total number. However, the abolition of the white slave traffic is impossible, under existing conditions, through court prosecutions alone. Those who have consistently and honestly fought white slavery fully realize that to convict the slave traders is but to scratch at the surface of the problem. This has been but the first great task. The next is to arouse the public conscience to its duty.

Women have aided so far, and cannot but be important factors now in the complete abolition of the white slave traffic. When we look at the question squarely we know that the only effective way to abolish white slavery is to abolish the whole social evil. One goes with the other. White slavery furnishes the fuel that feeds the flame of the social evil.

In this new era when men and women who stand for a higher moral tone in society are beginning to take the reins of government into their own hands, great things will be accomplished, perhaps not all at once, but speedily.

The vice problem has perplexed all ages and all peoples, but