e, the police protection it
received, the political corruption it fostered and the reluctance of
the public to face the situation, the majority of men regarding it as
a necessity, and most women closing their eyes to its existence.

During the winter of 1875, while the Beecher-Tilton case was being
tried in Brooklyn, she delivered her speech on "Social Purity" at the
Chicago Grand Opera House, in the Sunday dime-lecture course, facing
with trepidation the immense crowd which gathered to hear her. Even
the daring Mrs. Stanton had warned her that she would never be asked
to speak in Chicago again, and with this the manager of the Slayton
Lecture Bureau agreed. But they were wrong. The people were hungry for
the truth and for a constructive policy. In the past they had heard
the "social evil" described and denounced in vivid thunderous words by
eloquent men and by the dramatic Anna E. Dickinson. Now an earnest
woman with graying hair, one of their own kind, talked to them without
mincing matters, calmly and logically, and offered them a remedy.

Calling their attention to the daily newspaper reports of divorce and
breach-of-promise suits, of wife murders and "paramour" shootings, of
abortions and infanticide, she told them that the prevalence of these
evils showed clearly that men were incapable of coping with them
successfully and needed the help of women. She cited statistics,
revealing 20,000 prostitutes in the city of New York, where a
foundling hospital during the first six months of its existence
rescued 1,300 waifs laid in baskets on its doorstep. She courageously
mentioned the prevalence of venereal disease and spoke out against
England's Contagious Diseases Acts which were repeatedly suggested for
New York and Washington and which she described as licensed
prostitution, men's futile and disastrous attempt to deal with social
corruption.

Declaring that the poverty and economic dependence of women as well as
the passions of men were the causes of prostitution, she quoted more
statistics which showed a great increase in the poverty of women. Work
formerly done in the household, she explained, was being gradually
taken over by factories, with the result that women in order to earn a
living had been forced to follow it out of the home and were
supporting themselves wholly or in part at a wage inadequate to meet
their needs. No wonder many were tempted by food, clothes, and
comfortable shelter into an immoral life.