brother Mason within reach, that
brother, no matter of what nationality, kindred or tongue, is sworn to
give him all needed protection. Listen, father, mother, sister; listen,
brother!

To-day from beneath Chicago's awful moral sewerage system, which has
sucked their hearts and souls under, thirty thousand trembling hands are
held up to High Heaven and to you for help, hands reeking with the blood
on which some whore monger has fattened, the hands though of your sisters
and of mine. And I believe that here in Chicago, the greatest market for
White Slaves on the Continent, should be formed a league that would become
world-wide, of earnest, law-abiding men and women whose efforts, united
with those of the proper police, municipal and Federal authorities, would
make it practically impossible for a girl to be sold into or compelled to
lead an immoral life, and through whose influence such open,
publicly-protected flesh markets as our red-light and levee districts
would be banished forever from Chicago streets. And I believe with all my
heart that this can only be accomplished by education, by agitation, by
legislation, by the ballot and by the power of God, directing a great
national army of well informed, moral and Christian men and women against
this vast, thoroughly organized, well administered and heavily financed
public horror of our Republic.

I believe in helping, God knows, with heart and hand and money every
fallen, or as one has put it, every "knocked down" woman in our Land whom
there is the slightest chance to help in any way; but I believe, first of
all, in using every known measure =to keep our girls from falling=.

You and I live beneath the only flag in all the world that has never known
defeat, and the very basic principle upon which that flag is built is
human liberty and human protection, and so by personal work and
co-operation with every other reform and labor organization for the
uplifting of womanhood, by song and by prayer and the Power of the Cross,
let us set ourselves to help these helpless ones in our midst until the
angels shall take up the story of shame and bitterness and wrong and bear
to all the world and to Heaven itself the swift acknowledgment that you
are your brother's keeper.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: The above picture is from a Flashlight Photograph taken by
the author and is a side view of 114 Custom House Place. The demolishing
of 116 Custom House Place and several adja