eet, absolutely at the mercy of the graft-greedy police.
Desperate, needing protection and longing for affection, these girls
naturally proved an easy prey for cadets, themselves the result of
the spirit of our commercial age. Thus the cadet system was the
direct outgrowth of police persecution, graft, and attempted
suppression of prostitution. It were sheer folly to confound this
modern phase of the social evil with the causes of the latter.

Mere suppression and barbaric enactments can serve but to embitter,
and further degrade, the unfortunate victims of ignorance and
stupidity. The latter has reached its highest expression in the
proposed law to make humane treatment of prostitutes a crime,
punishing any one sheltering a prostitute with five years'
imprisonment and $10,000 fine. Such an attitude merely exposes the
terrible lack of understanding of the true causes of prostitution, as
a social factor, as well as manifesting the Puritanic spirit of the
Scarlet Letter days.

There is not a single modern writer on the subject who does not refer
to the utter futility of legislative methods in coping with the
issue. Thus Dr. Blaschko finds that governmental suppression and
moral crusades accomplish nothing save driving the evil into secret
channels, multiplying its dangers to society. Havelock Ellis, the
most thorough and humane student of prostitution, proves by a wealth
of data that the more stringent the methods of persecution the worse
the condition becomes. Among other data we learn that in France, "in
1560, Charles IX. abolished brothels through an edict, but the
numbers of prostitutes were only increased, while many new brothels
appeared in unsuspected shapes, and were more dangerous. In spite of
all such legislation, OR BECAUSE OF IT, there has been no country in
which prostitution has played a more conspicuous part."[6]

An educated public opinion, freed from the legal and moral hounding
of the prostitute, can alone help to ameliorate present conditions.
Wilful shutting of eyes and ignoring of the evil as a social factor
of modern life, can but aggravate matters. We must rise above our
foolish notions of "better than thou," and learn to recognize in the
prostitute a product of social conditions. Such a realization will
sweep away the attitude of hypocrisy, and insure a greater
understanding and more humane treatment. As to a thorough
eradication of prostitution, nothing can accomplish that save a
co