cities cannot be said to have adopted a policy either of
suppression or one of regulation, because the police consider the former
impracticable and the latter intolerable to public opinion, we may
perhaps claim for America a little more humanity in its dealing with
this class of women, a little less ruthlessness than that exhibited by
the continental cities where regimentation is relentlessly assumed.

The suggestive presence of such women on the streets is perhaps one of
the most demoralizing influences to be found in a large city, and such
vigorous efforts as were recently made by a former chief of police in
Chicago when he successfully cleared the streets of their presence,
demonstrates that legal suppression is possible. At least this obvious
temptation to young men and boys who are idly walking the streets might
be avoided, for in an old formula one such woman "has cast down many
wounded; yea, many strong men have been slain by her." Were the streets
kept clear, many young girls would be spared familiar knowledge that
such a method of earning money is open to them. I have personally known
several instances in which young girls have begun street solicitation
through sheer imitation. A young Polish woman found herself in dire
straits after the death of her mother. Her only friends in America had
moved to New York, she was in debt for her mother's funeral, and as it
was the slack season of the miserable sweat-shop sewing she had been
doing, she was unable to find work. One evening when she was quite
desperate with hunger, she stopped several men upon the street, as she
had seen other girls do, and in her broken English asked them for
something to eat. Only after a young man had given her a good meal at a
restaurant did she realize the price she was expected to pay and the
horrible things which the other girls were doing. Even in her shocked
revolt she could not understand, of course, that she herself epitomized
that hideous choice between starvation and vice which is perhaps the
crowning disgrace of civilization.

The legal suppression of street solicitation would not only protect
girls but would enormously minimize the risk and temptation to boys. The
entire system of recruiting for commercialized vice is largely dependent
upon boys who are scarcely less the victims of the system than are the
girls themselves. Certainly this aspect of the situation must be
seriously considered.

In 1908, when Mr. Clifford Roe cond