The evidence obtained from questioning some 250 girls taken in federal raids on Chicago houses of ill repute leads me to believe that not fewer than fifteen thousand girls have been imported into this country in the last year as white slaves. Of course this is only a guess--an approximate--it could be nothing else--but my own personal belief is that it is a conservative guess and well within the facts as to numbers. Then please remember that girls imported are certainly but a mere fraction of the number recruited for the army of prostitution from home fields, from the cities, the towns, the villages of our own country. There is no possible escape from this conclusion. Another significant fact brought out by the examination of these girls is that practically every one who admitted having parents living begged that her real name be withheld from the public because of the sorrow and shame it would bring to her parents. One said: "My mother thinks I am studying in a stenographic school"; another stated, "My parents in the country think I have a good position in a department store--as I did have for a time--and I've sent them a little money from time to time; I don't care what happens, so long as they don't know the truth about me." In a word, the one concern of nearly all those examined who have homes in this country was that their parents--and in particular their mothers--might discover, through the prosecution of the "white slavers," that they were leading lives of shame instead of working at the honorable callings which they had left their homes and come to the city to pursue. There are, to put it mildly, hundreds--yes, thousands--of trusting mothers in the smaller cities, the towns, villages and farming communities of the United States who believe that their daughters are "getting on fine" in the city, and too busy to come home for a visit or "to write much," while the fact is that these daughters have been swept into the gulf of white slavery--the worst doom that can befall a woman. The mother who has allowed her girl to go to the big city and work should find out what kind of life that girl is living and find out from some other source than the girl herself. No matter how good and fine a girl she has been at home and how complete the confidence she has always inspired, find out how she is living, what kind of associations she is keeping. Take nothing for granted. You owe it to yourself and to her and it is not disloyalty to go beyond her own words for evidence that the wolves of the city have not dragged her from safe paths. It is, instead, the highest form of loyalty to her. [Illustration: AT THE LEFT WHITE SLAVE CLEARING HOUSE, AT THE RIGHT GOSPEL MEETING That the white slave organization is strong and wealthy is attested by the large stone and brick building on the left. It is the respectable appearance of the outside of this place that disarms suspicion until the girls are inside.] [Illustration: SORDID END OF THE LIFE OF SHAME