Now, if you had something of great value which needed to be protected day and night, would you select for such a task a blind watchman? or one who was firmly possessed of the idea that there was really no danger, no occasion for watchfulness? Certainly not! There is nothing in the world of such priceless value to a father or a mother as the honor, the purity, the good character of a daughter. No parent will possibly question this statement. And still there are many thousands of parents entrusted by Providence with the safe-keeping of this priceless treasure who are themselves in the position of discharging that great responsibility with closed eyes, with dull ears and with a childish belief that there is no real peril threatening the safety of their daughters! These parents do not live on earth, their heads are in the clouds and their ears are filled with the cry of "'Peace! Peace!' when there is no peace." As one whose daily duty it is to deal with wayward and fallen girls, as one who has had to dig down into the sordid and revolting details of thousands of these sad cases (for I have spent the best part of my life in this line of work) let me say to such mothers: In this day and age of the world no young girl is safe! And all young girls who are not surrounded by the alert, constant and intelligent protection of those who love them unselfishly are in imminent and deadly peril. And the more beautiful and attractive they are the greater is their peril! The first and most vital step for the protection of the girls who walk in this path of pitfalls is to arouse the sleeping watchmen who are, by reason of their parenthood, responsible for the safekeeping of their daughters. This is why the "White Slave" articles by Hon. Edwin W. Sims and others, which have been published in the Woman's World, have done great good. They have stirred to a sense of alarm thousands of parents who were asleep in a false sense of security. If they accomplish nothing beyond this they will fully have justified their publication. But it is evident that they will also result in the enactment of much needed legislation, of laws which will make it easier to convict and punish those who live from this foul traffic in the shame of girls whose natural protectors are asleep in this false sense of security. Of course, practically every state has some laws against that traffic--but I do not know of any state in which the laws now on the statute books are adequate to deal with the situation as it should be dealt with. One of the things which comfortable and trusting parents seem to find especially hard to believe is the point upon which both United States District Attorney Sims and his assistant, Mr. Parkin, have placed so much stress--the existence of an active and systematic traffic in girls. There is no safety for the daughter of any parents who are not awake and alive to the actuality of this fact!