Having learned from Doctor Healy the relation between mental conflict and misconduct and the possibility of cure by the freeing of blocked emotion, social workers were somewhat prepared for one of the unusual situations brought about by the war,—namely, the wholesale arrests of girls and women on suspicion of venereal disease, with effort on the part of the government not only to cure the physical disease but to rehabilitate the individual. The gathering of data by the Girls’ Protective Bureau of the United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board gave a basis for study which years of private practice or philanthropy could not assemble. One felt about these young prostitutes that mere suppression by force would not reach the root of the matter,—that causes and conditions must be studied. With this in mind certain lines of research were undertaken, primarily to gather and interpret data which would lead to less unjust treatment than is at present accorded so-called delinquent women, by changing public opinion and especially altering procedure in our courts, jails and hospitals. It was hoped that such data might also tend toward a better understanding of human relations and indicate marriage standards based upon biology and psychology rather than on economics. A profound statement of Mr. Thomas’s is, “Statistics in themselves are nothing more than the symptoms of unknown causal processes. A social institution can be understood and modified only if we do not limit ourselves to the study of its formal organization but analyze the way in which it appears in the personal experience of various members of the group and follow the influence it has on their lives.” It was just the sudden knowledge of the effect of our custom, law and court procedure as they influenced the lives of individual girls which brought critical questioning of such justice as had been meted out to them. It seemed as if society had been systematically wrecking women. The government program acted as a searchlight flashed upon the farce of our dual system of morality. In the case of a child suffering assault or rape she might be detained in an old type of reform school till her majority gave her freedom—a poor preparation for later life—while the man, were he convicted, rarely had a long sentence. Of two parents of a child conceived out of wedlock, for the girl abortion is classed as crime; motherhood brings shame and condemnation; while the part of the man passes as a biological necessity. Whereas in some hospitals fifty per cent of the women arrested on suspicion of disease were found to be not infected, it was suggested in one city that prophylactic stations be established in men’s clubs and even in boys’ schools,—the futility of fine and jail for the woman, freedom for the man.