The double standard of morals, accepted in fact if not in principle, in every community, and so rigidly applied that good women are actually forbidden to have any knowledge of their fallen sisters, was for the first time repudiated by a body of organized women. The arguments on which the double standard of morals is based was, for the first time, seriously scrutinized by women of intelligence and social importance. The desirability of the descent of property in legal paternal line seemed to these women a good enough reason for applying a rigid standard of morals to women. But they found reasons infinitely greater why the same rigid standard should be applied to men. The International Council of Women and women's organizations in every country number among their members and delegates women physicians, and through these physicians they have been able to consider the social evil from an altogether new point of view. Certain very ugly facts, which touch the home and which intimately concern motherhood and the welfare of children, were brought forth--facts concerning infantile blindness, almost one-third of which is caused by excesses on the part of the fathers; facts concerning certain forms of ill health in married women, and the increase of sterility due to the spread of specific diseases among men. The horrible results to innocent women and children of these maladies, and their frightful prevalence,--seventy-five per cent of city men, according to reliable authority, being affected,--aroused in the women a sentiment of indignation and revolt. The International Council of Women put itself on record as protesting against the responsibility laid upon women, the unassisted task of preserving the purity of the race. In the United States, women's clubs, women's societies, women's medical associations, special committees of women in many cities have courageously undertaken the study of this problem, intending by means of investigation and publicity to lay bare its sources and seek its remedy. The sources of the evil are about the only phase of the problem which has never been adequately examined. It is true that we have suspected that the unsteady and ill-adjusted economic position of women furnished some explanation for its existence, but even now our information is vague and unsatisfactory. A number of years ago, in 1888 to be exact, the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics made an interesting investigation. This was an effort to determine how far the entrance of women into the industrial world, usually under the disadvantage of low wages, was contributing to profligacy. The bureau gathered statistics of the previous occupations of nearly four thousand fallen women in twenty-eight American cities. Of these unfortunates over eight hundred had worked in low-waged trades such as paper-box making, millinery, laundry work, rope and cordage making, cigar and cigarette making, candy packing, textile factory and shoe factory work.