When commissions make investigations or some crisis forces the issue of the social evil, women are among the first to demand full publicity and effective action. A good example of their determination in this matter is afforded by the battle of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association in Hartford, Connecticut, against a conspiracy of silence on the part of the town council. This interesting episode, which stirred the whole state, is thus described in _The Survey_: The names of the Hartford Common Council will not be lost to memory if a six-foot signboard in front of the woman suffrage headquarters can prevent oblivion. The sign, which placards with startling headlines the attitude of each City Father toward the suppression of commercialized vice, is the vigorous protest of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association [led by Mrs. Thomas Hepburn] against a principle which has been largely responsible for the unsavory reputation of Hartford. In December, 1911, the trial of the notorious white slavers, Morris and Lena Cohen, revealed the fact that a policy of toleration, extending over many years, had made Hartford a recognized market for prostitutes and a center for the white slave traffic between New York and points further east. Following this disclosure, Mayor Smith ordered all houses of prostitution closed and appointed a vice commission that the problem might be attacked still more drastically in the future. The Common Council refused to appropriate any city funds to make an investigation possible, but the vice commission was not deterred from its undertaking. It raised its own funds, carried on its investigations and in July, 1913, published a report which probes ruthlessly into the underworld of Hartford. Among the fifteen specific recommendations dealing with local conditions, the most emphatic is, “that the present policy of keeping the houses closed be adhered to rigidly.” “The experiment,” the report continues, “if such we may call it, has certainly had no evil results. Most of those best qualified to judge affirm that it has led to better conditions. In the face of these facts, a return to the old plan of tolerating houses of ill fame would be a deliberate connivance at an illegal traffic.” Owing to lack of money but 500 copies of this report could be published and the City Council refused to appropriate funds for further editions for general distribution to make facts known to the whole city.