“ When girls are paid wages inadequate to keep them from starvation, or to permit them to live decently, a certain proportion are forced by their economic misery into lives of vice. ”
Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt; an Autobiography (1913). copy citation
| Author | Theodore Roosevelt |
|---|---|
| Source | Theodore Roosevelt; an Autobiography |
| Topic | misery vice |
| Date | 1913 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3335/3335-h/3335-h.htm |
Context
“The men who profit and make their living by the depravity and the awful misery of other human beings stand far below any ordinary criminals, and no measures taken against them can be too severe.
As for the wretched girls who follow the dreadful trade in question, a good deal can be done by a change in economic conditions. This ought to be done. When girls are paid wages inadequate to keep them from starvation, or to permit them to live decently, a certain proportion are forced by their economic misery into lives of vice. The employers and all others responsible for these conditions stand on a moral level not far above the white slavers themselves. But it is a mistake to suppose that either the correction of these economic conditions or the abolition of the white slave trade will wholly correct the evil or will even reach the major part of it.”
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