“ Are we going to let the white slave traffic have free and undisputed sway without a word of protest, blighting and ruining the homes in this fair land of liberty and freedom? Are we in Illinois, the State that sent Abraham Lincoln forth as leader in the conflict for freedom of the slaves of the south, going to let an evil, worse, yea, far worse than that ever was, or could be, exist and triumph, and not rise up in arms against it? ”

“ Until the public intelligence and conscience are trained to abhor vice as a destroyer of families and nations—more insidious and more ruinous than even the liquor traffic—a soft, foolish, wicked indulgence will be granted to the red light districts, and the white slave markets which they constitute and are. We must call most urgently upon all guides and rulers of the people to make incessant war upon the loathsome criminals who prey upon young women and young men. They are the worst enemies of the human race. ”

“ A volume could be written on this revolting subject, but I have no disposition to add a single word to what will open the eyes of parents to the fact that white slavery is an existing condition—a system of girl hunting that is national and international in its scope, that it literally consumes thousands of girls—clean, innocent girls—every year; that it is operated with a cruelty, a barbarism that gives a new meaning to the word fiend; that it is an imminent peril to every girl in the country who has a desire to get into the city and taste its excitements and its pleasures. ”

“ Shall we defend our American civilization, or lower our flag to the most despicable foreigners—French, Irish, Italians, Jews and Mongolians? We do not speak against them for their nationality, but for their crimes. American traders of equal infamy, to the shame of the American name, have stocked Asiatic cities with American girls.
On the Pacific Coast eternal vigilance alone can save us from a flood of Asiaticism, with its weak womanhood, its men of scant chivalry, its polluting vices and its brothel slavery. Bubonic plague in San Francisco and Seattle was alarming. ”

“ We are influential and actuated by the same religious impulses. Let us then as one people, join hands across the sea in this holy enterprise, and sweep from the world this awful blight upon young womanhood. Remember it is not a crime peculiar or common to men of one nationality. All nations, more or less, have taken part. Be it ours, at this Congress, to inaugurate a world-wide crusade, in the name of God and of our common humanity, against this crime. Remember, the forces of righteousness and purity are stronger than the forces of impurity. ”

“ Ten long months hence, when, broken, disgraced, without a cent, without a friend, they turn me out into Chicago's cold November storms, will justice have been vindicated, will some great and good ends have been attained by the punishment of me—a tool, a cat's-paw—while seven thousand saloons and square miles of houses of prostitution have gone on in their bloody, damning work under sanction of the government run by you pious men? ”

“ A life full of subtle and fierce temptation is the life of a stenographer and oh, how many here are led astray by those who should protect them. One will say, "What is a girl to do? From all you have said, she would not dare to go anywhere."
One of the most fascinating allurements of city life to many a young girl is the dance-hall, which is truly the ante-room to hell itself. Here indeed, is the beginning of the white slave traffic in many instances. A girl may in her country home have danced a little, but here, 'mid the blazing lights, gaiety and so-called happiness, she enters. ”

“ But to be very conservative, let us cut the figures in two, and we have still one hundred thousand sightless persons, blind from babyhood, in Europe alone. Including America, and adding Asia, Africa and the islands of the South Seas, we shall find in the world half a million persons blind or one million sightless eyes, from this pestilent germ—at which many young men laugh as no worse than a cold and which is on sale all the time in every immoral resort in the world. ”

“ 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! ”

“ That is the value the White Slave traders place upon the soul of a girl when she is auctioned off to the highest bidder for a house of ill-repute. For a few paltry dollars to the buyer of girls, not only is the body delivered to be ravished and diseased, but the soul is given over to be tortured and depraved. ”

“ He preaches in the slums at midnight, and on the other hand pleads with the leaders of his church and nation to oppose with the light of truth and the fire of earnestness the evils of impurity which so threaten the national life. He protests in public by voice and pen against the false modesty which keeps young people in ignorance of the wages of sin, and so thrusts them blindfolded into the pitfalls and traps which the evil-minded always have in readiness for the untaught and unwary. ”

“ I find it equally blessed to be Christ's witness by the Martyrs' Memorial in classic Oxford, on the hot sand beneath the palm trees of Ceylon and India, and on a snowbank among Chicago's red lights. Everywhere large audiences stand eagerly listening to the messengers of God. Our midnight street meetings continue three, four, five, and even six hours at one place, in the summer. ”

“ Should she call a police officer the chances are he is receiving bribes from her keeper and he will not help her to freedom. Is it strange that soon she eagerly drinks the wine that is constantly offered her, and sometimes actually forced down her throat, and smokes the cigarette with its benumbing effect of opium and tobacco, so that under the influences of these fatal drugs she may forget her awful fate and hasten her early death, for surely no hell in the other world can be more dreadful than a house of shame in this world. ”

“ What a travesty to wrap the flag of America around our girls and extol virtue and purity, freedom and liberty, and then not raise a hand to protect our own girls who are being procured by white slave traders every day! ”

“ Our children, no matter how well we care for them, come into contact with the rest of the children of the city. We do not do our duty by our own unless we do our duty by the others too, and unless we see to it that they are properly cared for also, danger awaits our own children. That is putting it on selfish grounds, but I put it to you on the broader ground of brotherhood to man. Let us all join. On this great question at least we are one. No matter how we may differ on other social problems, on this question of the white slave traffic every decent man and woman stands on the same ground. ”

“ INSANITY, SURGERY, BLINDNESS.
Some who are willing to harden themselves against the laws of God and man alike, lay to heart the evidence of a standard medical treatise on insanity when it is opened and read to them in the street. The description of the brain of a dead lunatic, who lost his mind and his life as the wages of the sin upon which they are bent, brings a pallor over the faces of crowds that seem nailed down to the pavement and unable to move away. ”

“ Almost all positions alluring to young girls have been used to catch them in the great net these procurers have set for them. We can't blame the girls for being ambitious. We can't blame them for wanting to better their condition in life, and we can't blame them for falling prey to the white slave monster, with its tentacles spread throughout the country ready at every possible chance to clutch them within its grasp. We can only warn them to be more cautious, to investigate carefully before going away from home with people they do not know. ”

“ Our standards are not high enough. Why a lawfully wedded husband should fix it up with his conscience to act so basely towards his wife we have yet to find out. But it is a wrong standard and I am glad to be able to say to the wives and mothers in this audience that almost without exception when I say to young men "Fellows, isn't it time that we have a single standard of purity for men and women?" ”

“ The keepers and procurers are the paid agents of the men who foot the bill. Every dollar, with the burning name of God upon it, that any man spends there makes him a stockholder in the white slave market and a partner in the traffic in girls. The men who support the hideous business are the ultimate white slave traders, and when their hired men, the divekeepers and procurers, come to judgment and condemnation, the men who supported them in crime will be arraigned beside them and punished with them. ”