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.
About five hundred women had been garment workers, dressmakers, and seamstresses, but how far these were skilled or unskilled was not stated.
The department store, at that time little more than a sweat shop so far as wages and long hours of work were concerned, contributed one hundred and sixteen recruits to the list.
On the whole, these groups were what the investigators had expected to find.
There were two other large groups of prodigals, and these were entirely unexpected by the investigators.