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Show GIRLS, MEN AND THE VICE COMMISSION Do the investigations now on in Chicago and .New York by the vice commissioners suggest to those who see In the "redllghl districts" the source of all -ll. ih possibility that after all the "redllght" may be nothing noth-ing more than the symptoms of a disease the cause of which lies deeper deep-er down In the lives of men and women wo-men than this surface display of immorality im-morality f Hac our local crusaders been reading read-ing the evidence supplied by the managers man-agers and owners of department stores in Chicago, have they read the letters from girls betrayed and led astray by crafty fellows" If they have not. the) should read and. reading, read-ing, ponder over the meaning of It all. Here is a letter sent to the vlco commission in Chicago, signed K R L. "To the Commission Girle don't i go w rong because they are hungry or because thev need clothes. They go wrong because thev are templed by lies and overpowered by the evil in men ' They listen to the fair and pretty things that men tell them and the fall because they think thev can trust themselves and trust the tempters. It Is not the employer I was a good girl and I worked in a store "i didn't got much money but that did not mutter I lived on $8 a week, and would be living like that now but I met men. "They seemed to consider me their prey, and all the time it was fight, fight Thev wanted to be nice to me. thev said, and to take me to the theater and treat me fair and give me a chance to enjov life. "1 didn t know men were bad all bad where a girl is concerned I thought only women were bad. I thought all a girl Jiad to do to remain good was to he truthful with herself. Ocd pity women who think that and keep their trust in men until It is too late "Every dnv it was someone else always smiling at me always trying to give ne a fair chance' to he happy hap-py Tn the street thev followed me These I could avoid but the 'friends who hung around' That is the big. bit? secret nf the thing that make a good girl bad. If thev had left me be if 'he had only i lot t me be onlv let me live as I j wanted to. I wouldn't have had to slink into the mom when yourcom-mission yourcom-mission was trying to solve things and wonldn t have had to sit In a corner with m veil down, afraid to look good women in the face." Another girl echoes In part the words of the first letter, declaring: Another cry from the underworld j echoed the words of the first letter. It was more bitter, though, and It read In part: "You're looking for the things that made such women as I Ixiw wages dance halls hunger cold They all helped a bit. but thev didn't turn the trick themselves. ' You're all a bunch of hypocrites, afraid to look the thing in the face and afraid to learn the truth 'I don t know any girls who sold themselves for money to buy bread or clothes, but I do know lots of us who hit the road for because a lot of blackguards kept bounding us with their rotten attentions '(.',od help , the men and not as.' We re all rlsht when we start Ml we need Is to bo I left alone There are hundreds and hundred; of kids and sports who bang around State street and wait like Iwolres for the tired girls to leave the i Btores. "Whj don't ou make the men be j good 0 All the w ages tn the world won't help us Make the men good and the girls will be good Now they i haven't got a chance and they never ' will as long as the law smiles at ono land spits at another.' The foregoing is tt storr from life There Is no fine spun theor In the recital, simply a statement of the temptations that beset women And back of it all is the double standard of moralltv which allows men to re-tain re-tain respectability though they ruin and wreck the llveB of trusting, con-j con-j tiding girls You can tear down the walls of the underworld, and the blighting of the lives of girls will continue, you ran scatter the poor creatures of misplaced mis-placed confidence, and the wickedness will not cease The ery low pay of the girls in the largo department stores helps to make the environment which breaks down the moral stamina of the fe- male employes of those places. These are phases of the problem of the social evil which are quite over-I over-I looked by those who believe that bj fpitting at Satan and saying, "Be-j "Be-j gone." the tempter -.v i 11 slink awa The social evil cannot be lessened until the morals of men are much improved im-proved and girls are offered a better chance to escape the wiles of running rascality to he found where voung w'inien. without proper guardians, are thrown in the company of ga Loth-I Loth-I arios. As tu the low wages paid girls that lis a matter r0r legislation Wages of women will be on a starvation basis so long a8 a minimum wage law I does not rorce the mercenary employ. r to hold to a standard of wages above the barest necessities of those who work for them. As competition, which is keen in the cities, forces the fair-minded employer of labor to pay tbo same wage scale as that of his mean competitor, the compensation offered Is bound to be that fixed bv the most unscrupulous employers. This condition will prevail until the jlaw shall prescribe a wago scale below be-low which no emplover of labor can go. |