Yet it is easy to predict that a society committed to the abolition of infectious germs, to a higher degree of public health, and to a better standard of sanitation will not forever permit these highly communicable diseases to spread unchecked in its midst, and that a public, convinced that sanitary science, properly supported, might rid our cities of this type of disease, will at length insist upon its accomplishment.  When we consider the many things undertaken in the name of health and sanitation it becomes easy to make the prediction, for public health is a magic word which ever grows more potent, as society realizes that the very existence of the modern city would be an impossibility had it not been discovered that the health of the individual is largely controlled by the hygienic condition of his surroundings.  Since the first commission to inquire into the conditions of great cities was appointed in Manchester in 1844, sanitary science, both in knowledge and municipal authority, has progressed until advocates of the most advanced measures in city hygiene and preventive sanitary science boldly state that neglected childhood and neglected disease are the most potent causes of social insufficiency.

Certainly a plea could be made for the women and children who are often the innocent victims of these diseases.  Quite recently in Chicago there was brought to my attention the incredibly pathetic plight of a widow with four children who was in such constant fear of spreading the infection for which her husband had been responsible, that she touchingly offered to leave her children forevermore, if there was no other way to save them from the horrible suffering she herself was enduring.  In spite of thousands of such cases Utah is the pioneer and only state with a law which requires that this infection shall be reported and controlled, as are other contagious maladies, and which also authorizes boards of health to take adequate measures in order to secure protection.

Another humanitarian movement from which assistance will doubtless come to the crusade against the social evil, is the great movement against alcoholism with its recent revival in every civilized country of the world.  A careful scientist has called alcohol the indispensable vehicle of the business transacted by the white slave traders, and has asserted that without its use this trade could not long continue.  Whoever has tried to help a girl making an effort to leave the irregular life she has been leading, must have been discouraged by the victim’s attempts to overcome the habit of using alcohol and drugs.  Such a girl has commonly been drawn into the life in the first place when under the influence of liquor and has continued to drink that she might be able to live through each day.  Furthermore, the drinking habit grows upon her because she is constantly required to sell liquor and to be “treated.”