Twice a month every man in the ranks is thoroughly inspected for disease or physical defect, and if there are any symptoms of venereal disease, he is watched and treated.

3. Next to this medical treatmentsome would say superior to it is the character and force of the commanding officer of the camp: for from him the staff and regimental officers take their

cue.

Under the present regulations the statistics of the health department will show with practical certainty the character and force of the commander. Camp conditions differ of course; some are near low-toned towns and citiessome away from all population. Allowing for these, a division general can by a study of the medical reports know whether the camp commander is worthy of his post. And if he is not, the public opinion of the Arrmy as well as the higher officials will, if true to themselves, relieve him of his post.

4. This nation is now entering upon a great and most interesting experiment based on a sound philosophy and social experience. The best fighter is the normal man trained in body, mind, and character to the highest military efficiency. Men to remain normal require a certain amount of variety of interest, change of thought and exercise, play, books and society. In Christian armies religion has always been recognized. It is being supported at fresh points.

Every citizen is so familiar with the principles and methods of the camp activities that. I need say no more. The most radical move is the presence of women in the camp. Instead of the camp followers of old, we now have women, strong, mature, tactful and attractive, in camp, canteen and hostess house. A letter from a landing port in France is before me. "I wish," the writer says, "the people at home could see the boys' faces brighten as they come off ship and see one American woman waiting there to greet them. It gives them just the right start in this strange life."

These facts of the Army give me the message of hope to society. Under military discipline, with high purpose and medical skill, the disease can be prevented, cured and stopped-not in a day or a decade, but the facts show that under certain conditions and character it can be done.

The vital question for us is: Are we ready to support to the full this pro

gram to lessen and in time eradicate the disease? Is society going to help or obstruct?

The Army comes from society: the recruits have shown the condition of society. The danger is not in the Army but in the city, not so much in France as in the industrial town and country village. I need not repeat the facts. If we are to support the Army and win this war, there has got to be a tremendous cleaning up of ourselves, our own neighborhoods, our streets and theatres, our hotels and resorts. Yes! Education and warning must enter the homes of the innocent for their protection. First the people must have the facts. The great engine of publicity is the press. But they will not give the facts: they claim that the people will be offended at them.

I challenge the newspapers of this country, those with great circulation, to place upon their front page not two or three startling statements with sensational headlines, but the figures that I have given or such a succinct statement of facts as the Medical Departments of the Army and Navy are ready to give them, revealing the conditions of society in relation to the Army. It is a war question, as vital as food and fuel. They say that the people do not like such facts: they offend their taste. Let the press try the people.

It is time that the lid be off and men and women meet this problem as they have met diphtheria and tuberculosis. Of course there is a difference. People protest that "this disease touches sexual problems and questions of morals: the finger of scorn will point at the victims. Doctors cannot report their cases to the public. We are not an army." No, we are not, but must we therefore do nothing and continue to poison our Army? We are told that if people begin to talk about such things, it will lead to improprieties.

People are talking: you are talking: I am talking: our boys and girls are talking: the stage is talking. Why not come out into the open, and let the talk be healthy, sane, medical, and practical?

What now can society, which has not. the discipline of the Army, do to protect itself and the Army?

First, I have said, publish the facts. The first thing is to get them: thus far we have little more than estimates, good guesses on the part of experts as to society's condition.

A few states are pointing out the path, and as Massachusetts is the latest, I select that for our study.

In December, 1917, by action of the Public Health Council, gonorrhea and syphilis were added to the list of diseases declared dangerous to public health. Think of it, our own state, only two months ago!

The next problem is how to spot the infected person, the carrier of the disease, to prevent him from being a source of danger. For the object of the program is not punishment or publicity but the safety of the community through the cure of the infected. If physicians are compelled by law to report the names of infected persons, many of these will keep away from physicians and thus be a menace to society. Hence the state by a certificate system receives from the physician a number which will always identify the patient, the physician holding the name in confidence. physician or his successor, if the patient change doctors, is held to account for the patient whose name, however, is given to the Board of Health if he evades the law. The reports are made to the State Board of Health, not to the local board.

The

Establish "approved clinics" throughout the state, where adequate treatment may be had, free to the poor-a small charge as a rule. The purpose of these clinics is to stop the disease and make the patient harmless to others.

Follow-up work by social workers from the clinics. The building of hospitals for venereal diseases.

Of what use is it to treat a thousand prostitutes or a hundred infected tramps and send them back onto the streets without the cure and upbuilding which a hospital gives? We might as well collect poison, make it into pills, sugar-coat them and throw them to the crowd, as to treat and not cure such people and send them back to the street. So much for the medical side.

As to the social methods. The first aim is to break up the alliance between prostitution and alcohol. Every expert that I have read, every medical officer that I have talked to, every officer of the Army-one of the last was General Leonard Wood-says the greatest obstacle to the suppression of venereal disease is alcohol. Stop the men drinking, and you have won more than half the battle.

The Government has acted to protect our soldiers and sailors. Why should not the same protection be given to our munition workers, our shipbuilders, and the whole people? I say no word here about Constitutional Prohibition: whether in great industrial states more or less alcohol may be drunk under that form of prohibition allows of differences of opinion. But of this I am clear, that during the War the same protection should be given all the people as is given our soldiers and sailors: and I am confident that the War motive which supports the enforcement of our Army would support the enforcement for the whole people. Meanwhile, so long as medical officers and experts say what they do of the immediate relations of alcohol and venereal diseases, I believe that it is the patriotic duty of every citizen to do what he expects the man who is giving his life for him to do,abstain from alcohol.

Whatever the law is on the subject, are we as a people ready to act upon that voluntary action? Shall we help or obstruct the Army?

Other social efforts follow. Of the highest importance, the organization for social service and repression of vice by all the communities about the camps, a clean five-mile zone and more if necessary. Repression of street solicitation, police and reformatory action; rehabilitation of the prostitute; improvement in living conditions, athletics and all those influences which go to the building up of healthy bodies and sound characters. Three definite pieces of work are vital:

1. Probably fifty per cent of the prostitutes are sub-normal mentally or in will power, some really feeble-minded. The tremendous work of protecting this great mass while still children is an immediate duty. And a large percentage of the diseased boys and men are subnormal also. Thousands of these of both sexes infect the strong and normal: thousands of sub-normal children are born of these, and the vicious circle, demoralizing the people and costing the nation millions on millions of dollars, continues its round because we do not want to face the facts.

2. The great sources of supply of the thousands of open and clandestine prostitutes is the young girls with easygoing, careless parents who have no thought of leading their children to better things than they can find on the

street and in the parks. Silly, and fond of fun and admiration, a man attracts them, and once fallen, sometimes through ignorance, sometimes through a temporary affection, many of them are within a year or two diseased, demoralized, practically outcasts of society.

No police or reformatory or house of mercy will correct these conditions. The responsibility falls upon the homes, the Church, the schools and public opinion. When will the mothers who proudly send their boys to the War take pride in protecting their boys by keeping their girls happy and pure at home?

Shall the women of this country turn in with all their might to study the girl problem, and in sympathy with the emotions, ideals and habits of girls, lead them to a pure and true womanhood?

3. To meet the sex problem and passions, a pure and happy home, a sound body, the habit of work, a sense of duty, and a religious faith are the best assets.

In these days, however, some sort of education in sex relations, simple, sympathetic and brief, is a necessary safeguard. How that shall be done may be answered in many ways: and because we are in doubt as to the best method, we cannot leave it undone.

All these things have a direct and immediate relation to supporting the Army and winning the War.

My last thought is this, a somewhat personal one. The greatest shock that has come to me in the study of the facts is not in the pervasive infection of the community, not the horror of the disease or even the tragedy of the results, but in the amount of immorality, the thousands on thousands who are yielding to illicit passions. If we add to those who are diseased through immoral relations the number of those who have immoral relations either frequently or occasionally and who escape infection, we count an appalling percentage. The question is not so much of national disease as of national demorilization. From such habits come, of course, frequent divorce, broken homes, parentless

children. A people so living demand a licentious stage and four literature.

The facts are interesting and enlightening as to our social conditions. Again, it is interesting to note how when the Christian Church has given up saving the heathen by threatening them with the terrors of hell, many social reformers and doctors are bringing that motive to bear upon men and women, on boys and girls, to save them from vice. The threat works sometimes-it probably brought some heathen to Christ: but as a motive power it is really very weak.

In the sex problem we are dealing with primal passions, next to self-preservation probably the greatest passion. This turbulent stream of passion cannot be held in restraint by fear of a future: it will take its chances. It cannot be checked by any such discipline as civil life offers. Even the harshest military discipline can hardly restrain the passion when in battle the brute has been roused and in victory the brute sees

women.

Strength of will and character are built up by self-mastery, by good habits, and by that spiritual force which has exceeded all others in human history, religious faith. It fails a thousand times, but it still remains the greatest power. You may bring back the Army one hundred percent clean by prophylactic treatment and medical skill-fine soldiers, true to military discipline. If, however, they are only physically clean and subject to outer discipline, if they have not been built up in character and self-mastery, then when they are mustered out to break ranks they will fall into the arms of women who will infect and destroy them. A light-hearted crowd will cry, "They have fought well, let the boys have their fling." Is it for this that we seek victory?

Let our appeal to the men be high: to their honor-how can they drag even a low woman one step lower in degradation? The meanness of taking advantage of a weak-willed girl. She is the sufferer. How can a man, remembering

his mother and sister, steal the virtue of a pure woman?

The chivalry of the twentieth century protects women. Let our appeal to women be high: the sanctity of womanhood, the beauty of chastity, the holiness of marriage and childbirth.

After all, the body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Defilement of the body drives out spiritual power: an infected

body leads to an infected soul. The chaplain, who is the spiritual guide of the soldiers (many of whom I know to be a centre of moral and religious force) is right when he takes for his text in the barracks Christ's challenge, "I am come that they might have life," physical, mental, moral, spiritual life"and that they might have it more abundantly."

W1

WITHIN six weeks after America's entrance into the war, Sections 12 and 13 of the Selective Service Law had been passed, creating about each military or naval establishment a zone in which houses of prostitution and the sale of liquor were forbidden, and prohibiting the sale of liquor to soldiers and sailors everywhere.

Two Commissions on Training Camp Activities-one for the Navy and one for the Armywere created to keep the camp environments clean. The commissions sent investigators into the communities under their jurisdictions, to uncover the facts in regard to vice and the liquor traffic and to lay these facts before local officials with a demand for their co-operation in enforcing the law. Realizing that a law cannot be enforced without popular support, the commissions sought to win over their opponents by showing what it meant in terms of quicker victory to have a clean, healthy Army and Navy. As a result of this policy, there was little opposition to the government's first step. In the few

instances where it was found necessary to use force, the commissions did not hesitate to do so. By the end of September there was not a red light district within five miles of any important military or naval establishment in the United States. Within one year after our entry into the war, seventy-eight such districts had been closed.f

By the operation of the liquor provision of the law, bootlegging was driven into the open. Most liquor dealers obeyed the law and the few who insisted upon selling to men in uniform had their licenses revoked.

The next step was to eliminate the prostitute, as well as the place where she did business, and the bootlegger. It was recognized, also, that protective work among young girls and steps for the control of venereal diseases in the civil population were necessary.

To cope effectively with the whole problem of repression, one law enforcement division, acting for both commissions, was organized. It includes three sections: one on vice and liquor control, one

on reformatories and houses of detention and one on women and girls.

The section on vice and liquor control works through local representatives in communities adjacent to camps, whose activities are directed by district supervisors. There are now ten district headquarters in the country, and the number is being increased as the military and naval establishments grow more numerous. The staff is made up mostly of lawyers both civilians and Army and Navy officers.

The work of the section on reformatories and houses of detention is to develop places of custody and training for women and girls whose presence near the camps is a menace to the health and morals of the men in the service. The section received an appropriation of $250,000 from the war emergency fund, and is extending financial aid on a "fiftyfifty" basis to states and communities for the development of reformatory facilities. Most of its work has been done in the South, where the need is greatest. Where facilities were found already in existence, as was the case in Virginia, the work is being enlarged and standardized.

acceptance of Feedral aid by a state or community entails Federal supervisory regulation of the institutions established or helped.

The primary objects of the section on women and girls are to protect women and girls in communities adjacent to camps and to establish venereal disease clinics. The section has women district supervisors whose districts coincide with those of the section on vice and liquor control and who work in close co-operation with the representatives of that section. Women fixed-post workers

are

stationed as local representatives of the section in communities adjacent to camps. Personal aid is given in rehabilitating young girls who have committed their first sex offenses, thus cutting off the supply of prostitutes. The fixedpost workers also strive to coordinate local agencies working in behalf of women and girls, as well as to improve laws governing dance halls and motion picture theaters, to secure better lighting and policing of parks and to bring about the appointment of Travelers' Aid workers and policewomen. They have been instrumental in obtaining detention homes and venereal clinics for many camp cities.

The division of law enforcement works in close co-operation with. the Department of Justice. The Army and Navy intelligence bureaus, the American Protective League and the state councils of defense have also aided the division. Several states have appointed state commissions to aid the Federal commissions.

The Commissions on Training Camp Activities have a social hygiene division with educational functions. This division has been instrumental in stimulating civilian co-operation with the commissions in their work of repressing prostitution.

The law enforcement division is not a police agency, the enforcement of Federal law being a function of the Department of Justice. The division is the agency through which the Secretaries of War and of the Navy act in making effective the policy of the War and Navy Departments with respect to the repression of prostitution and illegal liquor traffic. The division. neither apprehends nor prosecutes the offender, but concentrates its attention upon municipal conditions.