proprietors of indecent dance-halls and theaters, of the “shows” of all sorts that flourish chiefly through their offering of sexual stimulation these are the worst sinners of our times, for they cause thousands of others to sin, and deliberately undermine the moral structure so laboriously reared, and at such heavy cost.  Conspicuous in commercialized vice-catering is the Casino of Monte Carlo, where thousands of lives have been ruined.  The business of seducing and kidnapping girls-the “white slave trade” flourishes secretly in our great cities.  Associations of liquor producers and sellers are very powerful social and political forces.  One of the greatest problems before the race is how to exterminate these human beasts of prey that live at the expense of the moral deterioration and often utter ruin of their victims.

(5) While the older racial and national barriers between peoples are breaking down, so that the possibilities of human brotherhood and cooperation are laterally increasing, and the wretched fratricidal wars between peoples coming toward an end, [Footnote:  As I read the proof sheets of this book (August, 1914), news comes of the outbreak of what may prove the costliest and one of the least excusable wars of history.  Nevertheless, the end of international wars draws near.] Other barriers, between upper and lower classes, are thickening, new antagonisms and antipathies that threaten yet much friction and unhappiness and a retardation of moral progress.  Rich are becoming farther and farther consciousness is on the increase, class-wars in the form of strikes, riots, and sabotage, are ominous symptoms.  Masses of the laboring class believe that a great class-war is not only inevitable but desirable.  Such conflicts, however, besides their material losses, engender hatred, cruelty, lust, greed, and all sorts of other forms of immorality.  No one can predict how far such struggles may go in the future toward undoing the socializing process which at best has so many obstacles to meet and moves so slowly.  Many forces are at work, however, for moral uplift.  The spread of education, teaching men to think, to discern evils, and to comprehend the reasons for right conduct, the increasing influence of public opinion through newspapers and magazines, the growing number of organizations working to eradicate evils, the gradual increase of wise legislation, the reviving moral pressure of the Christian Church such signs of the times should give us courage as well as show us where we can take hold to help.  Morality is not static, a cut-and-dried system to be obeyed or neglected, but a set of experiments, being gradually worked out by mankind, a dynamic, progressive instrument which we can help ourselves to forge.  There is room yet for moral genius; we are yet in the early and formative stage of human morality.  We should not be content with past achievement, with the contemporary standards of our fellows.  If we give our keenest thought and our earnest effort, there is no knowing what noble heights of morality we may be helping the future to attain.