Problem of International Concern.

The passage in 1910 of the White Slave Traffic Act, better known as the Mann Act, was a product of the sensationalistic stories and lurid details regularly appearing in the nation's newspapers, stories about the abduction of innocent women for the purpose of prostitution. While many reformers had long been engaged in a war against prostitution in their own communities, their efforts had been spurred by the much-publicized success of their counterparts in England, who were reportedly prevailing against the exploitation of women for profit. The release in 1909 of the Immigration Commission's studies of the problems posed by the importation of foreign women to staff the hundreds of brothels scattered throughout the nation's large cities fired the opponents of vice with renewed purpose and energy. Aside from the repulsion and exasperation Americans felt in confronting the evidence of the immorality...