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Powell, "President's Opening Address," 1896
home and to the nation. There can be no true manhood, no true
womanhood except as based upon the law of Purity. There can be no
security for the home, there can be no home-life in its best sense,
except as it is based upon the law of Purity. There can be no true
prosperity, there can be no perpetuation of a nation except as its life is
based upon the law of Purity. Impurity is destructive alike to the
individual character, of the home, and of the nation. Of the need of
such a Congress as is now assembled the prevalence and
propagandism of impurity, as the present time, everywhere so
conspicuous in our large centers of population, abundantly testifies.
In the Old World vice, in many countries, is regulated by the
State; it is legalized as a trade; it is a shocking system of practical
slavery for dependent women and girls who are made its victims. It
gives rise to an unholy traffic in girlhood; it occasions untold
degradation on the part of women; it is a standing menace to the
home; it abridges the liberty of all women in those countries. The
relations between our own country and the Old World are now so
intimate, the steamers passing to and fro so quickly and constantly as
an international ferriage, make it impossible for us in America to be
indifferent to the social conditions which obtain in Europe. It is on this
account of vital importance that we recognize the struggle which is
now going forward under the auspices of the International Federation
for the Abolition of State Regulation of Vice, that we do what we can to
aid and encourage its work. Law itself is a great educator for good or
for ill. When the State assumes to license and legalize vice it educates
downward and debases the moral sentiments of its people by such
legalization.
In America we do not have, nominally, State regulation of vice.
We do have, most unfortunately, in all our larger cities, a great deal of
tolerated vice. Here as in Europe dependent women and girls are
greatly exposed to vicious influences. With extremely low, in many
cases almost starvation wages, the women's extremity becomes the
vicious man's opportunity.
* * *
In another direction also may be seen an urgent need for the
Purity movement which this Congress represents. It is in the so called
Age of Consent Laws in the different States. The age at which young
girls are deemed capable of controlling property is the age of majority:
prior to that time the State intervenes for their legal protection in
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