The National Purity Congress : Its Papers, Addresses, Portraits

New York: Arno Press. Very Good- with no dust jacket. 1976. Reprint. Hardcover. 0405075073 . Library stamps/marks/labels/pocket/slip, one ink margin note, otherwise light wear. Solid hardcover.; Facsimile reprint of the 1896 edition, New York: The American Purity Alliance, of The National Purity Congress ; its papers, addresses, portraits : an illustrated record of the papers and addresses of the First National Purity Congress, held under the auspices of the American Purity Alliance, in the Park Avenue Friends' meeting house, Baltimore, October 14, 15, and 16, 1895. "We meet to-day in our first National Purity Congress. Our objects are: The repression of vice, the prevention of its regulation by the State, the better protection of the young, the rescue of the fallen, to extend the White Cross work among men, and to proclaim the law of purity as equally binding upon men and women. Purity is fundamental in its importance. There can be no true manhood, no true womanhood except as based upon its law. There can be no security for the home, no home life in its best sense except as it is based upon the law of purity. Of the need of such a congress, the prevalence of purity everywhere, so conspicuous in our large centres 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. The relation between our own country and the Old World, now so intimate, makes it impossible for us in America to be indifferent to the social conditions which obtain in Europe. Law itself is a great educator for good or for ill. When the State assumes to license and legalise vice it educates downward. In America we do not have nominally State regulation of vice. We do have a good deal of tolerated vice. Here, as in Europe, dependent women and girls are greatly exposed to vicious influences. With starvation wages, the woman's extremity becomes the vicious man's opportunity." - Opening Address by Aaron M Powell, President, American Purity Alliance. "From 1870 to the formation of the American Purity Alliance there was developed in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other cities what were called moral education societies. The organization of the American Purity Alliance in 1895, brought these moral education societies and similar bodies together in one organization the leadership of which was entrusted to Aaron M. Powell." Report of the first national congress of a significant progressive era organization dedicated to raise secular public morality, combat white slavery, prohibit legalized vice, and increase social welfare reform efforts. ; Social Problems And Social Policy--The American Experience; xvi, 453, (2), 2 ad pages .