let us say, to conflict with the constitutional pow-
ers of our courts. I wonder how the Commission
would have acted if a humble following of the
facts had led them to a conviction out of tune
with the existing public conscience of America.
Such a conflict is not only possible; it is highly
probable. When you come to think of it, the
conflict appears a certainty. For the Constitution
is a legal expression of the conditions under which
prostitution has flourished; the social evil is
rooted in institutions and manners which have
promoted it, in property relations and business
practice which have gathered about them a halo
of reason and practicality, of morality and con-
science. Any change so vast as the abolition of
vice is of necessity a change in morals, practice,
law and conscience.

A scientist who began an investigation by say-
ing that his results must be moral or constitutional
would be a joke. We have had scientists like
that, men who insisted that research must con-
firm the Biblical theory of creation. We have
had economists who set out with the preconceived
idea of justifying the factory system. The world
has recently begun to see through this kind of in-
tellectual fraud. If a doctor should appear who
offered a cure for tuberculosis on the ground that

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