the slave business is fast becoming a vested interest of
large dimensions to American men as well as to Chinese. There are
fully as many (probably more) Japanese slaves as Chinese in the United
States, and at the moderate reckoning that they are worth three
thousand dollars each, that represents six million dollars in capital;
and at the present time the Japanese traffic is more threatening
to the United States than the Chinese, with which alone this book
deals.[A]

[Footnote A: When we undertook the task of writing this book we
intended to include in it also a representation of the Japanese
slave-trade, but have been obliged to desist for want of space.]

In these latter days, when everything in the business line tends to
take on the form of trusts and combines, bent on defeating all law and
exploiting the common people for gain, it casts a shadow of gloom over
one's spirits to think of capitalists entering so largely upon the
active culture and development of vice for pecuniary profit. This can
no longer be looked upon as an evil due to the frailty of human nature
and the strength of the sex appetite; it is rather the expression of a
greed for gold, and should be actively combated as such. The owners
of property, especially those who have a monopoly in the matter of
housing vice because of municipal measures for its segregation, are
most potent offenders against decency, and should be punished as such,
instead of their being admitted, as too often they are, not only to
good society, but to membership on the church roll.

No individual can afford to be indifferent and ignorant as to the