Mann Act
Connelly says that these issues were real problems that had been there for a long time. The concerns simply made them bigger. These issues came from the fact that many young girls from the countryside came into the cities looking for work. Some of them became prostitutes, because they were well-paid.. A number of Vice Commission reports had drawn attention to the issue. Some people of the time questioned the idea of abduction and foreign control of prostitution through cartels.   Emma Goldman was  a noted radical and feminist. She  asked "What is really the cause of the trade in women? Not merely white women, but yellow and black women as well. Exploitation, of course; the merciless Moloch of capitalism that fattens on underpaid labor, thus driving thousands of women and girls into prostitution. With Mrs. Warren these girls feel, 'Why waste your life working for a few shillings a week in a scullery, eighteen hours a day?' ... Whether our reformers admit it or not, the economic and social inferiority of woman is responsible for prostitution." While prostitution was widespread, contemporary studies by local vice commissions indicate that it was "overwhelmingly locally organized without any large business structure, and willingly engaged in by the prostitutes."