With the outbreak of the war and the organization of the War Work Council of the National Board of the Young Women’s Christian Association, it was recognized that the presence in small communities of great numbers of soldiers, due to the locating and training camps near small towns, would give rise to abnormal conditions. The “lure of the uniform” is everywhere recognized. Young girls, thrilled with patriotism, sometimes fail to realize that the uniform covers all the kinds of men there are in the world; men of high ideals, chivalrous instincts, who naturally treat every girl as they want every man to treat their mothers and sisters; young men who do not think much of their ideals, but who are naturally kindly and who would feel that they were doing an unmanly thing to take advantage of the weakness of any girl; men with lower ideals, who feel that girls should take care of themselves or that they are fair game; or, in the worst instances, men who feel that their own physical appetites must be gratified, no matter who suffers. And so, many girls, through ignorance, through emotion, take steps which will lead to bitter regret.

Then there is the other girl who has already crossed the line and becomes herself a temptress. She is dangerous, not only to the young men she allures, but, earning money easily, dressing more showily, furnishes a dangerous example to girls of weak will and unsatisfied desires.

Source: Katherine Bement Davis, “Social Hygiene and the War: Woman’s Part in Social Hygiene,” Journal of Social Hygiene 4 (October 1918): 532–33, hearth.library.cornell.edu.