Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-03-25
la1lcaster fntelIigerlcer.
THURSDAY EvEN'a. MARCH rs, 1880.
The Children's Home.

The Children's Home.
The agitation of the question of ad-
mitting colOred children to the I" Home .
in this city has afforded some local polit-
ical interests an opportunity for display
of cheap demagogism which thinly
wells their real purpose. As the Eraw.i
ner says this institution had its origin in
purely private charitable enterrr rise"
A few noble-minded, unselfish. women
have for years given their time, labor and
intelligent efforts to its uptuilding, and
have seen its growth from. mere hand
full of children almost to its present di-
mensions without aIy aid from the
county. When they obtained a charter
for it the word white =" was inserted in
it,as it was in most all similar documents
at that time in accordance with notion
-" prejudice 3" if you please-then, and
even now, almost universal against the
social intermingling of the races. Private
charity supported it on that basis for
years until its private management had
acquired for its use a splendid property
and the demand for admission to it's priv
ileges increased beyond the capability of
private charity to satisfy them. During
all this time there never was any appli-
cation for the admission of a colOred
child. None ever knocked at it's door
for charity.
When the law was passed providing for
the support of the Home so largely by
the county it provided also that the man
ayers should receive all the children
turned into it from the almShOuSe or
committed to it by township boards,
without regard to race or color. And in
consequence, of the more than hundred
present inmates of the Home there are
only nine who were admitted simply on
the motion of the managers. On behalf
of these the private charity of the insti-
tuition contributes the use of a property
worth $4,000, and the county annually
contributes SlO,OOO-while the managers
and earnest friends of the Home give
their time, some of them exclusively, to
it, without any recOmpense. In all the
discussion of the matter it has been
represented that some private interests
were being largely served by the public
aid. The obligation has been altogether
on the other side.
All this time the management have
been fully considering the question of
admitting colOred children they have
only been duly appreciative of the
feelings of some of their most valuable
members, who have done most for the
Home, and have been content to wait
until there was real necessity to decide
the troublesome question. That question
would not of its own accord have arisen
before the Home was in a better position
to meet it, and might have been post
poned without doing the slightest injus-
tice, save for the Officious intermeddling
of few designing politicians, who
will never be happy until they can make
the Home and all its precious interests
the spoil of contending I" Bull Rings
and Hog Rings" We can assure the
people of the county that when the pre-
sent management get out" and take
with them their property, their common
sense, their thrift and their unselfiSh
philanthropy, and leave the county S
hundred homeless children to the tender
mercies of the politicians scramble to
steal the $4,000 appropriation, charity
will be abused far more than it has been
by the restrictive word "white'' in the
Homes charter.
BY its sneer at " the narrow preju-
dice of one person connected with its
management against the color of black
skin," the Examiner intends to hold up to
public ridicule that excellent Christian
woman, Mrs. S. NJ. Kramph, whom
everybody comedies to be the good genius
of the Home, and to whose deep-rOOted
aversion to the commingling of the two
races, much Difference has been paid.
Those who know her know that from the
outset the Home has been the object of
her unSelfiSh devotion, of all her time and
anxiety and labor to it she has given
her love, her affection and her money
and it is no wonder that the sensible
men and women who have co-operated
with her should in some measure share
her prejudices" " in all things relating
to its management.
We have no doubt that if left to theil
own good judgment-of which they have
plenty-the Home trustees and managers
will find an easy solution of the present
problem, that will do violence to nobody's
feelings whose feelings are to be re-
spected, and which will commend itself
to the common sense of the whole com
munity. The one thing that nobody
wants, whose opinion is entitled to any
respect, is that the present management
of the Home shall get out - of the way
for the Examiners friends to run the
Home and steal its appropriations fol
their bull beef and spoiled corn, and
to make its household roost for theil
retainerS.