Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-11-28
THE CHILDREN OF IMMIGRANTS.
A solution of the Problem Proposed By Mr..
Riis.

Jacob A. Riis in the Forum.
The right to repress or suppress undesirable
immigration reefs with the general government.
We can only protest against having our city
made the dumping ground for half the poverty
and ignorance and vice of the old world. and
abide the result. But il we cannot do much
for or with the old immigrant who comes to
stay with US we can do almost anything with
his boy. With the children lies the solution of
this troublesome riddle. l would have them
gathered into our kindergartens and industrial
schools while they are very young. would
have the societies that conduct these supported
and endowed as the very best investment that
could be made to draw interest in good citizen
ship to come. / would have their schooling
surrounded with much better safeguards than
now through the enforcement of the compul-
sorry educational Law, the amendment of il TO af-
fix time limit within which the child's four
teen weeks year in school must come, the
appointment of sufficient number of truant
officers and the establishment of
truant home where the boy may be safe. At
present We in the illogical position Of ar
resting the boy for fear he may become a thief
By ldling in the streets and then locking him up
with thieves to make sure he will catch the CON
tagion. | would have the birth certificate of the
child that labors in factories substituted by law
for the present oath Of its father that il is of
legal age, which leads to perjury and child
slavery and ties the factory inspectors hands.
| would have the health department prodded
into doing its duty of compelling doctors and
midwives to register all births, the law COM
mands them, to the end that the registry might
soon become an effectual aid to the factory in
spector. Meanwhile l would let no foreign
born child that is not clearly of age go to
work In shop, except upon the evidence of
birth certificate from abroad
81 would have the law forhiddipc .be selling
Of liquors to child enforced In stead of laughed
at, as 1t is now. l would have the special court
for trial of Juvenile offenders, where they may
not mingle with old there's and criminals made
salutary fact as soon possible. 1t has been
talked Of long enough. l would have some
competent official appointed BY the legislature
without delay to have the supervision of the
public institutions where children are kept
with power to take them out and board them
out when he saw fit; and would have parents
who put their children into the institutions
merely to get rid of them until they are old
enough to earn wages severely punished.
would have some sort of home or house estab-
lished in the country somewhere for the unhap-
piest of all the hapless little wretches of our
streets-the crippled children, whom no one
wants: Finally. having oil these plasters to
cure the evil that besets US, would reach away
down under it and pull it up by the roots by
Wrestling our municipal government and our
municipal politics out of the grasp of the sa-
loon. And this l would do in the simplest of all
manners-by giving the voters something better
than the saloon when they are looking for it.
l would put club rooms minus the rum in the
crowded quarters and invite the young men in
from the streets TO enjoy themselves in any
way they fit. / would encourage them
to discuss there the current topics Of the day
they would not need much encouragement
and when election time came around politics
would naturally come up on top. Young men
SO trained would, when the time to vote came.
be sure to give good account of themselves
We have saloon politics now because the saloon
is the poor mans club Give him better club
and you will have better voting. 1t is all simple
and natural. Nor is there anything Utopian in
the club plan. 1t las worked to a charm here
among the boys, and men are nothing but big
boys after all. That done we shall have fallen
into Franklin's way in good earnest, and it will
be question of time merely, If we are not
swamped in immigration. when we shall really
have led or driven the poor out of their pow
erty, even in spite of the tenement"