Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1895-09-26
THE CURFEW CRAZE.
1t Is Seizing Upon the People of
the Northwest.
In Minnesota and the Dakotas Children
Must Keep OF the Streets at Night
Revival of an Iuquisitor-
ial Custom.

ial Custom.
In our western states there is so much
faith in the mysterious power of legis-
lation that not merely commercial adj
vantage and political honesty are or
dered by law, but even private morality
is often made the subject of legislation.
This is done, says the New York Sun,
as hopefully as if all the laws of the
past had done what was expected of
them. The latest of these experiments
Is the Minnesota process for making
children good. 1t is a revival of the
curfew custom, which does not seem
original until one considers that its APP
plication to life on the edge of the
twentieth century is in reality making
a new thing OF it. This revival affects
all persons under sixteen years of age,
and is the device of ia Minnesota editor,
who hit upon the discovery that chill
dren of evil inclination will change
their natures if they can be kept off the
streets. The plan was first put in oper-
alton in saltwater last winter, and has
swept like a fire over the state until to-
day nearly twenty cities have passed
ordinances reviving the old cover-iire
law which was borrowed from or else
gave rise to the military institution of
the reveille. Only the largest towns,
like st. Paul, Minneapolis and Duluth,
have held back and given reason for
the belief that parents are still entitled
to the exercise of their judgmentin in the
ordering of their home government.
Without considering the prerogative
OF parents the mass of the common
councilmen, preachers and editors of
the state declare the system an excel
lent one, as it undoubtedly is if the
rights of the parents and of the indi-
vldual generally are not worth con-
sideration. The new practice has
spread into South Dakota, where four
or five towns have already adopted it,
and it is prophesied that by next Jan
uary all the towns in both Dalxotas (the
same that were carried for prohibition
by the strength of the Swedish vote)
will put it into effect. Then, as one
enthusiastic Minnesota editor predicts,
"the curfew bell will ring in an order of
things that shall, in the not far distant
future, raise the standard of manhood
and womanhood both morally and
physically and make better citizens of
the rising generation"
In some of the towns and cities the
church bells are rung at the curfew
hour, and in all of them the town bell,
either in the fire tower or the town
hall, rings out the command for the
police to clear the streets of children.
Then, where the law is enthusiastical- |
" enforced, stern search and chase
after children is begun. They are pur-
sued along the streets, and barns and |
sheds are ransaclled for Them The |
police lurk near their haunts, and, no |
natter how innocently they may be |
spending their time, they are caught |
and warned and dragged off to the sta
ton houses. The ordinances prescribe |
The ringing of the hour, which is nine
o'clock in some towns and ten |
o'clock in others, but the law is usually |
clear in it's declaration that the hour.
and not the notice of its arrival, shall |
be needed. No boy or girl can escape
arrest by reason of deafness or the
bare assertion that he or she did not |
near the alarm. This custom has
not spreal in this way without the ac-
compartment of protest. Men have
declared in print and in emphatic
speech that the curfcw ordinance is not |
only unconstitutional, but that it is
productive of worse conditions than
those it seeks to cure. They have
shown that it is born of q population
wherein some other clcment-whether
Scandinavian or \yh1tCvpr--i.s Stronrar
;han the Anglo-Saxon with its unalter-
able love of individual liberty. They
have argued that it is as un-American
as it is unprogressive. The essence of |
jhe new rule has been shown to be
;his: That if child roams the street at
night he is in danger of becoming a
criminal, and in order that this narrow
view shall triumph the law slips in and
makes hiA criminal by arresting him
and locking him up in the company of |
hardened characters and with u stain
lpon his reputation. But these protests
lave made no impression upon anv
common council because the new idea
las been adopted with enthusiasm, es-
pecially by the half million foreign
born persons in the Minnesota popula-
ion. "What if it is unconstitutional?"
hey ask (and this question is repeated
editorially in the country press) st is
not more unconstitutional than many
another statute that graces the law
books, and it is a good thing because it
will make good citizens of bad chill
iren."
An Ideal Community