The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-04-27
Our Special Contributors-=-ISo5.
AS TO GANGS.
Vice and Crime Among the City Youth.
By JACOB A. RIIS, of New York.
Author of "How the Other Half Lives, etc.


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The school exercises no restraint
upon him. Likely enough it was
crowded and refused to take him in.
The saloon never refuses him. It
gapes wide for him night and day. 1t
is his club room, his headquarters. It
is the only kindly association he
knows of, and he makes the most of
it. Then the tough is under full
headway,
By and by he grows to be man.
He does not know SO much as he did
all boys of certain age know more
than their fathers-but he knows
enough to keep a grip on his boy
when he gets one. He is his match,
and the boy does not need to be told
OF it. There is nothing slow about
the process by which he curbs the
lads early instincts of lawlessness
He knows what it is to have trouble
with the police, and he has had all he
cares for in his family. Parental au-
thority resumes its sway. The tough
disappears in the third generation as
suddenly as he appeared in the sec
/ ond.
The Way to Check the Gang.
The way to check the development
OF the gang is to substitute some
thing that will take the place of the
saloon and supply the lacking re-
straint of home. To my mind, there
is nothing better than the Boys Club
todo this, provided that it is run for the
boys, and not for the entertainment
of handful of idle and sentimental
philanthropists. The club supplies
the very means of organization of
which the gang Is the slum express
sion. The boy who can march in
step with his fellows, with wooden
gun on his shoulder, runs so much
less chance of having to march in
lock-step later on, with striped suit
on his back. And unless his in
stincts are criminal, which they are
not in nine cases out of ten, he will
vastly prefer it. He simply has not
had chance. It was denied him by
the slum. Crime is largely ques-
ton of athletics. His only way of
working off the superabundant steam
nature supplied him with was to fight.
To play, which according to the kim
dergarten idea is the normal occupa-
tisn of childhood. he had no chance
In the yard the landlord hung up
sign that he would have no ball-toss-
ing. The city ordinances and the po-
liceman made common cause against
him in the street. They are sitting
together on the safety valve of the
boy, and the result is an explosion
The "gang" is the explosion.
The point then, is to get at the lad
who is thus set adrift at a critical
age, while it is yet time. / have not
the least doubt that it can be done.
1t is done, in fact, every day. The
gospel of good will holds the secret,
and it is Very simple one. re-
member the gang of young rapscal-
lions that adjourned over, as it were,
to observe the program of a certain
body of young women reformers who
had come among them offering to
make friends. They organized some
of the Younger elements into clubs,
with very promising results. The
older gang held aloof until con-
vinced that the young women were
straight" Then they sent delega-
tion to them. 1--WE will change and
have your kind of club, was the mes
sage it brought, and the olive branch
was accepted. The gang went out of
business.
The Boys Club.
The biggest boys club in the
country, and also the first, if l. am
not mistaken, came into existence in
that way. 1t had been prosecuting
the missionaries of the neigborhood,
pelting them with mud and stones,
until in their very helplessness they
appealed to the gang the, had been
fighting unsuccessfully with the po-
lice for months. They asked the
gang in to have coffee and cakes;
and the gang came, having made
sure that no policemen were in am
bush. That was the beginning of
great work based upon a new and
mutual understanding. There are
no gangs in that neighborhood to-
day, but the club has several thou
sand members.
The Work of the Kindergarten.
Every refining influence that pene-
trates through the kindergarten or
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