The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-09-10
AMERICAN BOYS AND OTHERS.

Col. Alexander Hoagland. popularity
known as 1.-THE newsboys' friend" title
he well deserves. delivered an address in
Terre Haute few nights ago in which he
said:
ing statement. 1t is that six out Of seven
of the boys in the United States are Amerf-
can, while nine out Of ten of those learning
Germans, Swedes, Danes. Norwegians, etc.
You will ask why this discrimina ton
against the American boy? / am an Ameri-
can myself and mention It with profound
humiliation. 1t is explained thus: The ma
tionalities mentioned. by a fixed rule OF
their society, keep their children away from
the streets and all street influence after
nightfall, while the American boy roams
the streets at all hours of the night and will
necessarily grow up idle, disobedient, sleeps
late and will do nothing. He graduates for
the criminal, tramp. hold-up or train
ditcher.
1t sometimes happens that reformers allow
their zeal for a good cause to obscure their
judgment in other directions and lead them
to make statements which, however we'll
intended towards the cause they represent,
are not entirely fair to others Colonel
Hoagland is entitled to the greatest possible
credit for what he has done in the way of
preventing and reforming crime among the
y
fleets upon American boys as a class he
should be sure Of his facts. That American
boys are no better and American parents
no wiser than they should be are very
patent facts, but it may be doubted if they
are worse than others. 1t is very far from
being true that ali American boys graduate
for criminals, tramps, hold-ups or train
ditchers. AS men they fill a large majority
Of the leading and responsible positions in
American life, and they do not furnish all
of the criminals by any means. American
boys are not as we'll trained or we'll disci-
plined as they should be. but in spite of
their own defects, which common to
all boys and in spite of the defects of
American family life and discipline an i'm
mense proportion of the boys turn out"
WELL What Colonel Hoagland says in re-
gard to the disparity in the number of boys
of American parentage and those of foreign
! parentage learning trades or handicrafts is
doubtless true in degree. though he prob
ably makes the disproportion greater than
| 1t really Is. But learning a trade is not
| always the salvation of a boy, and he may
become very good and useful citizen with
| out learning one. Journeymen sometimes
| turn criminals, and some Of the most skill
| full and successful burglars and safeblowers
in the country have been skilled mechanics.
| The great productive industries of the coun-
| try now furnish employment to a vast nun-'
Der of persons who have not learned trades.
| The boy who becomes an inventor or manu-
facturer of agricultural implements, build
err of steel bridges or locomotives, con-
structor of ships or leader in any of the
thousand industries of the country is en-
titled to quite as much credit as the one
who hammers iron grinds saws all his
! life. Trades and manual labor are honor
able, but so are other things and the rela-
| tive proportion of other honorable occupa-
| tions is greater now than formerly. The
| worlds work is not done as much by hand
| as it once was, and it does not take as
many human hands or handicraftsmen to
| do 1T. Machinery does very large part.
| Why should American boys learn the shoe
makers trade when nearly all the shoes
| worn nowadays are made by machinery?
| Most Of the so-called shoemakers of to-day
| in this country are mere cobblers, patchers
| and members of shoes, and they are mostly
| foreigners, too. There is a place for them
| and they are needed, but they are no better
| than the American who runs a big shoe
| factory. The same is true in many other
| mechanical and manufacturing lines. Pro-
ductive industry is as important as ever.
| but mere manual labor is relatively less So
! The American boy who goes through poly
| technic school learns half a dozen trades
| while the boy apprenticed to a trade is
| learning one, and he learns a great deal
besides. So It is clearly fallacious to argue
| that learning a trade saves boy from
| crime or that failing to do so tends to make
| him a criminal. 1t is idleness that kills
learning nothing and doing nothing. Not
all foreign parents keep their children off
the streets at night, nor do all American
| boys roam the streets at all hours of the
night, as Colonel Hoagland says. Such
| statements are much too sweeping. Stats
| tics show that foreign immigration has con-
tributed largely to the prevalence of crime
| in the United States, and that the children
of foreign parentage, born in this country.
! furnish fully as many criminals, in proper
| ton to their numbers, as do the children
| of American parentage. The census of
| Massachusetts for 1895 shows that of 1,37S
prisoners in the States penitentiaries and
| jails 74S were native born and $50 foreign
| born, while of the 74s native born 4S5 were
! of immediate foreign descent. In other
words, S1la per cent. of all prisoners were
either foreign born or of foreign descent.
These proportions would vary in different
| States, but the figures show that large
| part of our criminal element is imported.
| Nothing that has been said is intended to
| detract from the value and Importance of
| the work in which Colonel Hoagland has
been engaged many years. 1t is great
| work and there is great need of it, that of
| lessening the tendency to crime among the
young and lettering the condition of home
| less boys in cities. But it must not be as
| sumed that the American boy is worse than
1 others.
An INTERESTING EVENT.
| In old slave times Charleston, Va, was
L IL of