Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1902-03-06
ONE BEACON OF HOPE.

There have arisen in Atlanta Of late
several cases Of youthful depravity with
which it has seemed impossible to deal in
any satisfactory way. Young boys prac-
tically without parental guidance or
home influences have been picked up from
the street by the police, more to save
them from inevitable crime than for any
offense they had committed. yet for whose
punishment or restraint the law made no
adequate provision.
While it might have been within the
power OF the recorder to commit these
youthful prisoners to the changing on
general principles. as it were, this he very
properly hesitated to do because OF the
evil effects Of the associations connected
Herewith.
He thought to send them to the county
reformatory would be the most humane
and practical way to deal with their cases,
but here the law establishing the reform
atory prevented, by reason of a provision
which prevents that institution accepting
prisoners not guilty Of state offenses.
A provision, by the way, which is a
manifest absurdity If that institution is
to do the real work for which it was es-
tablished. i e., to save the hayward
youths Of this city and county before they
are beyond redemption. For as the law
now applies, a youth must become a Grim
inal, perhaps stepped in crime before the
law steps in to save him. An absurdity
again by reason of the fact that the city
Of Atlanta, through its recorders court,
is practically deprived of the use of an
institution, the cost of whose maintenance
the city pays nine-tenths. But these are
matters for future legislative regulation,
and will, perhaps, receive attention at the
proper time.
They have bearing however, on what
we started out to say by emphasizing the
great value to this state of an institution
already established and in successful OPP
GRAFTON, whose mission is to save the way
ward children Of Georgia before the blight
of vice and imprisonment have dTarfed
their souls and marred their lives past all
hope of cure.
We allude to the Georgia Industrial
Home, founded some years ago by Rev.
William S. Mumford, a man whose work
for humanity has already given him
place in the history of Georgia and made
secure his reward hereafter even should
his institution go out of existence today.
But thanks to the liberality OF the good
people of Georgia there is no danger or
even possibility of this. On the contrary,
it has grown each year, until now it is
one of the recognized charitable institu
tons of Georgia with a definite place to
I'LL and a sound, practical purpose to sus-
tain it,
The only thing lacking to make this
noble institution all that it should be is
state aid and state control, and those we
are convinced, wisdom and humanity will
prompt some future general assembly to
accord it. No other argument in support
OF this suggestion is needed than a visit
to the home itself and a study of the work
it is doing. 1t is making industrious, in
telligent God-fearing men and women out
of the waits from our streets. 1t holds
out a hand to those who are worse than
orphans and yet whom our orphan asy-
lums cannot reach. 1t throws out the
lifeline to the Maynard youth before he
has been swept away by the whirlpool of
vice. 1t becomes a guide for those poor,
frail craft who, though no fault of their
own, have been sent adrift on lifes tenn
pectuous sea without a rudder and with
out a chart.
It makes men, good, honest, Industrious
men, of boys before the gangrene Of sin
has eaten away the best that is in them.
And ii nurtures into womanhood the frail
flowers that grow along the by-ways of
life before some ruthless hand has touch
ed and furnished all that is worth preserv-
ing.
The Journal esteems it pleasure to
urge upon the people of Georgia the most
liberal individual support of this most
worthy institution until such a time as
our lawmakers. through a broader vision
of things, may see in its support and con-
troll by the state the surest. easiest and
most economical way of lessening crime
and reducing the burden on our courts.