The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-01-12
WANTED-A DETENTION HOME.
BY Peter A. simpkin.


It is almost unthinkable that a COM
munity should be Indifferent, or even
careless. of the welfare OF its children.
Two things make it so. The most price
less thing in earth is human life, be-
cause alike of its cost and its capability.
All that lies behind us, and which is
our boosted heritage, derives its value
from the fact that its suffering, its he
roisrns, its sacrifices, have all been made
for human life.
Then. too, if there be any hope for the
future in this land, it must lie in its
young life. What tomorrow is TO be
viii be no less determined by the vol
ume of the worthy young manhood and
womanhoon that is in the mass than
the volume of that which is unworthy
because vicious. unmastered, un-idealed.
And if the yesterday was that our chill
dren might be prohted. tomorrow will
be what these heirs of the ages, who
are about our feet, make ii.
In the rich, free life |of ~our time,
where by the seeming force of things
the child is thrust out far earlier than
of old to learn the lesson of life Tor
himself. there is an abnormal condition
in our juvenile life. One is not pessl-
mistic in facing the truth of things as
they are. There is undoubtedly an IN
crease in juvenile delinquencles, but
we are to congratulate ourselves be
cause the condition is keenly felt, and
across the land a hundred skilful and
gentle ministries to this variant life are
being carried on.
An eastern SOciolOgiSt said to the
writer a few days ago that he was
amazed that Salt Lake, so widely
known and commended for its juvenile
court its Newhouse Boys home and its
perfected work for girls, should be
without a detention home.
The writer does not believe that Salt
Lake is Indifferent to the problem, but
that it is not yet fully awake to this
need. One-half the cases of delin-
quencies are simply the uncontrolled
mischievousness of the boy. The other
half is initial viciousness. Only yes
terday complaint came to me OF boy
who entered room full OF valuable
equipment and began to tinker with the
valuable things about him with a
wrench. The proprietor demonstrated
and received for his pains a string Of
unbelievably foul epithets and tor
rent of abuse that was amazing in one
of really tender years. That boy need
ed to go to the juvenile court, not to be
sent TO a place of restraint fit only for
criminals but where for period under
gentle and firm control and ennObling
influence his soul might be pruned a
bit
1t is criminal to confirm tendencies to
vice and crime in the soul of child
or youth by putting him in the noxious
atmosphere of the abandoned humanity
we cali criminal.
1t is just as criminal to sit before the
child and confess heIplessness in his
committal to a custodial life in a re-
form institution.
1t is more criminal to allow the boy
to drift, for society to lose a loving
and tender brother, an affectionate hus-
band and father and a clean, upright
citizen to the unchecked tendencies of
evil so easily corrected by wise atten-
ton, so destructive when uncontrolled.
1t is absurd and wicked for the powers
that be TO abstain from hearty Coop
Grafton in the planting of this institu-
ton, Neither the question of its cost
nor its political control, its location nor
the personnel of it's management should
weigh for an instant against the present
need or future welfare of a single child.
Neither the stain of the prison-door,
which makes more rescidivists than
heredity, nor the folly of a course that
is marked in the untouched tendencies
that bear such bitter vintages for the
Individual and society should be allowed
to rob the state of the fine pOtentiali-
ties in the minds and lives of our young
America.
The detention home. a place Of wise
care and fine influence. where substi-
tute fatherhOOd and motherhood, with
time enough" to rescue the jewel of
child soul from its marring encrustatiOns,
are moving constantly about its inmates
is d crying need, for between the wick
ed parents who will not, the poor bur-
deued and unfortunate ones who cannot,
because Of life's press, and the easy
going ones, who soften love into license,
the state must because of its own self
interest reach out to save the child.
The splendid executive who is our
municipal master, the Hon. John S.
BransfOrd, can do no finer thing than
compel the installation of this vitality
necessarily bit Of social mechanism.
p. A. s.