The Republican journal., 1908-06-18
NATIONAL GEORGE JUNIOR REPUB.
llC TO SPREAD.

! Every State May Have Little Democracy
to Straighten Young Lives. Boys and
Girls Gone Wrong, Rule and Work for
Right
New YORK, June Is. With Callfor-
mia, New York, Connecticut and Mary.
land as it's original States, national
| republic of boys and girls has been
founded in this city today. me Ply
mouth Rock of this young nation lies
at the George Junior Republic in Free
| vile, where New York's strayed young
sters have reclaimed themselves for
fourteen years, and Dadoy george,
who has proved its Columbus, VIII pc
| its Washington. That every State IN
| the older union may eventually nave
! the same sure means OF turning us
young incorrigibles into good citizens
| is the plan of the national association
! which has lust been formed to stand
behind this Juvenile United States.
Pennsylvania, New Jersey and H.
linois are already planning State colo
MES to join the National George Junior
Republic, while dozen other States
have today applied to be represented,
each with its little working democracy
of boys and girls. Just as the parent
republic in this State is modelled exact
ly after the life and representative self
government of any American town, the
national body of young republics will
reproduce the government OF the larger
land, for which it will turn out thou
sands of good citizens from bad begin
nings.
At the first meeting of the adult Or
ganizers of this national movement to-
day, William R. George, Daddy" to
| over five hundred useful young men
and women and to the idea which has
Strengthened out their crooked starts in
life-reported his four original States
! to be re-organized and ready as basis
! for the new nation. Pioneering from
coast to coast, Mr.. George has settled a
band of young colonists in California
near Los Angeles and paved the way
for planting and nursing other colonies
in other States. Connecticut has been
reused to make much of its struggling
junior republic at Litchfield and Mary
lands older organization has also been
instated in the national federation.
Working their way to- self support
and respect, some two hundred boys
and girls less than sixteen years old are
|
State nucleus of the national junior
republic. Each of them has gone wrong
in the outer community and is learning
for the first time the self satisfaction
| of getting on the right side of things in
their own little democracy. AS judges,
| Jury, police prosecutors and legislators
they hold the fate of their fellows and
the young commonwealth entirely IN
their own hands. As foreman, skilled
| laborers or apprentices in the farm,
| furniture factory, bakery, printing
plant and laundry, these youngsters are
| finding out that they must do work and
reap its reward or loaf and starve. In
all the fourteen years of the parent re-
public in this State few of the many
hundred junior "citiZens," originally
sent there as incorrigibles, have failed
in the end to see the point and impress
it on those who followed
| The fine art of leaving absolutely
alone the young wills to work them.
selves right has proved rare gift, and
today the adult sponsors for the nation
al republic movement are searching
high and low for just the right men for
the hard positions of superintendent.
The California colony has been placed
in charge of graduate of the original
republic and other such trained workers
are to be produced by practical ex-
| perience in junior republic work. AS
the new States are taken in, colony
of selected "citizens'' of the George
Junior Republic here will be put in
training on an adjoining farm at Free
Vile to eventually blaze the trail to the
new territory as nucleus for its newly
instituted boy and girl State.