Little Falls herald. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1889-1950, 1909-11-26

-
Large Audience Hear Flo
quent Speaker on ''The
Homeless Child
A packed house greeted Father John
Daily of Milwaukee at the Congrega-
tlonai church last Friday evening to
hear his lecture on "The Homeless
Child And The Juvenile Court. which
was delivered in his very able
manner. He spoke with great force
and elouuenCe and held his audience
in wrapt attention throughout,
touching the hearts of his audience
with his stories of actual happenings
of homeless children which were
tragical in their sadness, and the
recitation of which caused flow of
tears from the eyes Of number of
those in the audience.
Rev. DAILY relieved the tension,
which his vivid word pictures created,
bv little stories of wit and humor
which threw the audience into
paroxysms of laughter. :.
The priest orator stated that of all
the progress and prosperity this
country can boast of there is nothing
that pleases him so much as the will
1ngness shown by the people through
out the country, no matter of what
denomination, towards the giving ct
charity. the great subject in which no
creed differed. He cited how orphan
homes, schools and colleges have been
established by different denominations
to furnish home for the homeless
children. and to train and educate
them. He SAID he was proud to state
that the Boys Home in Milwaukee.
of which he IS rector. receives aid
not alone from the people OF his own
faith but from the people of all
denominations.
Father DAILY told Of how the
children are picked up in the big
cities of this country in dry goods
boxes, filthy alleys and other places
even worse, some of them having
Quilted their homes with little OF no
reason. and some with only too good
reason, and how their young lives
were blighted by having the stigma
of the jail put on them in placing
them in the state training school, and
the reformitory, where they learn only
too quickly all that they had been
unacouainted with in vice and filth,
although they were conducted the best
thew could be under the circumstances.
To illustrate how the stigma of being
held IN one of these institutions affects
the future life of the unfortunate boy
or GIRL, Rev. Daily cited the case Of a
youth who had been taken from state
oFf no
training at the Boys Home in
Milwaukee was given place IN a
bank. The young man was bright and
at the age Of twenty years he became
the head bookkeeper OF the concern,
was honored by all his acquaintance
and was fairly started. One day,
however, an old man with an old
woman's tongue, which the speaker
stated is the worst form OF an old
woman, told the proprietor OF the
bank that he had jail-bird working
for him. The news soon spread
around, and soon the young man found
that he was being avoided by all his
friends and at last someone made him
acquainted with the reason. He re-
signed his position, took to drinking
to drown his troubles, went from bad
to worst until he finally landed in the
penitentiary tor holding up a man at
the point of gun. On one OF Father
Days visits to the Illinois state prison
he saw the man and in a talk with
him the prisoner asked ''Wny did they
not let me alone when I was doing
well?''
It is for the purpose of keeping
children from this stigma that the
Juvenile courts are being instituted in
the different cities of the country, and
the court sees that the children have
the proper care, are sent to school to
get proper education, and takes the
place of the parents when the latter
fail in their obligations to their
children.
Father Daily told of number of
cases where the drunken father or the
debased mother sent the child to
wine rooms, where vice OF every
nature prevails, to get him or her
Intoxicating liquors, almost from their
infancy being trained to wlckedness
and vice.
It IS for these also that the
institutions for the homeless are con-
bucted but the speaker stated that
no matter how fine an institution it
may be- it cannot take the place OF
home in a good family, and said
that the children are placed in such
homes from the Milwaukee institution
as quickly as possible. Here they
learn the value OF money, and how it
can be used to best advantage, whereas
in the institutions they become
mechanical, doing vorything at the
sound OF bell.
The speaker lmpOrtuned the
audience to consider what they might
have been IT given only the chance