The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-02-07

out of the actual work connected with
social betterment. but | want to mere
ly arouse others TO see things as they
are and let them then remedy their
own evils, which they can readily do
Ii they can see shcm
That's the whole trouble. The cause
of slum districts. low moral standards
and criminal classes is not bad people.
It's the good people. Such things come
into any community when the good
people of that com munity voluntarily
close their eyes. When people refuse
TO see bad conditions they can't see
them. First, there ia the natural neg
loot of home conditions and then things
go to pieces.
Gods two most important command
ants are Love God and Love Your
Neighbor Stun districts and criminal
classes and bad boys and bad girls
spring up i'm any city where the good
people forget TO love their neighbors
when the rich people forget TO love the
poor people and the educated forget
to love the ignorant Then is when
there is class division, the poor and the
ignorant are shut off to themselves, their
homes are neglected and then comes the
slum and the bad boys and the low NOR
ais and criminal classes
Use an Ounce of Prevention
Don't spent your money and time
on building UP a juvenile court system
or a system OF leniency, placing bad
boys ON their good behavior, or a sys-
tenn of correction In juvenile Institutions.
Spend your time and energy In putting
such places out of business by having
no bad boys and girls for them to handle.
There is no such a thing as a bad
boy. There are lots of boys that have
been made bad. but there never existed
I.aI Anxr l.ax- sI.., issfaff nr n
formed is full of energy, full of steam.
It's got to escape in some way or other.
II you don't give him Fairgrounds and
proper home conditions for it to escape
in. or II you sit on his escape by valve
by means of some Puritan code of con-
duct rules, It's going to escape some
other way and then the chances are that
he win become a bad boy
This whole thing has been sort of a
religious campaign with me. II has now
been nearly 80 years since | first be-
came interest I'd while acting police
reporter on the New York newspapers.
Since that time we have done much for
New York. ! have written many books
which | have reason to believe and which
/ hope have done some good have
Travelled in every state in the union ex-
cept Mississippi. Why l never got 10
Mississippi / don't know, merely some
chance, ! suppose. / have lectnred In al
most every important city In the coun-
try and my whole theory is based on
nothing more nor less than It's the
voluntarily closed eyes of the good, the
educated and the wealthy which makes
slum districts and criminal people, that
boy has so much steam that must
escape, that the remedy is not In meth
DDS of court procedure or houses of corr
recton but in putting these places out
Of business by correcting the evil which
sends them there, that there Is no such
thing as bad child, but that there
are many children made bad and that
this making is the key to the solution
of the whole social betterrnent question
and the SUM problems of all commune
ties"
Mr. Riis is small of stature with gray
hair and a kindly voice but a flood OF
conversation that snaps and bristles with
the energy and poise of the man VINO
knows his SUBJECT. lie is Ga years old.
but has the appearance of 40, Probably
his best known book Is the first one
he wrote. "How the Other Half Lives,
nSS3) Other of his better known works
are THE Children of the Poor Os92t.
"Nisby's Christmas, 0S931. "Out oi
Mulberry Street dS9s). "The Making
of An American" 090D. THE Battle
with the Slum. d902. And Theodore
Roosevelt, The Citizen" d90D The lais
Ter is a biography of Mr.. Roosevelt ..nd
'the Making of An American Is an an-
photography.