The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1913-12-19

making a matte '-o-Sr., with no ell
fort whatever to relieve the cause.
1t is not always an easy matter to
relieve the causes, but much can be
done and much is being done. 1t is
all mistake, however, to expect too
much for so-called juvenile courts.
They are more than worth while, but
people get strange notion that they
are intended as a cure-all when moth
ing is further from the fact.
The home, the school and the
church are the factors to be used in
making of character; and just in
proportion as you make character and
endow every boy and girl with the
moral courage to do right, because it
is right and not because you will get
in jail if you don't, in the same pro-
portion do you reduce crime.
Of course boys and men are large
ly responsible for the troubles of
girls. And in spite Of the best home
training, you find boys and girls go
ing wrong; but do not forget that
that is always the exceptional case;
and when one boy or girl from good
home goes wrong, there are more
than hundred who do not go wrong.
In fact the great majority of boys
and girls in this country are whole
some, pure and honest; and the great
majority of homes are good American
homes, producing the noblest citizen
ship the world ever saw.
I am an optomist and I believe that
things are better; but you can't keep
them better unless you keep up the
eternal fight that the right must wage
against the evil; and while crime is
! increasing it must be remembered at
the same time that good citizenship is
increasing. Most boys, like most men,
are honest, but I do say that there is
fearful amount of depravity among
the children in the cities of this coun-
try; and I don't blame the children
at all; I blame the parents, the men
and women and city officials There
are many who are not to blame, but
there are many who are.
| OF course 1 will not be misunder-
stood. The average boy and girl who
goes wrong deserves to be firmly
dealt with, and I have sent many of
! the older ones to jail and many of
them to reformatories; and do not
hesitate to do so in proper cases.
They must suffer for the wrong doing,
and they must be made be made to
know that after all, they are them
selves responsible for what they do.
! The point I make is that they at
least deserve a square deal; for op-
portunity, environment, example, are
everything in the life of an individ-
ual, and the boy or girl who does
right may have been even worse than
the boy or girl who does wrong, if
these conditions had been reversed in
their lives; and while character can
sometimes lift the individual above
environment, we cannot Judge these
children with charity and justice un-
less we take all these things into con-
sideration.
One of the chief causes of dishon-
esty among boys and immortality
among girls is the fact. that the news
papers TEEN with such stories. 1 do
not mean by this to blame the news
papers, as some people do. The news
papers publish what the people do,
and what the people want to know,
and the fault, if there be fault,
must be charged up to the people
themselves, to the public sentiment
OF the times, which must change if
other thinvs change.
| Boys and virls read apout the graft
and dishonesty among people in the
supposedly higher walks of life and
the example is a powerful thing for
evil in their lives. Children become
calloused more or less to vice, and
get really false notions, because what
they read in the papers is after all
the exceptional case, and too many
of US are prone to judge the general
condition by what is, after all only
an exceptional or special condition.
I believe that the messenger service
is one Of the greatest corrupters OF
boys.
| There are many pure, honest girls
in the department stores, and we dis
like to speak Of the dangers encoun-
tered here, because we have such a
high respect for the many good, pure
girls who courageously lead noble
life under all kinds of trials and
temptations; but no one knows better
than these very girls the temptations
they endure. and how many of their
sisters fall.
There are certain young scoundrels
In every community who go about
seeking whom they may devour, and
who lead many girls astray; and
4 Urer