Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1913-03-05
L YEARS
FOR BOY RAISES
BIG PROTEST
Pity Is Expressed for Youth
Whose Sentence for Five
Cent Theft Is Upheld.

Men high in professional circles of
the city women whose hearts have
been touched, mothers whose souls
have known the anguish Of jailed sons,
sisters who have struggled against the
scott of society through no act of their
own, Atlantans of high and low estate
today protested against the incavcera-
ton Of thirteen year old Ollie Taylor
in reformatory following the order
Of the supreme court that the lad
must complete his eleven year term
in the state institution" for the theft
Of flve-cen bottle of beverage.
This uubearded lad. slender, bright
eyed. though mischievous, must spend
The next eleven years of life with the
hand of the sovereign state of Georgia
always on his shoulders.
Bereft Of his place in society. num-
bered and wearing the brand the law
has placed upon his back, Ollie Taylor
must during his best years become the
associate Of more hardened youths and
run the danger OF suffering through
that association
Courts Ruling.
The state supreme court sitting in
solemn session has so ruled. This
august body has declared in legal
verbiage that the lad who has already
spent three years of his thirteen in the
custody Of the law, must return to the
reformatolN and there serve out his
"ndetormin3te" sentence.
This means that the boy will re
main in care of those who guard law
breakers Tor eleven years. The SUI
preme court declared that the trivial
amount Of goods involved in the theft
could in no wise iuvalidate a sentence
from Judge Calhoun's couIp which
read uto Young Taylo.'s youth d thiet's
brand.
School or Prison?
III pursuance Of the high courts de-
cree. Young Taylor has been taken to
the retormatoly. This institution, it
is pointed out by its managers. is in
no sense a 'penitentiary." They de-
clare it is simply "home" or reform
school," where boys of tender years
will be guarded and their footsteps
guided in right paths
The fact remains that young Taylor
is at the reformatoy where boys of
nineteen years are working out SEN
fences for crimes ranging all the de-
grees of moral turpitude
Despite the assurance that the LAD
is but guarded not in a penitentiary,"
which comes from the lips Of his keep
ers, it is only TOO true that he wears
Uniform state brand Of the young
sters who are bad"
Alarmed by the clamor they fear
and in substantiation Of their claims
that young Taylor has been Justly dealt
with, the officers responsible for this
incarceration have dug up q record
against the lad, only ten years old
when arrested. This is the record:
Accused of stealing chickens, eggs,
fruit from stores.
Accused of stealing coca cola from
a wagon.
Arrested for hopping on freight
trains.
Interesting to mole is the fact that
the lads crimes" seem to consist of
the usual type of mischief-hardly Of
the type worthy Of q sentence Of elev-
en- years il a state oenal institution
a Joyful 5oyhood!
The trend Of the protests aroused
IS not on the question Of whether or
not the boy is an inmate Of this or that
institution. but are pointed on the
question of the depriyaI of his liberty.
Ii Is made the subject of caustic
comment that this lad. Yet i'm his for
NATIVE stage. should be subjected to
long and arduous Imprisonment just at