The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1917-01-29

would not reach the cause Of this condition
which lies in the home, but would only
serve to aggravate it. Charitable giving
is, perhaps, necessary. but it is plain that
it should be given through the home and
not to children 1t school. This is entirely
feasible, under the conditions named
above, and is in accord with the experience
of Philadelphia and other cities where
such lunches have been served."-Supt. of
Schools Giles.
TO some is may seem 'hard-hearted and I'M
sympathetic that hungry children should not be
given free lunches at school." -Giles.
Christ says: "Or what man is there of you,
whom if his son ask bread will give him a
stone?" We believe every whole-souled man and
woman in the city of Richmond viii rise in right
eous indignation against a principle that would
deny lunches to hungry boys and girls after big
hearted women have collected the money to pro-
vide nourishing food for little ones who eat a
scant breakfast as early as and o'clock in the
morning and must go until noon before they re-
ceive another bite. We positively assert that it
is 'hard-hearted and unsympathetic" in the ex-
treme sense of the term to deny to these unfortu-
nate children the food that they need, for which
they crave, and which has been prepared and is
ready to alleviate their suffering. Are you not
offering these little children stones instead Of
bread when through the Vaccination of paid
agent of public philanthropy" and the support of
a superintendent of schools you refuse to give
them lunches? Breathes there father or a
mother in Richmond who does not denounce as
"hard-hearted and unsympathetic" the measures
that have been employed toskeep the little boys
and girls of Whitewater school from eating the
food that human love and sympathy has pre-
pared?
1T is not denied that some children come hun
cry and il-nourished to the Whitewater and 9th.
er schools of the city."-Giles.
What an admission Giles makes of the deplor-
able conditions at Whitewater and other schools
of the city! Ponder the tragedy of the situation.
Children with empty stomachs, little boys and
girls casting hungry eyes at crusts of bread, I'M
fortunate tots in the blithesome days of youth
when their souls ought to be filled with happi-
ness and gladness, going to school with the
gnawing pangs of hunger undermining their
physical welfare, laying condition that will
make them weak men and weak women, filling
their souls with horror of life and the future
condemned to sit long hours in school and forced
to acquire knowledge when they have not the
strength to pay attention or to master their les
sons. Can you imagine worse tragedy? Do you
believe that these boys and girls can be rearedGo
be good patriots? Must these conditions, which
the superintendent Of schools admits exist, be
perpetuated because Melpolder says free lunches
will interfere with his administration of charity
in the Whitewater school district and because
Giles is aiding and abetting him in his uncharita-
bic stand? We say it is a crime against childhood
even if one child must suffer hunger. If these
conditions prevail in other schools, as Giles says
they do, the citizenship of Richmond is permit
ting the perpetuation of an outrage that is al
most as bad as the slaughter of Bethlehem's in
fants ordered by Herod to kill the Christ-child
1T is true, however, that free lunches at
school would not reach the cause of this condi-
ton, which lies in the home, but would only serve
TO aggravate it."-Giles.
If children go to school hungry because they
do not get enough food at home, why doesn't the
Central Charity Bureau, of which Giles is presi-
dent, remedy the conditions in the home? What
is being done with the money that the citizens of
this city are putting up to run the bureau? Why
does not Giles, president of the Charity Bureau
and cognizant as he admits he is of the wretched
conditions in the homes that are sending hungry
children to school, instruct his secretary, Mel
polder, to apply remedial measures at once Does
Giles believe that the citizens of Richmond would
oppose the expenditure of money which gives
little children enough to eat? Isn't his statement
to Indiana to rest