Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, 1920-03-27
THE PASSING THRONG

1850 persons mao Deon arrested IN Sc
attic the past fiscal year, and among that
number were 789 colored persons. On first
blush my wife exclaimed, "that s good
showing for the colored citizens,' and 1
quite agreed, but on sober second thought
I discovered that instead Of being good
showing for them it unveiled a deplorable
state of affairs, and, using the words of
another, something must be did, If it
be true that Seattle has upwards Of 100000
then the percentage of arrests among all
classes of white citizens was slight frac-
ton over five per cent of the entire white
population. If Seattle has 5000 colored
citizens, and this is questioned, then the per-
centage of arrests among the entire cOlOred
population was a fraction under twelve per
cent. If, as maintained by some, there are
but 1000 cOlOred citizens in Seattle, then
the percentage OF arrests was almost twenty
per cent Of the entire cOlOred population,
which, to say the least, is an alarming state
of affairs. and, as said above, something
must be did.
No, there is ntohing to be gained by MAX
ing war on the various "socal clubs', for
they will continue to exist, if not publicly
then privately, and men who wish to visit
them have as much right to do so as the.
men who visit the palatial uptown clubs,
in which as much gambling goes on as in
Hence Broken's club. But those mothers
and fathers who have sons, whom they
hope to make useful as well as honorable
men of, would do well to get their heads
together and establish places Of amusement
and entertainment for boys in their tender
years and thereby destroy the desire to
visit and frequent clubs and resorts, where
of and mot
and indulge in games of chance, which is
accompanied by the vlest Of language, for
the soul sake Of gain and amusement.
There are three well established churches
in Seattle among the colored citizens and
neither Of them. thus far has taken any
steps to provide any form of amusement
for the boys of the community. They
praise the Lord with one accord on Sun
day and leave them to the devil on Mon
day and until the next Sunday. An even
ing with the boys for fun and frolic is an
unheard of thing in the colored churches OF
Seattle. ''Get religion is alright and
should be the desired thing for every per-
son, but if you attempt to shoot religion
into the boy, you may perchance shoot 1t
plum through him and thereby leave HIM
the worse from his experience. Some boys
will go wrong in spite OF all you may say
or do for them to the contrary. but such
boys are the exceptions and not the rule.
The young colored boys of this city under
twenty years Of age are permitted to run
wild and many Of them may be seen as
sociating with men Of the easy life and
twice their age. This is so because the
older heads have made no provision for
their amusement among themselves. Ii
each of the churches is not able to provide
club rooms for their amusement then all OF
the churches and the various upl1ft organl-
cations should get together and establish
a community club room and it should not
be buckled down too hard and fast to the
cold time religion ideas. Have a club
room sufficiently liberal to permit the boys
to periodically invite their girl friends
thither for an evening Of dancing and
gaming. Such club room would be an
incentive to attract the attention of the boys
from club rooms frequented by older men