The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1922-01-17
AS Others See 1t
THE SALVATION OF YOUTH
(Tampa Tribune.)


Senator McCumber, in a recent speech, voiced
a truth that is too little understood and practiced
Speaking of youth and the proper care to bring
it into selfsupporting and respectable citizenship
he said:
Work is what they (children) need and what
they ought to have to make them self-supporting
citizens. The idea is growing that a child should
not work until he is 16 years old. If he never
works until then, he will never learn to work"
A greater truth was never spoken by mortal
lips. And because it courageously opposes one
of the greatest falacies of the age-a maudlin
impractical ideaism without substance or reason
it should be nailed on the Intel of every home
where the responsibilities of parenthood obtain
and make the golden text of family conduct.
Selling on the sweat shop conditions existing
in comparatively few spots in the republic,
so-called child labor law was enacted by the fed
eral congress- True to form, states followed the
example set Thus it has been made impossible
for the youth to find employment. As has been
so often the case, distemper requiring only local
treatment and that of the most delicate kind
since much greater issues were involved, was
transformed into a national malady of a far diff
ferent and much more menacing sort.
| Lump all the bad effects of the sweatshop con-
ditions that have ever been realized into one
mass then stand off against that just half the i'll
effects of youthful deness, and observe the great
disproportion. 1t is idleness in men, idleness in
women-yes, idleness in children and youth that
! breeds the crimes, the distemperE the social NAL
aides of mankind
Work does not do it. 1t never has and it never
will. Work is the salvation of mankind from
! the very cradle to the last lettering step of age
| as it tumbles into the grave. Just the other day
| as it were, officer of the state visited Tampa
to that the child labor law was enforced
This good man had long list of prescribed oc-
! equations In the list was that of messenger
boy.
Think of the great of affairs who have
come up through keen competition, sans educa-
tion. influence, and sans capital starting as
messenger boy. 1t is said that the duties of a
messenger boy bring him in contact with the
seamy, evil side of life. What OF that? Does he
not have to come in contact with all phases of
life sooner later? What better, then, than he
should come in contact with it the represen-
tatve of legitimate business and while I'M
der the pose giving influence of successful
business man and home influences?
St far from it being unlawful 10 employ boys
under 16 years there should be- if any law at
boys above 10 be employed in some capacity
Employment early in life supplements the studies
CT the schooroom; there thousands and thou
lands Of where employment. steady and
uninterrupted by school attendance, las produ; I'd
far better educated and more worth while citizens
than the average of the present day
In Tampa today boys are growing up ripe 10.
the devil and the employments of the radical
simply because they relieved of the RESPONSE
bilites of life. There thousands of others
whose minds are naturally turning in the right
direction. yet who being discouraged by their
inability to secure employment. No boy with
he inherent elements of Independent manhood in
him wants to loaf in idleness. BY such means
we make Jelly BEANS not men.
Senator McCumber is spiendidly right. If a
youth never works until he attains the age fxed
by the grotesque and impractical child labor
laws, he will never be the class of citizen Amer.
lea has fixed its standard