The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1923-02-10
Ministers and Welfare Workers
Ask Mayor to Act When
- Police Wink
immortality SHOCKING
Sixty-six Boys and Girls in
Court; Conditions at School
Deplorable
(New York News.)

fare workers., meeting in this city
with r. G. Jones, superintendent Of
schools, demanded that the board of
education call upon Mayor Fred
Kohler and the police department to
give certain parts of Central avenue
S. E. and nearby streets a moral
housekeeping.
They alleged conditions of inn
morality "too shocking for utter
ance," charged that designing men
were entering school buildings to
make dates with colored girls, that
boys and girls of fourteen and fif-
teen are being entertained in houses
of i'll repute, and that whiskey and
drugs are being peddled in whole
sale quantities.
All of this, according to the colored
leaders in the conference, is going on
with the knowledge of the police, who
they say, are making practically no
effort to clean up the district.
Supt. Jones call led the conference
in an effort to find some cure for
admitted evils in territory surround
ing Central High School, Kennard
Junior High School, Case Woodland
Elementary School and other schools.
Sixty-six Brought to Court.
Juvenile Judge George S. Adams
recently instituted a cleanup of i'm
morality and drink among colored
boys and girls Of Kennard Junior
High School.
Court investigators and school
truant officers discovered that sixty
six children were making a practice
Of attending q women's house on
Norman avenue S. E., off E. 105 St.,
where all manner Of dancing was en-
couraged, liquor sold and rooms
rented. .-.---..: :..-. .~ ..--.-.,. ,,s..~e
Judge Adams assigned probation
officers to clean up the situation, and
within week the entire number who
had been in the house were brought
before him. He sent the woman who
ran the dancing school, to the
Marysville reformatory, and sent two
dozen of the Observation-Disclosures
old boys and girls to state industrial
schools.
+ A half dozen girls admitted i'm
morality in the women's home, and
others pointed out various offend
ers. About half the sixty-six were
held blameless, as they had only
visited the place. All the school
children testified that the woman
sold liquor and charged admission to
her place.
Since then Judge Adams was in
formed that the place on Norman
avenue was only one of a number Of
similar dance halls that were being
run. They were organized by a man,
his informant said, and the man hired
women to operate the places.
Parents Seem UNIFORMED.
when a wave of immortality hits
district, like this one was hit, the
Adams. Practically every family
is dragged into it in some way or
another, and the strange part is that
none of the parents suspect what is
going on. :,. .-
However, the exodus of defin-
quents to Lancaster and Delaware
will cause them to think little. The
decent people of the neighborhood
have q right not to be contaminated
with this sort Of cattle, and should
not be forced to send their children
to school with them"
"The question is much broader
than Celeyeland," Rev. H.. G. Bailey
asserted. dts q matter Of the
morale of the South being trans-
planted in the North. In the South
every colored girl is considered the
legitimate prey of every man, white
or black. With the influx Of colored
people from the South the same
moral situation is being set up.
w. r. Conners, director Of the ""Ne-
gro" Welfare Association, asserted
the problem is not a racial one at ALL
BIames Lax Supervision.
""It's an age-old human problem"
he said. "Both races are equal at
fault. II seems to me there is Lax
supervision in the schools some
where. / may be a small town man,
but I know that in Pennsylvania,
where lived for time the children
were considered under the care of
the parents from the time they left
home until their arrival on the
school grounds. From that time un-
til they had returned to their homes
they were under the care of their
teachers. The teachers could, If they
chose, dictate what streets they
should traverse in returning home,
and even what side Of the street they
should walk on"
Miss Jane e. Hunter, secretary of
the Phillis Wheatley Association, as
serted she had made an investigation
and had compiled q long list Of
houses of questionable repute which
she had turned over to. the police.
"What the police have done about
it / don't know" she added.
Rev. e. A. Clarke charged that
conditions in the eleventh ward were
permitted to go on bad to worse un-
der Mayors Harry L. Davis and VIM.
is. KitzGerald.
Recently" he said "there seems
| to have been little Improvement,
but not much hardly enough TO
knotice. You think conditions are
hal I ~ xoo 4o11 xxos, that fkoxx 49,