The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-08-08
Forum Of The People
Develop ths Emotions Of Children
le Editor of The Age-Herald


 | Will you permit me to express an opinion anent the relationship between parents and children? It appears to me that far too often children are endured" instead of loved. Perhaps they were unwanted, but the sole responsibility of birth rests on parents and surely children should not pay the penalty for something they could not help-namely, being born. To bring into the world human being is serious and solemn proceeding. Even when the child is given every advantage, and by that I mean giving such training that he is fitted for the combat of life, he is only given his due. It is criminal wickedness to consider duty done when one has fed clothed and educated" his child. Life is hard, and to meet the test an enormous amount of char acter must be developed. There are two sides to every human being, the intellectual and the emotional" and the development of one is as important as the other.
 will admit that this is the age of special ization and the uneducated man has small chance to win success in the world, that is, If one considers the garnering of shekels "suc- cess" Therefore, his intellect should be de veloped, he has to play the game, and he should learn the rules. But thousand times more important is the emotional" side, be- cause if that is left undeVelOped, man becomes merely an intellectual automatan, incapable of feeling a human, loving emotion.5
 Take Nathan Leopold, Jr., the young Sin tellectual'' who, with Loeb, perpetrated the monstrous Franks murder. Leopold told the psychiatrists that early in life he has sought to stifle love, sympathy and every other hu- man emotion. He endeavored to live as a "super-man'' in a world all too human. Noth- ing but cold intellect should ever find room in his life, he was to be the supercilious spec tator of humanity, gazing scornfully upon men who let feeling" enter into their calcula- tiOns. The result, alas, is too well known. This intellectual super-man" could plan and carry out an abhorrent crime, indifferent as to the victim. His own family was not ex- empt from danger because he agreed that, should the first murder be successful, he would assist in killing his father Loeb's young brother was also considered as likely victim.
 After the plans were laid the young Bobby Franks was lured into the. car and finally killed. Both the murderers stated that they got great excitement" when the victim bled. Leopold said it was easy to decide on crime it really required no more thought than would a decision to have pie for dinner They had no particular motive for the crime, except that to commit such horror and "get by" with it would be an intellectual feat" So amusing to hear people discuss excitedly the affair, and make conjectures about it. So funny to hear the II think" people guess what happened, when they, superior beings that they were, knew the whole delightful truth It was a wonderful idea It killed several birds with one stone. Their sadist tendencies were satisfied during the killing of the child. Their cleverness at getting away with it' would be established and they could gloat secretly over their feat, and their superiority would be undoubtedly proven when they could forget the trivial incident and return to their homes after throwing the poor little body into culvert. A drink. dinner and a game of cards That was the entertainment they in dulged in after the crime. No tortured, plead- ing eyes haunted them, the remembrance of blood did not affect their appetites remorse was unheard of. Super-men. Above such foolish sentimentality.
 What is the answer?
 Did mother love envelop the early years of those boys with tenderness? Did an af- fectionate father show to each the joy of human love-tiesr Was home q place where the closest bonds of family attachment bound all together? If Leopold. had known the con- suming love of a mother for her child, could he have looked upon the mother whose child he tore from her, and feel nothing at all?" He could read fifteen languages, but he was ignorant of the language of the heart. Bah /! Let the silly bereaved mother weep! She, poor clod, had no fine Nietzchean philosophy which teaches the folly of such proceedings. She had nothing but this absurd something called heart" Let her weep, but do not expect super-men to sympathize with her maudlin tears "To kill human being in the interest of science is no more than to impale beetle upon a pin v
 We'll, 1t is to be hoped that other parents will take notice. Far better to teach a child nothing but love- far better for him to be a simnlA manual laborer than. to let him grow up into an intellectual" monstrosity, to whom feeling is unknown. The sacred portals of the home should enclose family united by bonds of love, should find mothers and fath- CTS seeking spiritual kinship as well as psyical with their children. If early paths are lighted by affection and human-emotion no cold-blooded intellectual" can result.
 JEAN DoRE.
 Birmingham, Ala.