Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1924-06-06
The Home Is Sleeping

o AAAG NA@~H
tors-the astounding lack Of
humanity on the part of the
two Chicago criminals who kill
ed a young Jewish boys FIX
ed today in the minds of the
reading public.
Each wonders how much !
possible among a civilized peo-
pie.
Here are two men--almost
boys 49, university POSTCARD
yates, who deliberately murders
ed a l3-year-old youth, for the
adventure then demand a
$4,000 ransom, Both boys are
wealthy and do not need mon~
ey. Both are intelligent, one
being spoken of ''as a veritable
mental giant.
sseither is insanne, we are as
sured by alienists who have exs
aimed them. Neither was
drunk from bad liquor nor has
has it been suggested that they
were dope fiends.
1t is impossible to find rea-
son, much less an excuse. for
this heinous crime done by two
youths.
Nor is this an isolated cased.
Only recently here in Georgia
two young white men were
sentenced to hang for criminal
assault on an 60-year-old white
woman. A Decatur boy sets
FIRE to the bed Of his two sisters
and later murders his father and
mother. Boys in a preparatory
school set fire to their dorn1i-
tories which are burned TO the
ground. We could recite other
cpmes committed recently by
Toys and young men.
Ia each case. we wonder why
how IN such depravity posi-
bic. The Albany Herald thinks
the home is slipping" that
the great American home is
losing out, and says:
The case suggests several
trains Of thought, but it will re-
mind many who read of it of
something that is coming home
with tremendous force to those
who are thought, viz, that
the great American home is los
ing out.
1t may not be kind to say it,
but it is unquestionably true
that most of the young folks who
60 wrong in this swift age are
not themselves primarily to
blame. They have simply got
ten away from that restraining
strengthening, steadying power
which has made the American
home the bedrock of our ma
tional strength. 1t is platitudi-
nous to say these things. 1t
sounds like preaching but it
is the sort of preaching of which
there well might be a good deal
more, for the solemn truth
stares US in the face.
No nation can be stronger
than the average of its citizen
ship, and the quality of no citi-
zenship can ever be higher than
that which the average of it's
homes determines. The nation
can never make the home. but
the home inevitably makes the
nation.
No father or mother will
acknowledge that his or her
boy COULD commit a srime,
and no doubt each of the pa
rents of these boys now DOOM
ed to death thought the same
Of their boys.
The remedy lies not in laws
or preachments out Of the
home. 1t is back at the family
Preside that this must be set
tied by each parent and each
child.
The enforcement of strict
discipline from the cradle; long
er hours at home and fewer on
the streets; more companion
ship with dad and mother and
less with others; more respect
for parental authority and the
civil and penal codes of the
State and Nation; more work
and less idle play; more solid,
bodybuilding food and fewer
knickknacks; more reverence for
the aged and sympathy for the
manned and the poor; more
good literature at home nights
and fewer wild and woolly
stories" by interruptions AUTH
ors.
The rebuilding. the fe-estab-
lishment of the so-calIed old