Plentywood herald., 1937-07-15
GETTING DOWN 10
sBRASS TACKS''
LEARNING FROM BOYS

boy, returned this week from Wash
ington. D. c., and side trip to New
York, Boston. and Niagara Falls. He
Is Boy Scout He had been to the
nations capital attending the big
Jamboree. There has been many a
march on Washington, from the
British invasion in the War OF 1872
down to the bonus army" OF 1892,
but there never was one with quite
that heart-in-the-throat quality that
went with this descent Of the Boy
Scouts of America.
Twenty-Five thousand of these
lads took possession OF the city.
They were not there to seek any ia
vors or exert any pressure; they
were simply a bunch of healthy,
wholly admirable American boys out
to have a good time, to see their
country's capital and, just incident
ally, to show what fine set of boys
this country can produce. 1t did peo-
pie good to see them down there.
There Is something about a Scout
Jamboree that makes a thou ghtful
adult feel just little bit ashamed
of himself. These youngsters are
still free from those traits of jeal-
ousy, suspicion. and ill-will which
somehow seem to beset all grownups
who go to Washington. In the Scout
troops there are all sorts Of boys;
boys from city slums and boys from
small towns, boys whose fathers are
wealthy and boys who fathers are
distressingly poor. Twenty years
from now these boys will be more
or less what their fathers are now
and the free, wholesome comrade-
ship that holds them together will
be gone forever.
Instead, they >xil. shale the di.is-
ions that curse our grownup world.
The poor ones, as likely as not, will
be denouncing the rich ones as &C.
onomic royalists, and the rich ones
will be accusing the poor ones of
trying to overturn American instit-
utions Most of them will be de-
manding that Washington do some
thing for them-at the expense, II
necessary, of all the others-and
wanting to know what the country
is coming to if the demand is re-
fused.
All of which is simply to say that
the easy uncritical fellowship of boy
hood vanishes as boys become men
Life is still pretty much devil
take-the-hindmost scramble, and II
makes a man forget that he has a
community of interest with all his
fellow citizens. 1t is mortally easy to
get the feeling that men of a differ,
ent economic or social class are go
ing to get the better of you, if you
don't get the better Of them first.
And there is something about the
spectacle of these Boy Scouts at
stand that our way of living-or
more accurately, our way of look
ing at life-with it's divisions and
it's unsleeping suspicious is badly
warped. Our country happens to
need this feeling of solidarity OF
common striving for a common goal
about as badly as any country
could; yet it has to go to the Boy
Scouts to find it.
We could even use some of this
united effort and thought In ouI
present day programs Of relief and
longtime planning. The Presiden,
calls it being "good neighbors. One
of the greatest difficulties in emer-
gency relief work is to recognize the
needs OF the other fellow while we
are seeking solution to our own. Nc
program directed for any sizeable
area even as small as the one effect
ed this year can be planned for any
one individual or small group Of In
dividuals. 1t must be for entire unit
1t only follows that, as we survey
our own individual needs, we must
at the same time consider equally
the needs of the fellow next door
lust as bad off, and perhaps ever
worse, than we are. Only by such
planning and such solidarity of &C
ton can any community, any area
move ahead constructively. And onl!
as the community moves ahead will
individuals progress. Yes, there 4
something to Iearn-even from ou
own boys.