The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1938-04-07
NEWSPAPERS OPINIONS
WHERE CRIME is SPAWNED

| Inc SUBJECT OF CRIME IN tnlS County, HN' ONN
so commonplace that it is no longer discussed "ltn
the zest of reformative interest and purpose.
| 1t seems to be taken for granted and, being Sc
regarded crime is being dismissed from the per
sonal and social mind with gesture of defeatsm
| Crime is here in enormous runs-crlme OF all
Sorts involving all ages reaching to hideously hem
Gus proportions and nothing be done about II!
| That, of course, is the philosophy of unmitigated
realism.
The present crime situation is new only IN some
of its phases, but these are startling.
For instance the fact that the records prove that
crime is being increasingly pursued by those OF ten
der years is a current development which staggers
in its implications.
This means that more young people going
deeper and deeper into the ditch of delinquency
and issuing in their adolescence into Criminals
calling for the seventies of socetys arrestng and
furnishing procedures.
The sociologists and penologists spend much time
in conjecture over this phenomenon of the age
limit of criminals dropping notch after notch down
to the late teens and early twenties.
There seems to be little puzzle to it.
1t is the natural play of the principle Of cause
and effect
Children are no longer being disciplined at home,
and when they emerge into society, they are run
ming wild and unframed.
1t used to be during the period in American life
when the authority of the home generally rec
ognized and practiced that children learned the
art of obedience, and the art of obedience is fun
damental in an orderly society.
Back in those days when child was told to do a
given job, it obeyed, or else.
If it was told it couldn't go where it wanted to
go, the child did not go.
And if a parent was answered to the effect that
81 don't want to-" that parent became all the more
stern and unreenting in seeing to it that the child
| did what it didn't want to do.
But there is little of that oday.
! What child says it doesn't want to do, it doesn't
! do
These little, simple acts of what the psychologists
are pleased to call the result of the instinct of self
expression and individualism in the child may seem
totally harmless, and the parent who insists upon
having his or her way with his her child mat
ter what the child's reaction, may be scientifically
set down as trying to beat the laws of nature IN
their offspring but the SOLDERING truth is that here
| is the point at which discipline in America has
gone to piecesn the home, in the lack of parental
restraint in the current dsrespect for the will and
word of fathers and mothers, and in the general
disregard of law around the hearthstone.
Boake Carter was making little while ago in
one of his talks while dwelling on this subject this
very homely, but poignant remark:
al insist that there was stronger spirit of dis
cipline which taught US that we had to put up with
things we didn't like, because such restraint was
spiritually and morally developing to character.
Today that spirit seems to be gone. Few seem to
be ready to tackle something unpleasant. wonder
if nowadays we are not becoming too chicken
hearted and paying too much attention to the likes
and diskes of children?"
Society is paying plenty of attention to the prob
lens of the child in these times.
| We have no end of agencies and institutions
playing in its favor and in behalf of its develop
ment.
We have made remarkable strides in conserving
and developing the health of our children. Not
only has child mortality steadily decreased, but we
are now producing sturdier and healthier children
than any previous generation. The recreationa
life of the child is promoted as never before.
Of what avail is all this if our homes send out
into the world children imbued with the spirit Of
lawlessness and anarchy?
What can church, school and child welfare agen
cies accomplish in the face of the disastrous influ
ence of home devoid of moral sanctions and dis
ciplines.
Unless there is Improvement IN our nome lie
there is little promise in all the other things we
may do for our children The crying need of the
hour is for better homes
Herein lies the only hope for the children whom
we love. The agency capable of building homes il
which the authority of God and the moral law are
reverenced is our religion.
The breakdown of so many homes and the pro
found injury thus inflicted on our children is bu
one of the many indications of the complete de
pendence of our civilization upon religion.-Char
lotte Observer. '@