St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1944-05-05

especially since little or nothing in
an effective way is being done to
retrieve that which is being lost.
Children learn to use foul, filthy
language at home from mothers
and fathers, elder sisters and broth
ers. Parents have been found who
teach or allow their children to
publicly smoke cigarettes before
they are Ia years old; and in many
instances, children are taught or
allowed to drink wine, beer and
whiskey at tender age.
Parents Pleasure Bent
The child's life and upbringing
are subordinated to the pleasures
of living and the personal desires
of its parents. The mother and
father are so busy having a good
time or earning living themselves,
that they seem to have forgotten
their sacred duty to see through
the development of their offspring
in the perilous years of adolescence
and youth. The bright lights, the
ribald laughter of the ginmill, the
blare of the jukebox, the thrills of
all night parties, dances and plain
hinges, are major rivals with which
the child must compete for par
entail attention.
Our children are being reared and
treated as adults instead of as what
they are. The consequence of this
is seen in the vulgar conceptions
of sex, and the ready acceptance of
various forms of depravity. The
instability of the mental outlook
among our youngsters can be clear
ly discerned from a study of the
records of Selective Service Boards
in Negro communities. The num-
Der of At Negroes of 10 years of
age and over is appalling.
There are many Negroes of great
learning and standing who will say
in answer to these statements that
the white man has made the Negro
what he is. They will contend Wig
orously that white children are
worse than ours on an average;
they will cite figures to prove that
more juvenile delinquency exists in
poor white neighborhoods on a per-
centage basis than is present in the
all-Negro community. They glibly
say land the spread of such theories
is having an opposite and regret
able effect among the Negro
masses) that when the white man
allows the Negro more freedom,
then will be the time to straighten
out this and that. Meanwhile pris-
ons throughout the land are show
ing an alarmingly high percentage
of Negroes incarcerated. The street
corners, the poolrooms, candy
stores, theatre Hobbies, ginmiIls,
dancehalls, alleys and gaming
rooms are being filled with our neg
lected young people, both boys and
girls, busy weaving the net that
will ensnare the whole race before
long.
Cops Won't Help Do Job
The fallacy of the idea that the
police department is equipped and
inclined to raise our children is ter
ribly wrong. So is the attitude that
the school teachers should teach
our children the fundamental les
sons of good behavior so necessary
in developing a sense of good citi-
zenship.
The police, where Negroes are
concerned-and that goes for the
cops from Los Angeles to New
York, from New Orleans to Grand
Rapids, guard public and private
property, white business places,
white men and white women. They
seldom evince any save perfunctory
interest in the crimes and offenses
Negroes commit against one an
other. The white school teachers,
except in rare cases, know little of
the problems we face as Negroes,
nor have too much sympathy with
them. They carry out their jobs to
the letter-mainly preparing their
pupils for graduation. Thus the job
of raising our own falls back in
our laps. We cannot dodge it. No
excuse, no subterfuge can get
around the fact that to curb the rise
of hoodlumism among young Ne
groes, mothers and fathers will