Evening star., 1948-05-16
Dr.. James E. West Dead at ~;
First Boy Scout Chief Executive
Washington Native
Led Organization
For 81 Years
By the Associated Press

NEW ROCHELLE, N. Y, May 10.
DIR. James E. West, former Chief
Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts OF
America, died tonight. He would
have been 70 tomorrow.
DR.. West died at New Rochelle
Hospital which he entered last
night.
Hospital authorities said he had
been ill for number of years with
an intestinal ailment and took a
turn for the worse yesterday.
DR.. West. native of Washington,
had been chief scout executive for
80 years when he retired in 1943.
He later was elected chief scout.
During his tenure as chief scout ex-
ecutive, an estimated 100000 boys
and men had joined the organiza-
ton.
Crippled in Childhood.
A crippled orphan in his child
hood, DR.. West took part in many
programs to aid children. For. this
reason he was chosen as chief ex-
ecutive when the National Boy Scout
movement was organized in 1910.
A year later he became chief
scout executive. ~
DR.. West was close friend OF the
late President Theodore Roosevelt,
who named him to the board Of
pension appeals and later made him
an assistant attorney in the Interior
Department.
DR.. West is survived by his widow,
his sons,sArthurs ,Rratt West OF White
Plains, NJ. Y, sasadssDr. Robert West
of New RochaIls. and his daughters,
Mrs. Adrian Van Sinderen Of New
Rochelle and Mrs. William F. Hig-
gins, jr., of Bayonre, N. j.
Became Active tn Youth Work.
After holding the pension board
and interior posts, he became active
in many youth programs. .
He had led the boy scouts for
nearly 40 yeArs when President
Hoover named him. co chairman OF
White House conference on Youth
Outside of the Home and school.
In 1888 he was named to President
Franklin D. Roosevelt's conference
on mobilization for human needs.
In 1899 and 1910 he served at the
White House Conference on Chill
dren in a Democracy.
He was author of numerous books,
pamphlets and articles about scout
ing, and was editor of Boys Life
Magazine from 1922 to 1943.
DR.. James E. West. the man who
made boyhood a career and won
the tributes of Presidents, was left
at the age of six with no known
living relatives, a heritage of tu-
berculosis and q child's knowledge
that Eobody wanted him.
His father died before he was
BORN. His mother, Mrs. Mary Tyree
West. died of tuberculosis and the
child went TO what was then known
as the Washington City Orphan
Asylum.
At the orphanage, the child began
to limp. The orphanage authorities
decided he was ,nalingering. The
matron put him on bread and water
and finally horseWhipped him to
break his will"
1t was only when a friend of the
boys mother. remembering prom
Use. visited the child that he was
finally examined. The boy was
found to have tubercular hip.
Lay on Board.
At Childrens Hospital, the boy
lay on a board for IA months with
weights attached to his leg, Then
the hospital decided he was in
durable and told the orphanage
to take him back. The orphanage
didn't want helpless cripple and
said so.
Finally, the child was bundled
into hanson cab one winter night
The hackman carried the boy past
the unlocked door of the orphan
age and left him there with his
crutches and a cloth bag that held
his few belongings.
So lame he couldn't do the work
assigned to the boys. the young
West was put with the girls and
taught to sew. 1t was here that
another woman who had known
his mother, Mrs. Ellis Spear, found
him. Mrs. Spear brought him a
toy oxcart-the first present he had
since his mothers death.
BY inviting him to her home and