John E. Gunckel

“ With these eleven officers, all boys under fourteen, the association began life. The constitution and by-laws embraced in its power and force simply one aim, one object, to do good among the boys. To do it effectively, and make the results lasting. To build up, never pull down; to encourage honesty, to watch and warn a boy.
The work among the street boys became more interesting as the months rolled on, and, at the end of a year the membership of Boyville had increased to two hundred and fifty sellers and bootblacks. ”

“ How quick he is to see an opportunity to do something bad, and when discovered, his conscience brings the blush of shame to his cheeks. Take boys like Jimmy, the leader of a gang of toughs, his acts on the public highway, his language, his ragged clothes all indicating neglect and evil designs, yet get his friendship, his confidence, and he will prove, as did Jimmy, the best and most faithful friend you ever had, not only in his youth, in his teens, but long after you have forgotten him. ”

“ In the Boyville Association it has always been the rule that, no matter how great a wrong committed by a boy, and the fine or sentence be what it may, if the boy looks forward to doing better, to putting his whole soul into trying to do right, if he hates and despises the act committed, that boy has a right to be honorably reinstated, and is heartily welcomed back to his friends. ”

“ Every boy has in his mind a real desire to do good, but if you start in life as a whiskey drinker, if you stand around and see your friends drink without giving them a warning, some day you will regret it, something will come up in your life to remind you of your carelessness, your lost opportunity to help a fellow being, and his ruin means more to you than you think it does. ”

“ The good accomplished by the members of The Boyville Newsboys’ Association, we hope, will go on forever, and that this generation may [219] prove the best and our people continue to be the most prosperous, and our boys grow up to be God-fearing, honest men, is the prayer of every man and woman of our land. But prayers will never be answered if we sit with our hands folded waiting for someone to do the work.
In these hurrying days, when life is becoming complicated in so many ways; when the love of money is greater than the love of mankind, you wonder where can real happiness be found. ”

“ It isn’t fear of the policemen or jails that makes these boys honest. It is the fear of their own conscience and the opinion of their comrades. They want to be able to walk along the street with their heads up, and to look every honest man squarely in the eye. They know they are as good as the richest man in town if they are honest. They are learning that it pays to do right, and not because of what may happen to them as a result of dishonesty. If men would follow the same plan the world wouldn’t need its thousands of jails, reformatories and penitentiaries. ”

“ To go to church every Sunday and sing religious hymns and listen to eloquent sermons is not all there is to religion. The formation of character, the stimulus of the moral sentiments must be done largely outside of the doors of the church. To assist in building up the boy who roams our streets at will, and to take an interest in and to encourage the boy to live up to and follow the instructions he receives at his home, is, indeed, to practice real religion. ”

“ Today Boyville Association boasts that it has driven from the streets of a great city all kinds of begging, gambling, swearing, smoking cigarettes, and instead of insulting, impudent newsboys, we have the finest lot of gentlemanly young business men in the world.
How to carry on successfully work of this kind, with results as previously stated, is the desire and wish of thousands of people in our country today. A person must bring himself in touch with the boy, he must learn his ways, his habits, by so doing he learns the best way to approach him and gain his confidence. ”

“ The influence a man or a woman teacher has over a boy is wonderful. In the eyes of a boy, a teacher stands for a model of perfection and is supposed to be in reality, in daily life and actions, what he seems to be when he shows his best side to the pupils. ”

“ Life is full of opportunities for the young man to do good, and if in his early career he begins to do right it soon becomes part of his life. The street-boys who first join the association are so gradually led into the good fellowship of their own making that the toughest natures thaw out, they are subjugated, submit cheerfully to the controlling powers of truth and honesty. Their manners soften, their words become more gentle and their actions show a willingness to be little gentlemen. ”

“ A dozen or more newsboys can be seen at almost any hour of the day, dodging here and there around the corners, down alleys, or playing in the rear of the circulating offices of the great dailies. In all kinds of weather they will be found at their posts, prompt in delivering their papers to subscribers, or upon the streets crying the most important of the many head lines of the transactions of a day. Would it be possible to get this noisy, hustling crowd of boys together and gradually to bring this great power, this great force, into a channel for doing good? ”

“ No matter how bad the boy is, how miserable his environment, that great spark of good, that [13] something, no one can explain its power, its influence, is still there. To get into touch with that life, to draw out the goodness of heart and make it a tangible blessing to the boys of our land, is the work every man and woman ought to try to do. It was this object the gentleman had in asking Jimmy and his friends to meet at his office. ”

“ The chance of success lies in working with the boy and not with the man. That applies peculiarly to those boys who tend to drift off into courses which mean that unless they are checked they will be formidable additions to the criminal population when they grow older.
“No Nation is safe unless in the average family there are healthy, happy children.
“If these children are not brought up well they are not merely a curse to themselves and their parents, but they mean the ruin of the State in the future.” ”

“ After more than fifteen years’ experience among the newsboys we can say with considerable force, that the only way to give substantial assistance to the poor boy is to give him a start in life, helping him to work his own way through a hundred little temptations that would easily lead him wrong. ”

“ We cannot live without our neighbor. Each home depends upon some other home; and when the boy leaves his home to go upon the street, he is at once overcome by the stronger power and influence of a boy of some other home, and, perhaps where the rearing and training was not good. The boy is a result more or less, of all influences and environment of the lives of his companions. ”

“ Everybody knows that the infallible receipt for happiness, is to do good, and under the right conditions it is as natural for character to become beautiful as for a flower. In scores of instances it has been seen that the principles early established in the minds of the street-boys, especially where they are watched by their companions, and warned when they do something wrong, leave a lasting impression that time cannot efface. ”

“ Everybody knows or can soon learn to know, that the street is the great school of crime. Betting and gambling are typical of the combination of work and play of man and boy that street work produces.
One of the greatest evils of the street was that of begging; of boys working on the sympathies [168] of the public by taking advantage of men and women on street-cars or in public places.
Some boys made a business of begging, the majority not from their own choice, but by compulsion of their parents. ”

“ The groceryman was not slow in letting his customers know how bad Jimmy was.
He was kicked, lectured, preached to, and a dozen times a day was pushed off the corner.
[4]
He was abused because he annoyed men and women by his misbehavior.
No one ever stopped to ask this boy where he lived; what about his parents, his home life, or to see if there was really any good in him worth trying to develop. The bad was visible, and the people seemed to delight in their vain efforts to correct him by censures and kicks. ”

“ The boy’s school life soon begins to develop self-reliance, full of possibilities, of curiosity and questionings, the period of formation of thoughts, feelings and desires. And when a boy reaches that stage in his life when he is permitted to go down town alone—he at once begins a new life. ”

“ At Sunday-school the boy learns that he is violating one of the commandments. But men pay no attention to it, then why should boys? Boys are imitative. They want to do what men do. It is seldom that we hear of a mother approving of her boy swearing and encouraging him in this, certainly vulgar habit. This method used by the president in curing a boy of swearing, may not meet the approval of many of our Sunday-school teachers, and it is given with some reluctance. It is given, however, to show what can be done in extreme cases.
“Are you the president of the Newsboys’ association?” ”

“ So you boys better do your thinking now if you don’t want to follow that kind of people over the brink. No, boys, don’t drink intoxicating liquors, don’t start it, cut it out, forget it.
“We do not believe that temperance is really promoted by compulsion, but this we do know, that the boy who will let whiskey and all spirits alone is very fortunate, and has a bright, happy future. He is the boy who will succeed; he is the young man that is wanted; he will be the man to be trusted.” ”

“ Of the one hundred who were graduating from the street work as newsboys not more than thirty were engaged in a business that would lead them to fortune or fame. Seventy were satisfied with making a living by earnings of vice and petty crimes. It was learned that a boy who was permitted to go on in his own way would have no useful training for later work. The seventy boys followed the rule of men in wrong-doing. “No man is guilty until caught,” is the general rule of men who make it a business of stealing. ”

“ The boy at school is taught to be kind, to be generous, and to remember his little friends whenever opportunity favors. Heartfelt sympathy in a newsboy, comes like a flash of lightning, [187] and he is ever ready to fall in line when the boys want to remember a friend. The president was taken by surprise one day when the street sellers, the poorest of our newsboys, through one of their hustlers, presented him with a gold badge. The money to purchase it was raised by subscriptions from the boys, in amounts ranging from two cents to twenty-five. ”

“ There is no subject that has received so much attention and has worried so many good people as the liquor question. Saloons and drinking never cease to be problems for our well-meaning temperance people. Why man created saloons, no one undertakes to answer. The strongest man is never too strong in a saloon, and the weak is to be pitied. The saloon is an evil that has been with us a long time and seems to be here to stay in one form or another. While we cannot eradicate the evil, especially by extreme methods, can we not modify its influence? We have tried the probation method, and failed. ”

“ But the boys themselves furnish most of the program. Boys who sell papers, who shine shoes, on the streets, get up before big audiences, make speeches, sing songs, ‘recite pieces’ and do other interesting and instructive stunts. And hundreds of these little newsboys sit in the auditorium, conduct themselves like gentlemen and thoroughly enjoy the entertainment. An interesting fact about this association, is that its membership comprises the rich as well as the poor. If a rich man’s son carries a route he is in the same boat with the poorest lad that peddles papers on the street. ”

“ If men would try to instill into the young hearts of our boys, our newsboys, because they are tempted more than any other class, a spirit of trust and love, instead of a spirit of fear and hate and revenge, what a happy unselfish world we would have. Suppose these newsboys, the boys who are so often accused of being bad, would be treated as Christ treated wrong-doers, not as criminals, but as misdirected and misguided boys, putting everything in their way to encourage them to do right. ”

“ If men would only feel that each one of them is a member of the human society, association or organization, and that wrong committed by one is a reflection on all, it would save heartaches and trouble in this world. ”

“ A boy of the street, who is dead to home influences, or worse, who is driven out to make a living for himself by heartless parents or guardians, or unfortunate conditions of life, and there are hundreds of them in every city, becomes a power in himself. For evil, first. “For the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” If left alone the evil will get the upper hand. The street teaches irregular habits and restlessness.
The following incident will show how diligent were the boys, not officers, in watching their companions. ”

“ The boys are like the birds who are unlike in plumage and song; the flowers in color and fragrance, and yet nature would not be perfect were it not for these different lines of beauty, strength, and fragrance. ”

“ If the child cannot be corrected at home, for its own good and for the good of society at [203] large, it is simply sent to a State public school, where discipline is superior to that of the home, and where it is intended to correct waywardness and to serve as an example to prevent waywardness in others. The purpose is, in delinquent cases, to inspire and receive obedience, to improve and strengthen character. We never release a boy upon probation until he is impressed with the idea that he must obey. ”

“ On the contrary, criminality among the youth of this country has been amazingly on the increase. Over half of the inmates of jails, reformatories and prisons combined are under twenty-four years of age. They are there largely because of uncorrected delinquency in childhood. While the Juvenile Court and probation system will not, and cannot, entirely overcome delinquency and waywardness, it will do a great deal better than the jail and criminal court ever did. The Juvenile Court generally deals with cases in which there has been a failure in the home, the school, and often the church. ”

“ Home should keep in sympathy with a boy. His little troubles, his sorrows are made much easier and lighter through attention and sympathy, and if the boy can’t get this at home he will go elsewhere; and he will often find it in society he would otherwise shun. No boy ever grows too old for love. ”

“ These little wiry, nervous street boys, alert [11] of eye, and lithe of limb, who flock the principal thoroughfares of our great cities at almost all hours of the day.
Newsboys and bootblacks, boys whom the world seems to have forgotten. By peculiar conditions these boys are used to being at odds with the world. It need not be told that our newsboys, as a general rule, as people know them, are regarded as a swearing, stealing, lying, dishonest lot of young criminals, and these qualifications are recognized adjuncts to their business. ”

“ Begin today, go out upon the streets, work among the newsboys, reach down to those below, and offer a hand to lift them up. Throw around them the proper protection and influence. In your own city, your own town, at your own doors, are acres of diamonds only waiting for you to help in the work of polishing. ”

“ The world today is heartless in its mad rush for money getting, [130] and the “graft” is in the minds of thousands of well-meaning, but over-anxious to get-rich-quick men; among them the saloonman. Let us suggest to our saloonmen how they can stop a great deal of misery in the world. We have in mind a saloon that was “made good” by five newsboys. “A real live saloon, where politicians congregated to lay plans for work, and whose owner had an eye to making money, and saw nothing else, even to the ruining of boys and men.” ”

“ The soil of both regions is full of heredity, but the difference of environment greatly modifies the result. There are in all of us hereditary tendencies to both vice and virtue, and under favorable surroundings, these tendencies will be either dormant or developed.
A thief may come from a morally healthy family, a happy prosperous home, but he is an unhealthy exception not the rule. It is the offense of our day that the tendency of life is toward destruction of character. The crowding of population to the cities, is gradually destroying the home feeling. ”

“ There are Protestant boys, Catholic boys, Hebrew boys, white boys, black boys—and all are full-fledged, honored members of the same newsboy family, which is run on the principle of equal rights for all and special privileges for none. Rich boys are not debarred. There is a desire to save them from wealth’s temptations and make good citizens of them in spite of their handicap. The poor boys who sell papers to help keep the family from starvation are generous and are willing to let the rich in on the ground floor. So it is a pretty broad and big Sunday-school. ”

“ Our cities are full of boys growing up to manhood without advice, without help. They are turned aside to do the best they can, to battle with life with everything against them. The question to thinking men today is, shall we permit these boys to continue on the certain road to ruin, or shall we turn a few steps out of our way to lend a helping hand? Shall we wait until they become confirmed criminals and are serving sentences in prisons before we try to help them? ”