THE ORGANIZATION OF THE GANG
The gang age, as we have seen, is from ten to sixteen. In a few cases,
this organized group life begins as young as seven; in a few, also, it
lasts up to eighteen or nineteen. Between thirteen and fourteen is the
average age; and in a general way, the boy’s social education in the
gang takes about five years. Before this period, the little boy plays
a good deal by himself, or plays in company with other boys a good
deal as if he were playing alone. After it, he cultivates individual
friendships, or courts a girl.
Nearly always, the gang is a strictly local affair, limited to a
certain district or to one or two streets. “We all live on L street,”
run the boys’ reports. “We all come from one street and a little street
off from it.” “Fellows who lived up that way could be in the crowd.”
“Come from down around the wharves.” “If he lived down there, and the
fellows knew him, he could get in with them.” The neighborhood spirit
is strong in boys; it needs to be regarded in all social work.
_Nationality and Social Class_
As for nationality, the gang is apt to be thoroughly unprejudiced and
democratic. To be sure, twelve of my sixty-six gangs were all of one
nationality. But that is largely because the streets or sections of the
city where the boys live are likely to be given up to a single race.
Fifty-four of my gangs were of mixed nationality, while in only one was
any line drawn at breed or color--“No Jews or Negroes allowed.” Far
more than we realize, the boys’ gang is helping out the public school
in the great problem of assimilating the diverse races in the United
States.
Nevertheless, there are some curious differences of nationality in the
membership of gangs. Irish boys are especially gangy, with Americans
and French a good second. Jews, on the other hand, are conspicuous for
their absence. I questioned several Jewish boys, without discovering
a single typical gang; and only two of my sixty-six gangs had Jewish
members, though Jews are decidedly numerous in the regions from which
the boys came. The reader who is interested in race psychology will
find food for thought in the differing instincts of Irishman and Jew.
There is also some social difference in boys’ gangs. Boys from
well-to-do homes are, as one might expect, less gangy than those
brought up amid poorer surroundings. In the case of the more fortunate
boys, the gang is only one of a number of factors in their social
development. But boys from bad, broken, or inefficient homes are forced
to provide their own social life, and the gang is their one instinctive
reaction to their social environment.
Curiously, too, boys from the better class of homes more often form
their social groups _de novo_ to suit their individual social needs;
while boys whose home training is deficient tend more to become members
of gangs already formed. For this reason the permanent and long-lived
gangs are apt to be tough, with fixed and dangerous traditions. Thus,
while among well brought up boys a gang rarely survives the boyhood of
the group which formed it, among delinquents of my acquaintance hardly
more than a quarter were original members of their gangs, or could
tell how their gangs started. The bad gang, therefore, tends to be a
persistent and dangerous institution, taking in new members as the
older ones graduate. But the good gang dies young. This circumstance
probably accounts in no small degree for the bad odor in which all
boys’ gangs are commonly held.
_Organization_
In respect to definiteness of organization, there are marked
differences in gangs. Some are loosely knit and of short duration;
others are select in their membership and rigid in their structure,
so that they last through several generations of boys. Some gangs are
autocratic, some democratic,--this, naturally, depending largely on the
leader.
Most of them have names,--The Hicks Street Fellows, The Bleachery
Gang, Morse Hollow Athletic Club, Wharf Rats, Crooks, Liners, Eggmen,
Dowser Glums. Most have a regular time and place of meeting, rules and
officers, though only a few have written constitutions and by-laws.
Moreover, the definiteness of the organization and the _esprit de
corps_ seem to be quite independent of any formality or written code.
Two organizations may be equally definite and forceful; and yet one may
have its organization explicit in articles of federation, while that of
the other is covert in the brain and muscles of its leader.
_Time and Place of Meeting_
Boys at the gang age intend to get together whenever possible. They
will use all the time in which they are free from work or school. I
have known boys to leave their proper occupations to go with the gang;
and to reckon out carefully the balance between a day’s fun with the
gang and a general warming-up reception at night by father. Most of
the sixty-six gangs met every day, many met morning, noon and night, or
all day. The evening hours are, naturally, the most active and the most
dangerous part of the day, for then mischief-making is likely to be
rampant, encouraged under the veil of darkness.
During the larger part of the year in most parts of the United States
boys prefer the outdoor life. In the cities, a certain street or corner
is the customary meeting-place. In the fall and winter months boys
look for shelter. In the country they build a cabin of boards or logs
in the woods; in the city they get clubrooms, make a shanty in the
back yard, or fix up an empty room in the cellar, attic, or shed. In
one gang, for example, “the Club met down at one boy’s house--in the
cellar of the shed. Fixed up the place, had pictures out of magazines
and papers,--funny pictures. Made a little table and benches, had
boxing-gloves. Two boys had them an hour. No fighting allowed. Spent
our evenings in the ‘Clubroom.’ Go to church Sundays and then skip down
to the club and read books.”
In general, about half the city gangs have their regular meeting-place
on street or street corner. For the other half, my records show four
gangs meeting in clubrooms; three in houses; two in a shed; and one
each in a shanty, behind a barn in the woods, in a house made of old
barrels in a back street, a hencoop, a hut in the woods, a tent in the
woods, a tent in the yard, a dugout, an empty attic, and the cellar of
a shed.
Boys do not like parlors. They prefer a rather rough and crude place in
shed or attic which they can fix up to suit their own tastes. Benches,
working-tools, boxing-gloves, punching-bags, pictures, magazines and
books, form the natural furniture of a gang clubroom. Fortunate,
indeed, are the parents who can provide the right kind of a room in
their home for their boys, and are wise enough to let the neighbors’
boys use it freely, without too much attention to their muddy feet.
Naturally, the boys have a sense of ownership of their clubroom tents
or camps; but we find the same sentiment of ownership developing
over the street or corner where they meet. The following are familiar
expressions of the boys in regard to ownership: “Had a shanty in the
woods. Other fellows would come and tear it down. Had a right over it.”
“Wouldn’t let any gang in that street. Gave a strange boy a licking.”
“Thought that Medford Street belonged to us.” “Every corner has a gang.
That corner belongs to us.”
_Officers_
Two boys said: “We didn’t have no leader.” This is not correct.
Consciously or unconsciously there must be a leader in every social
group. A few gangs have a long list of officers elected formally by
ballot at stated periods. But forty-four gangs (66⅔ per cent) have
one leader, who takes his position naturally with little form or
ceremony. Of the sixty-six gangs--
1 gang had six officers or leaders
1 four
4 gangs three
8 two
44 one officer or leader
8 no regular leader
The following words express the spirit of the boys in reference to
leadership:--
“J. was ringleader. Steals most; says, ‘Come on.’” “I was leader. Had
stumps, and the one who could do the most stumps would be leader.”
“D. was the leader. He could fight best and had most money.” “G. was
leader. He gave you anything if he had it. Worst one in the gang.” “G.
was leader. Big, strong fellow. He is always bringing a gang around
him.” “D. was leader. Pretty good fellow. Most daring fellow. Choose
him by ballot. He got seven votes.” “No regular leader. One fellow
proposed a thing. He knew most about it, and take the lead.”
The leader of the gang is such an interesting personality that we shall
make a more careful study of him later, in another work.
_Initiation_
Commonly when boys enter a new gang some form of a reception is
tendered them. In winter the new fellow may get a rub in the snow; in
summer months he may be given a ducking or a little rough-and-tumble
good time. In the Jenhine Boys, the new fellow “had to wrestle with
Gibson to see if he was strong,” while in the Tennis Club, they “pounce
on a fellow and give it to him for two or three minutes.” In a few
gangs there were definitely planned initiation ceremonies. In the
Jeffries Point Gang they threw a new fellow up in the air for five or
ten minutes to test his grit. “If he didn’t cry, let him in.”
The object of the initiation ceremony appears to be to test the new
fellow’s grit and strengthen his spirit of loyalty.
_Rules_
In the sixty-six gangs we find--
18 rules as to “squealing,” snitching, or tell-taleing
8 lying to one of the gang
8 standing by each other in trouble
5 “divvying up” or paying equal parts of the expenses
3 unjust fighting
2 using tobacco
1 rule swearing
1 stealing
We find the demand for loyalty and justice in the foreground and for
morality in the rear. Although the rules are rarely put on paper there
are few gangs without an unwritten code. These rules are necessary for
the existence of the gang. They must be strictly enforced or the gang
is dissolved. Expulsion is the usual penalty.
_Dropping out of Gangs and Expulsion_
Boys drop out of the gang suddenly, so that very few remain after
sixteen years of age. At this time boys are entering the second
adolescent period, and become intensely interested in girls. They feel
so far above boys twelve or thirteen years old that they no longer care
to affiliate with them. In gangs where younger boys have been allowed
to enter, the older boys retire without disturbance to the structure
of the group or its object; but in a gang where younger members have
not been admitted and the boys are about the same age, the group may
sometimes continue with a new set of interests.
As for involuntary withdrawals, ten boys were expelled from their gangs
for “squealing,” three for unjust fighting, one each for bossing,
failure to pay dues, cowardice, getting fresh, and disobedience.
“Kicked one fellow out,” ran the reports, “for telling on the others.”
“Put a fellow out for fighting with another boy. The other fellow was
in the right.” “Put him out because he would run off when needed to
fight.”
_Settling Disputes_
Disputes are sure to arise in any social group and especially in a
gang. “If there was any dispute, have a scrap over it. Fellow who got
the worst of it, gave up.” “If there was a dispute the leader settled
it.” “The officers would most always settle disputes, talk it over, get
circumstances, and then settle it.”
These cases illustrate the most common methods of settling internal
troubles. In ten cases the boys fought it out; in seven other cases the
matter was settled by the leader, a bigger boy, or an outsider.
The typical boys’ gang, then, is no mere haphazard association.
Accidents of various sorts--age, propinquity, likeness of
interests--bring together a somewhat random group. Immediately the boys
react on one another. One or more leaders come to the fore. The gang
organizes itself, finds or makes its meeting-place, establishes its
standards, begins to do things. It develops, in some sort, a collective
mind, and acts as a unit to carry out complex schemes and activities
which would hardly so much as enter the head of one boy alone. The gang
is, in short, a little social organism, coherent, definite, efficient,
with a life of its own which is beyond the sum of the lives of its
several members. It is the earliest manifestation in man of that
strange group-forming instinct, without which beehive and ant hill and
human society would be alike impossible.