He had his mouth set for another greeting of the same sort when I gently
but firmly pushed his insolent face back and entered.
The woman knew me and the boy probably guessed my occupation, for he
proceeded to coerce his mother, motioning and making faces, as though to
say: "Yes, or I will tell!" The mother ignored his threats so he
casually remarked: "Mrs. Carson!"
The woman made a sign that she would yield and the boy dressed in a
hurry.
I busied myself with my notebook all the time, just throwing out a
question once in a while. When the boy was all dressed up he beckoned to
the mother to follow him into the other room. She did so. I heard a
suppressed curse and a deep sigh. The boy came out first. As he passed
my chair I stood up and seizing his wrists I asked: "Why don't you go to
school?"
No answer.
"Why don't you go to work?"
No answer.
"How dare you insult your mother the way you do, you scoundrel?"
Instead of answering me he turned to his mother.
"You squeaked--ha? That's what you did! You old piece of rot."
Thus spoke a son to his mother. I felt the blood rushing to my head and
I struck the blaspheming mouth. He tried to fight back and even took the
pose, but I was too much for him. I pinned his arms.
The mother had not moved. If anything she was rather satisfied that the
boy got his due. Again the boy twisted around, and looking daggers at
his mother he said:
"You'll tell tales? Ha? and let this big stiff hit me? And you'll stay
there like a lamp post? Ha! that's what you'll do? I'll croak you, I'll
put you right--wait!"
"Do you know," he turned to me, "that--"
"George, George," the mother yelled and covered the boy's mouth with her
open palm.
"I know it all," I interrupted. "I know that your mother's name is Mrs.
Carson."
The poor mother looked as though she had been struck with an iron bar
over the head.
"And now, my boy, give back the money you forced from your mother a
while ago." From his pocket the mother took out a dollar and some
cents. I compelled the boy to go to school, menacing him with everything
I thought would scare him, and obtained from him the promise that he
would go the next morning. But when I turned to go, I saw the mother
shivering as though in the clutches of fever. She motioned me not to go,
then sat down and wept. Of course I knew the reason for her tears. She
was afraid her pension would be cut off. She had lied to the
institution. She had not told them of her unfortunate remarriage. She
was afraid of her son. Why? Because, fearing that the investigator might
question her son she had been compelled to lie to the boy and teach him
to lie, and he grew up with the knowledge that he could obtain anything
he wanted from his mother with the threat of telling the truth. The
child grew up a blackmailer. The system of organised charity made him
one.
And how many, how many similar occurrences have led to similar results?
How many men in stripes could trace their downfall to the "question
room" of the Investigator!
As to this particular boy--he went to school for a few weeks but his
street habits corrupted the other children, and he was expelled. For a
time he sold newspapers on the streets, then he gradually sank lower and
lower and was later on sent to a reformatory to expiate a minor offence
and from there he will be discharged a graduated criminal.
Webster says: "A university is an assemblage of colleges established in
any place, with professors for instructing students in the sciences and
other branches of learning, and where degrees are conferred. A
university is properly a universal school, in which are taught all
branches of learning, or the four faculties of theology, medicine, law,
and the science and arts."
I know universities where the students are not instructed in the
sciences and other branches of learning, and where degrees of a
different kind are conferred on the students; a university where other
objects than theology, medicine, law and the sciences and arts are
taught.
Burglary, blackmailing, safe-blowing, murder and other applied sciences
and arts are taught there.
The professors are incomparably superior to the ones in the colleges;
they are men with great experience and they impart their knowledge to
their pupils without charging fees. They do it for love.
In the underworld the Reformatory is called "the university." And one
who knew, one day remarked to me: "If they (meaning the good citizens)
had wanted to create a school where crime should be taught they could
not have done better than by fixing up a Reformatory. They get a real
training there, pass through a sound apprenticeship and are masters of
their particular branch when they come out."