The first public appearance of the boys, aside from auxiliary meetings,
annual Christmas dinners, attending theatres, entertainments, base-ball
games, picnics, etc., and where the boys made a favorable impression
upon the public, was the Sunday afternoon meetings held in suitable
halls, during the winter season. These were carried on successfully and
profitably for several years, until the available halls were too small
to accommodate the increasing membership.
The idea of Sunday afternoon meetings suggested itself from what the
boys said.
“If we had meetings of our own we would not attend Sunday afternoon
theatres.” Three boys, newsboys, were seen coming out of the back door
of a saloon on Sunday afternoon, and to the question asked by the
president, why they spent their time in the saloon, they replied they
had no other place to go to get warm.
“Why not go home?”
“We are not wanted at home.”
At the Sunday afternoon meetings the entertainments were given by
the different Sunday schools of the city, and occasionally by some
society, all kindly volunteering their valuable services. Splendid
music, interesting talkers, little girls and boys in recitations or
songs who always made a hit among the newsies. In time the newsboys
became so interested in the work that many of them concluded that they
could “do a stunt or two,” and the program was divided in two parts.
First, the Sunday-school or society, followed by the newsboys who
introduced their best speakers, singers, etc.
“These Sunday afternoon gatherings,” to copy from an editorial in one
of the daily newspapers, “have improved the tastes, aroused the better
natures, stimulated the ambitions, revealed new and nobler ideals and
altogether, have opened a new world of more sober and serious plans for
future success of the bright little business men.”
One of the most trying incidents that ever came to the attention of
the president was at one of the Sunday afternoon meetings held in a
theatre, when was brought to the rear of the stage two newsboys so
drunk that a policeman had to hold them from falling.
They had a bottle of whiskey between them. In broken sentences they
told where a keeper had sold them the liquor, Sunday morning, and
how the men in the saloon dared them to drink all the whiskey in the
bottle. It wasn’t necessary to drink all, a few swallows made them
dizzy. “We got funny and noisy, an’ the man pitched us out.” They
staggered towards the opera house to attend the newsboys’ meeting, when
a policeman assisted them in the house. Immediately upon their entrance
their friends hustled them out of sight behind the stage. The president
at once called the association officers and turned the two boys over
to them. Quickly the officers removed their badges. It was difficult
to restrain some of them from “giving the boys a thorough thrashing.”
Through the influence of the boy, Jimmy, the sympathy of the newsboys’
turned quickly to the two boys and a determination for revenge on
the saloon keeper followed. The newsboy officers took the two little
fellows to their homes. In a few days they reported to the president
that the boys received such a severe punishment from their parents that
they would be laid up for a month. The saloonman was visited by two
of the oldest experienced officers. They were received with kindness,
and after talking over the matter for some time it was mutually agreed
that the boys were to notify all members that they must keep out of
the saloon, as the proprieter promised not to sell liquor of any kind
to newsboys and to refuse to sell liquor to any of the fathers of the
newsboys—“when he thought they had enough.”
For a month the boys watched that saloon, and if a newsboy entered,
his badge was taken from him. The saloonman took greater interest than
the boys, for he absolutely refused to sell liquor to any one whom he
thought had “all he could carry.”
Today this saloonman is respected by the newsboys and many good deeds
are credited to him.
“He is simply trying to lift up a man instead of pulling him down,”
said an officer.
The good that has been accomplished from the Sunday afternoon meetings,
commonly called “The Popular Sunday School,” cannot be estimated.
Thousands of people attend these meetings. They are pleased because the
newsboys do the entertaining. There isn’t a great deal of preaching,
but there is enough. “The object is not to give so much of that sort
of thing,” says an editorial in one of the great dailies, “but what
preaching they get is wholesome. The boys get a chance to laugh and
clap their hands. They are permitted to be boys on Sunday just as
on week days. There is good music, too. It is apt to be a patriotic
air, or a popular song. A sweet little girl sang ‘The Good Old Summer
Time,’ and the newsies joined in the chorus. It wasn’t classical, but
it was good. Instead of shooting over people’s heads the musicians aim
at their hearts. The preaching isn’t a tiresome string of ‘does’ and
‘don’ts,’ ‘musts’ and ‘mustn’ts’. It is mostly plain talks from plain
people who know they are talking to boys whose veins are bulging with
rich, red human blood. 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. There
are boys who have rich fathers, boys who have poor fathers, boys who
have industrious fathers, boys who have drunken fathers, and boys who
have no fathers at all. 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. And a good one. Every boy
who belongs to it is better for his membership. He is taught to travel
on his own merits and not lean on his papa. He is taught that he must
paddle his own canoe; and that he will be judged by what HE does, not
by his father’s success.”
[Illustration: FESTIVAL HALL. WHERE THE NATIONAL NEWSBOYS’ ASSOCIATION
WAS ORGANIZED, AUGUST 16, 1904.
_See Page 53_
]