It was just before Christmas; the streets and stores were crowded with
people purchasing presents.
An old lady was standing on the corner waiting for a street car. In her
hand she held a small package, a Christmas present for someone. A boy,
about fourteen years of age, darted out from a door-way, grabbed the
package, hastened down the street and dodged into an alley. A newsboy
who saw the act started after the thief, and as he ran several other
newsboys joined in the chase. While they were gone another newsboy went
to the lady expressing regret at her loss, but assuring her the boy who
stole the package would be caught.
With tears in her eyes the old lady told the boy that the box contained
a number of presents for a little girl who was confined to the house on
account of being a cripple for life. That the purchase was the result
of many weeks’ hard work, sewing for some of her neighbors, that she
might earn the money to get a present for the little girl.
“Now, my lady,” said the newsboy, “don’t you worry for a minute, one of
our officers started in a dead run after him and I know he will catch
him. We don’t allow anything like that to happen. That boy don’t belong
to the association.”
The lady was escorted to a drug store where people wait for cars, and
advised to remain there until the newsboys returned. She did not have
to wait long, for, in a short time, the officer returned with a dozen
newsies all trying to push the “grafter” ahead of them. When in front
of the lady, he was made to hand her the package, and get down upon
his knees and ask her forgiveness. The old lady was placed upon a
street-car, and the officers took charge of the boy. They brought him
to the president’s office.
“Mr. President,” said a member of the executive committee, “we have
here a new boy. He was pretending to sell papers on the streets, but he
proved to be a ‘grafter,’ for we caught him stealing a package from an
old lady who worked all summer to save money to buy a Christmas present
for a little girl who is a cripple. We run him down.” The boy hung his
head. He was under no obligations to any of the boys, and could have
been independant over his capture but when he was told the package
belonged to a little cripple, it had a strange effect upon him. He lost
sight of everything but the wrong done to the little girl.
“I didn’t know it belonged to a cripple or I wouldn’t have taken it.
You see, we at home don’t think nothing of taking things as we can get,
we believe in helping ourselves to anything we wants when no body is
looking. I am sorry I took the present.”
The boy lived in a bad neighborhood. His father was dead, his mother
had no influence over him, he roamed the streets at will, and spent the
majority of his nights sleeping in freight-cars. He was just the kind
of a boy who grows up along the docks of our lake cities, and takes
advantage of every opportunity to steal anything he can use or care for
without being detected, from freight depots or cars. This is the class
of young men the association has been aiming to reach for a long time.
The selling of papers being only a subterfuge for stealing. He was
fifteen years old and admitted having done many bad things.
“It is boys like you,” said the president, “who disgrace any
association, and while no one seems to look after you, or want you, we
will take you into the association and the officers will have you under
their charge; what do you say to that?”
“Well, I guess you have me down pretty fine, and if I wants to ever get
a job I must start my life over again.”
“The boys will forget this little package act, and blot out all your
bad deeds, if you will begin a new life, and I will guarantee that in
six months, by the time warm weather comes, we will get you a nice
position.”
“If I would have known that package belonged to a little girl do you
suppose I would have swiped it?” he added.
“It isn’t that alone we object to. Every time you steal something
someone suffers, and the only way to avoid injuring any one is not to
steal at all,” said the president.
“Aw! tell him to cut it out, cut it out, he kin do it just the same as
we do,” put in a little bootblack.
“Yes, but you don’t have to go out on the street and takes what ever
you kin carry home, like I do,” he replied.
“Well, if your mother makes you do that we won’t do a thing to her,”
said a seller, who claimed to own four corners.
The conversation ended by the president giving the new boy a membership
card with instructions that he must report in thirty days.
Soon after he left the office, three members of the executive committee
hastened to his home. The mother was warned that “this sending your boy
out to steal must stop, and stop quick.” They listened to no arguments,
simply gave advice and orders, what must be done, and left.
A month passes and the day named for the new applicant to receive his
badge, found him at the president’s office, as is usual with boys, an
hour before office hours.
“Gee, but I have lots of good friends. Some of the boys took me to see
a show, some let me sell papers on their corners, but I had to cut out
swearing.”
The numbered badge was given him.
A member of the executive committee who had him in charge reported:
“He was hard to bring down to our way of doin’ things. It was natural
for him to steal as to eat, and he wanted to give the wrong change two
or three times. We licked him three times. He was game. Give him his
badge, he’s all right.”
Six months later this boy was given a position in a wholesale house. He
began on the top floor to work his way up in the business.
His eagerness to learn, his willingness to do things not exactly as
part of his duties caused his employers to notice him and he was
advanced, in less than two years, to shipping clerk in one of the
departments.
Here was a boy whose home life was degrading. His neighbors paying no
attention to him or his family, except to say: “That boy ought to be
turned over to the police.” The newsboys, the boys we often look upon
as being bad and useless, changed the life of this young man.
He is now slowly becoming one of the reliable business men of the
future.