To the boy’s surprise and disgust, the gentleman took the card crumpled it in his hand, and threw it upon the floor, remarking: “that’s no reference—that’s no good in business.”
The boy picked it up, and, to use his own language, said:
“I waited until my temper cooled down and I asked him, ‘can you say you never swore, never stole any thing, never gambled, never cheated any one? I can, sir, and that’s what that card means. I wouldn’t work for you.’ Oh, I hit him hard. As I was leaving he called me back, but I said, ‘if you would give me five thousand dollars a year I wouldn’t work for you. You have not only insulted me but the association.’”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Before Boyville was thought of, a personal investigation into the home-life of over a hundred boys was made, and this covered a period of three years. 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 progress of any humanitarian legislation is gradual.
No one ever stopped to make inquiry about a newsboy. He lived in a business, and social circle, all by himself. He was left to shift for himself and in a most unequal battle.
When investigation revealed the deplorable fact that seventy per cent. of our newsboys were being educated and trained with their faces towards jails and penitentiaries, the question arose, how can we reduce this number, how can we turn their faces towards a better life, a happier condition, a delightful ending? How make them honorable citizens, good men, loved by all who know them, an honor to themselves, to their parents, their friends, the State and city in which they live?