But my friends, I am in rather a difficult position tonight. I am reminded, indeed, of an experience I had with a boy about twelve years ago in my court. It was before the days of the Detention Home School. One day I was down in the jail, and they told me they had a boy there that they thought belonged to me—that they could do nothing with him. So I went with one of the men down the long corridor to a cage, that would have been a disgrace to the king of the jungle, and there in a heap on the floor was a boy. I recognized him as a boy who had been missing from the truancy department for about a month. It seems that he had read in a paper that some man in New York had lost his boy—about the age of this boy—so he framed up a story and went to the police and told them he was the missing boy. There was a reward offered for the lost boy, and there was an argument between the lieutenant and one of the sergeants as to who saw him first—and in trying to straighten this out they discovered the fraud. I said to him, “Harry, what did you mean by this?” He replied, “Judge, dey spoiled the dandiest bum I ever thought of.”
I asked him where he had been for the last month, and he said he had been living in a piano box. I went with him, and he showed me the piano box, and as we came up a dog, a faithful, friendly dog, jumped out and recognized the boy. While we stood there I heard some boys just around the corner of the alley, talking about someone. Some of them insisted that “he only gets full once a month,” while some one said “he gets full once a week.” For a moment, I forgot the law of the “gang” in regard to “snitchin’,” and I said, “Harry, who are those boys talking about?” There had been a boy before me for intoxication, and I wanted to find out if this was the same one. So I said, “You slip around there and find out who it is they are talking about, and you’ll save a lot of trouble for me—and for somebody else.”
The boy hesitated a little, torn between loyalty to the judge and loyalty to the “gang,” but finally he went. In a little while he came back, and looking into my face without the least change of expression, said: “Judge, dem fellas is talkin’ about the moon; some says it gets full once a week, and some only once a month.” Then, after a minute, he continued, “Judge, you don’t always find out everything you want to.”
Some time ago, I was informed by my friend, Mr. Shipp, that I was to read a report at this Congress, but I found when I arrived that they had me down for an entirely different subject. However, both my report and the subject assigned me concern that very important subject, “the child.” Many things have transpired during the last year to give us hope and courage in the work for the child, and after all there is one thing that marks this century of ours, makes it distinct from all other centuries, and that is the fact that it is the century of the child. Indeed, it seems we are to realize the promise of holy writ, that a little child shall lead us. We are beginning to see, through the misfortunes of the child, through their tears and sufferings, many of the causes that are not only responsible for the troubles of children but for the troubles of men. For, after all, there is no child problem that isn’t a parent problem—a problem of the home. And when we get back to the problem of the home we are, of course, face to face with all the great social, economic, industrial and political problems. Even the political parties are at least beginning to understand that if they would meet with the approval of the people they must concern themselves more about the problems of humanity; that they must present real remedies which promise an immediate check for the terrible waste of life, of energy and of power, which is going on in this nation. That while it is important to conserve our material resources—the power of our waterfalls and the verdure of our forests—we must also conserve our human resources. After all, these great assets of the nation are very closely linked together. The strength and future well-being of the race itself must depend in a large measure upon the Conservation with which this organization has so well concerned itself during the past decade. It is only a natural and to be expected step in the evolution of its work that it should equally concern itself more directly with the human beings who will not be able to profit from its work unless their welfare is also conserved in other directions.
It has long been the opinion of specialists and social workers in this country that the national government itself was not doing all that it should do for the welfare of the children of the nation. Largely because of the failure of any government agency directly responsible for such work, the various methods of dealing with the many-sided problems of childhood were more or less in a state of chaos. The matter was first brought to the attention of Congress through a bill formulated and agreed to by the various child saving agencies of the State of Colorado, and introduced in Congress by Hon. John F. Shafroth, the present Governor of Colorado, in 1902, providing for a government bureau that should directly concern itself with the welfare of children. This effort was followed several years later by other child saving agencies in the introduction of what is now popularly known as “A bill for the establishment of a children’s bureau.” This bill was free from some of the objections of the earlier bill which included governmental protection for dumb animals, as well as a special bureau for the welfare of children. Great impetus was given to this final effort by former President Roosevelt, who called the White House conference on dependent children that met in Washington City on January 25 and 26, 1909, when a resolution was adopted recommending the enactment of the then pending measure.
The National Consumers’ League in its Tenth Annual Report presented, perhaps, the ablest summary of all those presented concerning the necessity for such a bureau. This summary pointed out many items of information that ought to be valuable concerning the children of the Nation—information that, as amazing as it may seem, was practically impossible to be had in this Nation of ours concerning its children:
1. How many blind children are there in the United States? Where are they? What provision for their education is made? How many of them are receiving training for self-support? What are the causes of their blindness? What steps are taken to prevent blindness?
2. How many mentally subnormal children are there in the United States, including idiots, imbeciles, and children sufficiently self-directing to profit by special classes in school? Where are these children? What provision is made for their education? What does it cost? How many of them are receiving training for self-support?
3. How many fatherless children are there in the United States? Of these, how many fathers are dead? How many are illegitimate? How many are deserters? In cases in which the father is dead, what killed him? It should be known how much orphanage is due to tuberculosis, how much to industrial accidents, etc. Such knowledge is needful for the removal of preventable causes of orphanage.
4. We know something about juvenile illiteracy once in 10 years. The subject should be followed up every year. It is not a matter of immigrant children, but of a permanent, sodden failure of the Republic to educate a half million children of native English-speaking citizens. Current details are now unattainable.