A Kindergarten for Strikers.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN—Sir: I am moved to ask the Wall street brokers who have lately applauded the riotous newsboys and messenger boys to look a little further toward the future before watching with enjoyment their performance. What will these same brokers think of it when, ten or fifteen years from this, then grown men of 25 or 30, attack trolley cars or steam cars, or storehouses or banks or brokers’ offices to secure what they shall then regard as their rights? Yes, just this sort of result will be the natural outcome of these deeds of violence by these boys if they are treated as many men of the press, and even the Magistrates on the bench, seem inclined to treat them.

Do not these men know that even now not only large cities like New York, but country towns as well, are at the mercy of gangs of hoodlum boys and youth, not too small to steal and rob, but regarded as too small or too “young and tender” to be arrested and dealt with according to law. From this arises the increasing contempt for law, which is possibly the most threatening cloud to-day above our country’s horizon.

T. H. L.

July 26

Source: “A Kindergarten for Strikers.” The Sun [New York], 29 July 1899, p. 6.