Today's column concerns stray boys and the trouble they cause -- trouble that, about 100 years ago, caused the business community of Little Rock to pull together for the betterment of kids.
It's a tale of cigarettes, theft, secret meetings, teenage lock-picks, social work and pie. It's a tale with a large cast of characters, enough to fill a book, really. Whatever made me think it would fit into a few column-inches today?
It won't. But here are a few evidentiary snippets from the archives of the Arkansas Gazette.
City Has Young Camorrist Band
[March 29, 1911] "Italy has its Camorrist band, Paris its Apache and New York its Black Hand orders, but Little Rock has an organization of culprits rivaling in the extent of their depredations any order of its size. The only difference in 'Mum' Priola's gang and the others is that the members have not reached that age where desperation comes when they are apprehended. ...
"Under the old Second Baptist church at Eighth and Louisiana streets are a number of large stones set facing a larger stone further back under the church, where the boys meet for their councils, and it is here that they swear to secrecy if arrested and are intimidated by their leader. ...
"Priola is the son of a hard working shoemaker, while his followers are selected from the Italian element of the city. He is but 22 years old, and, according to police records, he has been arrested more than 200 times, charged with the theft of every article from pocket knives to diamonds, but, aided by his gang, he has always been released. ...
"The police say that the gang of boys has given them more trouble than all of the other culprits of the city put together. They say that Priola has been the acknowledged leader of the gang of Italian boys for the past six years, but the exact time of the
organization of their gang with its oath and rules is not known."
FOOD, CAMPING, SPORTS
Even after that gang's leaders were shipped off to reform school, vandalism and petty thievery went on. Residents responded with clubs: clubs for boys, with food and activities.
For instance, when a street gang threatened the peace and windows of the Little Rock Public Library's original, paid-for-by-Andrew-Carnegie library at Louisiana and Seventh streets in the winter of 1910-11, the library opened a boys club that met once a week for activities and refreshments.
Then there was the Newsboys' Club and various volunteer efforts aimed at "the newsies" -- boys and teens who delivered the paper or sold it in the street.
• Feb. 5, 1910: "Five newsboys had the time of their lives at the First Presbyterian church last night. The occasion was the dinner given to the 'newsies' of the city by the Missionary Society of the First Presbyterian church. For some reason, the news of the dinner did not become generally known among the hustling little street merchants and only five were on hand for the spread. ...
"The women of the society who had made preparations for at least 75 were sadly disappointed at the failure of their guests to arrive. But the five newsies -- oh joy! ...
"They strove nobly to make up for their missing comrades, but there is a limit to the capacities of even five hungry newsboys seeking to save charitable, kind-hearted missionary workers from disappointment. So at last, the dauntless five were forced to admit that they couldn't eat any more and with many a mournful glance at the huge quantities of provender left unconsumed, they left."
122 Newsies Have the Time of Their Lives
[Nov. 16, 1910] "The second annual supper to the newsboys of the city, given by the Building Committee of the First Presbyterian church last night, was a great success from start to finish. ...
"The pie-eating contest was a most ludicrous affair. A number of boys were each given a good sized pie and told that the boy who first finished his pie and whistled would be given a valuable prize. The scene which followed beggars description. One of the boys was far in the lead of the others in the matter of hiding the pie, but as fully half of it was in his mouth he could not manage the whistle.
"To see him trying to whistle with his mouth full of pie, pie all over his face and his eyes almost starting from his head ...."
Newsboys' Camp Is "Big Brother" Plan
[Aug. 28, 1913] "To further attract Little Rock's street Arabs, organized into the Newsboys' Club, and to keep them off the streets day and night, the ten young businessmen of Little Rock who are acting as leaders in the 'Big Brother' movement here, are planning an outing at one of the favorable camp sites near the city ... to give them a taste of the weeds and waters and prevent them going back to the ways of the street from which they are turning by the work of the club's organizers.
"'The Newsboys' Club is now six months old,' said T.J. Craighead, organizer of the club, 'has 175 members who pay weekly dues of five cents, meets every Wednesday night in the gymnasium and swimming pool of the local "Y," and rapidly is transforming formerly rowdy gangs of street boys into more orderly and more organized teams, who compete with each other in various athletic and aquatic meets, in place of the old-fashioned rough-and-tumble fights up the alley.'"
Newsies Agree to Give Up Cigarettes
[Feb. 14, 1913] "A feature of next Sunday afternoon's meeting of the boys' department of the Y.M.C.A. will be the reports of 25 Little Rock newsboys, who last Sunday signed a pledge to quit smoking cigarettes for the present week. That number of lads signed the pledge without solicitation on the part of those in charge of the meeting last Sunday, and the report of the number who kept the promise is being awaited with interest."
Amusing as such tidbits can be, there were far more at-risk youths in the county than could be saved from reform school by hit-or-miss meals or clubs that charged dues poor boys couldn't pay. What needed to happen was collaboration among the do-gooders.
And that is exactly what happened.
An extraordinary social worker named Miss Erle Chambers, who was the Pulaski County probation officer, got together Craighead and other people who were trying to help. In July 1914, they formalized a Little Rock Boys' Club and made fundraising for its clubhouse a cause people had fun supporting.
The Newsboys of Old -- men who once upon a time had delivered the paper -- competed to raise the most cash for the cause and teased one another at gala dinners.
We still know this organization today. It's the Boys and Girls Club of Central Arkansas.
Next week: Fleas Which Are Made to Earn Their Living
ActiveStyle on 12/19/2016