Volume I, of the Commission’s Preliminary Report, 1912.

Thanks are due to many persons who gave unstintedly of their time to the various investigators. Our indebtedness is especially great to the staff of the Clinton District office of the Charity Organization Society, who brought us in touch with many families in their care, and through their varied experience helped us in interpreting many aspects of neighborhood life. Among other agencies, Hartley House was particularly generous in making us acquainted with its Italian neighbors and in giving us the opportunity to visit them in their homes. The teachers of various local schools should also be mentioned with appreciation for the help they gave us in many ways.

PAULINE GOLDMARK.

RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION

BOYHOOD AND LAWLESSNESS

WEST SIDE STUDIES

NEW YORK SURVEY ASSOCIATES, INC. MCMXIV

Copyright, 1914, by THE RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION

THE TROW PRESS NEW YORK

INTRODUCTION

When the Bureau of Social Research began, early in 1909, an investigation of the Middle West Side, it was soon realized that of all the problems presented by the district, none was more urgent and baffling, none more fundamental, than that of the boy and his gang. His anti-social activities have forced him upon public attention as an obstruction to law and business and a menace to order and safety. Because of this lawlessness and because of New York’s backwardness in formulating wise preventive measures to meet it, a special study of the West Side boy was begun.

In order to gain an intimate knowledge of neighborhood conditions which affect the boy, two men workers, Edward M. Barrows and Clinton S. Childs, went to live in the district, the former remaining for nearly two years. During their residence they came in close touch with several gangs and clubs of boys. Their experiences, while they yielded some of the most vital and significant material of our study, did not lend themselves to statistical treatment; they were not recorded in the form of family and individual histories, but as a running day-by-day diary, which formed the basis of the chapters dealing with the activities and the environment of the boys.

Since the West Side boy, either through personal contact or through association with gang leaders, is inseparable from the Children’s Court, attention was naturally drawn to the extent and the result of his relation to this institution. For this reason the Bureau made a special study of 294 boys[2] selected from the district with particular reference to their delinquency and their court records.[3]

Of these boys 28 were under twelve years, 71 more were fourteen, and 102 more were under sixteen. In view of these significant facts it became necessary not only to examine the environment of the West Side boy, but also to estimate the influence of the Children’s Court and other institutions upon him when toughness, truancy, gambling, or other temptations had carried him over the brink into real delinquency. That society should feel itself compelled to resort continually to the arrest and trial of children is in itself a confession of defeat. But when even these resources fail, it becomes imperative to analyze all the factors in the situation; to set the destructive and the constructive elements over against each other, and to determine the chances which the boy and the various public and private agencies organized to regenerate him have of understanding one another.

To many the study may serve to show at their doors a world undreamed of; a world in which, through causes which are even now, removable, youth is denied the universal rights of life, liberty, and happiness. To the court it may be of use in throwing light into dark places and in showing where old paths should be abandoned, as well as in offering suggestions at a critical period in its history.

And, indeed, every suggestion which will tend to lessen the troubles of the Middle West Side is peculiarly needed. The whole community--from molested property owners to the most disinterested social workers--are agreed that the worst elements rule the streets and that neither police nor court authority succeed in enforcing decency and order. And the center of the problem is the boy, for in him West Side lawlessness finds its most perennial and permanent expression.

The aim of this study, therefore, is to trace the principal influences which have formed the West Side boy; to consider some of the means which have heretofore been employed to counteract these influences; and to picture him as he is, exemplifying the results of circumstances for which not he but the entire community is responsible.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

INTRODUCTION ix

I. His Background 1

II. His Playground 10

III. His Games 24

IV. His Gangs 39

V. His Home 55

VI. The Boy and the Court 79

VII. The Center of the Problem 141

APPENDIX.

Tables 165

Excerpts from Report of Children’s Court, County of New York, 1913 177

INDEX 201

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Photographs by Lewis W. Hine

FACING PAGE

Just Boys! _Frontispiece_

Tenth Avenue 4

Eleventh (“Death”) Avenue 4

Bounce Ball with Wall as Base. Property is Safe 10

Bounce Ball with Steps as Base. Windows in Danger 10

Wading in Sewage-laden Water 20

A “Den” Under the Dock 20

Pigeon Flying. A Roof Game 28

Marbles. A Street Game 28

Prize Fighters in Training 34

Craps with Money at Stake 34

Boy Scouts and Soldiers 40

After the Battle 40

Resting. What Next? 48

Early Lessons in Craps 48

Approaching the “Gopher” Age 64

One Diversion of the Older Boys 64

Replenishing the Wood Box 74

A Rich Find 74

A Ball Game Near the Docks 82

“Obstructing Traffic” on Twelfth Avenue 82

“We Ain’t Doin’ Nothin’” 98

The Same Gang at Craps 98

An Embryo Gangster 122

The “Toughest Kid” on the Street 122

Carrying Loot from a Vacant Building 142

Closed by the Gangs 142

De Witt Clinton Park 146

A Favorite Playground 146

LIST OF TABLES

APPENDIX

TABLE PAGE

1. Sources from which the names of the 294 boys studied were obtained 167

2. Ages of boys 167

3. Length of residence in the district of 183 families 168

4. Country of birth of parents 168

5. Nationality of American-born parents 169

6. Two hundred families classified according to number of persons in households and number of rooms occupied 169

7. Living children in 231 families 170

8. Status of mothers in 222 families 170

9. Conjugal condition of parents in 233 families 171

10. Relief records of 241 families 171

11. Duration of relief records of families known to have received aid from relief societies 172

12. Court disposition of cases involving 454 arrests affecting 259 boys and 221 families 172

13. Final disposition of 92 West Side paroled cases and of 1,492 paroled cases disposed of by the Manhattan Court in 1909 173

14. Truancy records of 215 boys, classified as delinquent or not delinquent 173

15. Status of 163 boys not gainfully employed 174

16. Occupation and wages of 100 boys gainfully employed 175