Two-thirds of our army to-day is made up of boys who are forced into
it. It is the volunteer who makes a good soldier, but these boys are
not volunteers--with them it is compulsory. Monday morning I went to
the army post to see if the boy had done what he said he was going to
do. I found him there a soldier, giving three of the best years of his
life for sixteen dollars a month, instead of receiving the privilege
of labor by being temporarily cared for in a Municipal Emergency Home
until he could help himself.
And, now, I will portray briefly the story of "The young man with the
hoe," who made his way into southern Texas. He was penniless, and was
arrested on the Frisco line because he was discovered riding a freight
train. He told me how he was given thirty days in a Texas convict camp,
and how they nearly killed him there for being charged with trespassing
on the property of the railroad company. I somehow felt that the
convict camp had almost killed the best within him, for he remarked as
we were strolling down the street toward our destination, "I have a
nice gun on me. I think I will pawn it, because if a fellow has a gun
on him and has nothing to eat nor any place to sleep he is liable to do
something he will be sorry for." He took his gun into a pawnshop and
left it there for thirty-five cents.
These are but two incidents showing how badly this city needs a
Municipal Emergency Home. There are two-score others that sadden me as
I think of them. What a beautiful thing it would be for San Antonio to
be one of the first cities in the South to build a home!
Leaving San Antonio on my way to Dallas, I stopped for a short time in
Austin where the Texas Legislature was in session.
During my investigations I have never seen a public notice, in the
press or elsewhere, guiding a destitute person to the Associated
Charities or publicly offering aid, until I came to Austin. Here I saw
just one such notice. It was not at the depot nor at any employment
office nor at the emergency hospital, nor at the prison door. It was
plastered up in the office of a first-class hotel which at that time
was headquarters for the assembled lawmakers of the State of Texas.
Well, perhaps, that body of estimable gentlemen did need a little
charity.
The spirit of power, energy and enterprise has been breathed into the
city of Dallas, with all its youth, strength and progress. There is not
an old-fashioned thing about her. She fairly flows with the present.
The things most in evidence in this city are new thoughts, new ways,
new things. Realizing the spirit of the era, her badge of honor, her
insignia should be "Just Now," covering two meanings. _Just_ (in the
spirit of justice) "disposed to render to each man his due"; _Now,_ "in
the least possible time."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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