“Come away! come away! there is nothing now to cheer us— Nothing now to comfort us, but love’s road home:— Over there beyond the darkness there’s a window gleams to greet us, And a warm heart waits for us within. “Come away! come away!—or the roving-fiend will hold us, And make us all to dwell with him to the end of human faring: There are no men yet can leave him when his hands are clutched upon them, There are none will own his enmity, there are none will call him brother. So we’ll be up and on the way, and the less we brag the better For the freedom that God gave us and the dread we do not know:— The frost that skips the willow-leaf will again be back to blight it, And the doom we can not fly from is the doom we do not see. “Come away! come away! there are dead men all around us— Frozen men that mock us with a wild, hard laugh That shrieks and sinks and whimpers in the shrill November rushes, And the long full wind on the lake.” Mr. Robinson has written in this little volume not verse but poetry. Whether he has the power of sustained flight remains to be seen. TO THE CENTRAL JUVENILE REFORMATORY COMMITTEE, AT THE WHITE HOUSE, DECEMBER 15, 1905 _Gentlemen_: About all I can say to you is to express my very hearty sympathy with and belief in your purpose. The time of my life when I was brought into closest touch with conditions similar to those which you are trying to remedy was while I was Police Commissioner in New York City. At that time my closest friend and associate in all of my work was Mr. Jacob Riis, with whose books and writings you are all more or less familiar. I was even more impressed than I have been all along, ever since I have grown up, with the fact that if you are going to do anything permanent for the average man you have got to begin before he is a man. The older man is almost impossible to reform. Of course there are exceptional individuals, men who have been completely changed, not only after they have reached years of manhood, but after very advanced periods of life. But speaking generally, the chance of success lies in working with the boy and not with the man. That applies peculiarly to those boys who tend to drift off into courses which mean that unless they are checked they will be formidable additions to the criminal population when they grow older. It is eminently worth while to try to prevent those boys becoming criminals, to try to prevent their being menaces to and expenses and sores in society, while there is a chance of reforming them. A year ago I was approached by the people interested in Colorado in their juvenile court, and they set an example which I wish could be followed all over the country, and particularly here in the District of Columbia. To the people of Colorado I expressed, as I express to you, my very earnest belief in their work, and told them that “of course so far as my very limited powers here go those powers will be at your disposal.”