Ogden Standard-Examiner | 1920-04-16 | Page 4 | Boys Put to Death

I BOYS PUT TO DEATH. More distressing than the "Red" menace is the following" dispatch dis-patch from Lancaster, Ohio, dated April 35: Police today were searching for five soldier boys who : last evening attacked Charles. Kncller, a lO-ycar-old.news- L boj-, bound him to a stake, pilod kindling and papers about ' him and after starting a fire, left him to his fate. :,) A small girl reported the incident to Mrs. A. F. Mowcryj living nearby and she rescued the boy, who was badly burned. He died 'soon afterwards. ' Readers of The Standard-Jpxtiniiner will recall that only ten days ago a similar crime was committed in the East, when a gang of boys set upon a little lame fellow and beat him to death. Men become "Reds" through a misconception of their rights, ! but when a child is beaten to death by playmates ora newsboy is f bound by soldier beys and burned at the stake there is evidence of ! degeneracy entering into our very lives. 1 One of the leaders of the Boy Scoots of Ogden was being con- gratulatctl by a prominent citizen on the character of the training, j and-then the question was asked: ' "What effect is the directing of the boys having on wndalism? You know the youngsters of Utah have a name for destruetivencss." I "This 1 know," said the leader of the scouts. "Boys who in the past would kill birds without scruple, now no more think of killing a useful bird than to disregard their oath of honor." There is great need for more Boys Scouts and the spreading of the gospel of doing good. There is' necessity for something to overcome over-come the viciousncss, the brutality manifesting itself in boys of the I ype who find amusement in inflicting the sting of death. I In the days of torture, children were free from the awful acts of their debased , elders, but in the twentieth century, in civilized 1 America, boys arc committing wrongs which equal the worst of .the I crimes of the villain's past. t v t Tn grown-ups we look for the calloused and the unsympathetic, but in youth the hardening effects of years of contact with the world is not expected. ' "When the young mind discloses a heart that is a I bad and a soul scared with meanness, we should- begin to examine 1 carefully as to the cause, for, if it is from a chronic source, there is 1 reason to be alarmed. 1 Our moral forces should be rallied to fight back the monster of Wl evil which is taking possession of so many of the youths of the land.