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Show . We live today on the surface. We have short cuts to everything. Indeed, we are in danger of losing many of the satisfactions which are to be found in knowing how to do things, thoroughly. But we must not let homemaking become one of the lost arts. Begin to chart your course. Learn now to do those things which circumstances may make it necessary for you to do tomorrow. This includes such vital things as learning the value of money, keeping keep-ing records, cooking and sewing. Learn to be selective. As your training progresses and your judgment becomes more experienced, experien-ced, you will find yourself making fewer mistakes. For example, in selecting clothes you will soon learn to put aside those which are cheap and sleazy and to choose instead those of good quality cut from strong, firm cloth. Strive to fix similar sound standards in choosing the books you will read, the movies you will see, and the friends you will make. This means a really tough course in self-discipline. self-discipline. But dare to develop and be true to your best self. Strive to know yourself then dare to be a living challenge to those around you be being that best self. The standards which you, who have the challenge of tomorrow before you, set for yourselves now are vital to our Nation's' future. In the days ahead they will be the measure of your strength and your ability to keep America free. Reprinted by permission of Strong Publications, Inc., from the May 1959 issue of YOUNG AMER ICANS magazine, all rights reserved. study remain ed practically unchanged from the 1957 figures, there was a distinct increase in the number of arrests of young people. Indeed, 6.5 percent more young people under 18 years of age were arrested in 1958 than in 1957, which, of course, brings up the unhappy phenomenon of our times juvenile delinquency. I suspect that the majority of you are sick and tired of hearing the words "juvenile delinquent." I do not blame you. The undisciplined undis-ciplined and criminal behavior of a relatively small segment of young Americans has cast an undeserved stigma on the remainder. This stigma has made too many adults lose sight of the fact that the overwhelming majority of our young people are developing into splendid citizens. But it is a fact of history that those whoprove themselves sound and responsible must bear the added burdens which the immature refuse to accept. When one man evades his taxes, his responsible neighbors pay a larger share. Unfair though it is, you who are mature in the acceptance accep-tance of your responsibilities also carry more than your share of the load. You are in a sense, on trial, and you are placed there by the irresponsible members of your group. You have to work harder to "prove" yourselves in the eyes of adults and gain their confidence. It is because I 'am sure you are responsible that I can speak freely with you. For you will do the tasks which must be done if our great inheritance of American Am-erican freedom is to be preserved. Few thinking people can fail to know that the increasing commission com-mission of serious crimes by youth is a threat to the future. The basic solution to the problem, of course, rests with adults. Yet, I feel sure that there are many things which you young people can do to help easethe situation. Simply on the basis of observation, I am con- YOU AND TOMORROW by John Edgar Hoover, Director Federal Bureau of Investigation You young Americans live in an age that is far from simple. The world today is not a nice, neat globe with a place for everything every-thing and everything in place. It is a complex, frightening, tremendously tremen-dously challenging old earth on which you, at this moment, are writing the record of what you are and what you will be. Never in the course of history has the word "tomorrow" held such exciting possibilities or such dangers and I am certain that never before have the youthful youth-ful citizens of a single country had such a burden of responsibility responsi-bility for the world's future placed plac-ed on their shoulders. This world is split sharply between be-tween two conflicting beliefs. One is positive; the other negative. Opposite as night from day, the one holds that we are children of God with freedom of will to choose between good and evil. The other group, controlling almost half the world, maintains that there is no God and the brute who is biggest will decide what is right and what is wrong, and no individual dares to express a contrary thought. The OBe belief teaches that with faith and prayer and effort man can do great things. The other says "You do what you are told to do and don't question orders I" The one seeks to give greater freedom; the other to suppress it. The one strives to honor truth; the other twists it to make black seem white and evil, good. Under the one system, men choose their leaders by ballots; under the other, by bullets. The difference between the two systems and the two beliefs is the age-old difference there has always been between freedom and slavery. But what, you will say, has this to do with you? Abraham Lincoln once said mat this Nation could not exist half slave and half free, and a long and bloody war was fought to end slavery in these United States. Our very small world of today is half slave and half free. How lemg it will remain this way, no one knows you young people now opening your books, swinging baseball bats, and running errands may be the persons who will have to make the final decision. And so, now, at the very moment mom-ent that we are entertnz the great Age of Space, what you are malting malt-ing of yourselves is vitally important im-portant to the future. For free gov ernment and the rights we hold under it always depend upon how well we as individuals discharge our duties. What kind of a record are we making? If we are honest, we must admit, "Not a very good." A growing number of people are refusing to accept their responsibilities. respon-sibilities. Unhappily, a preliminary prelim-inary study indicates that the Crime Index for United States cities in the calendar year 1958 rose 8 percent over the previous year. These crimes are counted on the basis of "offenses known to the police," not just arrests. But it is worth noting that while the number of arrests reported by city police departments during dur-ing 1958 in the same preliminary vinced that your individual spiritual spirit-ual and moral code is a very real weapon in the war on both juvenile juven-ile crime and juvenile delinquency. It is you the individual who fixes the pattern of what is or is not acceptable in your age group. Your personal standards, from which your conduct springs, are therefore there-fore vital to the setting of group standards. It seems to me that the world in which we live puts too much emphasis on what we have and not enough .on what we are. Certainly it is a human thing to strive to better ourselves materially, but is it not more important to strive for spiritual growth? We need only set standards a little higher and make real efforts to meet those standards to bring about a definite change in the moral climate clim-ate of today. A simple refusal to indulge in petty gossip or cheapen oneself through the use of foul or vulgar language helps lift one's sights. Isn't it well to remember that ever" 'iay, in everything you do, you are developing the sense of values by which you will be guided throughout adulthood? Are you, in the words of the poet Tennyson, being "loyal to the royal in thyself"? It is never easy to go against the crowd even when the crowd is wrong. It is not easy to stand up to the taunt of "chicken!" But each time it is done, it becomes be-comes easier and the doing of it while one is young spells the difference between a strong man and a weakling when one becomes an adult. |