Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1915 — SHOULD PROTECT THE CARS [ARTICLE]

SHOULD PROTECT THE CARS

Buffalo Judge Criticises Railroads For What He Considers Their < Lax Methods. ■ t George E. Judge, judge of the juvenile court in Buffalo, contributes to the American City Magazine a paper on the unprotected condition of railroad yards as a contributory cause of juvenile delinquency. Thirty per cent of the boys appearing in this court last year were charged with offenses against railroad property. They were duly punished, but the judge wants to know why the railroad should not be punished also for allowing their yards to • remain open with practically free access to a multitude of freight cars, thus placing temptation in the way of children. In Buffalo the railroads run through the poorer part of the city. There are 725 miles of railroad yard tracks. They are generally full of freight cars loaded with all sorts of merchandise. Cars of coal, and such things as flat cars haul, are open. The box cars are protected by a strip of tin an inch wide, which a child of eight years can break. All are guarded by a few night watchmen. - One hundred thousand Polish people live where these railroad yards are. They are mostly poor and all have large families (12 to 14). The father is generally a laborer, making two dollars a day. “Can you imagine,” says the judge, “what such families would do to a car loaded with shoes standing just outside its back yard in winter?” What they do dp constitutes 30 per cent of the cases in the judge’s court. He demands that the railroads remove this potent cause of temptation which unprotected cars of freight produce. From coal to merchandise of all kinds the pilfering goes on and breeds criminals. The judge wants the railroads to fence their yards and thus do their part to remove temptation which it is not difficult to feel is unjust to poor people driven by hard necessity.