Indianapolis Times, Volume 38, Number 184, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 November 1926 — Page 9

THE FIRST PLAY in this game we call life is to care for those who live under the same roof with you. There’s something in each of you that won’t let you shirk the responsibilities that come with being a member of a family group. The man who side-steps those duties—primary duties that date back to a time long before man began to walk on two legs instead of four—has a word written beside his name in no uncertain lettering. The word is CAD. It is the LABEL of a little, shrivelled soul. The word isn’t written beside your name or we wouldn’t waste time talking to you. * * * YOU give your family food, clothing, shelter, protection, education. Are you content, then, to pat yourself on the back as a good husband and father, smugly look the world in the face, and say, “I take care of my family. I’m a good citizen and I deserve respect! ” Well, the respect you get for going through with a primary duty is all fine enough. i But HOW BIG IS YOUR FAMILY, anyway? ' Is it limited to the little group under your roof?. Or are you big enough to want to include in your family the neighbor, whether he lives next door to you or in a dump down by the river or in cramped quarters down a side street? Are you BIG enough to want to help that BIG FAMILY of unfortunates that have just as strong a right to life as you have? * * # YOU had a good start. * Somebody saw that you were clean and healthy, that you went to school, that you had your chance. But there are people who don’t live very far from you who started out with a handicap—a handicap so enormous that they never caught up. If THEY had had YOUR chance, and YOU had had THEIRS, they might be saying today about YOU, “He’s my neighbor, and it’s up to me to give him a lift.” * * * HOW BIG IS YOUR HEART? Just a kernel down somewhere inside of you, a hard-shelled little

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organ that pumps your blood? Or is it the kind of heart that bubbles up with sympathy when you see some member of that BIGGER FAMILY—your very human neighbors—in trouble or in need? l Is it the kind of heart that sends your hand down into your pocket and brings up practical help when your sympathy is touched? * * * MORE THAN THAT. Is your heart the sort of heart that can be touched even though you don’t SEE your neighbor’s need? Are you able to put yourself in somebody else’s place, to realize that there are thousands of your neighbors in this community who are sick, crippled, poverty-stricken, despairing—neighbors too proud to cry out for help, too proud to stop you on the street and ask for aid? Some of them are bending over the wash tub—racked by a hacking cough that Sunnyside could cure. Some are lying sick with nobody to care. Some are walking the streets to drown despair. Some are watching their little children starve. Some are taking their own lives because hope is dead. * * * * Can you picture that—and then not.haul out your checkbook and write a check into figures that will HURT your bank balance? If you can write that check, your family is that BIG family of human beings who need the friendly, helping hand. * * # What’s the difference between your child and the fatherless little fellow who ought to be in the Florence Crittenton Home? Not half so much difference as you’d like to think. YOUR CHILD and THAT OTHER CHILD came into the world with much the same kind of body, much the same sort of brain, the same fear of loud noises and of being dropped, the same curiosity about the great world he opened his eyes in—the same potentialities. That’s the soundest psychology there is. But YOUR boy grows up into a fine, strong boy —intelligent, social, successful—while this other

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little chap grows up crooked, ignorant, warped, unhealthy. The difference is in the TRAINING. YOUR CHILD gets the best of training—the other little fellow, through no fault of his own, gets left. YOUR CHILD has a 100% chance at happiness and the fuller life. THE OTHER CHILD has a 10% chance. It’s SOMEBODY’S fault if that 90% difference isn’t eliminated at the earliest possible moment. Which is where the Florence Crittenton Home and the Family Welfare Society, the Day Nursery, the Boys’ Club, and other organizations of similar nature come in. # * * But those organizations can’t go on unless YOU help pay. * * # It’s not only the children who need your help. Sometimes the family has to be set on its feet. Sometimes it’s an old woman or an old man. Or a young mother. But whoever it is, SOMEBODY has to look out for them. # * * And the Community Fund is the BETTER WAY. It makes sure that when you set out to help that BIGGER FAMILY, you are hitting the right spots. If is the most efficient and the surest way of protecting those who need the friendly hand. # * * r When some man who is just as busy as you are, comes to your office begging for others, come through with a check that will DEFLATE your bank account and INFLATE your sense of human neighborliness. COME THROUGH. And remember, just another naught on that check may save a human life or start a child on the right road. # * * * # * * * * ' i %•! " INDIANAPOLIS COMMUNITY FUND

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