“What Other People Think”

Headline: “What Other People Think”

Children or Theaters

To the Editor of The Journal:

I notice that our policemen are asked to work extra hours that all theaters may be provided with guards to prevent bomb throwing. I have also been informed that traffic men are to be taken from street intersections adjacent to schools. I am obliged to remain at home with the younger child, and can not take my children to and from school. I know with what fears my mind will be harrassed [sic] these next few days, not that the protection formerly given my boy and girl has been withdrawn. Let the theaters supply and pay for their own guards against the bombers, and do not take police protection from small children.

— Mrs. C. Orwin, Minneapolis.

[…]

Guard the Children

To the Editor of The Journal:

I believe it was a most injudicious act to take the police away from the school crossings in order to guard the theaters of Minneapolis. The average motorist gives little consideration to the pedestrian crossing the street. It is dangerous for an adult. How much more dangerous is it, then, to a child of five or dix endeavoring to cross a busy street when the traffic is whirling by?

I am personally fond of the theaters and fond of motoring, and also am a father. I believe that any father who is a movie fan places the life of his child ahead of his attendance at the shows. It is not necessary to attend shows, but both the law and good citizenship demand that we send our children to school.

Recently my own son, a boy of six, was 45 minutes late getting home from school. He finally came home with tears in his eyes, saying that he could not get across the street, and finally had piced up courage enough to go into a store and ask the storekeeper to take him across.

It seems as though in this day and age, human life and public morals are lost in the shuffle for the benefit of that time old economic institution called property.

— J. R. Ridpath.
Minneapolis.