How To Write Special Feature Articles Part 32

Says Mr. Deady, who has charge of the department for male minors: "Ranging from fourteen to nineteen years of age, of all nationalities and beliefs, fresh from the influence of questionable home environment, boisterous and brimful of animation, without ideas and thoughtless to a marked degree--this is the picture of the ordinary boy who is in search of employment. He is without a care and his only thought, if he has one, is to obtain as high a wage as possible. It is safe to say that of the thousands of boys who apply annually at the employment office, two-thirds are between sixteen and eighteen years of age. Before going further, we can safely say that twenty per cent of the youngest lads have left school only a few weeks before applying for work.

Approximately sixty per cent have not completed a course in the elementary grammar schools."

The boy of foreign parentage seems to be more in earnest, more ambitious, than the American boy (not to quibble over the definition of the adjective "American"). Walter L. Sears, superintendent of the office in Kneeland street, tells this story:

An American youngster came in.

"Gotta job?" he asked.

"Yes, here is one"--referring to the card records--"in a printing office; four dollars a week."

"'Taint enough money. Got anything else?"

"Here's a place in a grocery store--six dollars a week."

"What time d'ye have to get to work in the morning?"

"Seven o'clock."

"Got anything else?"

"Here's something--errand boy--six a week, mornings at eight."

"Sat.u.r.day afternoons off?"

"Nothing is said about it."

"W-ell-l, maybe I'll drop around and look at it."

American independence!

An Italian boy came in, looking for work. He was told of the printing office job.

"All right. I'll take it."

For what it is worth, it may be set down that a large proportion of the boy applicants carefully scrutinize the dollar sign when they talk wages. Moreover, they are not unacquainted with that phrase concocted by those higher up, "the high cost of living." The compulsion of the thing, or the appeal of the phrase--which?

The youthful unemployed, those who seek employment, would cast a good-sized vote in favor of "shoffer." A youngster comes to Mr. Sears.

He wants to be a "shoffer."

"Why do you want to be a chauffeur?"

"I don't know."

"Haven't you any reasons at all?"

"No, sir."

"Isn't it because you have many times seen the man at the wheel rounding a corner in an automobile at a 2.40 clip and sailing down the boulevard at sixty miles an hour?"

The boy's eyes light up with the picture.

"Isn't that it?"

And the boy's eyes light up with discovery.

"Yes, I guess so."

"Well, have you ever seen the chauffeur at night, after being out all day with the car? Overalls on, sleeves rolled up, face streaming with perspiration? Repairing the mechanism, polishing the bra.s.s? Tired to death?"

"No, sir."

The boy applicants seldom have any clear idea of the ultimate prospects in any line of work they may have in mind--as to the salary limit for the most expert, or the opportunities for promotion and the securing of an independent position. Many of them have no preconceived idea even of what they want to do, to say nothing of what they ought to do.

Here is an instance.

"I want a position," says a boy.

"What kind of a position?"

"I don't know."

"Haven't you ever thought about it?"

"No."

"Haven't you ever talked it over at home or at school?"

"No."

"Would you like to be a machinist?"

"I don't know."

"Would you like to be a plumber?"

"I don't know."

Similar questions, with similar answers, continue. Finally:

"Would you like to be a doctor?"

"I don't know--is that a good position?"

Sometimes a boy is accompanied to the office by his father.

"My son is a natural-born electrician," the father boasts.

"What has he done to show that?"