A Chicago boy of 16 has banked $16,000 out of his pay for driving a "booze wagon."
His story was told by Jane Addams in her speech on the "Spirit of Youth" before the City Club of Chicago last night.
The boy boasted of his bank account to a leader of a boys' club and produced his bank book to prove it, she said. He then confessed he had earned the money chauffeuring illicit liquor over the country. He received $250 a trip and looked so young and innocent that hijackers didn't suspect him. The boy naively said he wasn't going to run liquor any more but was going to take his money and go to a university.
"The trend of the young people to do and think like others is the thing we should get worked up about," Miss Addams said, adding that she thought it useless to become excited over bobbed hair and other trivial matters.
"We have in Chicago, what they seem to have in cities of the East -- a crime wave." She told of the bootleg gangs and their methods of iron rule in her own neighborhood.
"Gang spirit has transcended to the youths," she said. "Gangs of boys, ranging in age from 5 to 15 made a practice of stealing from their parents. Each boy must 'treat' the gang -- and he gets the funds by stealing from his parents."
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