What Is a Gang?
6oo THE COMMONWEAL October 27, 1926 find exquisite materials in Chinese legends, a composer the outskirts of...
...private citizens...
...But How much can be done toward remedying the situaregardless of such matters, Mr...
...This peculiar view is sometimes the result without which higher wages and fairer contracts would of circumstances that challenge reflection...
...Deems Taylor is un- tion is still a matter of conjecture...
...They merely regarded their social Hardly any congress where labor has met to define its code as a kind of "natural law" which ruled the human aims has missed featuring on its agenda as a factor universe...
...It is characterized by the following types of statistics of crime have been gathered in a thousand behavior: meeting face to face, milling, movement and one places, by a thousand and one agencies...
...In other words, the gang is a group problem has generally taken the stand that more beneof fellows who fall in with one another somewhere ficial associations must be created to take the place of in a part of town which sags, like an old house on a the gang...
...But in the long run, Professor F URTHER machine-gun murders in...
...But what, to be boys' as defined by society, are largely created by the precise, is a gang...
...arity, morale, group awareness, and attachment to a Thus far the remedial energy expended on the local territory...
...to the growing anxiety of society, and doubtless scoutThey fight each other's battles, take a liking to each ing is an excellent thing...
...The result of though they lead to varied conclusions, they all this collective behavior is the development of tradition, enforce one truth : that not the race, not heredity, but unreflective internal structure, esprit de corps, solid- the child is the father of the man...
...No doubt the doubtedly one reason why the coming musical season tightening of legal and police processes might terrify will be unusually stimulating and compelling...
...spending for the public weal ought to be a social rule, have overlooked a few rather essential matters...
...Bad urban district is free of the gang evil...
...Were THE FIVE-DAY WEEK the "interstitial areas" referred to by Professor Thrasher eliminated, crime would not cease, but gang T HE five-day week that now seems to be on us is criminality probably would...
...6oo THE COMMONWEAL October 27, 1926 find exquisite materials in Chinese legends, a composer the outskirts of respectability-instead of upon rewho lives under the beneficent rule of the Constitution spectability's bosom...
...must never hazard a peep beyond the horizon...
...The conflict...
...Almost everyone has a good instance of how quickly far-reaching social known professional gangsters who in private life were changes sometimes eventuate...
...Possibly the elimination of prohibitory legislation as a source of subterranean inWHAT IS A GANG...
...an "extra-curricular" activity...
...They had grown used to lisreach a sturdy age and are released from institutions, tening to proposals whose realization seemed schedfind themselves so ignorant of ordinary social practice uled for some dim and distant future...
...But even so, scouting alone the little crowd which Jesse James gathered round him can never be sufficient...
...But through space, conflict, and planning...
...It is necessarily what may be in post-bellum Missouri...
...Until the more eleLong ago it became apparent that, granted certain mental institutions-the school, the family, the comeconomic and social conditions, the gang would appear munity-realize the complexity of the growth of youth as naturally as flies are an inevitable deduction from and prepare themselves to foster it adequately, there unsanitary drainage conditions...
...Chicago have Thrasher is right in saying: "The abolition of the once more concentrated attention upon the 1,313 gang, even if it co i1d be accomplished, would not regangs which the city is said to possess, by actual count...
...And thereby hangs a tale which formed spontaneously, and then integrated through is at the present moment peculiarly pertinent...
...Scouting is the reply of the welfare worker weedy lot, between prosperous and urbane districts...
...But the practical-minded were has shown, for instance, that foundlings, when they not greatly impressed...
...It dustries, carried on at night or under special circumis not at all surprising that they should take refuge in stances of strain, the shorter week had already been...
...Experience be an illusory gain...
...In certain inas to fear the companionship of normal persons...
...Perhaps a few weaknesses other's favorite haunts, and gradually get into the that have cropped up in its history need correction, but habit of undertaking "community" enterprises...
...Many boys there would be able to approach this impressive sum-total, no large become demoralized even without the gang...
...a few of those disposed to assume, summarily, the role of justice in person...
...The demand of the amiable, trustworthy and sometimes even religious as worker for more abundant leisure is nothing new...
...Professor Frederick Thrasher disorganizing forces consequent upon the confused conoffers this definition in a recent contribution to The ditions where American life is in process of ferment Survey : "The gang is an interstitial group originally and readjustment...
...That does not imply is little enough hope for a time when the "gang," offera comparison between flies and mortal men: it merely ing an easy and adventuresome way out of daily signifies that those who feel that government has no drudgery, will be completely eliminated as a force that hygienic function, that economy and not salutary makes for lawlessness and crime...
...Gangs on the whole, none of our American "movements" in Chicago do not, therefore, differ essentially from displays a healthier spirit...
...come might also help...
...move the unwholesome influences with which the boy Though other thriving centres of population may not in gangland is surrounded...
Vol. 4 • October 1926 • No. 25
