SPEECHES & WRITINGS FILE
                                                                 Remarks Made in Portsmouth, 
                                                                  Va., Nov. 12, 1920

Remarks Made in Portsmouth Va.  Nov. 12, 1920.
Nothing could afford me more genuine pleasure than to speak at a 
meeting called in the interest of our girls. We frequently say that 
the boys and girls of to day are the men and women of tomorrow. But, 
if actions speak louder than words, there is no doubt that many of us 
express this thought without realizing what it means. We declare 
that the boys and girls of to day will be the men and women of 
tomorrow as a poll parrot utters words he has been taught to say without 
having the slightest idea what they mean.
   The best proof of the fact that many of us say the boys and 
girls of to day will be the men and women of tomorrow as a poll 
parrot talks, is the painful manner in which thousands of our boys and 
girls have been neglected. The civilization of a country is tested 
by the manner in which it cares for its women, its boys and girls. 
If the physical welfare of the boys and girls of one generation is 
not looked after properly, the men and women of the next and 
succeeding generations may be stunted in growth and be weak. When one think
how few efforts have been put forth in the past by so-called, highly
civilized nations to care for the physical well-being of their youth,
the wonder is that there are so many men and women who are strong and 
sturdy to day. It seems nothing less than a miracle that there are 
so many able-bodied men and robust women, when we remember how our 
children have been allowed to disregard the rules of health, 
But, if the physical welfare of our youth has been shamefully neglected, 
the moral and spiritual development has been disregarded all the more.
It is only recently that even highly civilized nations have begun to realize
that it is the duty of the State to provide for the moral and spiritual
development of its future citizens. It was because a patriotic, far-seeing 
man realized that if some special effort were not made to promote the 
spiritual and moral welfare of the young men of London that the first 
YMCA was established there in 1844. now seventy six years ago. Before


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that time even the most-highly civilized and the most Christian nations 
in the world had done little or nothing to provide especially for the religious 
training of young men except that offered them in the church. 
The morals of the young men of Great Britain were declining with such 
alarming raphidity. They were plunging into dissipation of all kinds so 
fast that George Williams the founder of the YMCA, felt that unless something
were done speedily, the morals of thousands of young men in England
would be smirched and ruined beyond repair.
At first efforts were made by the YMCA only to provide for the religious 
training of young men. There was np use trying to close the nation's eyes 
to the fact that the great majority of young men had ceased to go to church.
Religious services alone made slight appeal to the rank and file of the 
young men. But the music halls, the saloons and places of evil repute 
were gathering them in by the thousands. So the founder of the YMCA was 
early impressed with the fact that if nothing were done for the instructio
recreation and amusement of the young men whom they wanted to benefit,
the organization would fail to accomplish much of the work it had hoped to 
do. And so it was decided to have noted speakers deliver lectures on subjects
which would instruct, enlighten and interest young men. Social functions 
were a given, a gumnasium was inaugurated and everything was done to 
draw young men from the unfluences which were sapping their vitality and 
destroying them body and soul.
Eleven years after the YMCA was founded, the YWCA was formed. Its founder
a Mrs. Robarts of Boston organized the first center in 1855. It was the 
first effort of the kind made in the United States to promote the spiritul 
and moral welfare of young women outside the church. For, while young 
women had not deserted the church in 1855 to the shocking extent practised 
by young men, nevertheless they had begun to remain away from the church 
in rapidly increasing numbers. Long before the Emancipation Proclmation 
was signed, therefore, lo years before their colored sisters were even free
it was deemed necessary to put forth herculean efforts outside the church 
to save the young white women of the United States, so many of whom were 
forsaking the straight and narrow way in which their grandmothers trod to 
wande off into by and forbidden paths.

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