Scouting, Volume 5, Number 4, June 15, 1917 Page: 4
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SCOUTING.
SCOUTING
PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY BY NATIONAL HEAD-
QUARTERS BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA, FOR SCOUT
OFFICIALS AND OTHERS INTERESTED IN
THE BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT.
OFFICERS OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL AND
EXECUTIVE BOARD
Honorary President: Woodrow Wilson.
Honorary Vice-President: William H. Taft.
Honorary Vice-President: Theodore Roosevelt.
Honorary Vice-President: Daniel C. Beyd.
President: Colin II. Livingstone, Washington.
Nat'l Scout Commissioner: Daniel C. Beard.
Treasurer: George D. Pratt, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Chief Scout Executive: James E. West, N. Y. C.
National Field Scout Commissioner: S. A. Moffat.
National Field Scout Commissioner for the Pacific
Coast District: H. D. Cross, 90S Phelan Build-
ing, San Francisco.
National Field Scout Commissioner for the Middle
West District: Judson P. Freieman, 39 South
La Salle St., Chicago.
Office of Publication: 200 Fifth Avenue,
New York City.
Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office,
New York, N. Y., under the act of
August 24, 1912.
VOL. V.
JUNE 15, 1917
No. 4
of the great fighting strength of the Na-
tion just now. The Boy Scouts of Amer-
ica have been so saturated with the non-
militarism of our organization, and war-
fare is so identified in their minds with
militarism, that the boys must be made to
see that warfare, which has become a vital
necessity to our country, is conducted not
alone by military forces, but by many other
agencies. And the Boy Scouts of America
are enlisted in this war as surely as the
most thoroughly enlisted soldier.
We must get this fact into their very
blood. See to it that the boys shoulder
their hoes and their rakes with as much
spirit as they would a gun. Cause them
to see that the errands they run in behalf
of the great work of the Red Cross here
at home, are as important and as much a
part of the tense campaigns in Europe as
are the messages carried by armed and
mounted couriers upon the battlefields
themselves.
The band has stopped playing for the
boys. The novelty of the thing has passed.
The first wave of public interest in what
the boys would do has subsided. The
planting is over. The weeds have come.
The Boy Scouts face their dangers unat-
tended by an audience. There is no fun
left in the gardening: it has all become
He tries to keep the old
trails clear, and point out
the new ones blazed by
faithful Scouts.
THE FOURTH OF JULY
SINCE 76 we have burned a lot of pow- ^rd w°r^: . , , „ ,
, , „ , , , The duties which the Boy Scouts have
der and exploded atmospheres of hot assumed for QUr Nation must not degen_
air in celebration of the men w erate into chores. The fighting against
fought for liberty. In our unrestrained weeds and ajj discouragements of gar-
enthusiasm we have sometimes gone so far denjng must not degenerate Into drudgery.
as to burn ourselves and churn up our senti- ^\t every opportunity keep before the boys
ments with oratory until they became the fact, indeed the glorious fact, that they
frothy. The Glorious Fourth this year form an indispensable part of the fighting
demands a show-down. force of the Nation; performing tasks as
There is still a tendency to enthuse, and serious as are those of the soldiers them-
let the other fellow enlist; to harp on har^ selves, entrenched against the foe in for-
vests, and let somebody else hoe; to mag- eig? lands.
nify the need of money, and keep ours in + Every Scoutmaster will know best how
a1_ j . i . A „ if- 4.u„* to handle this theme. Let none of us mis-
the stocking. As sure as preaching that takg thg situation The COUntry is not on
sort of bunk will cost us the very blessings a jar^ r^g ^oys Q£ America are not
which we have been bragging about. playing at warfare. America is fighting
It takes time to pry a great nation like the battle of Freedom, and in doing it is
ours out of its rut of easy, luxurious living depending upon every Boy Scout to do his
and turn its face until it feels the heat of the duty to the end.
raging conflagration, from which it is pro- -
tected only by a line of defenses as thin
as an asbestos curtain. But must we feel An Opportunity for Nature Study
the prick of a German bayonet before we 0CAL Councils have an opportunity to
w^,e US" r- r • j 1—' avail themselves of the help of Mr.
The Boy Scouts of America can do more Samuel Scoville, Tr., the staff naturalist of
than any other organization in impressing the Philadelphia Council and of the Coun-
upon the people of every town and city the cji Qf Delaware and Montgomery Counties,
fact that we are at war and that we must Each week he issues a printed nature bulle-
fight harder than we have yet dreamed of tin which is now being supplied to Scout
fighting, or lose. A troop of Scouts, silently officials in several cities.
marching through the streets to their gar- Mr. Scoville is a member of the Geogra-
dens with hoes and cultivators, at the hour phical Society and of the Delaware Valley
when boys formerly shattered the com- Ornithological Association and an alumnus
munity's nerves with cannon crackers, °/ X, , University and the University of
would set people thinking. The fact that A New York- Samples of his
garden work is no longer a novelty, that valuable nature bulletins and information
now the sun is hot, will strengthen the im- concerning his service can be secured by
pression.
And if, after doing their work in the
fields, the Scouts devote the rest of the day
to helping the firemen, or the police, or per-
forming other civic service, many an adult
citizen will see and understand. No real
man will remain idle while a boy gives up
his fun to do real work for his country.
addressing him at 1307 Pennsylvania Build-
ing, Philadelphia, Pa.
AFTER THE BAND STOPS
T
Have You Seen Him?
SCOUT Officials are asked to be on the
lookout for Second Class Scout Charles
Thayer of Troop 1, Mt. Pleasant, Mich.,
who left his home recently and has not been
heard from since. He is thirteen years of
age. His complexion and hair are light and
HE "tea-cup" soldier is at his best e^s -are ^'ue- On leayjng home he was
- marching to the thrill of the drums. aJ?ue, *Ul: tan shoes and
The real soldier is at hi« hest fatn farP a ^ey Cap," He ™°re ,second class badge.
.? , soldiei is at his best tace to face ^ny mformation which may be secured
\\ ith danger and unattended by an audience, should be forwarded to Scoutmaster Floyd
It is going to be a little hard for the boys Ferguson, 416 S. Kinney Ave., Mt. Pleas-
to really understand that they are a part ant, Mich.
1HAVE a wife and several other reasons
for not going to war, but I may as well
confess that I sneaked off on the quiet
to see if there was a commission lying
around loose that I could annex.
It was something of a shock to me when
they smiled indulgently and said: "Of
course, at your age you could not try for
anything less than a colonel's commission
and, not having had military experience, it
would hardly be probable that you could
qualify."
No chance to enlist, either. Makes a
fellow feel old when the doors of oppor-
tunity slam as he passes along. If it wasn't
for the Scout work I'd feel mighty blue.
No dead line there.
It seemed to me that every fellow ought
to do something extra—individual over-
time stunts to convince people that his hot
air is not produced with other people's
coal.
First came the emergency coast patrol
suggestion. No telling whether we will be
needed or not, but it pays to be ready.
Took my rowboat and got intimately ac-
quainted with the coast for five miles each
way from my house. If the call comes I
know exactly where stations could be set
up, how they could communicate with each
other, how the Scouts could get grub and
water and telephone service.
Then the gardening proposition came
along. Hadn't planted a seed in sixteen
years, but I hadn't forgotten the fun of it.
It was easy to get land. Not quite so
easy to get it ploughed, but eventually it
was ready. For six weeks I've been get-
ting up at five and working an hour before
breakfast. It makes me ashamed to think
of all the mornings I've wasted in thirty
years, sleeping while the birds sang; and
all the doctors' bills I've paid for the lack
of regular work; and all the light I've
burned at hours when everything that God
made, except folks, had sense enough to
be asleep.
Next it was the Liberty Loan propa-
ganda. About my time of life a fellow
usually begins to salt away a little to ensure
a berth in the old people's home, and when
he has enough to buy a security he usually
tries to find one that's going up.
I subscribed for one Liberty Bond before
the President asked the Scouts to float the
issue. You can guess, having been visited
yourself by the Scout bond salesmen, that
I bought more afterwards.
I tell you, bad as this war is, it's going
to make men of a lot of boys and boys of
a lot of us old fellows. I'm getting so
cocky I want to pick a fight with every
delicatessen man I meet until I see the
Stars and Stripes on his coat.
Now it's the Red Cross campaign. Give?
Who could help it when you think of all
the Red Cross has done! I walked over
the Johnstown flood district, the Charleston
earthquake area, the burned sections of
Baltimore, and Chelsea and Salem. There
are a lot of demands just now, but even
if they were doubled the Red Cross would
still be near the top of my list. I want
those boys who are spilling their blood for
my sake to have a chance to recover from
their wounds and come home again, by and
by.
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 5, Number 4, June 15, 1917, periodical, June 15, 1917; New York, New York. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth282872/m1/4/: accessed May 21, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.