In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

192 Father Flanagan was sitting on the porch wrapped in a blanket when two young boys came bearing a bouquet of spring flowers. He had been ill again. Seriously so. The children were allowed to visit him only in shifts, two or three here and there, each whispering to him that they were praying for him. He leaned forward in the chair to listen closely to the soft words, to pat a shoulder. The last few years had been difficult. When the crops had failed at the farm—as they had throughout the Midwest during the drought—the home had been perilously close to closing. But here it was two years later, still open; children were still being fed—although sometimes not much. He had written to Mrs. Lamson about Herbert Niccolls. What had happened to the boy? How was he faring in prison? A mere child in with the worst of humanity. Governor Martin had done little. Sure, Martin had seen the boy and struck up a friendship, he had been told. But he had not paroled the boy to Boys Town so that he might have a chance to grow morally. Chapter 19 Chapter 19 193 Flanagan had heard that Hartley was trying to run for a third term. It seemed all the energy put into the Niccolls campaign, all the editorials, the letters, the radio speeches—all had been for nothing. He knew well that the longer a boy was in bad company, the harder it was to turn his life around. Intervention must start early, the earlier the better, to save the flower from being lost among the weeds. That’s what he told his audiences wherever he spoke, from the radio stations of Seattle to an address he gave before college students in Flagstaff, Arizona. He told them, too, that gangster films were bad for children, especially poor children. He had seen a change in the movies, from the sentimental, where right prevailed, to those where criminals were heroes. Darryl F. Zanuck’s The Public Enemy, produced before the Production Code Administration imposed censorship, was the worst. It depicted a poor boy who gained underworld prestige and power and lived the high life by becoming a vicious criminal. The Public Enemy ushered in a new kind of film that was darker, with more sex and violence than ever before. And nothing could have been worse for the Herbert Niccollses of the world. “Police authorities stress the possible evil influences of such films which encourage hungry and bewildered youths to go out and do similar things in real life to get money and relieve their miserable conditions,” Flanagan had said. And misery was everywhere in these days of acute unemployment . Everywhere the hungry marched into state capitols to beg legislators for government help. They set up camps, nicknamed Hoovervilles , at the edge of towns. Union members battled for pay and benefits with the owners of factories, farms, and coal mines. And all manner of racketeering plagued the nation’s highways as travelers were waylaid and money extorted from them as payment for being allowed to pass. In the meantime, Boys Town had incorporated as an official village with its own mayor and post office. Poor though it was, for boys it was a sanctuary in the middle of chaos. Knowing his home for boys was now an official town with roots and a future gave Flanagan satisfaction. Perhaps now, Boys Town would survive him. 194 • It was summer, sizzling and windy, with great rolling tumbleweeds skittering down the road in front of the warden’s mansion like a runaway carnival ride. The circus had come to town and trucks rumbled up and down the road near the prison, the advance man announcing the coming of the show in the big top—Big Sadie, 500 pounds of wiggly-jiggly love, and her husband, the 7-foot-5-inch Boris the Russian Giant. There were lions, tigers, and bears, too, tamers in top hats, elephants wise and wonderful, acrobats, jugglers, magicians, clowns, and dazzling bareback riders in sequined costumes. Herbert could hear the parade, so close and yet part of that forbidden distant world. He returned to his spade and the garden and the rhythm rang through the afternoon. From inside the house came the sound of sobbing. It was a familiar sound, though before he had always associated the sound with his mother. McCauley had congratulated himself on the fact that the two inmates missing after the...

Share