I am delighted to be with you all on this festive occasion this evening. One reason I am here, and glad to be here, is my admiration and friendship for your dinner chairman, Belford Lawson. Belford and his lovely wife are two of Washington’s finest citizens – devoted to helping others, to bettering their community, to aiding causes such as this, to promoting better relations between men and women of good will. Belford, moreover, as my presence here demonstrates, is a hard man to refuse – and I might add that the United States Supreme Court found that out some time ago.
But I am also here because of my interest in the Y.M.C.A. and the wonderful work it is doing. Those of you who are here tonight are to be congratulated on your efforts on behalf of this notable organization. Without your support, your patronage and most of all your enthusiasm, no agency such as the Y.M.C.A. could long survive. I know that all of you need no urging from me to continue your dedicated efforts. I am not here tonight to exhort you – but to congratulate you – to extend to you the gratitude of an appreciative community.
We meet tonight to do honor to a great organization and the work it has accomplished. We pay tribute to the leaders of the "Y" and its members, to their progress in a variety of athletic, educational and other activities. Our emphasis is positive and optimistic. We are proud of the young boys and men who have made this organization what it is.
But there are not, I am afraid, many such meetings in Washington tonight – or any other night – or in any other large American city. Instead, meetings are held to deplore the spread of juvenile crime – to protest vandalism – to decry disturbances in schools and parks – and, in general, to wring hands and shake heads over the age-old question: "What’s this younger generation coming to?" There is a tendency in these meetings to search for easy answers and for scapegoats – to blame it all on delinquent parents – or on ineffective teachers – or on modern education, modern discipline, and modern laws covering young offenders. There is a tendency by some to explain crime according to the racial identity of the boys involved. These people use distorted statistics to draw unwarranted conclusions that fit their own pre-conceived prejudices.
I do not believe that anyone in this room would deny that juvenile delinquency is a major problem with which all of us must contend. I do not think that any of us would deny that delinquency exists in all ethnic and economic groups – and that it may well be more prevalent in those areas where racial prejudice and discrimination have contributed to inadequate housing, education, recreation, and employment opportunities and general feelings of repression or hostility. If those who delight in quoting statistics on crime rates among Negroes or Mexican Americans or other minority groups are really interested in the problem, I hope they will also quote more meaningful statistics on the number of families in those groups confined to two-room apartments, the number of children crowded into a single classroom, the number of mothers required to work to help support their family, the number of swimming pools and club houses available to other neighborhoods, the number of social workers and guidance counselors serving the area, and so on and on. But, in addition, there are no statistics which measure the results of discrimination and segregation – the frustration, the warped attitudes, the rebellious feelings that may show themselves in delinquency and crime.
In too many of these meetings concerning the problems of delinquency, there is an emphasis on negative solutions. There are proposals to suspend all disturbed children from school. There is talk of making criminal penalties for juveniles much stiffer – of taking a single offender and "making an example of him," There are proposals for 9 o'clock curfews – for policemen stationed in schools – for sparing neither the rod nor the child. There is much talk of what we are against – the influences of television and comic books, the laxity of many tavern owners, the availability of narcotics and all the rest. There are police officials who seek to put all the blame on parents – there are parents who seek to put all the blame on the police – and there are members in both groups who seek to put the blame on the local school system. There are some, as I mentioned, who place the blame upon the integration of schools and equality of opportunity in other areas on the grounds that this has increased the dangers of delinquency. These are meetings of protest – beset by fear and anxiety – determined to strike out at something or someone – looking for something to condemn, something to deplore, something to be against. But there is not enough emphasis on what we are for – on what constructive steps the nations might take to attack this problem at its roots.
There is much that the Congress of the United States can do to assist in the constructive solution of these problems. We have certain responsibilities relating to our national parks and forests which can provide additional recreational opportunities and adventure for hundreds of thousands of young boys and girls. We have certain responsibilities concerning the care and treatment of drug addicts, with the establishment of additional hospitals and clinics to help young men and women leave this vicious habit. We can provide grants to state and local programs which lack the funds to combat delinquency effectively. We can set an example for all the nation in the District of Columbia as long as this community is arbitrarily denied its democratic right of home rule. We can improve the facilities of the United States Employment Service relating to the part-time, full-time, and summer employment of young people. We have certain responsibilities concerning offenses which take place over state lines, including the problem of runaway children, pornographic literature, and so-called black market babies. There is much the Federal Government can do on this problem – by stimulating, financing, or coordinating the activities of the states – by providing national programs and facilities not otherwise available to the states and local communities – and by setting an example for all the nation to see in the Juvenile Courts, the schools, the housing projects, and the recreational and other facilities of the District of Columbia.
But the primary responsibility rests not with the Congress but with the local community. The problems of juvenile delinquency will never be solved on Capitol Hill – that can be solved only in the home, the church, the school, and in such agencies as the Y.M.C.A. Without that kind of effort on the local level, action by the Congress is to no avail – and could even make matters worse.
The development, for example, of subsidized, low-cost public housing was urged at least in part as an answer to the problem of delinquency. I have been a supporter of this program. There is no question that the elimination of slums has helped to eradicate breeding places of crime. But when a housing project consists of no more than four walls, a stove and a refrigerator, little has been done to get at the real root of the problem. Few housing projects have clubrooms, gyms, or recreation rooms – they cannot be rented. Few, if any, have paid recreational staffs – they are not deemed necessary to carry out the intent of Congress.
Morris Taylor, Executive Director of the Robert Gould Shaw House in Roxbury, Massachusetts testified before the Senate Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee as follows:
"I fought for better housing through low-rent housing projects, but today we recognize that housing is more than shelter, brick, stone, mortar, and utilities. The large concentration of families in small areas – with little or no organized recreational leadership or facilities – is giving us our greatest trouble at the present time …One project manager attempted to get a group together if the parents would supervise a recreation room in the basement – but not one parent was willing to assume this responsibility."
The basic responsibility must be assumed on the local level. The Y.M.C.A., the churches, and many community fund agencies have demonstrated what can be done. Untold millions of individual parents have demonstrated in their own homes what could be done. But still more needs to be done – and, in particular, through services such as those provided by the organization we salute tonight.
There are too many people in this country, I am afraid, who think of the Y.M.C.A. simply in terms of a gymnasium and swimming pool. Lacking first-hand knowledge and full reports, they emphasize only this limited feature of an organization that might otherwise be performing much needed services to their boys or neighborhood. If there is a park, a pool, or a playground nearby, they see no reason to send their boys to the Y.M.C.A.
But parks, playgrounds and pools are not enough. They are not an answer to delinquency, to deficient moral training, to defective social attitudes, or even to underdeveloped bodies. The Y.M.C.A. knows this. It offers supervision, planning, discipline, and, above all, leadership that is not available in the ordinary recreation area.
But more than that, the Y.M.C.A. emphasizes something other than physical development. The "Y" triangle – emphasizing the mental side of life, and the spiritual and social side, as well as the physical – is based on the familiar passage of the scriptures that described the growth of the Young Jesus – in the words of Luke: "And Jesus increased in wisdom, and in stature, and in favor with God and man."
The boys of the Y.M.C.A. – not only here in Washington, but all over the country and indeed all over the world – have developed their muscles, to be sure. They have improved their athletic skills, they have toughened their physiques, they have truly "increased in stature." But, in addition, they have increased in wisdom – and they have increased in favor with God and man. They are better members of their group, better neighbors in their community, better citizens of their country and the world. They have learned that religion is not so much a set of beliefs – to be repeated on the Sabbath – as a way of life to be practiced every day of the week.
It is for this reason that the Y.M.C.A. is one of the most effective deterrents to delinquency that we have in this country today. The boy who is able to spend a week at camp does not feel as strongly the urge to run away from home. The boy who can pour out his aggression in the supervised boxing ring is less likely to take it out in street assaults. The boy who belongs to a club or a team is not as dependent upon the security of the neighborhood gang. The boy who finds at the "Y" a leader who is both strong and good – or whose problems are spotted early by a skilled guidance counselor – or who learns to appreciate more fully the values of his church and home – these are boys who recognize that the future of the man depends, in large measure, upon the character of the boy.
The Y.M.C.A. cannot do the job alone, of course. Without the cooperation of parents and schools, it may only lessen the time available for improper conduct without alleviating it. Without greater participation by parents and others, it may serve only as a gathering place for those inclined toward delinquency. Without more financial support from the community, it cannot offer enough attractive and stimulating facilities and activities to make more than a small dent in the area it serves.
And so it is, in the final analysis that the problem comes to rest upon the shoulders of each of us – as parents, as church members, as taxpayers and contributors to various causes. If we shrug off juvenile misconduct as inevitable, as "wild oats" which must be sown, then the problem will grow worse. If we deplore it by doing nothing about it – if we ignore it by asserting it does not affect our own homes – or if we throw up our hands at the futility of combating it – then we shall have failed in our responsibilities to our community and our children. What we need is not despair, but courage – not agitation, but illumination.
In his book, "One Man’s America," Alistair Cooke tells the story which best illustrates my point. On the 19th of May, 1780, as he describes it, in Hartford, Connecticut, the skies at noon turned from blue to gray and by mid-afternoon had blackened over so densely that, in that religious age, men fell on their knees and begged a final blessing before the end came. The Connecticut House of Representatives was in session. And as some men fell down in the darkened chamber and others clamored for an immediate adjournment, the Speaker of the House, one Colonel Davenport, came to his feet. And he silenced the din with these words: "The Day of Judgment is either approaching – or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish, therefore, that candles may be brought."
Friends of the Y.M.C.A., we who are here today concerned with the dark and difficult tasks ahead ask once again that candles may be brought to illuminate our way – in order that every American youngster, regardless of his color, creed, or economic status, may grow in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man.
Source: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. Senate Files, Box 900, "YMCA Annual Branch Dinner, Washington, D.C., 19 March 1958." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.