Bethlen Naptár, 1949 (Ligonier)
Respect for ideals
70 BETHLEN NAPTÁR conspicuous space also in the news service of the radio networks, and these reports had been amplified with the story of his lifework. This priest, Father Edward Flanagan, back in 1917, with ninety dollars in his possession, started out on a strange undertaking. Out in Nebraska he founded a community, known as Boys’ Town, to serve as a home for homeless boys, liable to juvenile delinquency. He became possessed by the idea, that there was no such thing as a bad boy and went ahead to prove it. Already in 1940 Father Flanagan’s Boys’ Town served as a haven for 500 boys. During the last two years a new $5,000,000 program has been in progress which will increase the capacity of the famed community to nearly one thousand boys. The body of Father Flanagan has been brought back to America and laid to rest in the church which he had built, so that his boys, his thousands of redeemed boys, may make a pilgrimage to his resting place whenever they wish to pay their tribute to a man who looked not at the things that can be seen, but looked at the things that cannot be seen. Noble ideals have a winning power which is contagious. I may mention here that following the example set by the good priest of Nebraska, a Boys’ Town was founded also in that part of Hungary where I lived during the war years. Unfortunately, the fine young man, a member of the Reformed Church in Hungary, who was responsible for its foundation, fell victim to an aerial raid, while safeguarding the lives of the boys in his charge. Among the numerous celebrites whose names popular imagination raises to dazzling heights, the names of the Father Flanagans shall gain no recognition. Popular imagination selects its celebrities on a different basis, but in hearts devoted to eternal values, the Father Flanagans will ever remain highly respected. As we are told by Holy Scripture, “They that turn many to righteousness, shall shine as stars forever.” (Dan. 12:3.) In the year 1919, a young scientist by the name of Clifford C. Young, or better known as Cy Young, entered the State Health Service in the State of Michigan. The health condition of the state, at that time, presented a frightful picture. Michigan’s death rate from diphtheria was the highest in the whole of the U. S. Abount a thousand children died annually of that disease alone. Typhoid epidemics were almost daily occurrences. Goiter was rampant in the state to such an extent that it was named far and wide as the “Michigan disease”. About fifty per cent of the state’s children were afflicted by the malady. Whooping cough took the lives of more than 500 children a year. Other contagious diseases took their victims in the same proportion.
