Five-Cent Novels & Moving Pictures

Almost any night at a late hour, small children can be seen alone on the streets of Hazard. Anyone knows that the street is not the place to mold boys into true manhood. Some boys are seen smoking cigarettes and cigars. Cigarettes stunt the growth of children and dull the brain and reduce them to a low state of morality. In addition, any one who observes can see that from some source the boys in Hazard are getting ideas that true life is one of a wild, desperate nature, and that a man is not a man unless he carries a gun and is ever ready for trouble. Whether these ideas are coming from five-cent novels or from low class moving pictures, we cannot say. Moving pictures, like books, are splendid when they are the right kind but the "knock down and drag out kind" of either books or movies will do more to corrupt the minds of the youth than any other two things mentionable. 1920