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Mail Tribune 100, June 14, 1922 By Alissa Corman Jun 14, 2022 12:00 AM A A News from 100 years ago The following news items were drawn from the archives of the Mail Tribune 100 years ago June 14, 1922 A FINE ORGANIZATION [Staff Editorial] One of the most useful organizations in Medford is the least noisy. Also the least ostentatious. Namely the Greater Medford club. For years this organization of representative Medford women has quietly but effectively supported and assisted every movement designed to make Medford a better place in which to live. Enlightened, progressive and broad minded, it has reserved its energies for those things which are a benefit to all and therefore always worth while. The present rose show for Prosperity Week is a typical example. The Greater Medford club has taken hold of this important feature and as usual made it a complete success. In fact, there is scarcely a cause, which this organization has ever gotten behind, which hasn’t been a complete success. And everything is done with so little fuss, with apparently so little effort. That is what has aroused our enthusiasm, particularly at the present moment. For this is a noisy and rambunctious period. If the Greater Medford club would only make its secret public, a great blessing would be conferred upon their city and their country. GANG SPIRIT GONE RIGHT [Staff Editorial] A group of boys, in an average residence community, had made themselves a pirates’ den with boards and shingles pilfered from various building operations in the neighborhood and from the cellars of their own homes. To live up to their name they carried on piratical exploits involving the disappearance of a gallon of ice cream intended for someone’s party, the entire crop from a neighbor’s peach tree, and a pie set on a window sill to cool. None of the boys were bad individually, but as a gang they lived in a dream world of adventure which carried them into serious mischief. There was one father who didn’t condemn the gang. In fact, he confessed to approving a gang, only he felt that this particular gang has started off on the wrong foot. He had a friend at the Y. M. C. A. who knew about boxing, baseball, basketball and other valuable sports. First thing the pirates knew, they were working their heads off to earn the money needed to join the association. Thereafter they were so taken up with swimming contests, basketball games, hikes and such affairs that they just didn’t have a minute left for stealing pie or smashing windows. It is an old story with many well know variations. It isn’t always the “Y” leader who comes to the rescue. The supervised public playground, the Boy Scout movement, the well managed public park, the parent who points the way unobtrusively to the right sort of activity, all play important roles in making the gang spirit and boundless energy of boyhood forces for safe and happy growth. — Alissa Corman; [email protected]