I got the strangest e-mail on Father's Day. At first I thought it was a joke. A friend sent me one of those alarmist e-mails that wanted me to sign a petition to get lawmakers to legislate protection of the Boy Scouts of America.

Protect the Boys Scouts of America? The e-mail warned that "the ACLU is out to destroy the Boy Scouts of America with wave after wave of lawsuits designed to bankrupt the organization."

As I read the material that the Boy Scouts were threatened, I wondered why a lawmaker would need a petition to defend Apple Pie and America. That caused me to wonder what ever happened to common sense.

I am a product of the Boy Scouts and I have my original "Handbook For Boys," the Boy Scout manual that I received when I was a Scout in the 1930s. The copyright date is 1931. It has a blue cover with a Boy Scout profiled against a background of famous Americans -- George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Boone, Theodore Roosevelt and Charles Lindbergh.

On the front flyleaf is a uniformed Boy Scout on one knee holding a scroll "On My Honor," before Lady Liberty armed with the shield of the American eagle. Underneath this plate is the word "Service."

The dedication advises boys to build themselves into good citizens and states the famous motto of the Scouts, "Be Prepared."

I thumbed through the entire edition and found nothing subversive in any of the writings, in fact I didn't even find one negative statement in the book. Perhaps the offensive word to ACLU was the word, God. I must admit God was mentioned often in my old manual.

But the whole premise of Scouting then, and I believe now, was to turn young men into good citizens. Citizenship was certainly emphasized and it was so stated in a section called "What shall we return to America?"

It recited the Scout Oath as pointing the way to good citizenship by being "physically strong, morally awake, and morally straight."

You don't think it was that word "straight" that set the ACLU off do you?

Mind you, I was a Scout in the Depression era between World War I and World War II, yet the Boy Scout manual that I have has several pages devoted to what it called "one of the tragedies of life of the world -- war." That sounds like a good assessment of war to me, especially when the 1930s manual said the Boy Scout movement around the world is creating world friendship, making a community of interest among nations clear and should help prevent future wars. It emphasized that a Scout who lives good will and fairness and peace is helping the world recover from the disease of war.

That doesn't sound like a bad organization to me. The scouting idea dates back to 1907 when Lord Robert Baden-Powel, then a British army general, conducted a boys camp which led to the formation of the British Boy Scouts Association. Boy Scouts of America soon followed in 1910.

My scouting career was short. I went from tenderfoot to my last rank of Star Scout. I never made it to the coveted Eagle Scout rank, but I see news accounts that young men are still achieving that distinction. Interestingly, each one takes on a special project to better the community.

I can't help but salute their efforts and wonder what evil some lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union could find in such a worthwhile organization whose sole aim is building better citizens. Likewise, I don't understand why we need a law to protect such an organization, especially in these troubling times.

To get this e-mail on Father's Day made the issue more puzzling. With the absence of fathers in many homes today and the growing drug use, violence and numerous other pitfalls for teenage boys, the Boy Scouts seem to me to be more important than ever.



Bill Duncan's column appears Fridays. He can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR, 97470.