While today’s #stampoftheday pictures two extraordinarily (almost scarily) wholesome youth, the story behind the stamp leads me to some of my favorite lyrics from West Side Story (with a brief stop at an iconic 1990s movie as well).

The stamp itself is a 3-cent stamp issued on August 11, 1948 with the heading “Saluting Young America” and a picture of a young boy (wearing what looks like a suit) and a young girl (also dressed professionally) walking together carrying books. The stamp honors the upcoming “Youth Month” (though I keep thinking that it really should be “Yute Month” in honor of “My Cousin Vinny”).

Any way you look at it, this stamp is weird. So if you’re puzzled by this stamp, you’re not alone.

In fact, Post Office Department officials also were surprised when Postmaster General Jesse M. Donaldson announced plans for the stamp in June 1948. They (and then me and now you) learned that the request for the stamp was made by Gael Sullivan, a former assistant postmaster general who in 1947 became executive director (and later vice-chairman) of the Democratic National Committee before becoming Executive Director of the Theater Owners of America in the spring of 1948.

But why did Sullivan want such a stamp? It may have been due to the fact that Charles Skouras, who, with his brothers, owned 20th Century Fox, which both made movies and owned many movie theaters. was chairman of the committee formed to push for a National Youth Month. (Skouras, for what it’s worth, made about $1 million a year, which made the highest paid executive in the US iun both 1946 and 1949.

But that begs the question: what was “National Youth Month?” Apparently it was one of the many recommendations made by the National Conference on Prevention and Control of Juvenile Delinquency, a gathering of about 800 people convened in 1946 by then U.S. Attorney General Tom Clark. The conference, which broke into 16 separate panels which made detailed recommendations, apparently was a big deal. A 1947 review of the commission’s report that appeared in the Social Science Review, a noted academic journal, stated: “A study of this material should convince all who need convincing that delinquency is the product of a multiplicity of factors, both personal and social. The development of social conditions that are conducive to a normal satisfying existence will result in stronger and emotionally sounder citizens, both young and old. Healthy, happy youngsters, who feel that have a place in family affections, and in a community of good mores, seldom become delinquent.”

I don’t know about you, but that language right to “Gee, Officer Krupke,” the great song from West Side Story, where the kids sing:

“Gee, Officer Krupke
We’re very upset
We never had the love that every child oughta get
We ain’t no delinquents
We’re misunderstood
Deep down inside us there is good!”

Or, as the psychiatrist later says in the song: “In my opinion, this child don’t need to have his head shrunk at all. Juvenile delinquency is purely a social disease!”

Of course, as the song famously ends [All together now because I know you’re already humming in your head]:

The trouble is he’s lazy
The trouble is he drinks
The trouble is he’s crazy
The trouble is he stinks
The trouble is he’s growing
The trouble is he’s grown
Krupke, we’ve got trouble of our own.”

“Gee Officer Krupke
We’re down on our knees
Cause no one wants a fellow with a social disease
Gee, Officer Krupke
What are we to do?
Gee, officer Krupke
Krup you!”

Whatever trouble you’re having, I hope you are safe and well, and that you’re fighting for justice and working for peace.