JUDGE LINDSAY AND HIS COURT
I first met Judge Ben B. Lindsay in his home city of Denver, Colo., in 1906. A remark he then made impressed itself strongly on my mind, namely, that he owed his position as judge of the juvenile court to the women. In Pennsylvania such support could be only moral. In Colorado it was in this particular case both moral and political, inasmuch as in said State women have the right of suffrage. It is to the everlasting credit of the women of Denver that in a struggle involving a great moral issue they should have stood by the man who has made it his life work to save children from criminal careers, and whose defeat had been planned by hostile elements.
I again had the pleasure of meeting Judge Lindsay in the fall of 1908, on the occasion of a visit to his court. With my personal card, I sent in my membership card in the Acting Committee of The Pennsylvania Prison Society, and was promptly shown into the courtroom and given a seat near the judge. He wore no ermine, not even the judicial silk gown; nor was he seated behind the usual high desk of a judge. As I entered he was standing beside an ordinary table, and later sometimes rested against it. The boys and girls brought before him handed him the reports of their recent conduct. His manner toward all was the kindest, and his language was so plain and simple that none could fail to understand. He would receive a report card from the hand of a small boy, read it, and then comment on it. If the report was good, he would commend the boy and encourage him to persevere in his course; if not good, he would express his sorrow. “Now, Johnnie, what’s the trouble? It makes me feel real bad to have such a report from you. Now don’t you think you can do better if I give you another chance? I think you can. Just make an effort and I am sure your next report will be better. If not, we will have to try some other plan.”
Presently the hearings began. Several groups of boys, who had in various ways given the street railway company considerable trouble, were brought before the judge. Standing between two of the young culprits, and perhaps laying a hand on the shoulder of each, he would first listen to the charges preferred by the officers, and then gather from the boys themselves all the information he could regarding their school attendance, occupation, family life and surroundings. With this to guide him he would begin to talk to the boys in the most affectionate and fatherly manner, and endeavor to make them realize what might have been the consequences of their misdeeds to others, and how they would bring to themselves still greater trouble if they persisted in their present course of conduct. To those who showed a disposition to respond to this kind and tactful treatment every encouragement was extended, but perverse ones were given clearly to understand that they could expect no leniency from the court so long as they refused to mend their ways.
In the fall of 1908 Judge Lindsay was defeated for renomination by the powerful influence of certain corporations to which he had given offense. With these he joined issue as an independent candidate, and though it required thirty thousand “split” or “scratched” ballots he was triumphantly elected. The women of Denver had made it their cause, and before these even the corporations were impotent!
One of the most striking proofs of Judge Lindsay’s profound moral influence over those coming under his authority is the fact that he has sent hundreds to the reformatory at Golden altogether unattended. The number who have been unfaithful to this trust and who failed to deliver themselves at the institution is so small as to be practically negligible.
Judge Lindsay is working at that end of human life at which results are most readily achieved. A vessel that has become misshapen can be remodeled so long as the clay is still plastic. Like a skillful potter Judge Lindsay seeks to mold human lives, and the success which has crowned his efforts has deservedly attracted the attention not only of his own countrymen, but of those in other lands who are interested in the child-saving problem.
George S. Wetherell,
Member of the Acting Committee.