Address, “Is the Child Worth Conserving”
Judge Lindsey—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am sure I appreciate this very cordial and kind reception, because it shows your appreciation, not of the speaker, but of a cause—in which I have only had a small part—that has come close to the heart of the people of this Nation in the last decade or more, and well it is that the great National Conservation Congress should not overlook the welfare of the child.
I was delighted to note in the splendid address which we have just listened to by Dr. Wallace, that this important matter of the child, the youth, furnished its principal theme, because without childhood there is no manhood; without the conservation of childhood there is nothing else to conserve.
But my friends, I am in rather a difficult position tonight. I am reminded, indeed, of an experience I had with a boy about twelve years ago in my court. It was before the days of the Detention Home School. One day I was down in the jail, and they told me they had a boy there that they thought belonged to me—that they could do nothing with him. So I went with one of the men down the long corridor to a cage, that would have been a disgrace to the king of the jungle, and there in a heap on the floor was a boy. I recognized him as a boy who had been missing from the truancy department for about a month. It seems that he had read in a paper that some man in New York had lost his boy—about the age of this boy—so he framed up a story and went to the police and told them he was the missing boy. There was a reward offered for the lost boy, and there was an argument between the lieutenant and one of the sergeants as to who saw him first—and in trying to straighten this out they discovered the fraud. I said to him, “Harry, what did you mean by this?” He replied, “Judge, dey spoiled the dandiest bum I ever thought of.”
I asked him where he had been for the last month, and he said he had been living in a piano box. I went with him, and he showed me the piano box, and as we came up a dog, a faithful, friendly dog, jumped out and recognized the boy. While we stood there I heard some boys just around the corner of the alley, talking about someone. Some of them insisted that “he only gets full once a month,” while some one said “he gets full once a week.” For a moment, I forgot the law of the “gang” in regard to “snitchin’,” and I said, “Harry, who are those boys talking about?” There had been a boy before me for intoxication, and I wanted to find out if this was the same one. So I said, “You slip around there and find out who it is they are talking about, and you’ll save a lot of trouble for me—and for somebody else.”
The boy hesitated a little, torn between loyalty to the judge and loyalty to the “gang,” but finally he went. In a little while he came back, and looking into my face without the least change of expression, said: “Judge, dem fellas is talkin’ about the moon; some says it gets full once a week, and some only once a month.” Then, after a minute, he continued, “Judge, you don’t always find out everything you want to.”
Some time ago, I was informed by my friend, Mr. Shipp, that I was to read a report at this Congress, but I found when I arrived that they had me down for an entirely different subject. However, both my report and the subject assigned me concern that very important subject, “the child.” Many things have transpired during the last year to give us hope and courage in the work for the child, and after all there is one thing that marks this century of ours, makes it distinct from all other centuries, and that is the fact that it is the century of the child. Indeed, it seems we are to realize the promise of holy writ, that a little child shall lead us. We are beginning to see, through the misfortunes of the child, through their tears and sufferings, many of the causes that are not only responsible for the troubles of children but for the troubles of men. For, after all, there is no child problem that isn’t a parent problem—a problem of the home. And when we get back to the problem of the home we are, of course, face to face with all the great social, economic, industrial and political problems. Even the political parties are at least beginning to understand that if they would meet with the approval of the people they must concern themselves more about the problems of humanity; that they must present real remedies which promise an immediate check for the terrible waste of life, of energy and of power, which is going on in this nation. That while it is important to conserve our material resources—the power of our waterfalls and the verdure of our forests—we must also conserve our human resources. After all, these great assets of the nation are very closely linked together. The strength and future well-being of the race itself must depend in a large measure upon the Conservation with which this organization has so well concerned itself during the past decade. It is only a natural and to be expected step in the evolution of its work that it should equally concern itself more directly with the human beings who will not be able to profit from its work unless their welfare is also conserved in other directions.
It has long been the opinion of specialists and social workers in this country that the national government itself was not doing all that it should do for the welfare of the children of the nation. Largely because of the failure of any government agency directly responsible for such work, the various methods of dealing with the many-sided problems of childhood were more or less in a state of chaos. The matter was first brought to the attention of Congress through a bill formulated and agreed to by the various child saving agencies of the State of Colorado, and introduced in Congress by Hon. John F. Shafroth, the present Governor of Colorado, in 1902, providing for a government bureau that should directly concern itself with the welfare of children. This effort was followed several years later by other child saving agencies in the introduction of what is now popularly known as “A bill for the establishment of a children’s bureau.” This bill was free from some of the objections of the earlier bill which included governmental protection for dumb animals, as well as a special bureau for the welfare of children. Great impetus was given to this final effort by former President Roosevelt, who called the White House conference on dependent children that met in Washington City on January 25 and 26, 1909, when a resolution was adopted recommending the enactment of the then pending measure.
The National Consumers’ League in its Tenth Annual Report presented, perhaps, the ablest summary of all those presented concerning the necessity for such a bureau. This summary pointed out many items of information that ought to be valuable concerning the children of the Nation—information that, as amazing as it may seem, was practically impossible to be had in this Nation of ours concerning its children:
1. How many blind children are there in the United States? Where are they? What provision for their education is made? How many of them are receiving training for self-support? What are the causes of their blindness? What steps are taken to prevent blindness?
2. How many mentally subnormal children are there in the United States, including idiots, imbeciles, and children sufficiently self-directing to profit by special classes in school? Where are these children? What provision is made for their education? What does it cost? How many of them are receiving training for self-support?
3. How many fatherless children are there in the United States? Of these, how many fathers are dead? How many are illegitimate? How many are deserters? In cases in which the father is dead, what killed him? It should be known how much orphanage is due to tuberculosis, how much to industrial accidents, etc. Such knowledge is needful for the removal of preventable causes of orphanage.
4. We know something about juvenile illiteracy once in 10 years. The subject should be followed up every year. It is not a matter of immigrant children, but of a permanent, sodden failure of the Republic to educate a half million children of native English-speaking citizens. Current details are now unattainable.
5. Experience in Chicago under the only effective law on this subject in this country indicates that grave crimes against children are far more common than is generally known. There is no official source of wider information upon which other States may base improved legislation or administration.
6. How many children are employed in manufacture? In commerce? In the telegraph and messenger service? How many children are working underground in mines? How many at the mine’s mouth? Where are these children? What are the mine labor laws applicable to children? We need a complete annual directory of State officials whose duty it is to enforce child-labor laws. This for the purpose of stimulating to imitation those States which have no such officials, as well as for arousing public interest in the work of the existing officials.
7. We need current information as to juvenile courts, and they need to be standardized. For instance, no juvenile court keeps a record of the various occupations pursued by the child before its appearance in court beyond, in some cases, the actual occupation at the time of the offense committed. Certain occupations are known to be demoralizing to children, but the statistics which would prove this are not now kept. It is reasonable to hope that persistent, recurrent inquiries from the Federal children’s bureau may induce local authorities to keep their records in such form as to make them valuable both to the children concerned and to children in parts of the country which have no similar institutions.
8. There is no accepted standard of truancy work. In some places truant officers report daily, in others weekly, in some monthly, in others never. Some truant officers do no work whatever in return for their salaries. There should be some standard of efficiency for work of this sort, but first we need to know the facts.
9. Finally, and by far the most important, we do not know how many children are born each year, or how many die, or why they die. We need statistics of nativity and mortality.
The American Federation of Labor, the labor unions, and, of course, practically all of the social workers of the Nation have united through every means in their power to create the sentiment that has finally resulted in a Federal children’s bureau.
This, then, is the most significant and, at the same time, the most hopeful single item of accomplishment for the conservation of the childhood welfare of the Nation for the past year. Next in importance to the establishment of the bureau itself is the appointment by the President in the person of Miss Julia T. Lathrop as its chief. Her long and devoted service with Miss Jane Addams at Hull House in Chicago, her well-known interest and experience in the sociological work that has occupied so many years of her useful life have especially equipped her for this work. While, up to the time of the establishment of the children’s bureau, we were rather lagging behind the European nations, the various national and international conferences held throughout Europe during the past year have been greatly stimulated by the example our Government has set in establishing this special work for the Conservation of the Nation’s best asset. It is hard, therefore, to estimate the far-reaching influence of this wise and generous step on the part of the National Government. It was my privilege, with others, to attend sessions of the congressional committees and speak in behalf of the National Children’s Bureau, and my enthusiasm is just as great as it ever was for that important step, but I am not one of those who have believed that when we establish the bureau we have done all that we can do as a Nation to conserve the welfare of the children. No doubt the bureau will accomplish much through such an educational campaign as it may be able to conduct, and the gathering together of very important information upon subjects that at present are left largely to conjecture, and concerning which we shall still be left very much in the dark. But I wish to predict that its chief service in the end will be, as I hope it will be, to point out some of the needed changes in social, economic and industrial fabric that must be made if we are going to truly conserve the interests of the child. A program of social justice, definitely proposed and persistently carried out will in the end do much more for the welfare of the children of the Nation than all the bureaus that we can establish.
The agitation carried on principally by social workers, juvenile courts and probation officers, for the past ten years in behalf of what is popularly known as “Mothers’ Pensions,” has begun to bear fruit. As far back as 1899, a few of the States recognized the principle that it should share with certain homes the responsibility for the education of the child by not only providing free schools but also by providing aid for certain needy parents of children in order that the children could have the educational advantages afforded by the State. The demand for an extension of this recognition of the principle has met with response during the past two years in the State of Missouri and the State of Illinois. While the Missouri law was the first definite mothers’ pension law, so-called, to become effective, it differs from the Illinois law in that it is limited to certain large cities. A somewhat similar law in Illinois has now been in force for a little more than a year. It is much broader in scope. Generally speaking, these laws vest power in the juvenile courts, after proper hearing, to direct the authorities dispensing public revenues, to pay to the parents—generally the mother—of dependent children a sum sufficient for the mother to care for the children in her own home, where the conditions are such, of course, as to justify keeping the child in its own home. It is assumed that the judge will act with wisdom and discretion and not abuse the power vested in him for the protection of dependent children. As a rule, this confidence in the court is not misplaced. But I am strongly opposed to legislation of this kind that is not carefully hedged about with such safeguards as to avoid possible abuses under it. For it is the abuses of such laws that furnish ammunition to its foes. This is not an objection to the principle of the law or a criticism of those who are entitled to so much credit for its passage. Most any kind of a law to start with establishing the principle should be more than welcome. The safeguards needed must largely develop in the course of practice and experience under it, when they may be added by suitable amendments from time to time—not an uncommon history of most all legislation of this character.
In many States, as in Colorado, where we have on several occasions attempted to secure legislation of this kind, we have met with failure for several reasons. The need has not seemed to legislators to be as acute as in States with more congested populations, in large cities like New York and Chicago. And in many States the laws already on the statute books have been fairly sufficient for their needs. Not only in Colorado, but many other States, to my personal knowledge, in exceptional or proper cases, mothers have been pensioned by the county commissioners, or assisted under school laws to such an extent that the lack of a more definite law upon the subject has not been seriously felt. But any State, in which there is a city of over 100,000 population or a considerable number of small cities of over 25,000 population, if it would truly conserve the welfare of its children, should not hesitate to adopt definite and effective legislation of this character.
But signs of opposition to such legislation are by no means lacking. It has been denounced in some quarters as paternalistic—socialistic, and entirely beyond the province or within the power of the State. But the time has long since passed in this country when there should be any serious question of not only the power but the duty of the State when it comes to the protection of its children. I say “its children” because the State is the supreme parent—the over-parent. From one viewpoint the State is superior to the natural parent. It says to the parent, “If you neglect your child you forfeit your right to its custody.” This is a just power to be wisely exercised. It is primarily for the welfare of the child. Because of the natural ties of love and affection that are supposed to exist between parent and child it is assumed by the State that the best place for the child is in its own home with its own father and mother. This is a wise balance for this rather exceptional power of the State. The State wisely recognizes that the home is the foundation of society, and since it is in the interest of the State to keep the child in the home, as one of the very best methods of preserving the home, the first duty of the agents of the State should be to bring about that result in every case possible. In fighting for the child the State is only fighting for its own preservation.
Another prime duty of the State is to compel the father to support the child and also to support the wife, not so much because it is the wife but because it is a woman who is the mother of a child, or may be the mother of a child. One great weakness in the nonsupport laws of the various States and, at the same time, a danger in the mothers’ pension acts of the various States is the lack of a practical system of operation and enforcement that will not permit the father to shirk—that will hold him to a strict accountability to his duty to the State, namely, to support the child. The child is the State and the State is the child. The man or woman, therefore, who does most for the child does most for the State. As a part of every nonsupport law and mothers’ compensation act should be provisions for workhouses where fathers who wilfully and without excuse refuse to perform their duty to the child should be committed.
Failing in the last Legislature in Colorado to get any legislation for the relief of needy mothers, our people have appealed to the people under their rights to initiative laws, for what we term a Mothers’ Compensation Law, rather than a Mothers’ Pension Act. We think that the difference is more than a mere haggling over terms.
The State maintains a standing army for its protection. Soldiers fighting its battles, or standing ready to fight its battles while performing that function, are paid—compensated. They receive money, food and clothing from the State. When the fight is over, when they have retired from service, in their old age they are pensioned.
In a different capacity, but none the less important and effective, do mothers of children serve the State. They do not face death on the field of battle, but they go down to the gates of death and bring back their children. The perils and hardships that soldiers endure in times of war are more than equalled by the struggles of hundreds of thousands of mothers fighting the enemies of the State that killing competition and the injustices of present economic conditions have raised up in its path. In fighting these enemies to save their children to the State these women are more serviceable soldiers of the State even than those sons they reared, who may have died on the field of battle.
The term “pension,” therefore, is a misnomer. It is confusing. It interferes with a real understanding of what this fight is all about.
It might not be a bad idea to consider pensioning mothers, as we pension soldiers after the battle is fought, after they have gone through the valley of the shadow, after they have slaved, and toiled and suffered and reared their children to manhood and womanhood, to guarantee them a peaceful, happy old age by providing a “pension.” But while they are engaged in the service of the State, in saving the State by saving the child, I insist, where it is necessary to enable them to do their part in the battle, they should be paid—they should be compensated.
I insist further that the compensation should no more be in the interest of the mother than it should be in the interest of the soldier, except as a means of preserving the home and the State, except as in the interest of public morals and for the prevention of poverty and crime—all of which is necessary to save the State.
Maternity is more than a prompting of nature. It is a patriotic duty to the State. As in the case of the patriot who enlists for the war, of course it should be voluntary and in accord with social and religious custom. But a wilful evasion of so plain a duty should be visited with the same contempt that meets the deserter from the ranks. As the profession of the soldier is no more the business of the individual without the part and duty of the State, neither is the perpetuation of the race wholly the business of the individual. And of course it is the duty of the State to see that those individuals responsible for the race should perform their duty. There must be laws recognizing the man as the breadwinner and the mother as the home maker. The man must be held strictly accountable to the State for the support of the woman he has chosen to be the mother of his children. And this must be primarily not so much in the interest of the woman as in the interest of the children she bears or is expected to bear. If the man fails in his duty he should be compelled to perform that duty where it is possible to compel him to do it. If that is not possible, then the State itself must assume the burden. If the man has wilfully shirked it must provide workhouses in which he can be made to perform the duty he has voluntarily undertaken.
But, at whatever expense or hazard, the State must see that the child is protected. This is impossible unless the mother is protected.
The State has no right to scold women for race suicide when the State itself is responsible for race suicide. The father would have just as much right to scold his child for stealing when the neglect of the father was responsible for the thefts of the child. The State has just as important a part in this problem as the individual. The individual must do his duty, but the State must see that the conditions are such that it is possible for the individual to perform his part. If the struggle for bread makes maternity a tragedy instead of a blessing, it is the duty of the State to reverse the conditions and make maternity a blessing instead of a tragedy. (Applause.)
In conclusion, I want to utter a warning. In standing for the policy of the State to guarantee compensation to the mothers of children, the State becomes responsible in a measure for every child coming into the world. The next logical step will be for the State to demand a right to say who shall and who shall not be the fathers and mothers of its children. It follows that the Mothers’ Compensation Act is only a part of a new code now in process of development in which the State shall become more and more responsible, not only for the children who are born into the world, but for the kind of children that are born into the world and the parentage of those children. It is all a part of a wise system of laws the purpose of which shall be as far as proper and possible to exclude the unfit from the rights of parenthood.
The revival of that interesting cult of eugenics now attracting so much attention, the demand for the teaching of sex hygiene and the agitation of kindred subjects now going on throughout the whole civilized world, is simply a response to the growing need and the growing demand that the State should become the over-parent of the race.
It is impossible in the time allowed for this discussion and the subjects that such a report should occupy to do more than discuss one or two of the recent activities in behalf of the Conservation of the child life of the Nation. Much excellent work has been done by other organizations, some of which, because of the limitations mentioned, it may be impossible to refer to. But I must especially commend the work of the Men and Religion Forward Movement and the excellent report of its Boys’ Work Commission. After all, the work for the boy is necessarily in a large measure also a work for the girl. This report ably discusses the religious needs of the child; the message of Christianity to childhood; the essential principles of organized work with children in the church, the Sunday-school and local organizations, and the relation of these organizations to the home and the child and to social and sex hygiene.
Of similar importance is the laborious, able and excellent report on the safeguarding of adolescent youth, prepared for the International Sunday-school Association under the direction of Mr. Wilbur R. Crafts and his committee of assistants.
Dr. Wallace spoke of the need of moral education, and I heartily agree with him; but what are you going to do in the case of a bright boy who knows more about politics than he does about Sunday-school? I have a boy like this in my mind. He knew the ward boss, knew all about him—his authority over the dives and all that. But I thought he needed moral training, so he was induced to go to Sunday-school. I saw him afterwards and asked him what he learned in Sunday-school. “Aw,” he said, “it’s a place where all the little kids go and gives up a penny, but they don’t git nothin’ back.” “But you learned something, didn’t you?” I asked. “Yes,” he said, “they learned me about the angels; they learned me they had wings like chickens, but they didn’t learn me whether they laid eggs or not.”
I agree with Dr. Wallace that we need to change our methods. Of course Dr. Wallace has had a different experience from mine. He has children. I have children—a thousand of them—but they belong to other folk.
There is no more important subject than the safeguarding of childhood and youth against the moral perils of the modern community. Under this head the important matter of regulating dance halls, skating rinks, moving picture shows and various places of amusement is becoming more and more one of the serious problems of community life.
The able reports of one or two vice commissions of the large cities, notably Chicago and Minneapolis, have added much to the literature and information valuable to those who are interested in conserving and protecting the moral welfare of the nation’s youth.
Let me say here that I was in a city where they had such a vice commission, and one of the officials told me the number of women who had been forced into prostitution, or had been forced half-way there. I asked him the ages of these women, and he said practically they were all between eighteen and thirty-five, and on looking up the statistics we found that this number of women thus forced into this unholy life was 10 per cent. of all the women between eighteen and thirty-five in that city. It is a frightful thing, my friends, but if these things exist, if they are facts, we are false to our children and false to our country if we try to blind our eyes to these facts. It is our duty, and as Dr. Wallace has said, there is no place in this country where these things ought to be more freely discussed than in a Congress like this.
The child welfare exhibit, beginning with that of Chicago and duplicated in a measure in other large cities, is one of the most notable contributions in recent times in the great work of conserving the welfare of childhood.
The wider use of the schools in its more careful regard for the physical welfare of children must also be added to the hopeful signs of the times. The terrific waste in money, energy and effort that is going on in the cities because of the many boards controlling such activities as schools, playgrounds, social centers, public libraries, art galleries and public baths promises to be largely avoided by a consolidation of these activities under the control of one board with the schools as a great social center, to which is added its neighborhood dance hall, public baths, public library, public assembly hall, public playground and social center under one single authority, such as a board of education and recreation that promises to avoid the bickerings, difficulties, expense and waste that is the outcome from duplicated boards. Activities that are largely educational and concern the city’s youth, now largely under a half-dozen boards or authorities, should be brought together under one general authority. An amendment to the Constitution of the State of Colorado proposing such a consolidation and the use of the schoolhouses as polling places and for the discussion of governmental, social and political questions during campaigns, is to be voted on at the November election.
And now, my friends, in conclusion I want to say that one of the prime duties of the Nation—its duty to the child—is to extend to the women the same rights as the men, that they may go to the polls and vote on these measures. (Applause.) This is not politics, Mr. President, it is a plain, economic proposition, because I believe the women of this country are awake to the needs of the children, especially those in the centers of population, and when they are given this right they will pass laws that are necessary to bring about right and justice for the women and children of this Nation. (Applause.) I would not have my position today but for the fact that women vote in Colorado. (Laughter.) Either the bosses, the machine or the gang would have got me long ago. Why? Because I went beyond the court into the swamp lands, not beyond the city, but within the city, and showed up the ghosts of poverty and crime and the relations between a certain type of lawless big boss and vice. And when the mother could see that the protection of her boy and her girl from vice depended upon clean politics and righteous laws, then, my friends, the change began to come, and it is coming in our State as in every other State in this Nation—then began a reign of truth and right and progress. (Applause.) And when the women of our city understood what machine rule meant, they rose in their might, with the ballot in their hands, and put an end to machine rule in that city.
I remember a little boy that belonged to one of our debating clubs on the west side, who was very much disturbed over the making of some new laws. He came to see me, and when I asked him what he wanted, he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, on which was written: “Resolved, That all kids over ten years of age shall have a right to vote for the juvenile judge.” “And then,” said little Benny, “when we gets that law through the bosses will never get you, and we kids will get justice.”
But it was not necessary.
I remember we had a little fellow who was quite a fluent speaker, and finally one of the bosses began to get alarmed at the effect this boy’s talk was having. The boss said to him, “You have a lot of mouth, but you have no vote.” Quick as a flash came the answer, “I haven’t got a vote, but I would have you understand that in the State of Colorado my mother has a vote, and my sister has a vote, and she married a fellow and he has a vote, and they will see that he votes right.”
And the boy’s prediction was more than verified, for when the votes were counted the majority was on the right side, and the people who were working to relieve poverty and the suffering of children had won by ten thousand majority.
So I feel we must have the women with us in this struggle for the rights of childhood in this Nation, and with that right guaranteed they will bring about sooner than any other agency some changes for good in this Nation. If we are to save the child we want to save the State, for the child is the State and the State is the child. Take care of the child and the State will take care of itself. (Great applause.)