Four Hundred Able Probation Officers
A serious difficulty then presented itself. I saw that as their numbers increased, it would become impossible for me to keep in personal touch with all these offenders. No parole law for adults, with its paid probation officers, exists in Illinois, and no funds for this purpose were available. I determined, therefore, to appeal to the business men of the district to serve as volunteer probation officers. Through the lawyers who practised in my court, I secured a list of nearly one hundred business and professional men who gladly consented to visit one or more defendants each month and report to me in writing upon blanks which I furnished them. The number of probation officers was subsequently increased to about four hundred, and their monthly reports were entered upon our special docket, which contained the necessary memoranda and history of the case made at the trial.
Certainly no more valuable object lesson was ever presented to hustling, bustling, money-loving, pleasure-hunting Chicago than these doctors, lawyers, manufacturers, and merchants going into the homes of their poor and unfortunate neighbors and taking a genuine interest in their welfare. Here was the ideal probation officer, whose feeling for his ward was something more than chilly professional solicitude; and splendidly did these men do their work. Many of them did more than show a passing interest in the offenders assigned to them. They often gave them employment and encouraged them by increasing their wages from time to time. It was a common thing for substantial business men to appear in court and offer employment to persons whom they wished placed on probation, agreeing at the same time to report regularly as to their subsequent conduct.
A typical illustration of this was shown in the case of a young man who had an old mother to support, and who had fallen into bad company which had led him astray. The gang had rented a flat where they caroused far into the night and were then wont to prey upon their neighbors' hen-roosts. Upon his promise to reform, he was placed on probation and given employment by Mr. S. Franklin, one of the largest manufacturers in the district, who not only afterwards raised his wages, but sent, with his compliments, a dozen handsome pictures to decorate the court-room. That was a year ago, and the other day this young fellow came to my downtown court room to exhibit, proudly, a new suit of clothes purchased with money withdrawn from his savings-bank account.