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.
PREAMBLE
To Constitution of the Philadelphia Society for the Amelioration of the Miseries of Public Prisons.
Adopted May 15, 1787.
When we consider that the obligations of benevolence, which are founded on the precept and examples of the Author of Christianity, are not cancelled by the follies or crimes of our fellow creatures, and when we reflect upon the miseries which penury, hunger, cold, unnecessary severity, unwholesome apartments, and guilt (the usual attendants of prisons) involve with them, it becomes us to extend our compassion to that part of mankind who are the subjects of those miseries. By the aid of humanity their undue and illegal sufferings may be prevented; the link which should bind the whole family of mankind together, under all circumstances, be preserved unbroken; and such degree and modes of punishment may be discovered and suggested as may, instead of continuing habits of vice, become the means of restoring our fellow creatures to virtue and happiness. From a conviction of the truth and obligations of these principles, the subscribers have associated themselves under the title of “The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons.”