Russian and Italian nationalities furnish more than half of the business of the Children’s Court. It is not wholly racial, because ordinarily the Jew is devoted to his family, is law abiding and is not prone to active crime. Upon this point Mr. Coulter calls attention to the fact that with an estimated population of 75,000 Jews in the Bronx that borough furnishes but few juvenile criminals of this race. He might have added that such as came were of a mischievous or trivial character except when boys from the congested centres made predatory excursions to that neighborhood.
The statistics gathered at the Court do not furnish data from which to compute the length of time delinquents have been in the city. This is generally brought out in the course of trial or investigation. I have before me the trial record of several cases of recent occurrence. In December last Mrs. Rosie Rosenthal, of No. 329 Stanton street, brought Isidore Weinstein into Court and asked that he be committed as incorrigible and ungovernable. In the course of the proceedings it was developed that the boy was so bad at home in Hungary that his parents sent him here to get rid of him. He came in September, 1904, with a man living in Nashville, Tenn., stopped one night with the aunt and then went South. Six weeks later the man shipped the boy back to the aunt because he was hopeless. Instead of committing him to an institution at an expense of two dollars a week to the taxpayers, the whole power and influence of the Court were bent on having him returned to Europe.
Another case was Robert Pries, who pleaded guilty, January 13, to stealing jewelry valued at one hundred and fifty dollars from a guest in a city hotel where the boy was employed. He came from Germany alone last August and had no relatives in this country. He had been a bell-boy at the hotel three days and used a pass key to commit the offense.
Raffael Basignano, illegitimate, came from Italy last July with a friend. He was brought up in San Malino by a woman, not his mother, known as Philomena. She came here, settled at Flushing and then sent money to pay his passage. She died before his arrival; he drifted to New York, and then reached the Children’s Court. Efforts to deport these last two are in progress.
These are types of many coming to this Court for disposition. Taken in connection with the localities whence comes the largest amount of business, it may be concluded that two factors are producing prisoners to an extent dangerously menacing the future good order of this city: Immigration laws and congested tenement centres. If there be any fault with the former or in their administration the remedy lies with Congress; as to defects in the latter we must look both to Albany and the local government for relief. The Children’s Court is battling against odds not anticipated when created, and with creditable success. Scarcely a session passes without definite results, and a parole day never goes by without some demonstration of the Court’s usefulness.
When the bill to create the Court was pending, its theoretical value had to be appraised by contrast with the system to be displaced. Its practical value is better understood by the same method. In fact, no true conception of its potency and usefulness otherwise can be realized. Formerly all children charged with crime, delinquency, want of proper guardianship or found in a state of destitution were taken to the various police courts. In the matter of guardianship, destitution and some of the minor offenses the magistrates had power to hear and determine. In cases of felony and misdemeanor the police court was simply a sieve to separate those crimes and to send the former to General Sessions and the latter to Special Sessions for trial. In General Sessions the cases had to be submitted to a grand jury and, if indicted, a trial followed before a petty jury.
There were discouraging delays. Few were indicted and scarcely any convicted. Those youthful offenders on returning home unscathed became heroes in the estimation of companions; in their own minds they were immune to punishment because of superior skill and deftness. They did not understand that escape was due to sympathy. Each became a missionary in crime to corrupt others; became a chief of admiring associates and spent his time and energy in devising methods of pillage and robbery. In consequence organized bands of youthful desperadoes sprang up in various parts of the city which were known as “de gang.” A vicious boy with goodly sums of money in his pockets to flash before and spend upon impecunious associates can do more moral damage in a week than Sunday schools can correct in a year.
Ten years ago pickpockets in the teens were a rarity; a few years later frequent arrests made the subject somewhat conspicuous; in 1900 the arraignment of several in one day in the Essex Market Court was quite usual. Several youngsters acted in concert, each performed some important part in the process, and all shared in the spoils: a small percentage satisfied the younger lads who had slight experience in handling money. Ready money for theatres and cigarettes, besides something to quiet parental inquisitiveness, is an alluring bait to a child with slight moral supervision and guidance—far more fascinating than hard work or school drudgery and with promises of more freedom and luxury. And it is such a simple matter to deceive unsuspecting parents who are unable to speak our language. Besides, the young culprit knows how to weave fairy tales about some alleged employer that head off all investigations.
It is charitable to assume that confiding parents in their simple trustfulness have no conception of the temptations to which their children are subjected, but the facts far too frequently indicate supreme indifference. I have known fathers of girls just verging into womanhood to appear in Court and testify that a disorderly house next door, or in the same building one flight down, was not a nuisance. A father of this character whose child, boy or girl brings home money never cares to know its source. If the money comes no questions are asked, or, if asked, the answers are never verified.