The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-08-28
Big Constable Takes the Mite Into
Custody and Its Parent Is APP
pointed Special Guard.
QUEER TANGLE AT KEOKUK
GROWING OUT OF A LAW FATHERED
BY IOWA sOCIOLOGIsTs.
Secretary Park, of the Associated
Charities, Sent to Jail for Forty
Five Minutes-A Judges Ruling.

KEOKUK, Ia, Aug. 27.-In a legal fight
for possession of her eleventh-months-old
baby, which is seriously i'll, Mrs. Vina
Kellar caused the arrest of the infant to-
day on a charge of vagrancy, had herself
appointed a special constable to take
charge of the diminutive prisoner during a
continuance of the case. and thus won
victory over Secretary Elmer Park, of the
Associated Charities, who was placed in
Jail for nearly an hour for contempt of
court in his attempt to deprive the mother
of her child. a court construction of the
new sociological statute passed by the last
Legislature has resulted.
All last night and to-day several courts
were kept busy and Secretary Park spent
forty-five minutes in Jail, being finally re-
leased on writ of habeas corpus. He is
now in legal custody of the child and the
mother has actual possession. having OBJ
tanned the infant by extraordinary means
and hidden it, The doctor says the baby
probably would die. This added to the
mothers desire to see it. as she hitherto had
been denied all access to it.
y new law was passed at the instance of
the scientific socioogists last winter. 1t
provides the procedure by which children
may be taken from incompetent, dissolute
immoral parents and given to persons or
charitable societies by courts or mayors of
cities. Judge Hughes of the Superior
Court, this afternoon construed the law to
be that if the mother is found competent
by "a trial court and the child be given
back the filing of a notice of appeal by the
Associated Charities stops the execution of
the other to return the child to the mother.
The effect is to keep the child away from
the acquitted mother until long series of
appeals through all the courts to the Su-
preme Court are finally decided. taking
generally two years The attorney for Sec
retary Park said in open court that this
was the intention of his client. Judge
Hughes is a lawyer and jurist of the high
est reputation in Iowa and Missouri and
his decision rendered in the habeas corpus
proceedings has caused a wave of intense
indignation over the new law
The baby involved in this. the first case in
Iowa under the new law, is actually sick,
and the neglect of the mother is charged
under the new statute. In trial the mother
was found not guilty of anything in pur-
view OF the new law. which also de-
clared unconstitutional. Secretary Park ap-
pealed and refused to obey the order of the
court TO return the baby TO its mother. He
was then arrested on a bench warrant for
contempt OF court and summarily sent TO
Jail His lawyer then reused Judge Hughes
out OF bed and filed a petition for a writ OF
habeas corpus, which had a hearing to-
night In the meantime the mother Of the
baby to-day had a neighbor file information
in a justice OF the peace's court charging
the baby eleven months old. with va
grancy. a big constable soberly arrested
the baby at the hospital where it was be-
ing treated. and brought the infantile pris-
oner into court. The vagrancy case was
continued to Saturday and the mother was
made a special constable and ordered to
keep the baby prisoner safely till the case
should be called again. The mother took
the baby and hid il somewhere in the city
County Attorney Marshal said tonight
that the next move would be the prosecu-
ton Of the justice and the mothers lawyers
on a charge of conspiracy in the vagrancy
case.
Judge Hughes says II is true that the
new law makes it possible for anybody to