Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-06

lenSe any Otnel gang III toWH. anu iHidiiy
the parents come down to tell what they know:
and so an endless chain of factors for good
thrown round that hayward lad to save
him for the State.
Dave the Bad Boy
DERHAPS you never heard the plain tale of
Dave the bad boy. of dozens of the
Judges experiences? Dave had been running
wild for never SO long, and officer after officer
hunted him down; but Lindsey turned Dave
loose on probation Well, it did no good.
Dave was weak, and fell again and again.
Lindsey spent hours trying to save that boy
from the industrial prison. Mother took in
washing, father dead, Dave supposed to
stay at home to mind the baby; and, being
healthy boy, fond of play, he rebelled. stole
coal the railroad tracks, and possibly his
mother. being poor, encouraged him IN that;
and when the officer came along there was
clash of interests, war. Brutality responded
with hate, and the police cursed Dave as
bad boy. All Denver knew him as an incor-
rigible.
Lindsey saw that the boy was robbed of
his natural right, playground; but that
wasn't all. If we are to be true to the child.
we must fight for the home and in the fight
for justice we must 60 back to causes before
we can get things corrected. AS Lindsey saw
small wages; and finally, contracting lead
poisoning in the smelter, laid down his life
that business interests might fatten on his
flesh and blood. And society, which was
responsible through neglect OF the social inter-
ests of the father now cursed the runaway
boy. fast becoming criminal through brutality
and neglect.
Lindsey also saw the white child slaves in
southern prison, and his blood boiled and he
told the boys, :" If ever you get a chance,
away!" The children were carrying the ball
and chain The keeper didn't like Lindsey's
speech; but the doughty little Judge held his
ground Boys, if you ever get chance
scoot fast you kin scoot!
There was q cotton mill near the Rockies
which was employing child labor, and the
word went forth that if the children were
taken away the mill would fail. You take
those children out of the mill" replied Lind
sey; land whether you go down to smash
is secondary consideration"
His Futile Opposition
on, yes, he says he has opposition: There
but that's another story. But all the people
do not hate him. In the spring of 1904 he
had fiftythree thousand out of a possible
fifty-four thousand votes, and another time
paltry three hundred, his name the
tickets of six parties, and the socialists told
him that they would make it unanimous if he
would say, for one day, that he was socialist
Judge Lindsey's motive of love instead of
hate and ignorance in dealing with the boy
going to the bad has spread far and wide. In
Buffalo we have Judge Murphy in Indianap
oils, Judge Stubs; in Chicago, Judge Tuthill
and Judge Mack, IN Pn1ladelph1a, the women
headed BY Mrs. Hannah Kent in Denver.
the Woman's Club, with Mrs. S. Pratt Decker:
and there is also Jane Adams and her work
in behalf of children in the glass factories. and
there are many others, all working along Judge
Lindsey's idea, THE Child is the State
Even in England, Australia, and Italy the
new child statute, with its spirit and its
new aim, has been carefully studied Sweden
sent over a special commission; and recently
the Central Howard Commission of Rome re-
ported it at Budapest. before large philan-
thropic body; New York considered it through
a commission headed by Homer Folks; and
already in eighteen States and seventy-five
cities Juvenile courts have been esta blished,
more or less on the Colorado model.
AS we chatted the train en- route to the
Mississippi throughout the larger part of the
afternoon, we always came back to the grand
idea to whom does the Child belong! Is it
to the parents, or to the Statel And how
much of man is there in a child? With what
high conscience Ben Lindsey dwelt on this!
To him. the Child is the beginning and the
end, entitled to part of the share that each
citizen owes to all, and that each owes to each.
| could see the fraternity between Lindseys
idea-perhaps it would be better to say Lind
sey's practical idealism-and that of Victor
Hugo, who avows that society creates its own
criminals; also that of Tolsto, to whose school
the children came gladly, because they wanted
to be there"