The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-12-11
City Holds
4 Children
as Hostages
Father Wants Them but
First Must Pay $4,000
to New York.
BY EVELYN SEELEY.
Times Special Writer

NEW YORK, Dec. 1l.-Civiliza-
~ ton has not yet reached the
stage where human values take pre-
cedence over red tape. So five little
Porto Rican- Americans. aged II to
3. are held hostage" while the city
asks their father TO pay $4,000 for
keeping them since their mother
died two years ago.
When Santos, Jr.: Henry, Edward,
Norma and Baby Ralph we're at
home they we're protected from the
cruder realities Of life. Parents have
a way OF keeping the financial
skeleton hidden in a locked closet
no matter how poor they may be.
Probably the senior Santos, like
other hard-up parents. managed
little festivity at Christmas, made
the cheap rice and beans seem jolly
dinners and fiuffed up the edges of
poverty until better days should
come or the children should grow
old enough TO understand and
face II.
But now these youngsters are part
Of a court proceSs-five little items
in board bill that holds them from
their father on what both sides call
"a technicality" He was unem-
ployed. and the city cared for his
offspring. He has a job now and
wants them back. But, no, that big
board bill must first be paid.
Protection Of children from emo
tioLal shock is all right in the home,
but in the courtS-When money is
involved-such protection goes by
the boards. It is all cut and dried,
a matter Of briefs and writs. Emo
tional values are the basis of the
home, but in the courts it is board
bills that are important.
Cash Involved
In the Vanderbilt case there was
the little matter of S6,O000O0, beside
which little Gloria's feelings were
negligible. in the case last spring
OF little Norma Jean Taylor, whose
actress mother wanted her back,
but had no money to pay her over
due board, there was only a few
hundred dollars involved. But, at
least. in these two situations you
felt that there was some love for the
child, or possessiveness. or jealousy.
or however you construed it, mixed
up with the cold cash.
With the little De Lies and ia
Their whose love for his children has
not been questioned, whose present
fitness to care for his children is
sworn to by himself and his lawyer,
you have nothing but red tape, "a
technicality," writS and briefs, while
the city goes on spending money on
the children's board.
Mr.. De Liz is a quiet little man,
we'll loved by his neighbors of the
Porto Rican section. Since he got
work he has been trying to regain
custody of his children, whom he
had given into the care of the De-
partment of Public Welfare at his
wife's death. Finally he succeeded
In having the children brought into
Children's Court from the Mission
of the Immaculate Virgin and the !
Founding Asylum.
Il am a hard-boiled lawyer" said |
Maurice Gladstone. who represents
De Liz. but those kids were so glad |
to see their father it made even a
lawyer weep. The law can not keep
them from him unless it can prove
he's an unfit father, and they can't
prove that"
Brings UnhappineSs
Gladstone calls it the usual story
Of investigators sailing" The city's
case. based on the fact that De Liz
sent what was left Of his wife's
$1,000 insurance to a sister in Porto
Rico, in Gladstone's opinion, is
"overzealous mixing in a personal
relationship"