Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/324

 BEN B. LINDSEY 305 boy, but his ** nerve '* had failed him at the last moment and he had not actually entered the barn with the boys who helped themselves to the old man's pigeons on that occasion. It seemed unfair that normal, healthy-minded boys should be sent to prison for an offense like that — something which might have happened to the judge himself in the days of his youth. A hasty examination of the statutes seemed to make it un- necessary to deal with these cases in the usual way. A school law enacted only two years or so before that time provided that such youths might be treated as juvenile disorderly of- fenders and not as burglars or thieves. The judge took the boys to his private room and talked with them in a friendly and familiar way, showing them how weak and unmanly it was to take property that belonged to others even though it were only pigeons. He assured them, further, that he had no sympathy with any boy who would tell on the other fellow but asked them to have the whole gang come in and report to him at once. They were promised a square deal. The whole gang came in without delay. Each told his own story and was al- lowed to go upon probation, with the understanding that he report regularly. The plan worked admirably and each boy became a friend of the judge. The special interest of the judge was thoroughly aroused and he thought he saw an opportunity to effect a much needed change in the whole system of dealing with youthful offenders in Denver. It did not seem human or just to treat mere boys who, in a moment of temptation, had committed some slight offense against the law, as if they were in a class with hard- ened criminals. To **try'' boys for ** crimes'* committed and often to find them guilty and send them to the State Industrial School was absurd and almost criminal in itself. Such a sys- tem seemed to place a greater value upon a trifling amount of property stolen by a youth than it did upon the men and women of the future. It seemed necessary to aid the delin- quent youth in developing character and overcoming any tendency toward criminal development rather than to inflict a merely vindictive punishment which, in the great majority