Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/144



or takes him home to dinner or “out to the show,” this is no art thought out by a wise man. This is nothing but a good man putting into his work what he wants to get out of it — “faith, hope, and love.”

To understand the case of Ben Lindsey, it is necessary to study it as he advises us to study the cases of boys — from the boys’ standpoint. He tells in one of his articles how a young fellow of twenty, who was under sentence for murder, regarded the old criminal court. This boy had been arrested at the age of twelve for stealing a razor to whittle a stick. “It was this way,” he explained to Lindsey. “The guy on the high bench, with the whiskers, says, ‘What’s the boy done, officer ? ’ And the cop says, says he, ‘He’s a bad kid, your Honour, and broke into a store and stole a razor.’ And the guy on the high bench says, ‘Ten dollars or ten days.’ Time, three minutes; one round of a prize-fight.”

In Judge Lindsey’s court, in the beginning, when boys still came there with sorrow and gnashing of teeth, they saw no “guy with whis- kers, on a high bench ” asking the “ cop ’ questions. They saw a clean-cut young man come into court, go up to the first boy to be ‘ tried and ask: “What’s the matter, my boy? You been mak- ing a mistake ? Well, lots of fellers make