Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/183



ago. Lindsey lectured there, teaching his doc- trine that the boy is more important than the Law, and that where justice, blindfolded, made criminals of “bad” boys, justice with love saved them to the State. God forgive the people who brought that man here!” exclaimed the Boston judge. And the next time a young criminal was brought before him he “showed how to deal with such cases. The boy had thrown a snowball at a man, and the Boston judge sent the prisoner to jail for thirty days “on the evidence.” But Lindsey’s doctrine had taken hold of the public mind; the newspapers investigated the case very

much as Lindsey would have done, and_

on the facts Boston public opinion reversed the Boston judge. He had made a mistake. He was right, in a way, this law-worshipping judge; it wouldn’t do to let men like him exercise their human feelings. But Boston was right, too; such men shouldn’t be allowed to deal with the. children of men. Even blind justice isn’t revenge.

The penal instinct is strong in man, and Den- ver felt, for a long while, as this pagan judge felt. Grave fears were expressed everywhere of Lind- sey’s “leniency,” as men called his Christianity, for, of course, no one recognized it for what it was.

What the little devils want is a good licking,” said the grown-ups, “or the jail.”