Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/254



big men of his state would prefer to see children hurt than business. So they fought him, and when he beat them, as we have seen, with the help of the men, women, and children of the city, they declared that he “had too much work to do,” and that therefore they would take away from his Court jurisdiction over adults who contributed to the delinquency of children. In other words, they are indeed willing to let him do what he can for the kids after the harm is done, but he must not undermine the vice of the city, however much it may injure youth, the foundation of “prosperity.”

Thus the first reason why he can’t let all the other evils go to correct the one he is after, was his discovery that our apparently separate evils are all tied up together; they are all one evil; they are a System, as he calls it, of Evil.

The second reason is that Lindsey is so constituted that he must attack any wrong with which he comes in personal contact. We have seen how, accidentally, the County Judge drifted into the case of the children. That was characteristic. When he was a young lawyer he was beaten in a damage suit against the street railway by a “fixed” jury. Inquiring into the matter, he learned that jury-fixing was a common practice, and he attacked that practice. He drew a