had some grewsome views which at once told their own unhappy stories. His pictures showed the varying stages of cruelty and neglect. Years ago a favorite form of chastisement by cruel guardians of children was the infliction of physical pain in extreme degrees. Many slides were shown depicting little children in pitiful states of abuse, from the girl whose stepmother burned her fingers, the boy whose father chained him to a table, to the little girl whose broken leg was left without surgical care in the hope that Christian Science would cure it (but it didn't) and the band of Mexican beggars who hurried back to their Central American bailiwick twenty-four hours after they learned of the Children's Society. These conventions have led to a uniform national policy in the work of preventing cruelty to children as well as animals. The work is so well organized that, in the smaller communities, where one society looks after both children and animals, the two organizations are kept distinct in every respect, although conducted by the same body of men and women; several of the states hold annual conventions of the societies operating therein — notably Pennsylvania and New York, and all meet in Annual Congress with the American Humane Association, which is now a Federal Incorporation, but which exercises no direction. over any of the Societies comprising its membership. Mr. Ephraim Banning. Obituary. We regret to announce the untimely death, on December 1, of the eminent patent lawyer Mr. Ephraim Banning. His death was due to injuries suffered Friday, Nov. 29th, 1907, when he fell from a Madison street car at Robey street. He was on his way to his office when the accident occured. While attempting While attempting to board the car he missed his footing and was dragged for some distance. He was taken to his home in a Lake street police ambulance and at first his injuries were considered slight. Later it developed that he had suffered a concussion of the brain. The following memorial minute was spread on the church record. Mr. Ephraim Banning passed from this life at noon on Monday December 1, 1907. Born in McDonough County, Illinois, he came to Chicago when a young man. Soon after his admission to the bar, he formed a partnership with his brother, Mr. Thomas A. Banning, which continued until his death, and was probably the oldest law partnership in this city. His was a busy, useful, unstained life. During his continuous residence of thirty-six years in Chicago, he served his church the Eighth Presbyterian with fidelity. His unostentatious devotion was felt in almost every department of church work. The great Presbyterian denomination frequently honored itself by honoring him, sometimes as a Commissioner to the General Assembly, again as a member of important ecclesiastical legal committees of the Illinois Synod, and still again as member of presbyterian commissions. In public affairs he performed valuable service. While a member of the Illinois State Board of Charities, he was chosen to aid the flood sufferers along the rivers in the southern part of the State, and was instant in season and out of season in ameliorating their condition and aiding them in a time of dire distress. As marks of confidence by his fellow-citizens, he was selected a delegate to the National Convention of his party and as a Presidential Elector, and might, had he so desired, been nominated for high and honorable office on more than one occasion. His name is inseparably connected with the Juvenile Court Law. He it was who brought this subject to public attention by the resolutions which he presented to the Chicago Bar Association, and by which a committee was erected with himself a mem ber, that drafted the bill and secured its passage by the Illinois Legislature, creating our present Juvenile Court. To be related to that one piece of legislation is honor indeed, and his name and that of the late Honorable Harvey B. Hurd will ever be remembered because of their voluntary and unremitting services in behalf of this humanitarian movement. In his death the Gnosis has lost an enthusiastic member; his church a most helpful officer; the bar an honorable and esteemed practitioner; and those who knew him best, a dear friend. We extend to Mrs. Banning and to his sons our deep sympathy, and express the sincere hope and prayer that they may be comforted by Him "who doeth all things well." Arthur L. Frazer. It is with regret that we learned of the death of Judge Arthur L. Frazer of Portland, Oregon. He was an ideal Juvenile Judge and the children of Portland will miss his kindly face. He was especially devoted to his Court and gave his best efforts towards benefiting the children that appeared before him. He was more a father to the children than a judge. The Juvenile Association and the Hibernians passed the following resolution: "The Juvenile Improvement Association of Portland records its deep sense of the loss which it has sustained and the loss which the cause the association represents has sustained in the death of Judge Arthur L. Frazer. To his quick and sympathetic discernment of the need for such a society as this, and to his patient and wise direction of its activities, have been largely due its organization, maintenance and efficiency. To his example and influence has been due in large measure the awakening among an increasing number of men and women to the call for such work as this society aims to do, and to the duty of answering this call by financial support or active services even at the cost of personal sacrifice. This association gratefully records its appreciation of Judge Frazer's larger interpretation of civic duty, as that interpretation appeared in his undertaking on his own motion and at great expense of time and strength to meet the crying needs which the ordinary duties of his office brought to his attention. We believe that through this extra-judicial work which Judge Frazer was so largely instrumental in Hon. Arthur L. Frazer. organizing, and to which he gave himself with such untiring devotion, his life will remain as a permanent force working for the saving of boys and girls in Portland to good lives and good citizenship and for the awakening of men in Portland to the importance of working ceaselessly for this same high end. J. R. WILSON. FANNY W. KAMM. B. S. PAGUE." The Ancient Order of Hibernians at a recent meeting adopted the following resolutions in memory of Judge Frazer: "Whereas, the late Judge Arthur L. Frazer exemplified in his life work in a noble and practical way the fundamental principles upon which this order is founded, to wit, Friendship, Unity and Christian Charity, be it Resolved, that in the death of Judge Frazer this community has met an irreparable loss; and in common with our fellow citizens the Ancient Order of Hibernians of Portland, Oregon, deeply sympathize with Judge Frazer's afflicted family, and go on record as testifying to an exemplary life, which had ever before it the divine injunction: 'Whatsoever ye have done for these my little ones, ye have done for me.' MICHAEL DRISCOLL. F. D. CULLEN. DR. A. C. SMITH. "Committee on Resolutions." A Novel Way of Helping Boys. Three years ago, as it is told, forty men, gathered in a church club in New York City, heard a graphic talk about the children's court, and how boys got into trouble and became criminals just because nobody cared enough about them to help them to become good men instead, says Priscilla Leonard in The Youth's Companion. "Is there anything we can do?" one man asked, and the speaker's reply was: "Yes. If each man here will take an interest in just one boy who has been in trouble, and at this critical time help him and be a sort of big brother, it will be a great service." The forty men volunteered to try. Forty trips were taken by them individually to forty tenements, and forty bad boys found, to their extreme astonishment, that they had "big brothers." The very first "hard case" visited was found in a tenement cellar. His older brother, of twelve, was out of work; his mother lay ill with consumption there in the cellar. In a week the big brother, an energetic young business man, had moved the whole family to rooms where the sunlight came, and had found work for the older boy. No other charitable help was given but the big brother became the bad boy's hero. The children's court never saw that boy again. He is now his big brother's pride, and on the way to an honorable, hardworking manhood. The forty big brothers organized a social club, and brought their youngsters together every other week, teaching them parliamentary law, and getting entrance for them to a large gymnasium, where trained instructors went to work to put them into good physical condition. But except for this club, the brotherhood was an individual affair. Each man visited his protege in the boy's own home, took him out to a baseball game or for a ride in an automobile, or to dinner now and then, and showed a real interest in his work or his school. There was no preaching or lecturing at the little brother, but he was expected to behave well, and he usually did. No money was to be given, if it could possibly be helped, but a chance to earn extra money out of school or work hours could be often had through the big brother's aid. One boy who had been in the reformatory, and could get no job on account of his record, was given work by his big brother, manager in a large business establishment. Within ten days one of the other employes objected to this boy's employment because of his past record. But the big brother stood by him, and now the lad is earning twelve dollars a week, and is recognized as honest and faithful. Without his big brother, he would probably have been a full-fledged criminal by this time. The big brothers now have an executive council and a secretary because the example has been followed by twenty-one other groups of men in Greater New York, who have adopted small and erring brothers. The movement is spreading, and men in other cities are talking it over. There are now four hundred big brothers, and there is one woman who is an honorable member. So far the boys benefited have all been those whose cases have come before the children's court. But there is no particular reason why this should remain so, and if the spirit of brotherhood goes on developing, every neglected lad who needs a big brother may have a chance to get one. "The Juvenile Court". Address delivered before the Minnesota State Bar Association. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Bar Association: a new court The first thing that suggests itself in connection with a topic such as the juvenile court in our jurisprudence is, what does it all mean? What is there distinctively new about it? You, as lawyers, naturally ask, "Has not the state always felt it to be its duty to take care of the children within its borders if they are neglected by the parent? Is not the doctrine of parens patriae as ancient as the English law itself? Was not the Crown in England and the state in this country the ultimate parent of all the children, and if others had not intervened, did it not take the child in hand and endeavor to lead him on the way to good citizenship? And, if it did (as it did in a measure) what is there, then, distinctively new about the juvenile court?" In the first place, the doctrine of parens patriae, which is at the bottom of this structure, is as ancient as the law itself, and the state does attempt and has always attempted, through chancery or special courts, to take care of its dependents. And so far as the juvenile court has to deal with the dependent children, there is nothing fundamentally new about it. The only thing that can be in any way called new in the juvenile court in its dealings with the dependents is that, in representing the state and in caring for them, it endeavors to carry out the most modern conceptions of philanthropy. For instance, it used to be thought that the place for an orphaned and neglected child was in an orphan asylum; the best workers and students of child-life believe that the place for a child is in a home; that no matter how wise and good the head of an orphan asylum may be, something vital is lacking in the child that fails to receive in childhood that individualized care and love and thought that your children receive in your own home, that you would always want your children to receive if you left them orphaned. This the child in the orphan asylum cannot receive, and so the agencies at But, the command of the juvenile court, in placing out de- I need hardly say to a body of lawyers, that our no It is true that, in the course of years, ameliorating influences came in; in the last fifty years, our reformatories have played a great and very beneficent part in dealing with the juvenile offenders. Instead of being sent to the penitentiary for a felony, the child was sent to a state reformatory, which differed from the penitentiary in that although reformation was not the principal aim, nevertheless, it was a part of the aim of the institution. The endeavor was made, while punishing, at the same time to reform, to build up. to train the criminal so that when his time should have expired, he could go out into the world at least capable of making a living. And in course of time, in some jurisdictions, the young were separated, even if they had not committed a felony, from the older ones; but, nevertheless, generally in this country the two classes were huddled together. Some wise jailers would divide the children from the adults without any particular authority of law, but many failed to do so. What was the result of it all? Instead of the state endeavoring to raise up a generation of good citizens, it raised up a generation of criminals; raised up criminals from bad boys, because it made no attempt to convert a boy into a good boy; it aimed only to criminalize him by the methods by which it dealt with him. It did not inquire, "What is the best thing to be done for this lad?" It did not aim to find out what his history was, what his heredity, what his environments, how he had come to do the particular act which brought him up before the court; it asked only, "Did he do that act?" It did not endeavor to punish him in any manner that would tend to make him a good citizen; the punishment was visited in proportion to the degree of wrong-doing evidenced. by the single act, not by the needs of the boy, not by the needs of the state. And when some of the good women of Chicago saw these boys in great numbers filling our county jail, receiving no training and no education, while awaiting trial, mingling with the adult criminals, the vagabonds and the drunkards, and worse than all these, being contaminated daily, physically and morally, they put some good women in there to influence and teach them and they induced the jailer to keep them apart from the adults; and then they established a regular school, in the jail itself. Soon they said to themselves, "If it is a good thing to do what we are doing, why isn't it a better thing to keep these boys and girls away from this sort of a place altogether? Why isn't it the wise thing for the state to deal with these children who have done something wrong in the same manner as it deals with its dependent children, in the same manner as a wise and merciful father deals with his own child who does wrong and who is not discovered by the state? Why isn't it the wise thing, why isn't it the duty of the state to take these children in hand its children and instead of endeavoring to find out merely whether they have done a particular thing, to endeavor to find out what they are physically, mentally, morally, and then if it finds out that they are treading the path that leads to criminality, take them in hand, not to punish but to better them, not to degrade but to uplift them, not to make criminals of them but to train and educate them, so that in time they will become good, decent citizens?" And it is this thought the thought that the child who has begun to go wrong, who has broken a law or an ordinance, is to be dealt with in the same manner as the dependent child, by its higher parent, the state, because its nearer parent, its natural parent, has shown that he has been unable to train and educate it along the lines that lead to good citizenship and that therefore the state must step in between the natural parent and the child and prevent it going the course that leads to bad citizenship; it is this principle that was first embodied in the statutes in the state of Illinois in the juvenile-court act that went into effect July 1, 1899. Colorado followed soon after and since that time juvenile-court acts have been passed in many jurisdictions, including to some extent your own. In Minnesota, up to the present time, you have limited it to your three large cities. In Illinois and in most jurisdictions it extends over the whole state; and, surely, if the St. Paul and Minneapolis boys are going to be dealt with under the principle that they must be saved and not condemned, the country lads deserve to be dealt with in exactly the same way throughout the great state of Minnesota. In some jurisdictions the form that these statutes have taken is to adhere to the criminal proceeding, but to provide for a suspension of sentence and a placing under probation, in charge of a probation of ficer, or to provide for a commitment to what is designated as a school, instead of to a penal institution. In most jurisdictions the form of procedure is totally different, and wisely so. What we are endeavoring to do in this juvenile-court movement is to get away from the notion that the child is a criminal; we are endeavoring to save the child from the brand of criminality, the brand that sticks to it for life; we are endeavoring to take the child in hand and instead of first stigmatizing it and then saving it, we are trying first to save it so that it never need be stigmatized; and we are doing that by dealing with the child in the court that represents the state under its parens patriae power a court of chancery. Proceedings are brought in a chancery court to have a guardian or representative of the state appointed to look after the child, to have the state intervene between the natural parent and the child because the child needs it, as evidenced by some of its acts, and because the parent is either unwilling (in that case it is pretty clear) or unable to train the child properly. Objection has been made from time to time that this is nevertheless a criminal proceeding, and that therefore, the child is entitled to a trial by jury and to all the constitutional rights that hedge about the criminal. I shall read you the answer of some of the supreme courts to this proposition. A decision was rendered by the supreme court of Illinois last year in which the general constitutionality of the juvenilecourt legislation was upheld a decision which was annulled by the granting of a re-hearing, although after the re-hearing was granted the proceedings were dismissed, so that no final word has come from the supreme court of Illinois a decision to this effect: that if the parent is a good person the state has no right to intervene and to take the child away. If that doctrine should by any possibility be adhered to and as you will see from some of the citations that [ shall read, it is contrary to the views expressed by several other courts if that doctrine should be adhered to, we should have this very anomalous situation, that if a child has the misfortune to have extremely degraded parents, who have totally failed to give it proper parental care, and that child should commit a murder, the state would have the right, instead of dealing with that child as a criminal, to take the child in hand under this parental jurisdiction and deal with it, not to punish it but to raise it up to good citizenship; while on the other hand if this child committed the slightest breach of a municipal ordinance or of a state law and had the good fortune to have very worthy parents who had, however, displayed their inability to keep their child from breaking the law, nevertheless the state could not interfere, except, of course, through its criminal procedure. The result would be that a ten-year-old child who had committed these petty misdemeanors but who had the good fortune to have most excellent parents (excellent in a general way) would have to be dealt with as a criminal and the sixteen or seventeen-year-old murderer, who had the bad fortune to have very unworthy and depraved parents, could be dealt with in the tenderer way. It seems to me that that statement is sufficient to show the fallacy of the reasoning which was originally urged in the decision, which, as I said, has been annulled by the granting of a rehearing. And, as we shall see in some of these citations, that line of reasoning is not followed. The state is declared to have the right to intervene between the natural parent and the child whenever it is for the interest of the child or the interest of the state that it should intervene. Whenever the parents have shown that they are unworthy of being entrusted any longer with the care of their children, whenever they have shown that they are unwilling to do their duty by their children, or whenever they have shown that they are unable, no matter how worthy they may be generally, to train their children along the paths of good citizenship, it is the right and the duty of the state to intervene and either to offer its assistance to the parent through the probation officer or to deprive the parent of the custody of that child until conditions shall be bettered. When the state takes the child away from the custody of the parent, then it has the parental duties to perform; the state must then so care for that child that it shall become a good citizen and shall not become a criminal. Now, in the performance of this duty on behalf of the state or in the beginning of the performance of this duty, lies the work of the juvenile court. It determines whether the child has committed such acts as evidence that it is a delinquent, that it is going the wrong way, and whether the parents have shown that they can no longer be entrusted with the sole custody of the child; and after the court has determined these questions, then it becomes the duty of other authorities of the state to see that the work of reformation is performed. That these views as to the power of the state are not merely my own, but are based upon good authority, let me read a few abstracts from some of the decisions. In the case of Mercein vs. The People, in 25 Wendell page 64, the court says: "There is no parental authority independent of the supreme power of the state but the former is derived altogether from the latter. The moment a child is born it owes allegiance to the government and country of its birth and is entitled to the protection of that government and that government is obligated. by its duty of protection to consult the welfare, comfort and interest of such child in regulating its custody during the period of its minority. "Upon a review of all the authorities binding upon the courts of this state, I have come to the undoubted conclusion that the right of the father to the custody of his child is not absolute and that such custody is referable to its interest and welfare, and is to be selected by the court in the exercise of a sound judicial discretion, irrespective of the claims of either parent." In the case of Stripley vs. Ware, 36 Ala., page 87, the court says: "It is a fair presumption that so long as children are under the control of their parents they will be treated with affection and their education and their morals will be duly cared for. When, however, this presumption is removed, and the morals, safety or interest of the child require the withdrawal from the custody of the father or mother, the court of chancery (which is the general guardian and protector of all infants within its jurisdiction) will interfere and place the care and custody of them elsewhere." The supreme court of Illinois, in the 14th Ill. page 378, in the case of County of McLean vs. Humphreys, in a decision which certainly limits if it does not virtually overrule the famous earlier decision in People ex rel. vs. Turner, 55 Ill., 280, says: "It is the unquestioned right and imperative duty of every enlightened government, in its character of parens patriae, to protect and provide for the comfort and well-being of such of its citizens as, by reason of infancy, defective understanding, or other misfortune or infirmity, are unable to take care of themselves. The performance of this duty is justly regarded as one of the most important of governmental functions, and all constitutional limitations must be so understood and construed as not to interfere with its proper and legitimate exercise." In Ex Parte Crouse, 4 Wharton, page 9, the court by Chief Justice Gibson, said: "The House of Refuge is not a prison, but a school ... The object of the charity is reformation by training its inmates to industry, by imbuing their minds with the principles of morality and religion, by furnishing them with the means to earn a living; and, above all, by separating them from the corrupting influence of improper associates. To this end, may not the natural parents, when unequal to the task of education, or unworthy of it, be superseded by the parens patriae, or common guardian of the community? It is to be remembered that the public has a paramount interest in the virtue and knowledge of its members, and that of strict right, the business of education belongs to it. That parents are ordinarily entrusted with it is because it can seldom be put in better hands; but where they are incompetent or corrupt what is there to prevent the public from withdrawing their faculties, held as they obviously are, at its sufferance? The right of parental control is a natural, but not an inalienable one. It is not excepted by the declaration of rights out of the subject of ordinary legislation; and it consequently remains subject to the ordinary legislative power, which, if wantonly or inconveniently used, would soon be constitutionally restricted, but the competency of which, as the government is constituted, cannot be doubted. As to abridgement of indefeasible rights by confinement of the person, it is no more than what is borne to a greater or less extent, in every school; and we know of no natural right to exemption from restraints which conduce to an infant's welfare." And in your own state, in State vs. Brown, 50 Minn., 353, the court says: "It is no more a violation of the fundamental law for the magistrate to commit a child to the guardianship of the managers of an institution of this kind (State training school) than it would be for a competent court to appoint a guardian ad litem for him. The language of the constitution does not apply where the state acts as the common guardian of the community, exercising its power whenever the welfare of an individual demands it, or where the state acts in the legitimate exercise of its public power. The proceeding is wholly statutory and the party proceeded against is not punished or imprisoned." In State vs. Phillips, 72 Minn., 77, the court speaking of the State training school, says: "The school is not a prison - a place of punishment, in the usual acceptance of the term but a public industrial school where children who have made a wrong start in life are educated, trained and afforded an opportunity to become honest, self-reliant, industrious, and useful citizens. The necessary restraint imposed upon them is not punitory, but parental in its character." Continued in the February Number |