UPBUlLDERf 
 
 LINCOLN STEFFENS 
 
BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 FROM THE 
 
 SAGE'- ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 ficnrg M, Sage ' 
 
 1891 
 
 .^..z..3J^jL^./. iLi//a/j.f:,_ 
 
UM =-. c.oS""*" ""ivereKy Library 
 HN 57.S81 
 
 Upbuilders, 
 
 3 1924 019 413 941 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 941 3941 
 
UPBUILDERS 
 
From a photograph by Ueft'erts & Co., Jersey Liiy 
 
 MARK M. FAGAN 
 
UPBUILDERS 
 
 By 
 
 LINCOLN STEFFENS 
 
 Author of "The Shame of the Cities" and 
 "The Struggle for Self-Government" 
 
 Illustrated from Photographs 
 
 New York 
 
 Doubleday, Page & Company 
 
 MCMIX 
 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OP TRANSLATION 
 INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 190s, 1906, BY THE S. S. McCLURE COMPANY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, Ipo8, BY THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, IpOp, BY DODBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHED, SEPTEMBER, I909 
 
TO MY FATHER 
 JOSEPH STEFFENS, SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Is IT hope that is wanted ? Wide-eyed opti- 
 mism ? Here it is, in this book. And faith ? 
 Faith in democracy? It is here. And a hint 
 as to what one man can do ? Here it is. Here 
 are faith in the many men; hope for all; and, 
 for the few who think they would like to lead, 
 encouragement, the inspiration of humble 
 examples, and some notion of how to proceed. 
 This book contains five straight, true stories, 
 each telling what one straight, true man has done 
 with democracy, and through them all shines 
 forth at last one truth upon which, as a founda- 
 tion, Man can build with and for Mankind: 
 
 Wherever the people have found a leader who 
 was loyal to them; brave; and not too far ahead, 
 there they have followed him, and there has been 
 begun the solution of our common problem; the 
 problem of the cities, states, and nations — the 
 problem of civilized living in human communities. 
 
 It has not mattered much who the leader was, 
 or what. His religion has made no difference, 
 nor his social status; nor his financial condition; 
 nor his party. Mark Fagan — first in my heart. 
 
viii UPBUILDERS 
 
 as he is in my book — Mark is an Irish Catholic 
 Republican undertaker, but he carried Demo- 
 cratic Jersey City three times running. Everett 
 Colby who turned upside down Essex, the county 
 next to Mayor Fagan's — Senator Colby was a 
 Wall Street broker; the heir of a rich railroad 
 builder; a college graduate; and he looks his 
 part. But to the voters of Essex the boy looked 
 sincere, and they helped him to beat his boss, 
 and theirs. Ben Lindsey was a Democratic 
 politician and a County Judge, when he began 
 to do justice to children, and when, at the last 
 Denver election ( 1908 ), both the old parties 
 and the "best" people, both men and women 
 (who vote in Colorado), and some of the larg- 
 est, churches, all "went back" 'on the "kids' 
 judge."— 
 
 " I went to the people," he wrote me. " I went 
 into the shops and the workers received me 
 with open arms. ... It was a' glorious 
 victory! . . . The Mary Murphys in the 
 mills, the men there, and the kids in the street 
 — the people won it." 
 
 W. S. U'Ren was a blacksmith in Colorado, 
 before he became, while a visitor in Oregon, a 
 lobbyist there, the people's lobbyist; and, as 
 such, began to hammer out legislative tools for 
 the use of democracy everywhere. This strange, 
 
FOREWORD ix 
 
 great legislator does not run for office, so there 
 is no way of proving that the voters of Oregon 
 appreciate his service, but they elect his laws, 
 and that's all he asks. He leads and the people 
 follow his leadership. 
 
 But the most amazing example of the democ- 
 racy of democracy is the case of Rudolph Spreekels. 
 A capitalist, the president of the First National 
 Bank of San Francisco, and a millionaire in his 
 own right, this young man is a member of the 
 rich, aggressive, unpopular Spreekels family of 
 California, and, personally autocratic, unbending, 
 hard, it did seem impossible that he should be 
 able to lead the fight against the low vice and the 
 high financial corruption of the so-called Labour 
 administration of his city. And most of his 
 own kind of people opposed, and they still doubt 
 him, but the common people, the rank and file 
 of the uneducated, anonymous mob — they fol- 
 lowed him. They, too, jeered at first, and he 
 never replied or explained. Francis J. Heney 
 did; the prosecutor told the people everything. 
 But Spreekels did his work in his private, business- 
 like, undemocratic way; and the people watched 
 him from afar. And, making thus at long 
 range their quiet study of the man, they were 
 able to penetrate class and party prejudice and 
 a cloud of evidence as thick as a Pacific fog — 
 
X UPBUILDERS 
 
 somehow, the people perceived that this Spreckels 
 was "all right." 
 
 The people are pretty wise. They are ignorant, 
 and they can be and often are, corrupted, but 
 not many educated individuals are as wise as 
 the mass of men when individuals haven't tam- 
 pered with them. 
 
 " Give me a jury of thieves," said a well-known 
 district attorney, "and, if I can keep them 
 apart from any influence excepting that of the 
 law and the evidence in court, they will convict 
 a guilty thief of theft." 
 
 The world's wise doubt the world's wisdom, 
 and they have reason to; they differ very, very 
 often; and, of course, the wise individual decides, 
 and he tells the mute masses, that he is right. 
 But, Euripides observed long ago in wise old 
 Greece, that ^ 
 
 " The world's wise are not wise." 
 
 And history and observation bear out the 
 poet and the district attorney. Juries are juster 
 than judges; they feel through the facts for 
 the human story and through the letter of 
 the law for the spirit thereof. The public is 
 fairer than the press; the readers allow for 
 the bias of the newspaper. An audience is 
 more open-minded than the critics. "Have I 
 had a good time?" the playgoer asks and the 
 
FOREWORD xi 
 
 question is more fundamental than the critics' 
 criterion of art. And all the world knows that 
 the world has welcomed, since Euripides, not 
 only other artists (Wagner, for example), but 
 prophets ( Jesus, for example), and scientific 
 discoverers (Darwin, for example), who were 
 opposed by the authorities in art, ch urch, state, 
 and science. 
 
 TJninfbfmed and misinformed; pauperized or 
 over-worked; misled or betrayed by their leaders 
 — financial, industrial, political and ecclesias- 
 tical, the people are suspicious, weary, and very, 
 very busy, but they are, none the less, the first, 
 last, and best appeal in all great human cases. 
 Certainly the first rule for the political reformer 
 is: Go to the voters. And the reason seems to 
 be, not that the people are better than their 
 betters, but that they are more disinterested; 
 th^y are not possessed by possessions; they have 
 not so many "things" and "friends." They 
 can afford, they are free to be fair. And, though 
 each individual in the great crowd lacks some 
 virtues, they all together have what no individ- 
 ual has, a combination of all the virtues. 
 
 Mercy, for example, and forgiveness. It's 
 wonderful how the people will pardon error. 
 Mistakes don't count for very much in the 
 long run and the people, who make so many 
 
xu UPBUILDERS 
 
 themselves, they seem to know that better than 
 the wise men who should know why it is so. 
 
 Everett Colby had served the boss of Essex 
 (and the bosses of the boss) faithfully, ignorantly 
 and, therefore, innocently, during three sessions 
 of the legislature, till he saw the evil thereof, and 
 appealed to the people to beat the system. He 
 went, as Mark Fagan advised, and as we have 
 just seen Judge Lindsey go, to the shops. The 
 workers, aware of his antecedents, heard him 
 coldly. But when he had finished his first speech 
 one of his audience asked a question. This 
 worker wanted to know if Mr. Colby "hadn't 
 voted in the assembly" for a certain notoriously 
 bad bill. 
 
 "Yes," Mr. Colby answered, quick and straight. 
 "And not only for that bill," he said. "I think, 
 if you will look up my record that you will find 
 me introducing, voting or speaking for nearly 
 every bad measure of that sort which came up 
 in my time. But, as I have been trying to 
 explain, I didn't understand those things. I've 
 only just come to understand them. But I do 
 think I understand them now." 
 
 That was enough. The word was passed 
 "down the line" that this young rich fellow was 
 "on the level," and that was all the voters of 
 Essex wanted to know. They elected him. 
 
FOREWORD xiii 
 
 They forgave his transgressions as they would 
 have theirs forgiven them. They gave Colby 
 another chance, just as they will a drunkard or a 
 thief or a captain of industry. Indeed, there is 
 reason for thinking that Colby was helped by 
 his bad record of errors. The people suspect 
 (and very wisely, too) all superiority, and Colby's 
 candid, free confession of ignorance and guilt, 
 made him a fit representative of his neighbours 
 in Essex County, New Jersey, U. S. A. ' 
 
 Senator Colby has been retired since; and Mark 
 Fagan was beaten; and Lindsey may be, and 
 Spreckels. "Republics are ungrateful," Mr. 
 Dooley quotes, and he adds: "That's why they 
 are Republics." The people are not constant. 
 And the forces of corruption are. In Jersey 
 the "interests" became alarmed at the issues 
 the Colby-Fagan "New Idea" movement was 
 raising: taxation; representative government; the 
 direct election of the United States Senators; 
 home rule; etc., so they threw into the situation 
 a "moral issue," the liquor traffic. This is an 
 important question, but it is so important that 
 to drop it into a reform movement with other 
 issues up, is to break up that other movement, 
 and — fail to solve the liquor question. If I 
 were a political boss, in danger of losing my 
 crown, I would get the church to come out 
 
xiv UPBUILDERS 
 
 against the saloon. That would save me, and 
 it would not cost the saloons very much. 
 
 The liquor issue in Jersey checked, but it did 
 not stop reform in that state. Mr. Colby has 
 quit, for awhile, but Mark Fagan and most of 
 the other Jersey leaders, have gone on fighting. 
 As I am writing these lines, Mark is preparing 
 to run again for Mayor of Jersey City. And Mr. 
 Heney says Spreckels can't quit; and I say Ben 
 Lindsey can't; and W. S. U'Ren — impossible! 
 
 It's hard labour; it's the hardest work in the 
 world; and the least steady, and the most never- 
 ending; but there's a fascination about the service 
 of the public which holds men. It takes courage, 
 and self-sacrifice; patience and eternal vigilance; 
 faith and hope and human understanding; and 
 it costs pain and disappointment and sorrow. 
 I have seen strong men break down and weep 
 like children because, forsooth, I had said, out of 
 kindness and only half-believing it then, that some 
 day, after they were dead, men would acknowledge 
 and, ceasing to suspect their motives, might 
 appreciate their devotion to men. It's an un- 
 grateful career, politics is. But — and here's 
 some more optimism for the optimists that are 
 nor mere cheerful idiots: here's a truth I would 
 like to shout so that it might be heard some 
 1909 years away: 
 
FOREWORD XV 
 
 The happiest men I know in all this unhappy 
 life of ours, are those leaders who, brave, loyal, and 
 sometimes in tear s, "'^'' r/>riiifj^ their fMnw-mfn. 
 
 And who are their fellow-men that accept their 
 service? We are, you and I; we are the people 
 who beat, but who also elect these leaders of ours. 
 And what are we ? Well, if I listen to my own 
 thoughts, and my own conscience, and to my 
 own heart, and yours; and if you hearken only 
 to yours, and mine, we may not recognize the voice 
 of God. But, if we heed, as Mark Fagan must, 
 and Ben Lindsey, and Rudolph Spreckels, the 
 proud; if we should have to hear and abide by 
 the votes of the great, mixed, smelly mass of us, 
 then we, too, should both be and obey the voice 
 of humanity. And that is divinity enough for 
 Man, and for the little leaders of men. 
 
 Lincoln Steffens. 
 Boston, May ij, igog. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Mark Fagan, Mayor .... 3 
 
 II. Everett Colby, " The Gentleman from 
 
 Essex" 47 
 
 III. Ben Lindsey, the Just Judge . . 94 
 
 (1) "The Kids' Court" 
 
 (2) What Makes "Bad" Children Bad 
 
 (3) Battles with "Bad" Men 
 
 IV. Rudolph Spreckels, a Business Re- 
 
 former 244 
 
 V. W. S. U'Ren, the Law-giver . . 285 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Mark M. Fagan . . . Frontispiece 
 
 FACING FACE 
 
 Everett Colby 4^ 
 
 Ben B, Lindsey 9^ 
 
 Rudolph Spreckels ..... 246 
 
 William S. U'Ren 286 
 
UPBUILDERS 
 
UPBUILDERS 
 
 MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 
 
 "You saw go up and down Valladolid, 
 
 A man of mark, to know next time you saw." 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 THAT Jersey City should have produced Mark 
 Fagan is strange enough. But that Mark 
 Fagan, grave, kind, and very brave, should have 
 been able, as Mayor, to make Jersey City what it 
 is: a beginning of better things all over this land 
 of ours, that is stranger still. And no man there 
 pretends to understand it. Yet it is a simple 
 story. 
 
 Mark — as they call him — the men, the 
 women, and the children — was born September 
 29, 1869, in the fifth ward where he lives now. 
 His parents were poor Irish, very poor. They 
 moved over to New York when Mark was a child, 
 and the father died. Mark sold newspapers. 
 The newsboy dreamed dreams and fought fights. 
 He claimed a corner. Twelfth Street and Avenue 
 A, developed a good trade, and when competition 
 came, appealed to the man in the store to say 
 
 3 
 
4 UPBUILDERS 
 
 if he was n't there first. The man in the store 
 wouldn't decide; he told the boys they must 
 fight it out among themselves, so they laid down 
 their papers and they fought it out. Mark held 
 his corner. "Life is one long fight for right," 
 he says now, this very gentle man, who fights and 
 — holds his corner. 
 
 The newsboy's dreams, like his fights, were 
 very simple affairs. When I pried into them, 
 I expected to hear of driving a locomotive or the 
 Presidency, at least. But no, it seems that some 
 men said roughly that they didn't want to buy 
 a paper, others said it kindly. Mark made up 
 his mind that when he became a man he would 
 be like the kind men. Sometimes the nights 
 were cold and the newsboy felt hungry and lonely; 
 passing houses where the family sat in the base- 
 ment room, all lighted up and Warm, with plenty 
 of smoking hot food before them, Mark stopped 
 to look in and he dreamed that when he grew up, 
 he also would have a home. He couldn't go to 
 school; he had only six months of it all told. 
 But he didn't like school; it was indoors, and 
 he has dreamed that he would like to have, in 
 Jersey City, schools on large plots of ground, so 
 that part of the teaching might be done in the 
 open. But this dream came later. 
 
 When he was twelve or fourteen Mark became 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 5 
 
 a helper on a wagon. Then he learned the trade 
 of a frame-gilder with William B. Short, a Scotch- 
 man who made a deep impression on the boy. 
 Short was a "genuine man." He was a Repub- 
 lican in politics. The boy was a Democrat 
 by birth, breeding, and environment. But the 
 man pointed out to the little Tammany Demo- 
 crat on election days the Tammany line-up 
 of men from the street into the saloon and out 
 again, with foam on their lips and something in 
 their hands, to the ballot-box. Mark had a pain- 
 ful time, talking to people on both sides, but 
 what he saw with his own staring eyes, with the 
 honest gilder pointing at the living facts, made 
 the Democrat a Republican. 
 
 The next period made the boy a man. His 
 uncle, an undertaker in Jersey City, offered 
 Mark a job, and he moved with his mother and 
 sister back there to take it. Now this business 
 often has a demoralizing effect upon men. They 
 see dreadful sights, and they harden or take to 
 drink. Mark saw dreadful sights; you can see 
 that he sees them now when he recalls those days, 
 but they softened, they sweetened Mark Fagan. 
 He saw homes where the dead mother left noth- 
 ing but a helpless child - - nothing, you under- 
 stand, but the child. He saw that the poor 
 suffered greatly from the wrongs of others, not 
 
6 UPBUILDERS 
 
 alone of those above, but of those also that were 
 about them, and yet, the poor were great in 
 charity for the poor. 
 
 "I came," he says, in his quiet, level tone, "I 
 came to have pity for the poor and — admiration." 
 . You hear that Mark, the undertaker, cared 
 for the living child as well as the dead mother; 
 he stayed with his job after the funeral, and by 
 and by people came to the undertaker with the 
 business of life. His explanation is that he 
 "could write and fix up insurance and things 
 like that." Others could write and fix up insur- 
 ance; the point Was that they trusted Mark to do 
 it, all his neighbors, all nationalities, all ages; 
 and he did it. One of the odd branches of this 
 odd undertaking business was to fix up mar- 
 riages. It seems that, among the poor also, 
 there comes a time soon after the wedding when 
 husband and wife fall out; love turns to what 
 looks like hate, and sometimes becomes hate. 
 In Jersey City, young married people used, 
 when the crisis arrived, to go to Mark; they'd "tell 
 him on each other"; and he would listen and 
 seem to judge. But what he really did was to 
 get everything said and done with, and then 
 when they were tired and satisfied, and sorry, 
 he "fixed 'em up." 
 
 So far there is nothing so very extraordinary 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 7 
 
 about Mark Fagan. He is a type of the men ^ 
 who, winning the faith, and affection of their 
 neighbours, become political leaders. "Popu- 
 larity" makes them "available" as candidates 
 or "ward bosses." Nothing was further from 
 Mark's mind, but it was inevitable that he should 
 go into politics, and the way he went in was 
 natural and commonplace. One Sunday morn- 
 ing as he was leaving church several young 
 fellows stopped him to propose that he run for 
 the board of freeholders. He was " not adapted," 
 he said ; why didn't one of them run ? They 
 explained that "Bob" Davis, the Democratic 
 boss, wouldn't let them run; wouldn't let any- 
 body run in their party who wouldn't knuckle 
 under to him. But Mark was a Republican. 
 The ward, like the city and county, was heavily 
 Democratic, and since there was so little chance 
 of winning, the Republican ring would let any- 
 body have the nomination. If Mark would let 
 them, they would arrange it, fight with him, and 
 he might be elected. They couldn't persuade 
 Mark himself, but they knew how to get him. 
 They went to his mother. They explained it to 
 her, and she bade Mark run. He asked her 
 if she understood it all, and she said she didn't, 
 except that it seemed to be a chance to do some 
 good in the ward. 
 
8 UPBUILDERS 
 
 Thus Mark Fagan was started in politics. When 
 he took the Republican nomination and his popu- 
 larity showed, the fellows that got him into the 
 fight got out. They had to; they were called ofF 
 by the bosses who ran the two parties as one. 
 That made Mark fight the harder. Left high 
 and dry by "the organization," he went to the 
 people of his district. 
 
 "I was bound to win," he says, "and I felt that 
 if I was beaten it would be because I wasn't 
 known to enough of the voters. And, any- 
 how, I wanted to know my people in my ward." 
 
 So he started at 5.45 one morning at one cor- 
 ner of his ward, and he went systematically 
 through it, knocking at every door, seeing every 
 man, woman, and child; he climbed 3,700 flights 
 of stairs in seventeen nights; and he promised to 
 "serve the people of his ward faithfully and 
 honestly." Mark was elected, and dirty Jersey 
 City was amazed. 
 
 Now comes the first remarkable thing about 
 ^this remarkable man. The corruption, political 
 and financial, of the United States is built up on 
 the betrayal of the people by the leaders, big and 
 little, whom they trust, and the treason begins in 
 the ward. The ward leader, having the full, fine, 
 personal faith of his neighbours, takes their con- 
 fidence and their votes, and he delivers these 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 9 
 
 things and his own soul to the party bosses who 
 sell out the interests of the city, state, and nation 
 to the business leaders, who — as we know now — 
 use the money we entrust to them to rob us and 
 corrupt our political, commercial and our higher 
 life. When Mark Fagan had taken his oath, 
 the other, older freeholders came to him, and 
 they invited him into "the combine." There 
 was no mystery about it. There was a com- 
 bine and there was graft; of course a man wants 
 his share of the graft, and though Fagan was a 
 Republican, party made no difference; both par- 
 ties were in on it, and Fagan had a right to what 
 was coming to. him. Something — the man 
 doesn't know exactly what it was — something 
 which he thinks is religious, made him decline 
 to go in. He is a quiet man, and he made no 
 outcry. He didn't perfectly understand any-' 
 how, then, just what it all meant. It simply 
 "didn't look right" to Mark, so he did not sell 
 out the people of his ward who trusted him to 
 serve them. And the worst of it was, he couldn't 
 serve them. If he wouldn't " stand in," the com- 
 bine wouldn't let him have anything for his 
 ward, not even the needed, rightful improve- 
 ments. All he got were three political jobs, 
 and they were a gift to him. The combine 
 having distributed all the offices, had three left 
 
10 UPBUILDERS 
 
 over. Since these were not enough to go around 
 again, they wrangled till somebody, to save the 
 combine, suggested giving them all to Mark. 
 They "kind o' liked" Mark, so this bit of patron- 
 age went to him with a whoop. 
 
 Mark was not reelected freeholder. He says 
 that his inability to do things for the ward did 
 not hurt him with his people; more of them 
 voted for him than ever before. But the state 
 and city rings had had a gerrymander about that 
 time, and they so arranged the lines of Mark's 
 ward that he was beaten. He served his neigh- 
 bours privately till the next year the Republicans 
 nominated him for the state senate. Hopeless, 
 anyway, the candidacy fell upon a presidential 
 year, Bryan's first, and the Democratic County 
 of Hudson was wild with party enthusiasm. 
 But the moment Mark was nominated he left 
 the convention and, fifty feet from the door, 
 began his campaign; he met two men; he told them 
 he had just been nominated, that if he was elected 
 he would serve them "honestly and faithfully," 
 and they promised to vote for him. In this 
 fashion, man to man, he canvassed his county and, 
 though it went against him, he ran way ahead 
 of his ticket. And he carried the city. 
 
 A Republican who can carry a Democratic 
 city is the "logical" candidate of his party for 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR ii 
 
 Mayor, and, in 1901, Mark Fagan was nominated. 
 Some of the little bosses warned the big bosses 
 that they couldn't handle him, but the big 
 bosses pooh-poohed the fears of the little bosses. 
 In the first place he wouldn't be elected. The 
 railroads, the public service companies, and 
 some of the greatest corporations in the world 
 have offices and properties in Jersey City, and 
 their agents there had used money so exten- 
 sively that they ruled absolutely a people supposed 
 to be utterly corrupted. Bribery at the polls, 
 election frauds, ballot-box stuffing — all sorts 
 of gross political crimes had made this home of 
 "common people" and corporations notorious. 
 "Bob" Davis was the Democratic boss, politi- 
 cally speaking; but Mr. E. F. C. Young, banker, 
 leading citizen, public utility magnate, was the 
 business boss who, backing Davis, was the real 
 power. Colonel Sam Dickinson, the Republican 
 boss, was a corporation man, and one might 
 expect that his party, which was in power in the 
 state, would help him. But no. General Sewell, 
 U. S. Senator, Pennsylvania railroad official, 
 and Republican state boss, dispensed Republican 
 patronage in Hudson County, through the Demo- 
 cratic boss, Mr. E. F. C. Young. Sewell was 
 dead now, but the custom survived him, and in 
 1 90 1 the Democrats nominated against Fagan, 
 
12 UPBUILDERS 
 
 George T. Smith, Young's son-in-law, an employee 
 of the Pennsylvania. So Fagan had against him 
 the money, the "best citizens," the "solid, con- 
 servative business interests" of the state and 
 city, and — both rings. Hence, the certainty that 
 Fagan would be defeated. But even if he should 
 win the big bosses believed they could "handle 
 him." They had sized up the man. And if 
 you could size up Mark Fagan — feel his humil- 
 ity and see the pleading, almost dependent look 
 of his honest, trustful eyes — you would under- 
 stand how ridiculous to the big bosses the worry 
 of the little bosses must have seemed. 
 
 An astonished city elected Mark. His quiet 
 campaign from house to house, his earnest, sim- 
 ple promise to "serve you honestly and faith- 
 fully," had beaten bribery. His kind of people 
 believed Mark Fagan, and so, though the Repub- 
 lican ticket as a whole was beaten, Mark was 
 Mayor. Being Mayor, Mark assumed that he 
 was the head of the city government. He didn't 
 understand that his election meant simply that 
 his boss had come into his own. He saw Gov- 
 ernor Murphy appoint Colonel Dickinson secre- 
 tary of state, and he heard that the Colonel was 
 to have some of the local patronage of the Repub- 
 lican state government. Mark might have 
 assumed that he had "made" Dickinson. But 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 13 
 
 he was told that it was the other way around. 
 They walked in upon Mark — the Colonel who 
 " made " him ; the editor of the paper that " elected " 
 him; and General Wanser who was ready to 
 help "unmake" him, — these and the other big 
 Republican bosses who expected, as a matter 
 of course, to give Jersey City a "good business 
 government," called on the Mayor-elect. Mark, 
 who has no humour, tried to tell me how he felt 
 when they came and took charge of him and 
 his office. Putting one fist to his forehead, and 
 pressing the other hand on the back of his head 
 (a characteristic gesture), he said that he looked 
 up to those men; he felt his own deficiencies of 
 education and experience; he had a heavy sense 
 of his tremendous responsibility; and he wanted 
 help and advice, for he wished to do right. But, 
 you see, he was Mayor. The people looked 
 to him. He might make mistakes; but since he 
 must answer for them to those people, man to 
 man, you understand, and man by man, when 
 he knocked again at their doors, why, Mark 
 Fagan thought he ought to listen to "his party," 
 yes, and be "true to it," yes; but after all, the 
 whole people would expect him to decide all 
 questions — all. 
 
 Mayor Fagan didn't realize, at that time, 
 that our constitutional governments were changed, 
 
14 UPBUILDERS 
 
 that this was a business nation and that the gov- 
 ernment represented not the people, but business; 
 not men, but business men. So he sat silent, 
 apart, and perplexed — not indignant, mind you, 
 not quarreling and arguing; no, the others did that; 
 the Mayor only listened perplexed while Colonel 
 Dickinson and General Wanser and the rest dis- 
 cussed "his" policy and "his" appointments; 
 discussed them and disagreed, quarreled, all 
 among themselves, but finally agreed among 
 themselves. And then, when they had settled 
 it all and turned to him, a party in harmony, he 
 "got off something about being Mayor and 
 reserving the right to change some items of the 
 slate and policy." It was their turn to be per- 
 plexed. Perplexed ? They left him in a rage 
 to "go to the devil." 
 
 The Mayor, abandoned, proceeded with a 
 quiet study he was making all by himself of the 
 city. He went about, visiting the departments, 
 meeting officials, and asking questions. People 
 wrote complaints to him, and some of them were 
 as perplexed as the bosses when Mayor Fagan 
 answered their letters in person, looked into their 
 troubles, and went off to "fix 'em up." There 
 were lots of things for a Mayor to do: Parents 
 couldn't get their children into school; no room. 
 Families couldn't get water above the second 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 15 
 
 floor; no force. Cellars were flooded; pipes 
 leaked. Jersey City, corrupt, neglected, robbed, 
 needed everything. And Mayor Fagan took its 
 needs seriously. He must have more schools, 
 more and better sewers, more water; and he did 
 want to add a public bath and parks and music 
 in the parks. "I wanted," he says, "to make 
 Jersey City a pleasant place to live in; I'd like to 
 make it pretty." Jersey City pretty! Were 
 you ever in Jersey City ? I suppose when your 
 train was coming through Jersey City you were 
 gathering up your things and being brushed 
 by the porter; you probably never looked out 
 of the window. Well, look next time and you 
 will see that what the railroad attorneys say 
 is true: 
 
 "It's nothing but a railroad terminal. They 
 talk about the railroads owning it; the railroads 
 ought to own it. It's the terminal of the traffic 
 of a continent." 
 
 Nevertheless, Mark Fagan, who lived there and 
 who knew personally so many families that lived 
 and must always live there, he, their Mayor, 
 dreamed of making it a pleasant city to live in. 
 How? Money, lots of money, was needed, and 
 how was money to be raised for such a purpose f 
 When he had broached his idea to the bosses it 
 seemed to fill them with disgust, and now that 
 
i6 UPBUILDERS 
 
 they were gone, he didn't know what to do. He 
 needed help, and help came. 
 
 Among the appointments recommended to 
 him by Colonel Dickinson was that of George 
 L. Record, to be corporation counsel. Record, 
 an able lawyer, had been the principal orator in 
 the campaign, and the Mayor "took to him." 
 But it was whispered that Record was interested 
 in a contracting company which was building 
 waterworks for the city, and the Mayor, suspicious 
 by this time of everybody, hesitated. Record was 
 resentful, but he had had dreams of his own 
 once. He had read Henry George and his 
 dreams were of economic reforms — taxation. 
 But he had fought the bosses in vain, and was 
 about ready to give up when, reflecting upon 
 the rock they all had struck at the bottom of 
 this mild Mayor's character, he saw that "by 
 Jove, here was an honest man who could 
 make people believe in his honesty." He went 
 to see him. The water business was explained; 
 Record had been engaged only as a broker, and 
 he was out of it. He was free to take Mark's 
 pledge to be "loyal to the Mayor and the 
 people of Jersey City." They had a long, 
 warm talk. The Mayor's mind ran to the 
 betterment of the physical conditions of life; 
 Record's to more fundamental reforms, but tax- 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 17 
 
 ation was the way to raise money to make the 
 city pleasant. 
 
 They outlined a policy. They took in others 
 to form a cabinet: Edgar B. Bacon, Frank J. 
 Higgins, Edward Fry, and Robert Carey — 
 all these, and Record and Fagan, are Mark Fagan. 
 They discuss questions as they arise, and the 
 Mayor decides; they agree, but Mark is the 
 Mayor. Some people say Record is the boss, 
 but he laughs. 
 
 "The big grafters know better," he says. 
 "They failed to handle Mark, and when they 
 found that I was 'next' they asked me to sell 
 him out. I didn't tell them that I wouldn't; I 
 told them I couldn't. And I can't, and they 
 know I can't. I can advise, I can instruct, and 
 the man will try, actually try hard to see things 
 as I do. For he trusts me, and he wants to be 
 shown. He wants to know. But he decides; 
 and there's something in him — I don't know 
 what it is — something that tells him what is 
 right. No. I've been a help, a great help, to 
 him, but so have the others of us, and we have 
 helped him to decide to do things no one of us 
 alone would have had the nerve to do. And 
 there's where he is great. It all comes down to 
 this: We all agree on the right thing to do, and 
 we do it; but when the howl goes up and the 
 
i8 UPBUILDERS 
 
 pull begins to draw, we put it all up to Mark. 
 'Blame him,' we say; 'we can't help it,' and they 
 blame him. But that eases us, and, you see, 
 Mark prefers it that way. He wants to stand 
 for everything; everything. Oh, he should, yes, 
 but you see, he wants to." 
 
 The policy the Mayor and his corporation 
 counsel outlined was to equalize taxation. They 
 couldn't raise the rates; the city was overburdened 
 with taxes already, but the corporations probably 
 dodged their share. Record didn't know that 
 they did; the Mayor was to see, and while he went 
 about with the tax lists and an expert, Record had 
 a talk with the boss, Dickinson. The Mayor had 
 consented to let the Colonel have most of the 
 patronage if "the party" would let him carry out 
 his policy, and Record argued with Dickinson, 
 that having made all the money he needed, it 
 was time for him to play the big game of straight 
 politics, take his ease and the credit of a good 
 administration. Dickinson liked the idea. 
 
 The Mayor and his expert reported that the 
 poor paid taxes on about 70 per cent, of the 
 value of their property; privileged persons on 
 about 50 per cent.; the corporations on all the 
 way from 30 per cent, to nothing. Mark 
 Fagan had a new purpose in life. The others 
 laughed at the old, old story; it was new to Mark, 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 19 
 
 and he raised rates on the tax dodgers. There 
 was an awful clamour, of course, and there were 
 pulls, but all complaints were referred to the little 
 Mayor, who, seeing complex business problems 
 in a simple way, was a rock. 
 
 Then there were the trolleys. These were 
 valuable privileges. Why shouldn't they pay a fair 
 tax ? There was a reason why they shouldn't : 
 Republican, as well as Democratic, bosses were 
 in on them. This didn't deter the Mayor, and 
 when Record sounded Colonel Dickinson, the 
 Republican boss winked the other eye. He 
 wasn't in trolleys, and he had had a bit of a row 
 with E. F. C. Young, the Democratic boss who 
 was. As for the other Republican bosses who 
 were in with Young, they might " see the Mayor " 
 for themselves. They did. When it was noised 
 about that the sacred private property of the street 
 car company in the middle of the public streets 
 was to be assessed somewhat as ordinary property. 
 General Wanser, for instance, called on the Mayor. 
 
 " What's this I hear you are going to do with the 
 trolleys, Mark ? " he asked. 
 
 "Whatever is right," said Mark. "I under- 
 stand they are undervalued; if they are, we will 
 raise them." 
 
 " Well, now, I'm a good friend of yours, Mark, 
 and I don't want you to do anything of that sort." 
 
20 UPBUILDERS 
 
 "If you are a good friend of mine," said Mark, 
 "you shouldn't ask me to do anything wrong." 
 
 "Don't you know," said Wanser, "that every 
 dollar I have in the world is in this thing ? " 
 
 Mark Fagan couldn't see the relevancy of this; 
 he talked about other people having every dollar 
 that they had in houses and lots, and yet pay- 
 ing taxes. As General. Wanser remarked when he 
 left in high dudgeon, Mark Fagan had "damn 
 queer ideas about things." 
 
 He had, and he has. One of his queer ideas is 
 what may be called a sense of public property. 
 All men know that private property is sacred; 
 for centuries that sense has been borne in upon us 
 till even thieves know it is wrong to steal private 
 property. But highly civilized men lack all sense of 
 the sacredness of public property; from timber 
 lands to .city streets that is a private graft. And 
 when one day the Mayor received an anonymous 
 note advising him to have the underlying fran- 
 chise of the trolley company looked up, he was 
 interested. He had the note copied in type- 
 writing, then he scrupulously destroyed the orig- 
 inal. The copy he gave to Corporation Counsel 
 Record. Mr. Record discovered to his amazement 
 that the franchise had expired. We need not go 
 into details. The Mayor and his cabinet decided 
 to take the matter into the courts; if the court 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR it 
 
 decided that the franchise belonged to the city, the 
 Mayor meant to take it. To some of the Mayor's 
 advisers this looked like a dreadful step to take; 
 they thought of the "widows and orphans" and 
 other innocent holders of the stock. It didn't 
 look so bad to Colonel Dickinson; he thought 
 only of his rival boss, E. F. C. Young, whom he 
 had seen grabbing up the street railways under 
 his nose. And it didn't look bad to Mayor Fagan; 
 he thought of the "widows and orphans" who 
 held no stock except in Jersey City, which — 
 so it seemed to Mark — had as much right as an 
 individual or a private corporation to whatever 
 belonged to it. 
 
 Unbeknown to the cabinet, however, while they 
 were deliberating on their discovery, the great Pub- 
 lic Service Corporation was being formed. The 
 big men in the Prudential Life and its Fidelity 
 Trust Company had gone in with the U. G. I. 
 (United Gas Improvement Co.) of Philadelphia 
 and the Pennsylvania Railroad crowd to buy up 
 practically all the trolleys, electric light, and 
 other available public utility companies of New 
 Jersey. Among these purchases were the Jersey 
 City lines and, also, an electric light company 
 in which Colonel Dickinson was an employee. 
 This was embarrassing to Dickinson; E. F. C. 
 Young was out and Dickinson and his friends were 
 
22 UPBUILDERS 
 
 in. Record told Fagan all about it, but, as he 
 says, "Mark didn't care; he wasn't even inter- 
 ested." He made public his plan to test the 
 franchise, the stock fell and there was a great 
 ado. The Public Service Corporation had walked 
 straight into politics. Tom McCarter, the 
 Attorney-general, was made president of the com- 
 pany and his brother, Robert, was made Attorney- 
 general of the state. As we all know, the new crowd 
 acquired such a heritage of corrupt power that they 
 were able to send the president of the Prudential, 
 John F. Dryden, to the United States Senate. 
 This power, and the power of the U. G. I. (the same 
 that drove Philadelphia to revolt) came down upon 
 Dickinson and Record. The grafters didn't want 
 to see the Mayor, but Dickinson and Record told 
 them they must, so Dryden gave a yachting party 
 up the Hudson. Dryden, Randall Morgan, and 
 Tom McCarter went and Dickinson, Record, and 
 the Mayor's cabinet — all but the Mayor. The 
 party was fog-bound off Hoboken, so they had 
 no sail, and, though they talked, they did no 
 business. They had to see Fagan. 
 
 They saw Fagan. The U. G. I. has rooms at 
 Sherry's for such business, and there one afternoon 
 was held a conference which has passed into the 
 traditions of New Jersey. The more impor- 
 tant persons present were Mayor Fagan, Record, 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 23 
 
 Bacon, Carey, and Dickinson representing Jersey 
 City; Tom McCarter, of the Public Service 
 Corporation; and Randall Morgan of the U. G. I. 
 The rooms were luxurious, the entertainment 
 was good, and the conversation friendly and 
 pleasant. When they got down to business, every- 
 body felt as if they ought to be able to agree — 
 everybody but Mark Fagan. He sat apart, cold 
 and still. He says now that he felt at the time 
 that he shouldn't have gone there at all, but that 
 all the way over on the boat and during the con- 
 versation he was conning over just what he would 
 say; that it was "not his business, but the city's, 
 and that the case must go to the courts to decide." 
 Tom McCarter spoke for the trolley, Carey for the 
 city, and they got nowhere. Randall Morgan was 
 talking tactfully to the Mayor in a corner, when 
 suddenly McCarter turned upon Mark and said: 
 " Well, Mr. Mayor, what is your decision ? " 
 The Mayor was ready. He had no decision 
 to give, he said. Jersey City was going to take 
 the case into court, and the courts would decide. 
 McCarter always loses his temper when opposed 
 by an honest government. "You may be an hon- 
 est man," he shouted at the Mayor, " but you act 
 like a blackmailer. And you, George Record, 
 I'll never forgive you for letting me put my good 
 money into this trolley company without telling 
 
44 UPBUILDERS 
 
 me what you knew about it." He insulted them 
 all, one by one, in turn, including Sam Dickinson, 
 and then he made a famous threat to the whole 
 party: 
 
 "To all of you I say, you can't bring your suit 
 without the consent of the Attorney-general, and 
 the Attorney-general is my brother." 
 ' No matter what an honest man in office tries 
 to do, if he persists, he comes sooner or later upon 
 the corrupt business back of corrupt politics. 
 And no matter what kind of reform it under- 
 takes, an honest city administration, if it proceeds 
 logically, has to appeal sooner or later to the corrupt 
 state government back of the corrupt city gov- 
 ernment. Mark Fagan had come, as we have seen, 
 upon the trolley business, and when Tom McCarter 
 pointed to his brother Robert at Trenton, he 
 was showing the Mayor of Jersey City where he 
 must go next. And Mayor Fagan went where 
 Tom McCarter pointed, and what Tom McCarter 
 predicted happened. When Jersey City asked 
 Attorney-general McCarter to take its expired 
 franchise into court, Tom's brother, Robert, 
 refused. 
 
 Thus Mark Fagan learned that the trolley was 
 king of his state. And he was to learn that the 
 railroad was queen. 
 
 During this, his first administration, the Mayor 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 25 
 
 had been able, by simply catching tax dodgers 
 and "equalizing" the taxes of privileged individ- 
 uals and corrupt corporations, to buy a site for a 
 new high school; begin one school, finish another; 
 put up eleven temporary schools, thus provid- 
 ing seats for all the children in the city; and make 
 needed repairs in all the schools. He had built a 
 free bath; established free dispensaries; extended 
 one park, bought another, improved two more, 
 and given free concerts in them all. He im- 
 proved the fire, street-cleaning, and health 
 departments, and he repaired and extended the 
 sewerage system. But he wanted to do more, 
 and he needed more money. How could he get it ? 
 In the course of his investigations he dis- 
 covered, what well-informed persons long had 
 known, that railroad property was taxed separately 
 in New Jersey. We needn't go into figures. 
 The point was, the railroads were taxed by a 
 state board which they controlled, and which 
 enabled them to fix their own valuation. Not 
 only that, their tax-rate, as fixed by law, was 
 lower than the local rate on ordinary property. 
 All localities sufi^ered more or less, but in Jersey 
 City, where the railroads needed much and the 
 most valuable ground (water front), every time 
 they bought property for railroad use, they not 
 only paid less taxes on it than the private owner 
 
26 UPBUILDERS 
 
 had paid, but they took it ofF the city list. The 
 obvious effect was that the most valuable taxable 
 property in the city constantly decreased and 
 the tax on the rest as steadily increased and must 
 forever increase. 
 
 It was a matter of life and death to Jersey 
 City, to have this system changed, but the city 
 was helpless alone. Mark Fagan, renominated, 
 had to promise to go to Trenton with this business 
 and with the trolley trouble. It was an excit- 
 ing campaign. The railroads, the public ser- 
 vice companies, the taxed corporations — all 
 the corrupt and privileged interests set about 
 beating Mark Fagan, but the Mayor, going 
 from house to house, and making, man to man, 
 his simple promise to be "honest and true" — 
 defeated the system. 
 
 Elected, he and his cabinet went to the legis- 
 lature, and they had their bills introduced. Noth- 
 ing came of a bill against Robert McCarter. A 
 franchise tax measure was still-born. Their 
 equal tax bill was crude, so the Democrats sub- 
 stituted a better one which the Jersey City Repub- 
 licans accepted and supported. Referred to a 
 committee, there were hearings on the bill, but 
 it was buried there. The silent power of the 
 king and the queen of the state would not let it 
 come out. 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 27 
 
 Mark Fagan, with his staring eyes, saw that the 
 government of his state, the control of his own 
 party was in the hands of the most favoured 
 men in and out of the state, those that corrupted 
 it to get and keep privileges. And he wanted 
 to say so. As the session drew to a close, he felt 
 he must do something, but what ? He must 
 appeal from the state to the people of the state. 
 How ? Somebody suggested a letter to Governor 
 Murphy, and they drew up one which described 
 what Mark Fagan saw. The Mayor wanted to 
 publish it right away. Record objected that he 
 "couldn't see the end of it." The Mayor said it 
 was true; it was his duty to say it; and he wanted 
 to "let the consequences go." Record sug- 
 gested showing it to Dickinson. The Mayor 
 said "no"; it is characteristic of him to avoid 
 consulting those of his advisers who, he thinks, 
 will oppose an act he believes to be right. Record 
 did show it to Dickinson, however, and .to his 
 surprise the boss was for it. The Public Ser- 
 vice crowd from Essex had beaten some political 
 legislation of his, so the Colonel, a vindictive man, 
 was for revenge. Record advised one more 
 appeal to Governor Murphy, and he thought 
 that was agreed upon. And Governor Murphy, 
 understanding that the letter was to be with- 
 held, had a luncheon with the other leaders, who 
 
28 UPBUILDERS 
 
 decided to do "anything you want." Mean- 
 while, however, Fagan and Dickinson had handed 
 to the reporters Pagan's famous letter to the 
 Hon. Franklin Murphy, Governor of New Jersey: 
 
 March 24, 1904. 
 
 "My dear Sir: As Mayor of Jersey City and 
 also a member of the Republican party, I venture 
 to address to you this public communication in 
 the hope of averting a possible calamity to Jersey 
 City and almost certain disaster to the Repub- 
 lican party of New Jersey. The present session 
 of the legislature is drawing to a close. Its 
 record, on the whole, is bad and in some respects 
 is disgraceful. Its control by corporation in- 
 terests, in the assembly at least, has been abso- 
 lute. For this condition the Republican party 
 is responsible. 
 
 "The bills for equal taxation demanded by a 
 practically unanimous public sentiment, in all 
 New Jersey at least, have been buried in com- 
 mittee at the command of the railroad corpora- 
 tions, and every attempt to move them has been 
 resisted by a solid Republican vote upon the test 
 motions. The Republican majority has made 
 no attempt to defend this action, and has thereby 
 admitted that it cannot be defended. . . . 
 
 "Bills affecting Jersey City, notably p^veral 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 29 
 
 bills to empower the city to sell its surplus 
 water to neighbouring communities, which it 
 has supplied for twenty years, and which desire 
 to renew contracts with us, have been buried 
 in committee. 
 
 "A bill to ratify a water contract recently made 
 between Jersey City and East Newark was intro- 
 duced early in the session, and referred to the 
 committee on boroughs, which committee still 
 holds it. The bill was afterward introduced 
 under another number, and re-referred to the 
 committee on municipal corporations, where it 
 still reposes. 
 
 "A bill to allow Jersey City to test the right to 
 a trolley franchise, which we are advised by 
 counsel has expired, has met a similar fate. 
 Our most determined efforts to get these com- 
 mittees to act have been unavailing, because of 
 the Republican members thereof, but we can 
 get no satisfactory reason for, nor explanation of, 
 this' action. . . . 
 
 "What is the meaning of all this ? The answer 
 is plain. A Republican legislature is controlled 
 by the railroad, trolley, and water corporations. 
 And the interests of the people are being betrayed. 
 
 "While I charge no man with personal corrup- 
 tion, I do not hesitate to say that this is a condi- 
 tion of affairs which is essentially corrupt, and 
 
30 UPBUILDERS 
 
 which, if unchecked, means the virtual control 
 of our state and our party by corporations. 
 
 "As a citizen I say that this condition is danger- 
 ous and demoralizing. As a public official I 
 protest against this injustice done to Jersey 
 City. As a member of the Republican party I 
 deplore its subserviency to corporate greed and 
 injustice. No political party can long receive the 
 support of the people with such a record as this 
 Republican legislature is making. ..." 
 
 Whatever form the issue takes upon which 
 an honest man in politics makes his first fight, 
 if he fights on, he finally will come to the real 
 American issue: representative government. He 
 may start out like Mayor Fagan for good govern- 
 ment, or like Folk to prosecute boodlers, or like 
 President Roosevelt to regulate railroad rates; be- 
 fore he gets through, he will have to ask the people 
 to answer the question: "Who is to rule — ^the 
 disinterested majority or the specially interested, 
 corrupt few ? " And to make their answer, the 
 people have to beat the boss, who is the agent of 
 the businesses that rule and are destroying repre- 
 sentative democracy. 
 
 Mayor Fagan's letter to Governor Murphy 
 raised the great question in New Jersey. It 
 took at first the form that the gentle Mayor 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 31 
 
 of Jersey City had given it, railroad taxation. 
 The railroads tried to keep it down. Governor 
 Murphy appointed a commission to inquire into 
 the need of a change in railroad tax methods, 
 but the Republicans nominated for Governor 
 Edward C. Stokes, who resigned a directorship of 
 a branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad to run, and 
 the issue of the campaign was the Jersey City 
 issue. And Stokes was elected, but he had had 
 to promise, and public opinion and the out- 
 rageous facts forced from the commission a 
 report for some change. And "some change" 
 was made; enough to relieve Jersey City, but not 
 enough to hurt the railroads. 
 
 The people of Jersey saw that the railroads 
 drew that law, that the railroads dominated still 
 their state government — the railroads and the 
 Public Service Corporation. For, besides the 
 railroad legislation, the Jersey City men con- 
 tinued their franchise tax fight. And, mean- 
 while, Tom McCarter had aroused the people of 
 Essex County to resist his perpetual franchise 
 "grabs" in the Oranges. Jersey City wanted 
 to tax franchises; Essex reformers were for limit- 
 ing them. Record saw that they both were 
 fighting one enemy and he advised a union, and, 
 because he was wiser than the Essex leaders, 
 he and Fagan took up their neighbours' less 
 
32 UPBUILDERS 
 
 essential issue. Everett Colby, a young Repub- 
 lican assemblyman from Essex, led the fight for 
 limited franchises. He was beaten but the defeat 
 showed what the state government represented. 
 So they went home to raise the real question. 
 Fagan and Record to Jersey City, Colby and the 
 Orange men to Essex. The Orange men had 
 seen that Carl Lentz, the Republican boss of 
 Essex County, who ruled them at home, was the 
 agent, at Trenton, of the railroads and of the 
 Public Service Corporation. They went after 
 him. Lentz declared that Colby should not go 
 back to the legislature; since he represented the 
 people, not the corporations, he should not be 
 renominated. But Assemblyman Colby said he 
 not only would go back; he would go back 
 as a senator, and he would take his nomination 
 and his (election from the people. Fortunately, 
 George L, Record, far-sighted, practical re- 
 former that he is, had engineered through the 
 legislature a primary election law. The people 
 had a chance to control their parties, and the 
 Republicans of Essex went to the primaries, and 
 they turned the party over to Everett Colby. 
 Then the whole people of Essex turned in, and 
 they elected Colby senator and with him, a solid 
 assembly delegation pledged to represent the 
 public interests. 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 33 
 
 And Jersey City did likewise. After Dickinson 
 and his mayor had given out the Murphy letter, 
 the railroad-trolley rings went after the boss, and 
 they got him. He began to insist in Jersey City 
 upon some sort of compromise with the Public 
 Service Corporation. The company wanted some 
 new grants. The city couldn't get its old case 
 into court; so what was the use of fighting ? Why 
 not settle it all out of court ? Mayor Fagan hung 
 back, but his cabinet persuaded him to talk it 
 over with Tom McCarter. McCarter called, 
 asking for perpetual franchises. The Mayor was 
 willing to negotiate on the basis of a twenty-five- 
 year franchise. McCarter said limited franchises 
 were absurd in Jersey. There they stuck till 
 Record suggested, as a compromise, a perpetual 
 franchise with readjustments of the terms every 
 twenty-five years. McCarter thought this opened 
 a way to a settlement; so did the Mayor; and 
 Dickinson, feeling that he had "delivered his 
 man" (the Mayor), sailed for Europe. But it 
 wasn't settled. McCarter demanded fifty-year 
 periods, and the Mayor, who had had misgivings 
 all along, broke oflF the negotiations. The Pub- 
 lic Service had its way. The Democrats controlled 
 the Street and Water Board, and they passed 
 McCarter's franchise for him. 
 
 But it was passed over the Mayor's veto, and 
 
34 UPBUILDERS 
 
 when Dickinson came home to hear that not his 
 party but the Democrats had sold out to the Pub- 
 lic Service, and that he was left, as before, in the 
 ridiculous position of boss who couldn't deliver 
 his Mayor, he was angry. And all through the 
 next session he opposed the legislation asked for 
 by his city. He joined the other bosses against the 
 people, and, like Lentz, Dickinson went home to 
 beat "his man" for renomination. Like Everett 
 Colby, Mark Fagan accepted the challenge; he 
 received the nomination for Mayor from the Repub- 
 licans direct and he took the organization besides. 
 Then he turned to the people with this appeal: 
 
 " I find myself, at the opening of the campaign, 
 confronted by a threefold opposition. First, 
 that of the Democratic machine and its absolute 
 boss; second, the scarcely concealed and treach- 
 erous opposition of a Republican party leader, 
 whose demands in behalf of his corporate clients 
 I have refused to grant; third, the secret but pow- 
 erful opposition of a combination of public ser- 
 vice and railroad corporations, whose unjust 
 corporate privileges are threatened by my reelec- 
 tion. The opposition of the corporations and 
 the reasons therefor, and the close business rela- 
 tions between them and the Democratic boss are 
 well understood by the public. The relations 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 35 
 
 between these corporations, or some of them, 
 and the Republican boss, are not so well known. 
 
 "I explicitly charge that this Republican leader 
 is doing everything in his power to defeat my 
 reelection; that his efforts to that end are jeopar- 
 dizing the whole Republican ticket; and that this 
 action is in the interest of the public service and 
 railroad corporations. . . . 
 
 "These facts, and many others too numerous 
 to mention, have convinced me that it is time to 
 come out in the open and have a square stand-up 
 fight against the Republican boss, the Democratic 
 boss, and the trolley and railroad corporations 
 which control them both. It is impossible for 
 a public official to get along permanently with 
 a boss, except upon terms of abject obedience and 
 the sacrifice of self-respect. Personally I am 
 tired of the experiment. I am sick of talk of 
 party harmony, which means surrender of 
 personal independence and of popular rights. 
 It is time to fight the boss system itself, by which 
 unscrupulous men get between the people and the 
 public officials by control of the party machinery, 
 betray the people, acquire riches for themselves, 
 and attempt to drive out of public life all who will 
 not take orders from the boss, and his real mas- 
 ters, the corporations. 
 
 "MarkM.Fagan." 
 
36 UPBUILDERS 
 
 So the fight that fall, in Jersey City, as in Essex 
 County and in New York, as in Toledo and 
 Cincinnati, and Cleveland and Philadelphia, and 
 in Ohio and in Pennsylvania, was a fight against 
 the bosses. And as in those places, so in Jersey 
 City, the people crossed all party lines to follow 
 the leader, and they beat the bosses. Mark 
 Fagan was reelected Mayor of Jersey City, and 
 he and Senator Colby and the reformers of Jersey 
 combined against the interests which the bosses 
 represented. 
 
 But never mind Jersey! What of Mark Fagan, 
 the man who by following the facts, without a 
 theory of reform, by tackling each obstacle as he 
 approached it, came out upon the truth and gave 
 his state its issues and aroused it finally to take 
 part in the second war for independence that 
 is waging all over this country.? I have told 
 simply the simple story of this simple man. The 
 mystery remains. Why did Mark Fagan do it ? 
 That is what they ask in Jersey City, and that is 
 what the commercial spirit of this Christian land 
 asks of Folk and La Follette and Tom Johnson. 
 What prompted them to do something for others ? 
 What are they after ? What is there in it for them ? 
 And how and why do they win ? 
 
 His bitterest foes — the grafters — concede 
 Fagan's honesty. " Bob" Davis was the only one 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 37 
 
 that offered any doubts on that point, and he 
 offered them to me; he had none of his own. 
 Pressed for facts, he admitted that Fagan was 
 " personally on the square." The bigger grafters 
 said Fagan was a demagogue. This is ridiculous. 
 He addresses no prejudices, stirs no passions, 
 makes no appeal to class; he seems to have no 
 sense of class. His talks, like his speeches, are 
 so plain that the wonder is that they count as 
 they do count, winning for him, a Republican, 
 a majority in a Democratic city. I asked the 
 politicians to explain it. Mark has a relative, 
 Jimmy Connolly, once a saloon-keeper, always 
 a hard-headed politician. When Mr. Record 
 confessed he could not account for it he referred 
 me to Jimmy Connolly, and I asked Connolly: 
 
 "How does Mark Fagan do it?" 
 
 " You can search me," said he. " I've watched 
 him, and I've listened to him, ?nd I give it up. 
 And you can ast anybody in this town; we've all 
 ast ourselves and that is where you'll end up. 
 You'll ast yourself. I don't know what he says, 
 and I've listened to him, but he doesn't say noth- 
 ing. Leastways, if you or the likes of me said to 
 a fellar what Mark says, I can just hear the fellar 
 say, 'Say, what ye givin' me, what?' 'Say,' he'd 
 say, 'haven't ye got th' price of a drink in your 
 clothes ?' But when Mark says it, what he says, 
 
38 UPBUILDERS 
 
 they fall down to it like dead soldiers. Nope, you 
 got to find that out for yerself." 
 
 And an idea struck him. "Maybe you can," 
 he said. "Now, maybe you can. I'll get a wagon 
 and we'll go chase Mark out to the railroad yards, 
 and you'll listen to him yerself, and maybe you 
 can tell me." 
 
 Out to the yards we went, and we joined the 
 Mayor. He was going up to a group of men, who 
 stopped work, wiped their hands on their clothes, 
 and formed a shy group. 
 
 "I'm Mark Fagan," said the Mayor as shyly. 
 "I have tried to serve you honestly and faith- 
 fully. I don't know how well, but you know my 
 record. That's the way to judge a man — by 
 his record. And if you don't understand anjrthing 
 in it, I'd like to have you ask me about it. If you 
 think I have done right in most things, I'd like 
 to have your support." 
 
 That was all. They shook hands, saying 
 nothing, and he moved on. 
 
 " Understand that ? " said Connelly at my 
 elbow. " Every one of 'em '11 vote for him. Why ? 
 What's there to it?" 
 
 Mark climbed up Into the switch tower and 
 began: "I am Mark Fagan " 
 
 "You needn't waste your time here," said 
 the tower man, looking around steadily. "I 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 39 
 
 know you're Mark Fagan, and I know what 
 you're doing. And I'll vote for you till hell freezes 
 over." He flung over the switch, and Mark 
 retreated, abashed. 
 
 "He knows me," he said wonderingly to me 
 when he came down. Of course they all know 
 the Mayor, but the Mayor can't call them by 
 name; he hasn't a good memory for either names 
 or faces, and I saw him talk to men he had talked 
 to before. So there is no flattery, and no famil- 
 iarity, and that was one point which missed Con- 
 nolly, who couldn't understand why those men 
 didn't laugh or josh the Mayor. "Why don't 
 they give him a song and dance ?" he said. 
 
 One man in a group I joined before the Mayor 
 reached it did say he was going to "have some 
 fun with Mark," and the others in a mood for 
 horse play, dared the bold one to ask Fagan for 
 " the price of a drink." I thought the man would, 
 but when Mark came up, saying, "I am Mark 
 Fagan; I have been Mayor for two terms, and I 
 have tried to serve you," etc., etc., the bold man 
 was silent; they were all respectful, and the 
 psychology was plain enough. 
 
 The Mayor speaks, what Connolly calls "his 
 little piece," with dignity, with the grave dig- 
 nity of self-respect, and you feel, and those men 
 feel, the perfect sincerity of Mark Fagan. 
 
40 UPBUILDERS 
 
 But that didn't satisfy Jim Connolly, and it 
 wouldn't satisfy anybody in Jersey City. It 
 didn't satisfy me, and since nobody else could 
 help me, I went to Mark himself. I went to his 
 home with him, and I asked him questions. He 
 squirmed, and it wasn't pleasant for me; but I 
 had a theory I wanted to test. Maybe it wasn't 
 right to probe thus into the soul of a man, and 
 maybe it isn't fine to show what you see. It hurt 
 Mark Fagan, that interview, and the report of it 
 will hurt more. But I am thinking of those of 
 us who need to see what I saw when I looked in 
 upon the soul of Mark Fagan. 
 
 Why had he done the things that had been 
 done for Jersey City .? That was the main ques- 
 tion. He said he hadn't done those things, not 
 alone. His cabinet had done them. He gave 
 full credit to his associates, and he gave it hon- 
 estly, as if he wished to be believed. But, as 
 Record says, whatever of knowledge and resources 
 he and the rest contributed to the Mayor, it was 
 the Mayor who furnished the courage, the steady 
 will — the transparent character. 
 
 " What is your purpose, Mr. Mayor ? " 
 
 He elaborated his idea of making Jersey City 
 
 pleasant. He talked about clean streets, good 
 
 water and light service, and schools. "Now the 
 
 schools — I think the schools shouldn't be shut 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 41 
 
 up when school is out. Don't you think it would 
 be nice if the mothers could go there, and the 
 girls, and learn to sew and other things? I'd 
 like to have a gymnasium in the schools; and a 
 swimming tank. The schools ought to be the 
 place where the people of the neighbourhood go 
 to read and hear lectures, and hold meetings, 
 and for the children to play. Do you think that 
 is foolish ? " 
 
 He hadn't read of the efforts elsewhere for 
 these ends. He was glad to know his scheme had 
 struck others as feasible. 
 
 "I don't see why things shouldn't be useful, 
 like that, and pretty. Do you think it would be 
 foolish — I haven't talked about this to the others, 
 but do you think it would be so foolish to have 
 flowers in the schools ? " 
 
 " Why do you care about other people ? " I 
 asked. "You seem to like men. Do you really ?" 
 
 His look answered that, but he went on to talk 
 about his boyhood and his experiences as an 
 undertaker. These would make anybody like the 
 people, he thought. 
 
 "What do you mean by the people ?" I asked. 
 " The poor people ? The working people ? When 
 yoxt address a crowd, do you appeal to labour as 
 labour, to the unions, for example.?" 
 
 " Oh, no. I never do that. I mean everybody. 
 
42 UPBUILDERS 
 
 The poor need the most, and most people over 
 here work, but by people I mean men and women 
 and children, everybody." 
 
 "Railroad presidents? Do you hate the 
 railroads ? " 
 
 "No," he said, reflecting. "They do a good 
 deal that is wrong. They corrupt young men, 
 and they don't care anything about Jersey City. 
 They should stop corrupting politics, but you can't 
 expect them to look out for us. We must do 
 that." He paused. "I have hated men, almost, 
 some of these corporation men, but I don't any 
 more. I used to hate men that said things about 
 me that weren't true, that weren't just. But 
 I've got over that now." 
 
 "How did you get over it?" 
 
 "I have a way," he said, evidently meaning 
 not to tell it. 
 
 "You must have been tempted often in the four 
 years you have been in office. Have you ever 
 been offered a bribe ?" 
 
 "Only once, but that was by a man sent by 
 somebody else. He didn't know what he was 
 doing, and I didn't blame him so much as I did 
 those who sent him." 
 
 "But the subtler temptations, how did you 
 resist them ? " 
 
 " I have a way," he said, again. 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 43 
 
 This time I pressed him for it; he evaded the 
 point, and I urged that if he knew a way, and a 
 good way, to resist political temptations, others 
 should know of it. 
 
 He was most uncomfortable. "It's a good 
 way," he said, looking down. Then, looking up, 
 he almost whispered: "I pray. When I take an 
 oath of office, I speak it slowly. I say each word, 
 thinking how it is an oath, and afterward I pray 
 for strength to keep it." 
 
 "A silent prayer ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And that helps? Against the daily temp- 
 tations too V 
 
 "Yes, but I — every morning when I go up 
 the steps of City Hall, I ask that I may be given 
 to recognize temptations when they come to me, 
 and — to resist them. And at night, I go over 
 every act and I give thanks if I have done no 
 injury to any man." 
 
 "When you were considering whether you 
 would give out that letter to Governor Murphy, 
 why did you say, 'Let the consequences go' ?" 
 
 "Well, when anything is to be done that I think 
 is right, and the rest say it might hurt my political 
 career, I ask myself if such thoughts are tempt- 
 ing me, and if I think they are, I do that thing 
 quick. That was the way of the Murphy letter." 
 
44 UPBUILDERS 
 
 "They say you want to be Governor of New 
 Jersey?" 
 
 I "I know that I don't," he said quietly. "I 
 have asked myself that, and I know that I don't. 
 I don't think that I would be able to be the Gov- 
 ernor; I mean, able to do much for people in that 
 high office." 
 
 "What do you want to do, then ?" 
 
 "Why, what I am doing now." 
 
 "Always ? Do you mean that you'd like to 
 be Mayor of Jersey City all your life ?" 
 
 He looked up as if I had caught him at some- 
 thing foolish or extravagant, but he answered: 
 
 " If I could be — if I could go on doing things 
 for the people all my life, as Mayor, I should 
 be very happy. But I can't, I suppose, so I 
 shall be satisfied to have done so well that 
 whoever comes after me can't do badly without 
 the people noticing it." 
 
 "Well, what do you get out of serving others, 
 Mr. Mayor ? Try to tell me that truly." 
 
 He did try. "I am getting to be a better 
 man. You know I'm a Catholic " 
 
 "Yes, and some people say the Catholics are 
 against the public schools. Why have you done 
 so much for them ?" 
 
 He was surprised. "I am Mayor of all the 
 people, and the schools are good for the people." 
 
MARK FAGAN, MAYOR 45 
 
 "Well, you were saying that you are a 
 Catholic " 
 
 "Yes, and I go to confession ever so often. 
 I try to have less to confess each time, and I find 
 that I have. Gradually, I am getting to be a 
 better man. What I told you about hating men 
 that were unfair to me shows. Some of them 
 were very unfair; from hating them I've got so 
 that I don't feel anything but sorry for them, 
 that they can't understand how I'm trying to be 
 right and just to everybody. Maybe some day 
 I will be able to like them." 
 
 "Like them also! What is it, Mr. Mayor, 
 altruism or selfishness ? Is it love for your neigh- 
 bour or the fear of God that moves you ?" 
 
 He thought long and hard, and then he was 
 " afraid it was the fear of God." 
 
 "What is your favourite book, Mr. Mayor?" 
 
 "'The Imitation of Christ.' Did you ever 
 read it ? I read a little in it, anywhere, every day." 
 
 I wouldn't tell Jimmy Connolly, nor "Bob" 
 Davis, nor Sam Dickinson, nor, to their faces, 
 could I say it to many men. in Jersey City; I'd 
 rather write than speak it anywhere in this hard, 
 selfish world of ours, but I do believe I understand 
 Mark Fagan, how he makes men believe in him, 
 why he wants to : The man is a Christian, a literal "" 
 Christian; no mere member of a church, but a, 
 
46 UPBUILDERS 
 
 follower of Christ; no patron of organized char- 
 ities, but a giver of kindness, sympathy, love. 
 Like a disciple, he has carried "the greatest of 
 these" out into the streets, through the railroad 
 yards, up to the doors of the homes and factories, 
 where he has knocked, offering only service, hon- 
 est and true, even in public office. And that is 
 why he is the marvel of a "Christian" commun- 
 ity in the year of our Lord, 1909. And, believe 
 me, that is how and why Mark some day will 
 make his Jersey City "pretty." This gentle man 
 has found a way to solve his problems, and ours, 
 graft, railroad rates and the tariff. There may 
 be other ways, but, verily, if we loved our neigh- 
 bour as ourselves we would not then betray and 
 rob and bribe him. Impracticable ? It does sound 
 so — I wonder why ? — to Christian ears. And may- 
 be we are wrong; maybe Christ was right. Cer- 
 tainly Mark Fagan has proved that the Christian- 
 ity of Christ — not as the scholars "interpret" 
 it, but as the Nazarene taught it, and as you and 
 I and the Mayor of Jersey City can understand 
 it — Christianity, pure and simple, is a force 
 among men and — a happiness. Anyhow, that 
 is all there is to the mystery of Mark Fagan; that 
 is what he means. 
 
EVERETT COLBY, "THE GENTLEMAN 
 FROM ESSEX" 
 
 AMONG the new political leaders whom a 
 reviving democracy is raising up to beat 
 the bosses (and perhaps the real rulers) of 
 the Republic, is Everett Colby, the state senator 
 from Essex County, New Jersey. Born in 1874, 
 he was only thirty-two years old when he " busted " 
 his boss; he shows what a young man can do. 
 The son of Charles L. Colby, builder of the 
 Wisconsin Central Railroad, he inherited wealth 
 and the associations of big business; he shows 
 what a rich young man may do if he rises above 
 his class. And the gentleman from Essex was 
 brought up in a class. 
 
 Imperial Kipling has raged at the "flanneled 
 fools" of England. Did you know we had them ? 
 We have. There is a constantly growing class 
 of rich men's sons who can throw as much strength, 
 nerve and concentrated intelligence into sport 
 as their fathers put into the game of life; but, hav- 
 ing been brought up only to play, they can't work 
 — "can't," not "won't." They don't know 
 how; they don't know anything but games, and 
 
 47 
 
48 UPBUILDERS 
 
 they cannot learn. Everett Colby was headed 
 straight for this fate when a man got hold of him 
 — J. A. Browning, a teacher who teaches. He 
 took a small class of boys who had busy fathers 
 and loving mothers: Harold and Stanley McGir- 
 mick, Percy and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and 
 Everett Colby. Everett Colby was in the worst 
 condition. The boy could only play. "He 
 played hard," says Mr. Browning, "but it was 
 sport, not work. He couldn't read till he was 
 fifteen; he couldn't fix his attention. I got into 
 his mind through his hands. He liked to play 
 with tools. I let him. It was play till once I 
 set him to making a bookcase for his mother. 
 He finished that, and it was good, and it was 
 work." 
 
 Young Colby was prepared for Brown, where 
 he went to college with young John D. He still 
 "played hard." He was a splendid young male 
 when he entered; he went in for all the sports: 
 tennis, golf, baseball; and, making the team, 
 was captain in his senior year of the best football 
 eleven Brown ever put into the field. But he 
 worked, too, and he was graduated with his 
 class, '97. In the next year, after the death of 
 his father, he made a tour around the world; then 
 he studied law and played polo; then he married 
 and settled down in Llewellyn Park, Orange, 
 
EVERETT COLBY 
 
EVERETT COLBY 49 
 
 New Jersey. He didn't mean to stay there, but he 
 ■got into politics. He became a Wall Street broker, 
 but it was politics that saved Everett Colby. 
 
 Now, young Colby meant to go into politics. 
 As a "little shaver" he used to go along with his 
 father, who campaigned in Wisconsin as a rail- 
 road man. He dreamed that when he grew up 
 he would be a politician, and, because the dream 
 persisted, he went in for debating in college, and 
 afterward for the law. But it was the scenic side 
 of the game that appealed to him, the crowd and 
 the excitement, the fighting, the speaking and the 
 cheers. He says so himself. He was after glory, 
 and maybe that is all he is after now. He doesn't 
 pretend to know. But there lies the peculiar 
 significance of the career of this rich young gen- 
 tleman in politics. He simply wanted to go into 
 politics — not to accomplish anything in particular; 
 not to reform politics; not even with the thought 
 of being practical in politics. He went in on the 
 machine side, and he served "the party"; he put 
 in his money; he took orders; and he obeyed the 
 boss till he saw what politics meant. Even 
 then he didn't revolt right away; he objected as 
 a gentleman to doing things a gentleman couldn't 
 do, but he "went along" till he discovered as an 
 insider what we have discovered from the outside: 
 that the evils of politics, so-called, were all parts 
 
50 UPBUILDERS 
 
 of one system which is perverting our government 
 from a representative democracy to a pluto-r 
 cratic tyranny. When this was beaten into his 
 head, Everett Colby fought Hke a citizen and a 
 man. Wherefore his experiences are not only the 
 story of a new political leader, but an inside view 
 of the System in action. 
 
 When young Colby spoke of going into politics, 
 somebody advised him to see CarF Lentz. This 
 German-American was the Republican boss of 
 Essex County. Bosses were as natural to our 
 young American as the north wind or the road 
 to Newark, and he went to Newark and he saw 
 Carl Lentz. He says the boss talked to him a 
 long while. Colby doesn't recall what was said, 
 but I can hear the boss drawing out and smacking 
 his lips over an attractive young man of means; 
 free with his money and, therefore, "useful"; 
 the son of a railroad magnate and, therefore, 
 "safe"; attractive and honest, therefore promising 
 as a "good man" candidate, and cheap. All 
 the boy wanted was to "make speeches"; he 
 thought politics was oratory. 
 
 "He let me speak," Colby says. "Small meet- 
 ings for a while, then I held the crowd at larger 
 meetings. I spoke till the advertised speaker 
 came, when, amid the shouts for him, I sat down 
 unnoticed, but well satisfied with myself." 
 
EVERETT COLBY 51 
 
 He was in politics, and having got in as many 
 another fool young American has got in, he was 
 taken up and taken in, as the rest are. Lentz 
 flattered Colby; then he passed him on to Gov- 
 ernor Voorhees, who flattered him. "Seeing the 
 Governor" was honour enough for the year 1901, 
 but when the Governor asked him if he wanted to 
 get into politics and the young man said he did, 
 and the Governor offered to appoint him to an 
 office, the novice was overwhelmed with grati- 
 tude and modesty. He didn't know that to be a 
 Commissioner on the State Board of Education 
 was simply to be put to a harmless test — by the 
 machine. Colby thought of his education and 
 worried about his fitness, but he took the place, 
 and he did very well, very well, indeed. Then 
 Boss Lentz made him chairman of the executive 
 committee of the Republican organization of West 
 Orange. 
 
 "I thought Lentz was a great fellow," he says 
 now, "a great man." Lentz loomed as large to 
 Colby, probably, as Durham looked to a Phila- 
 delphian, Cox to a Cincinnati Republican, Ruef 
 to a San Franciscan, or Murphy to a New Yorker. 
 The bosses live on the images we create of them, 
 out of our own silliness. 
 
 The chairmanship — "actual practical poli- 
 tics, with great responsibility" — came in 1902. 
 
52 UPBUILDERS 
 
 Of course, young Colby had to spend some of his 
 own money, and he did. He was all right, Colby 
 was. In the next year Lentz offered him the sen- 
 atorship from Essex. That was too much. The 
 young man, modest now, was sure then that he 
 could not be a senator. In the first place he was 
 under the constitutional age. That didn't mat- 
 ter. Lentz could " have that fixed in the Manual," 
 where the statistics of legislators are kept. This 
 Isounded a little queer, like a rather unusual north 
 wind or a bad road to Newark, noticeable, but 
 still a perfectly natural phenomenon. Colby 
 refused to go to the senate; but he consented to 
 go to the assembly, so Lentz had him nomi- 
 nated, and elected, an assemblyman from Essex. 
 
 The education of this young legislator was 
 begun promptly, and it resembled very closely 
 the course of his education as a boy. He saw 
 things with his eyes long before he saw them with 
 his mind; he saw facts separately, but failed to 
 combine them into the truth. He failed, as so 
 many of us fail, for want of imagination, and his 
 story is the story of thousands of young men who 
 go into politics and go along till some day they 
 wake up and find that they are part of a corrupted 
 government. 
 
 One day, early in the session, Sam Dickinson 
 asked Assemblyman Colby to introduce certain 
 
EVERETT COLBY ^^ 
 
 excise bills. Dickinson was Secretary of State 
 and Republican boss of Hudson County, a "great 
 fellow" like Lentz. And, like Lentz, Dickinson 
 probably saw at once the uses of a fine, up-stand- 
 ing young gentleman to "stand for" a piece of 
 dubious excise legislation. Colby looked over 
 the bills; they seemed to him to be merely a 
 weapon to help the Republican machine take away 
 from the Democrats the control of Democratic 
 Hudson County. He hesitated. He went to 
 see the Governor about it. Governor Murphy 
 was a gentleman and the father of a friend of 
 Colby's. The young assemblyman didn't know 
 that governors are usually mere figureheads for 
 the System; he felt only that he could trust the 
 Honourable Franklin Murphy. And when the 
 Honourable Franklin Murphy pronounced the 
 bills " all right," Colby was reassured. He intro- 
 duced them in the House. 
 
 Colby's own pet measure — for every legis- 
 lator thinks he must put some new law upon the 
 books — was a normal school bill. Then Essex 
 County wanted to have passed a bill providing 
 for the purification of the Passaic River; of course, 
 an Essex assemblyman was for that. But you 
 have to have votes to pass bills, and Colby's two 
 bills lacked a majority. How could some more 
 votes be got for them ? Colby and some others 
 
54 UPBUILDERS 
 
 of his delegation went to the Democratic assem- 
 blymen from Hudson. Would they help ? They 
 would — if Colby and his crowd would withdraw 
 his excise bills. Colby would see. He saw the 
 Governor. The Governor saw Dickinson, and 
 Dickinson consented to the dropping of the excise 
 bills. A bargain was struck; Colby's and Essex 
 County's bills were passed with the help of 
 Democratic votes. And then Dickinson asked 
 Colby to reintroduce his excise bills. 
 
 The young legislator was astonished. He had 
 given his word, and he wouldn't break it. Dick- 
 inson had somebody else to do it, and when Colby 
 threatened to fight, a caucus was called to bind 
 him to it as a "party measure." Colby appealed 
 to the Governor, and the Governor spoke to Dick- 
 inson, but in vain. The caucus was held. Colby 
 protested that the party was bound by his bargain; 
 not he alone, but the accredited Republican 
 leaders had given their word to the Democrats. 
 
 "Your word to a Democrat doesn't mean any- 
 thing," they told him in those very terms. His 
 did, he answered. There was a scene, and amid 
 cries of "Down with the traitor; up with the flag," 
 Colby bolted the caucus. The party jammed 
 through the excise bills, but Colby voted against 
 them. He didn't see the iniquitous part the 
 caucus plays in the perversion of representative 
 
EVERETT COLBY 55 
 
 government; he saw only his own honour, but that 
 was enough for a gentleman. Wherefore the 
 word of the gentleman from Essex is good with 
 both parties in Jersey politics. 
 
 The boy disappointed his own boss, too, in 
 that first year. George L. Record, the man behind 
 Mayor Fagan, of Jersey City, was in Trenton 
 with a primary election bill. This piece of legis- 
 lation was to play a decisive part in a crisis of 
 young Colby's career, but Colby didn't know 
 that, of course. He was for it, as Edward C. 
 Stokes was, because his instincts were right. 
 Stokes, though the Pennsylvania Railroad man 
 at Trenton, took charge of^the bill and to him, 
 next to Record, belongs the credit for its enact- 
 ment. Some of the other ring men saw the dan- 
 ger to the System that lurked in the measure; 
 Lentz especially was aroused; he couldn't make 
 Stokes see it, but he ordered his own delegation 
 to fight it. And to his young protege he gave 
 his orders personally. 
 
 "Colby," he said, "you're going to vote against 
 that bill." 
 
 "No, Major," said Colby. "It's a good bill, 
 and I shall vote for it." 
 
 The Major repeated his command, but the 
 young assemblyman laid down the limitation of 
 his subserviency. 
 
56 UPBUILDERS 
 
 "Major," he said, "you must not interfere 
 with me on any but poUtical bills." 
 
 As if a primary bill wasn't political! Bosses 
 have their troubles; it takes time and patience to 
 knock all the decency — or, as they would put it, 
 all the poppycock out of a promising young man, 
 Lentz had to stand by and see Colby vote for the 
 primary bill, and that bill became a law. But 
 the honest young legislator, troublesome as he was, 
 had his uses. For example, they won him easily 
 to the support of a bill to require the consent of 
 20 per cent, of the stock of a Jersey corporation 
 to bring a stockholder's suit. "It was an awful 
 bill," he says now. "It was introduced in the 
 interest of the United States Steel Company, 
 and I knew that. But I was told what a great 
 business this was, the steel trust, and how 'strike 
 suits' were being brought against it. Strike suits 
 were bad but that bill was worse. It was so bad, 
 indeed, that even I saw my mistake before the 
 session was over." It was so bad they couldn't 
 raise a majority for it, and it was killed that year. 
 
 By the close of the session, young Mr. Colby 
 had few friends among the leaders in his own 
 party; they wouldn't speak to him, and one might 
 have supposed that his political career was over. 
 But this was all part of the game. Since the young 
 man was rich, they couldn't buy him with money, 
 
EVERETT COLBY 57 
 
 so they were applying a little discipline "just 
 to show him." If they could keep him under 
 for a while, they would get him by and by through 
 his ambition; he should have an office and honours. 
 And as a foretaste of what was in store for him, 
 in the next session the Honourable Everett Colby 
 was made floor leader of the Republican major- 
 ity in the House. 
 
 This was taking a big chance on the boy. This 
 was making him responsible for all the dirty 
 party work of the system, but they counted on 
 "pride" and his "sporting blood" to see him 
 through with it. And they handled him very 
 carefully. They didn't tell him everything, and 
 •they didn't give him his orders harshly. They 
 approached him through men he liked. 
 
 For instance, early in this session (1904) Percy 
 Rockefeller came to Colby with the United States 
 Steel's same old "20 per cent, consent" bill which 
 had failed in disgrace the year before. We mustn't 
 blame Percy Rockefeller; he seems not to have 
 known what the bill meant. Indeed, the shocking 
 thought is that he was innocent, and that some of 
 his elders in Wall Street had got this boy to go to 
 his boy friend, Everett, to ask him to introduce 
 this bill which was so bad that even Francis Lynde 
 Stetson, the great corporation's greatest counsel, 
 told Colby afterward that he did right to keep 
 
58 UPBUILDERS 
 
 clear of it. The System will sacrifice its own 
 children to have its dirty work done! Everett 
 Colby, fortunately, was "wise" enough to the 
 purposes of the bill to explain them to Percy 
 Rockefeller, and he sent his chum back to those 
 who had sent him with the message that not only 
 would he not father the thing, he would do his 
 best to kill it if anybody else introduced it. And 
 somebody else did introduce it, and when Colby, 
 the leader, opposed it, the System sent its other 
 messengers to him, not boys this time. No. 
 Governor Murphy and ex-Senator (now Gov- 
 ernor) Stokes, "the Penn's man." The Gov- 
 ernor called Colby a "Puritan" for his scruples; 
 he said the great corporations threatened to leave 
 the state unless they were "treated fairly." And 
 Stokes, backing up the Governor, said he, Stokes, 
 would be willing to go on the stump and advocate 
 a 50 per cent, law ! 
 
 This opened a little the eyes of the young legis- 
 lator. He didn't see the System yet, but he was 
 learning to. These were the leading men of his 
 state and of his party, and the young assembly- 
 man had great respect for them. 
 
 " But," he says, " I saw then that they all were 
 corporation men, and that they represented in 
 politics the interests of corporations." 
 
 Seeing this, he opposed and he helped to beat 
 
EVERETT COLBY 59 
 
 that particular bill, but he said nothing. "What 
 could a fellow say ?" He went on, and his edu- 
 cation went on. 
 
 This was the session when the present issues 
 of New Jersey politics were raised in their present 
 form. Mark Fagan, the Mayor of Jersey City, 
 raised them. The Christian Mayor went to Tren- 
 ton with his corporation counsel, George L. 
 Record, to ask in the name of his people for relief 
 from the unendurable burden thrown upon them 
 by the railroads. The railroads, with all the 
 best (terminal, water-front) property in the city, 
 paid practically no taxes to the city, only to the 
 state, and then, on a valuation fixed by their own 
 state board, at rates lower than the rates on other 
 property. Record had drawn a bill to tax rail- 
 road property locally and at local rates. They 
 were Republicans, Fagan and Record, and their 
 party was in control of the state, absolutely; 
 so they applied to the leaders of their party, 
 among them, of course, to the Honourable Everett 
 Colby. He liked Mayor Fagan, he says; he didn't 
 like Record, but Mark Fagan, the " man of the 
 people," intent only upon the needs of his city, 
 walked straight into the heart of the rich young 
 gentleman who, so far as he knew, was bent only 
 upon a political career for personal glory. "I 
 liked that msn," he says, "and the condition of 
 
6o UPBUILDERS 
 
 Jersey City appealed to me. I wanted to help 
 them, and I couldn't; at least, I didn't." 
 
 "Why ?" he said, repeating my question thought- 
 fully. Then he looked me straight in the eye. 
 "I don't know that I can tell you, exactly. I 
 will try to explain, if you will understand that 
 I'm not apologizing for myself. There was no 
 more excuse for what I did in this matter than 
 there was for other things I did and — didn't do. 
 The bill was bad; it was crudely drawn." 
 
 "Record admits that," I interjected. "Record 
 says that at that time he had never heard of the 
 main stem, and had no right understanding of 
 the situation at all." 
 
 "Nor had I," said Colby. "But. that doesn't 
 let me out. It served me as an excuse at the time. 
 The big leaders, seeing my bent toward the bill, 
 told me it was badly drawn, and I grasped at this 
 reason as at a straw. But why shouldn't I, the 
 House Leader, have amended that bill ? The 
 need of the legislation was plain. Why didn't 
 I fix the bill ? I couldn't. You understand ? 
 I, a law maker, hadn't the ability to draw a good 
 bill. Why, then, didn't I have some other, older 
 legislator make the bad bill good f There wasn't 
 a man in that House who could have drawn a 
 sound tax bill to meet the most notorious need 
 of the state. We were incompetent. Perhaps 
 
EVERETT COLBY 6i 
 
 some of us might, once upon a time, have been 
 legislators; but boss rule was so old there that 
 we didn't, we couldn't think for ourselves. We 
 had lost the art of independent thought and 
 work. We were dummies. We took orders, 
 we waited for orders, we depended upon orders. 
 Dummy legislators, that's what we were. 
 
 "Oh, I was unhappy! I saw all this, but only 
 dimly; I wouldn't let myself see it clearly. You 
 know how a man jollies himself along with lies 
 to save his fdce. The Democrats drew a better 
 bill, still not good, and Fagan and Record ac- 
 cepted that; they had no pride in their pet measure; 
 and they didn't care whether the Democrats or 
 the Republicans got the credit of authorship. 
 They wanted an income from railroad property 
 in Jersey City. But the bill was buried in commit- 
 tee and I, the leader, should have got jt out. I 
 couldn't have got it out. And when the Mayor 
 came to me and asked me why I didn't have it 
 reported, I told him the truth. 'I can't,' I 
 told him. I wasn't really a leader. I was the 
 real leader's dummy. 
 
 "You understand that the crime was not that 
 we wouldn't pass the bill, but that we wouldn't 
 consider it. I was wiUing to vote against it, if 
 there were good reasons. I wasn't against cor- 
 porations. But why couldn't we have the bill 
 
62 UPBUILDERS 
 
 out and debate it ? That's what Mayor Fagan 
 couldn't understand, and that's what I asked in 
 the caucus. We had orders, that was all; no 
 reasons, except the one I remember they gave 
 me in caucus a year later on a similar bill. When 
 I asked, 'Why not take it out and beat it in the open 
 — if it's so bad?' they answered, in awed tones: 
 'Why, the Penn would raise hell.' There was 
 the reason, the real reason." 
 
 There, too, was the truth about Jersey. When 
 the Mayor who represented the pfeople of the 
 second city in the state asked that legislature 
 to consider a bill in their interest, that Jersey 
 legislature couldn't because it represented "the 
 Penn," a foreign corporation. "The Penn" 
 ruled that state, and the ruler would "raise hell." 
 
 Colby didn't see this. "I didn't want to see 
 it," he s^ys. But Mark Fagan saw it, and he 
 made Everett Colby see it; made him grasp with 
 his mind what his eyes reflected. Mark, the 
 gentle Mayor, raised hell. Defeated, with eyes 
 wide open and ears alert, he took in the truth. 
 The thing for a " practical politician " to do was to 
 "take his medicine," and go home and tell his 
 people the lies he heard told to the public. But 
 Mark Fagan had made promises, not only on the 
 stump; he had gone about from house to house 
 and had made his promises man to man, and for 
 
EVERETT COLBY 63 
 
 keeps. He couldn't go back home to his people 
 with lies. He put the truth to Governor Murphy 
 in an open letter, and this letter was read aloud 
 to the House of Assembly. It was a silent House; 
 the representatives had read in their newspapers 
 what this meek Mayor, a Republican himself, 
 had written to the Republican Governor about 
 their party and themselves. But they listened 
 again. Colby says that he sat low sunk in his 
 seat, and each separate sentence, as the Demo- 
 cratic leader read it, fell like a whip upon him. 
 The letter said that the writer spoke " as Mayor 
 of Jersey City, and also as a member of the 
 Republican party. . . . The present ses- 
 sion is drawing to a close," he said. "Its record 
 is . . . disgraceful. Its control by corpora- 
 tion interests, in the assembly, at least, has been 
 absolute." And those men knew this was true. 
 "For that condition the Republican party is 
 responsible." Everett Colby, leader, knew this 
 was true. And as the letter took up the legisla- 
 tion, bill by bill, to show how everyone that was 
 against a corporation failed, the party leader 
 of the House could recall the orders he had got 
 to make them fail. He heard Governor Murphy's 
 comforting arguments and the bosses' tactful 
 orders. He saw again Major Lentz watching in 
 the lobby. What did it mean? Fagan asked 
 
64 UPBUILDERS 
 
 that in his letter to Governor Murphy. "What 
 is the meaning of all this ? " And the letter gave 
 the answer, and it is the ansvsrer we all must hear 
 as those legislators heard it, writhing. "The 
 answer is plain ! A Republican legislature is con- 
 trolled by the railroad, trolley, and water corpora- 
 tions." So this honest Republican Mayor wrote; 
 but he didn't stop there. "And the interests of 
 the people are being betrayed." 
 
 After the reading, silence hung on that assembly. 
 "I sat where I was," says Colby, "stunned. 
 It was my duty to reply. I was the leader. The 
 others were waiting for me. And I ? I couldn't 
 say a word. It was all true, every bit of it. 
 Nobody moved for a dreadful space of time. 
 Then Tom Hillory got up, and he defended us, 
 all of us. I felt mean. I was sore, sore at my- 
 self, you understand; not at the Governor, not at 
 the Penn; not at anybody else. I was sore at 
 myself. It was true. We were dummies; we 
 betrayed the people who elected us." 
 
 " Do legislators commonly understand that ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 "They must. I don't know. They must and 
 yet, how can they ? It isn't easy to explain. 
 A fellow is moved by a lot of mixed-up considera- 
 tions. Take my case. I saw it as Mark Fagan 
 described it. I had more facts than he had, knew 
 
EVERETT COLBY 65 
 
 it better than he, but I didn't go right out and 
 fight. Neither did he. Why didn't we? We 
 both supported the Republican party that fall, 
 and the party was not changed. The truth, 
 falling like that, didn't kill; it didn't even change 
 things essentially." 
 
 The Governor appointed a commission to 
 investigate taxes, and the platform promised 
 some reform, if reform should prove necessary. 
 But the Republican nominee for Governor was 
 "the Penn's man," Edward C. Stokes. And 
 Colby and Fagan supported the ticket; they were 
 "loyal to the party" which one said and the other 
 admitted "represented corporations" and "be- 
 trayed the people." Why did they do it ? Why 
 do men like John C. Spooner and Edward C. 
 Stokes "go along"? They know, and their 
 friends say, they grieve themselves sick. Why 
 did Mayor Weaver "go along" so long in Phila- 
 delphia ? Everett Colby says he had excuses 
 for the world, and some for himself "The com- 
 mission was to investigate and report," and he, 
 meanwhile, threw himself into a study of taxa- 
 tion. He broke away, finally; like Mayor Weaver 
 and Mark Fagan, he made a stand in the end. 
 And why did he do that ? And why did Mayor 
 Weaver and Mark Fagan do it? 
 
 The way Everett Colby will try, when you ask 
 
66 UPBUILDERS 
 
 him, to lay bare his motives is one of the convinc- 
 ing traits of the man. He is instinctively honest, 
 and his candour is obvious. 
 
 "You'll hear," he told me, "that I wanted to 
 be Speaker, and that my defeat made me turn. 
 There is something in that. I think you under- 
 stand that I don't want to think that that was 
 all, and, as I recall it, I don't think it was decisive, 
 nor just that alone. That was only one of a score 
 of things that made me see — and drove me to act. 
 I simply don't know the exact weight of any one 
 thing." 
 
 All he knows is, that from seeing things sepa- 
 rately, with his eyes, he came to see them all 
 together with his mind. His friends put into 
 his head the idea of the Speakership in the next 
 session (1905). "I didn't care much," he said. 
 " I felt I hadn't done very well, and I was willing 
 to wait." But he wrote to his colleagues, and 
 enough of "the boys" promised him their sup- 
 port to elect ^him. When Major Lentz got wind 
 of it, he told Colby he couldn't have the Speaker- 
 ship. This was the System at work; the House 
 leader hadn't "made good"; he was not yet 
 "safe"; but that isn't what the boss said. Lentz 
 said Colby mustn't run because he couldn't be 
 elected. With those letters in his pocket, Colby 
 knew it wasn't his colleagues that would make 
 
EVERETT COLBY 67 
 
 it impossible to elect him. He didn't mention 
 to Lentz how many pledges he had; but neither 
 did he bow to the boss as bosses like to be 
 bowed to. 
 
 Now political bosses are not really bosses; 
 they are the agents of the real bosses, who are 
 business men, and when Colby got a telephone 
 message to come to the Newark office of U. S. 
 Senator Dryden, the young man, his eyes wide open 
 now, realized that he was to see one of the men 
 who represented one of the sovereign interests of 
 his state. Senator Dryden, the president of the 
 Prudential Life, was there, and with him was 
 Lentz. The United States Senator was the 
 financial head of the Public Service Corporation 
 in New Jersey; not the president; Thomas C. 
 McCarter is that. Dryden is the man back of 
 McCarter as he is the man back of Lentz; and that 
 is why he was a United States Senator; he repre- 
 sented one of the two great sources of the cor- 
 ruption of the state. He told Mr. Colby that he 
 couldn't be Speaker. Dryden is a pleasant- 
 spoken man, and he appealed to "his young 
 friend's" good feeling, explaining that since he 
 couldn't get the votes, it would weaken the pres- 
 tige of their (Essex) delegation to run and fail. 
 But Colby said he could get the votes. How did 
 he know he could ? He knew it because he had 
 
68 UPBUILDERS 
 
 them in his pocket; and he tapped those letters. 
 This was unexpected, and the Senator exclaimed: 
 
 "But Tom McCarter says it won't do." 
 
 That settled it. Tom McCarter spoke for 
 the trolley business. 
 
 Colby consented not to run; he told them it 
 was all right. " But," he said, " I could be elected if 
 I could have the support of my county." 
 
 Major Lei^tz approved, as they went away, 
 the obedience of his young protege. "That's 
 the way to talk," he said. Colby was "mad"; 
 he hated the fraud of it all. "Why didn't they 
 give their real reasons ? Why didn't they say 
 they feared that as Speaker I might not repre- 
 sent their trolleys?" 
 
 The next session was to be crucial. Colby 
 made up his mind to be a free lance. The Speaker- 
 ship denied him, he would decline the leadership 
 also. Without knowing what he meant to do, 
 he was going to be free to act as he might find it 
 right to act. 
 
 If Colby had begun his career at the bottom, 
 in local politics, he would have known of two or 
 three separate reform movements that had long 
 been going on in his county, and he could have 
 gone to these, combined and led them against the 
 machine. He does lead them now, but he didn't 
 go to them; they came to him. One of these 
 
EVERETT COLBY 69 
 
 movements was in Newark, the metropolis of the 
 state. This city belonged absolutely to the busi- 
 ness interests grouped about the Prudential Life, 
 the Fidelity Trust Company, and the Public Ser- 
 vice Corporation, which, ruling through Major 
 Lentz, gave the city a government in which these 
 special interests came first, the common interest 
 of the city last. The Democratic machine stood 
 in with the Republican ring. Now and then, 
 when James Smith, Jr., the Democratic business 
 boss, had business differences with the Republican 
 business grafters, there was a political fight. But 
 all the opposition that counted at all came from 
 a few young men, with William P. Martin at their 
 head, who, mostly Republicans, got into councils 
 and opposed steadfastly the public utility grabs. 
 Their story is a story by itself, and a good one; 
 suffice it for the present to say these fellows were 
 battling against the enemies of their city, the 
 public service interest, all the while Colby was try- 
 ing to get along with his party. 
 
 Several other movements were under way in 
 the suburbs of Newark -^ Bloomfield, the Oranges, 
 etc. These were "good-government," "good- 
 men-for-office" reforms till Tom McCarter 
 aroused these "communities" to opposition to the 
 real cause of all their troubles. Tom McCarter 
 is a fiery, red-headed politician, who, as president 
 
70 UPBUILDERS 
 
 of the Public Service, believes honestly that any- 
 thing that helps business is right. He was extend- 
 ing his trolley system, and, desiring to go through 
 parks and residence streets, needed franchises. 
 Of course, he must have them, and of course he 
 must have them for nothing, and forever. Fred- 
 erick W. Kelsey, a park commissioner, opposed 
 him till public sentiment was formed and then 
 McCarter undertook, by the methods character- 
 istic of privilege-seekers, to get what he wanted 
 anyhow. There were scandal and mass-meet- 
 ings. The New England Society took up Kel- 
 sey's old fight against business graft. Could the 
 fight have gone on locally, with McCarter's fran- 
 chises for issues, it might have developed good 
 citizenship in the Oranges. But both sides 
 appealed to the state. 
 
 Tom McCarter, finding that the local council, 
 though corrupt enough and willing, lacked the 
 nerve to vote for him what he wanted in the face 
 of "mobs" of good citizens, decided to appeal 
 to the legislature; and his plan was to create a 
 Greater Newark, taking into the city which he 
 could control the suburbs which were giving the 
 trolley "so much trouble." And the men of 
 Orange, finding that their representatives in the 
 local council did not represent them (except 
 when watched), determined not to reform them- 
 
EVERETT COLBY 71 
 
 selves and their voters and their council, but to 
 go also to the legislature. Their petition was a 
 very modest one; they wanted "their" state to 
 forbid "their" council to grant any franchise for 
 a period longer than twenty-five years. 
 
 The average Jerseyman thinks his state is well 
 governed. His local government is bad, but poli- 
 ticians run that and he sees the results with his 
 own eyes. The state is a government by law- 
 yers, whom he knows by reputation at least; these 
 lawyers are counsel for business men, like Sena- 
 tors Dryden and Kean, ex-Governor Murphy, 
 and Tom McCarter — the kind of men he knows 
 as good business men, and they tell him the state 
 is all right. When the good men of Orange, 
 finding that Tom McCarter was back of the poli- 
 ticians who misrepresented Orange, set about get- 
 ting their good state government to check Tom's 
 chicaneries in Orange, the average Jerseyman 
 learned why Senator Dryden and Governor Mur- 
 phy and Tom McCarter called the state govern- 
 ment "all right." The state government also 
 represented "business," and it did not represent 
 the average citizen of Jersey. 
 
 The men of Orange had to approach the state 
 legislature through members of that body, and, 
 naturally, they applied to their own Essex County 
 legislators. What was their surprise to find that 
 
72 UPBUILDERS 
 
 their own representatives wouldn't, nay couldn't, 
 represent them! One by one they sounded them 
 only to see that no representative of theirs dared 
 touch their bill. Why ? 
 
 Everett Colby was learning why. The men of 
 Orange decided to ask him to take up their bill, 
 and the Newark fighters were to support them. 
 Would Colby do it ? He didn't know. Before 
 his fellow-citizens asked him, he heard of their 
 intentions and he wasn't sure what he should do. 
 He was aware of the feeling between the corpora- 
 tions and the people, not only in Orange but 
 everywhere, and his disposition was not to take 
 a side, but to listen to both, study the subject, 
 and do the fair thing. 
 
 One evening ex-Governor Murphy gave a din- 
 ner. "Everybody" was there; all the business 
 and political leaders and others, quite a crowd. 
 When they rose from the table Colby went up to 
 Tom McCarter to get the trolley side of the fran- 
 chise question. He heard, he said, that the 
 New England Society of Orange had a limited 
 franchise bill to offer to the legislature, and wouldn't 
 McCarter like to talk it over with him (Colby) ? 
 
 "Now, you know," said Colby to me, "they 
 could have fooled me easily. If they had had any 
 tact, and had given me any reasonable argument, 
 I think, in my ignorance, I would have been 
 
EVERETT COLBY y^ 
 
 taken in. But, no; they ruled and they ruled, 
 not by reason, but by command." 
 
 Tom McCarter did not want to talk it over 
 with Colby. Irascible and dictatorial, the trolley 
 boss bent his head forward at the young legis- 
 lator, and, slapping his hands insultingly in his 
 face, he said that anything but perpetual fran- 
 chises in Jersey was "talk," "child's play"; and, 
 raising his voice so that all in the room turned 
 to hear, he cried: "We wouldn't touch any- 
 thing else with a ten-foot pole!" With that he 
 turned his back on Colby, and walked off. 
 
 "It wasn't a question," Mr. Colby explained 
 to me, as he recalled this scene, " it wasn't a ques- 
 tion of right and wrong as between two interests; 
 it was, and it is, a question of who rules here." 
 
 Colby listened to his neighbours. He ex- 
 plained to them how difficult it would be for 
 them to get any relief from their legislature, how 
 little he could do ; but they were agreeing on plans 
 when McCarter drove home the lesson Colby was 
 learning. This time it was at a luncheon at 
 Trenton. The legislature had met, and again all 
 the rulers of the state were present, the rulers 
 and their dummies, the office-holders and legis- 
 lators. This time Tom McCarter went to Colby; 
 that is to say, the business boss beckoned the 
 assemblyman to him. 
 
74 UPBUILDERS 
 
 "Colby," he said, "what's this I hear about 
 you introducing a limited franchise bill ? " He 
 didn't wait for an answer. Raising his voice, 
 as before, so that all could hear, he laid down the 
 law of the land for legislators. "You introduce 
 that bill," he bawled in his mad rage, " and you'll 
 lose every friend you have in Essex County." 
 
 What did Tom McCarter mean ? His brother 
 made that clearer. The financial rings that rule 
 Jersey often have to smooth over the troubles 
 their quick-tempered trolley president causes with 
 his "honest grafter" blunders. Uzel McCarter, 
 Tom's big brother, and the head of the trust com- 
 pany through which (like the Big Three) the 
 Prudential Life Insurance crowd finances its 
 trolley and other schemes — Uzel, a diplomat, 
 joined Colby that day on a train. He talked 
 pleasantly, even flatteringly, to the young man. 
 By and by the franchise subject happened to 
 come up, and that led, naturally, to Colby's con- 
 nection with the bill to limit trolley grants. Most 
 unfortunate connection, that. 
 
 "We," said the banker, "we think you have a 
 political future before you, and we don't want 
 to see you throw it away." 
 
 There was more, but that was the point. Uzel 
 McCarter was taking the young man who couldn't 
 be bribed with nioney, or browbeaten by the 
 
EVERETT COLBY 75 
 
 bosses, up on the mountain to see the cities of the 
 earth, and the young man understood it. 
 
 " It was a promise," says Colby, " and — a 
 threat." 
 
 Undaunted, uncorrupted, the young man came 
 down from the mountain to a study of the situa- 
 tion. He knew a Hmited franchise bill could 
 not be passed, so he hit upon the idea of intro- 
 ducing a resolution to put the legislature on record. 
 He drew one. He spoke of it to no one except 
 Edward Duffield, the House leader, to whom 
 Colby, as an ex-leader, owed that courtesy. 
 Just before he rose he turned to Duffield and said : 
 
 "Now, Ed, don't be surprised, but watch. And 
 look out that you don't make the mistake of 
 your life." 
 
 And Colby offered a resolution to the effect 
 that it was the sense of this House that perpetual 
 grants of monopolies to corporations should not 
 be made. Everybody looked to the leader. He 
 sat still. The Speaker hesitated, then, with all 
 eyes on the mute leader, he put the motion. 
 Colby says, and I've heard men in other states 
 who know legislatures well say, that if a body 
 of elected Americans are not interfered with by 
 business corruption they will do right nearly 
 every time. That House that night, having no 
 orders from the System and getting no sign from 
 
76 UPBUILDERS 
 
 "Ed," adopted that resolution with not one 
 negative vote ! 
 
 But before the Speaker declared the resolution 
 carried, the lobby woke up. Governor Stokes's 
 Pennsylvania man came rushing in out of breath; 
 wanted to know what the thing meant any- 
 how. "Can't you give us time ?" he begged. 
 Colby knew that A. J. Cassatt would call down 
 Stokes and that Stokes would call down his 
 man, and that the Public Service lobbyist 
 and legislators would catch it; and besides, he 
 didn't want to join in a fluke, so he said: "Surely; 
 we'll make it a special order for Thursday." 
 
 The next day a telephone message summoned 
 him to one of the business-political leaders of the 
 state, a man who usually had been able to 
 "handle Colby." 
 
 "Everett," said this man, "our friends are 
 awfully upset by this resolution of yours." Of 
 course, he said, it had gone too far to be absolutely 
 withdrawn — by Colby, but "our friends will 
 fix up an amendment," and "if you will accept 
 this amendment, they'll let it pass." "They'll 
 let it pass!" 
 
 "You don't mean to tell me," Colby exclaimed, 
 "that they are to determine what bills shall pass ! " 
 
 " Now, Everett," said this gentleman, " you ought 
 to know by this time how all these things are." 
 
EVERETT COLBY 77 
 
 The amendments were absurd, ridiculous, im- 
 possible. Colby refused to accept them, and he 
 meanwhile had been busy seeing his colleagues. 
 The Speaker and four-fifths of the members were 
 for the resolution. Yet, when it came up again 
 on Thursday, only ten men voted "yes " ! 
 
 This was only a preliminary skirmish in the 
 long fight of that session of 1905. It was a defeat, 
 but it was better than a victory since it aroused' 
 public interest and attracted to Trenton citizens 
 and committees of citizens to take object lessons 
 in a "good business government" in action. The 
 Orange men — on hand in force — insisted upon 
 having their limited franchises bill introduced, 
 and Colby presented it. It went to committee 
 for burial, but there were hearings on it, and 
 Colby says the sight of citizens delivering carefully 
 prepared arguments to a committee of legislators 
 whom he knew to be dummies with no will of 
 their own, no minds of their own, no ears for any- 
 thing but the orders which they already had 
 received to "hang onto that bill" — this spectacle, 
 common as it was, and typical of all our legis- 
 latures from the youngest state to Congress itself, 
 the humiliation of it struck deep into the grow- 
 ing intelligence of the young legislator. And 
 evidently it made an impression on Jerseymen; 
 the papers described the scene mercilessly, and 
 
78 UPBUILDERS 
 
 the rumble of popular indignation finally scared the 
 rings. Major Lentz is said to have told Governor 
 Stokes that if some bill wasn't reported, "that 
 fellow Colby would make a lot of trouble" for 
 him (Lentz) in Essex. So the Pennsylvania Rail- 
 road threw over the Public Service Corporation. 
 Stokes gave orders. A substitute bill was drawn, 
 for a commission to investigate; that was all, but 
 just before final adjournment this old device to 
 gain time was reported and rushed through. And, 
 even then, Tom McCarter told the Governor he 
 had no right to let such a thing happen when "our 
 great interests were against it." And Governor 
 Stokes did not sign it for weeks; and then he 
 appointed a commission typified by ex-Governor 
 Murphy, the chairman. 
 
 A railroad tax bill, promised in the Republican 
 platform, was introduced with the permission 
 (as I happen to know) of Mr. Cassatt of Phila- 
 delphia, but it was in the form prescribed by 
 "the road." It taxed second-class property 
 (buildings and ordinary real estate) at local rates, 
 but not the "main stem" (the roadbed). This 
 would relieve Jersey City somewhat, but it would 
 not satisfy Mayor Fagan or any other citizen who 
 believed in "equal taxation." 
 
 And after it was passed, another bill was run 
 out and jammed through, prescribing that the 
 
EVERETT COLBY 79 
 
 first bill should not materially increase the total 
 tax of the railroads. This was made "the Gov- 
 ernor's bill," but Colby opposed it and introduced 
 another to tax the main stem like any other real 
 estate. Of course, Colby's bill was beaten, but 
 its defeat left equal taxation an issue in Jersey 
 politics. 
 
 Another fight that showed things as they are, 
 was over a bill to promote Tom McCarter's scheme 
 to bring into a Greater Newark all the suburbs 
 which did not respond to trolley corruption. 
 Bloomfield was one of these. The people there 
 had held the trolleys at bay; annexation had been 
 proposed to them, and they had voted it down. 
 In this session of 1905 some "leading citizens" 
 of Bloomfield applied to the legislature for another 
 referendum on annexation, and the trolley pre- 
 tended to have nothing to do with it. But it had. 
 Those leading citizens were stockholders and 
 friends of stockholders in McCarter's company; 
 Major Lentz "steered" them; and for more 
 direct evidence, there was the story of a friend of 
 Colby. This man had been in the employ of the 
 Public Service. He was against the bill, and 
 "they sent for him." This was their bill, they told 
 him. They wrote it, and they needed it as a step 
 in their plan to absorb into Newark all the trouble- 
 some suburbs about the city; their employee 
 
8o UPBUILDERS 
 
 must get out of the way. Their employee told 
 them he was out of their employ and, being there- 
 fore free, would continue to fight them with this 
 added information to spur him on. 
 
 It was this bill that finally brought about the 
 declaration of war between Boss Lentz and 
 Assemblyman Colby. One day, when Lentz 
 was steering his "citizens' committee" about the 
 Capitol, he introduced Colby to them. And he 
 told Colby in their presence that he must work 
 for, their bill. "They contribute to the campaign 
 fund"; that was the reason he gave, and it was 
 bad enough, but Colby knew that the real reason 
 was that Tom McCarter and Senator Dryden 
 wanted to control through Newark the . destinies 
 of Bloomfield and the Oranges against the will 
 of the inhabitants of those places. 
 
 David Baird came along as they were talking. 
 Baird is the Republican boss of Camden, and the 
 agent there of "the Penn" and the Public Ser- 
 vice Corporation. 
 
 "David," said Lentz, after introducing him, 
 "I want you to get your boys in line for that 
 bill." 
 
 "All right. Major," said David, "I will." 
 
 Colby wasn't so agreeable. He didn't say 
 much, but Lentz suspected him and his suspi- 
 cions were promptly confirmed. Colby happened 
 
EVERETT COLBY 8i 
 
 to meet about noon that day the chairman of 
 the committee which had the Bloomfield bill in 
 charge, and they went together to lunch. When 
 they entered the restaurant there sat the Major 
 with his citizens. The boss seemed gradually to 
 work himself into a rage, for after staring angrily 
 at Colby a few moments, he got up, stalked over, 
 and "putting his head in between ours," Colby 
 says, "and spluttering in my face, he demanded 
 to know if I was opposing him in this." So far 
 as Colby can recall, he and the chairman hadn't 
 mentioned the bill, but he was opposing Lentz 
 "in this," and he said so. 
 
 "That settles it," said the Major. 
 
 Not only "that," but everything settled it 
 between Colby and his boss and the bosses of 
 the boss. Tom McCarter had said Colby would 
 lose every friend he had in Essex; Uzel had warned 
 him to take heed for his political future. "It 
 was fight," says Colby now. "I went home 
 from that session burning hot with indignation. 
 But I didn't think about my political future. 
 That had sunk into a small detail of a situation 
 which was bigger than the political ambition of 
 any man. I saw that the legislature,; yes, and the 
 government in nearly all of its branches, was ruled 
 absolutely by our Jersey corporations. And 
 despotically, unscrupulously, too; in the interest 
 
82 UPBUILDERS 
 
 of their business, they were corrupting all of us. 
 Hadn't they nearly corrupted me ?" 
 
 The question was what to do. Colby didn't 
 know what to do. He asked me what I would 
 have done, and I pass it on to you who read this: 
 What would you have done ? And I ask the 
 question to bring home to you the quandary of 
 this young legislator and of his friends, and of the 
 citizens of Orange and of Newark and of Jersey 
 who wanted to fight. Lentz said Colby should 
 not be renominated for the Assembly, and some 
 of his friends proposed a fight in the party for the 
 county committee. But Colby didn't want to 
 run for boss of Essex; he wanted to make his appeal 
 more to the people. This was an instinct, a demo- 
 cratic instinct which this rich railroad magnate's 
 son has well developed in him. He proposed run- 
 ning an older man for senator, but the older man 
 wouldn't run and the Newark, Bloomfield, and 
 Orange men wanted Colby to lead their common 
 fight. He was in doubt. He wanted to make the 
 fight impersonal, and they adopted his principle 
 to fight the boss, not Lentz; not the man, but 
 the boss as an institution, as an agent of a corrupt 
 oligarchy. But how? 
 
 "Then," said Colby, as he told me the story, 
 "then came Record." 
 
 There's a good deal of feeling against George 
 
EVERETT COLBY 83 
 
 L. Record in Jersey. He is the man who came 
 to Mark Fagan when the kindly Mayor of Jersey 
 City was at the first crisis of his administration, 
 and Record helped Mark Fagan. From sus- 
 pecting him, Mayor Mark came to lean upon him 
 for his economic policy, and they and their Jersey 
 City cabinet have influenced Jersey politics and 
 the Jersey legislature more and more healthfully 
 than any other one force in the state. Yet, while 
 none denies the perfect honesty of Mark Fagan, 
 many men distrust George L. Record. And you 
 may recall that Colby, two years before, when 
 he took to Fagan, "disliked" Record. But when 
 "Record came," he told Colby just what to do 
 and how to do it. Colby is very handsome in his 
 acknowledgment of the service Record rendered 
 them in Essex, and his friends confess, though 
 more grudgingly, that Record is a man of resources. 
 But nobody can see what Record gets out of it for 
 Record. They think he wants to go to the United 
 States Senate. I hope he does; this long, lean, 
 thinking Yankee from Jersey City might accom- 
 plish something even in the United States Senate. 
 But Record is another story, and it doesn't mat- 
 ter now " what Record is after." 
 
 When he came to Colby, he came suggest- 
 ing that since Colby had made one good fight at 
 Trenton, he should make another; and since he 
 
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 personified all the discontent that opposed the con- 
 trol of the state by the corrupt corporation of the 
 state, he, Colby, was the man to run for Senator. 
 How ? There was the primary law. Record, the 
 father of that law, suggested the use of it to beat 
 the Republican boss in his own party. "But," 
 he said, "don't stop there. Adopt a platform. 
 Promise specific things and go to the people with 
 these definite promises. And put up a full ticket: 
 senator and assemblymen and county officers — 
 everything." 
 
 Mark Fagan has in Jersey C5ty a "group plan" 
 of government. A picked lot of fellows get to- 
 gether, discuss, and agree upon policies and plans. 
 Colby took that idea, and he accepted also the 
 suggestion to join issue with fighters in other 
 counties. So two groups, one from Essex and the 
 other from Hudson, came together and out of 
 their deliberations grew a platform and what is 
 known as "The New Idea Movement." 
 
 They adopted Colby's Orange issue: limited 
 franchises; Record's: franchise taxation; Pagan's: 
 equal taxation; and Colby, Record and others 
 added one new one: an expression at legisla- 
 tive elections of a popular choice for United States 
 Senators. 
 
 It isn't necessary to follow the campaigns, for 
 there were two — the first a fight at the primaries 
 
EVERETT COLBY S5 
 
 for the nomination for state senator, the second 
 the general election at the polls. Both were anti- 
 boss fights. Colby opened with an announcement 
 of his candidacy, backed by a statement of his 
 programme. The boss and the ringsters laughed. 
 They laughed till the first mass-meeting was held. 
 That was expected to fall flat, but the opera 
 house was filled to overflowing and Fagan, Record, 
 Colby and Martin aroused the crowd to tremen- 
 dous enthusiasm. But the best thing Colby did 
 was to adopt Pagan's method of meeting the 
 voters face to face. Fagan told him how to 
 do it. Colby asked him. The young club man 
 thought there was some mystery about talking 
 to workingmen, so he invited Mayor Mark to 
 luncheon to get his secret. The Mayor was 
 puzzled. 
 
 "Why, Mr. Colby," he said, "I can't tell you 
 how to do that. I can tell you when you will find 
 working-men at liberty to listen, and I can tell 
 you how they feel about some of these great ques- 
 tions. But I can't tell you what to say to them. 
 You must say just what you think, and, Mr. 
 Colby, if you don't feel from the bottom of your 
 heart a real interest in people you might as well 
 stay at home." 
 
 "And that," says Colby, "is about the best 
 advice I ever got. The instant he said it I knew 
 
86 UPBUILDERS 
 
 it was right. After that I went out to my noon- 
 day meetings and I didn't try to find out what they 
 thought. I told them what I thought about things." 
 
 Colby's class suffers from class consciousness, 
 as much, if not more, than labour does. If he 
 had gone forth as a rich man to the poor, or as a 
 capitalist to labour, or as a business man offer- 
 ing a good business administration to a people 
 incompetent for self-government, he would have 
 had to buy votes or be beaten. But going as he 
 did, as a man to men, and promising things that 
 were directed at the reform, not of politicians 
 and the police, and dirty streets, etc., etc., but of 
 the grosser vices of his own class, even though he 
 did not mention class, those people sized up "this 
 rich young club fellow" as they sized up the ex- 
 gilder and undertaker, Mark Fagan, and they 
 put their faith in him as the Missourians did 
 in Folk, as the people of Wisconsin did in La 
 FoUette, and as the people of San Francisco did 
 in Heney. The American people seem not to 
 know the difference between clean streets and 
 dirty streets, but they do know the difference be- 
 tween h;^pocrisy and sincerity, between pluto- 
 cracy and democracy. They'll help you beat 
 the boss if you'll show that you see as plainly as 
 they do who is back of the boss. 
 
 The machine blundered. The bosses always 
 
EVERETT COLBY 87 
 
 blunder when, as they put it, "they go up against 
 a new game," and the New Idea was a new game. 
 Colby made use of Record's primary law to print 
 his name, as candidate for the senate, after the 
 names of his delegates. Lentz wouldn't do that. 
 He wanted to elect his delegates, then dictate as of 
 old, all the candidates to be nominated by the 
 convention. Governor Stokes warned Lentz. 
 Colby thought he saw signs of the Governor's 
 interference against him, and he went to Mr. 
 Stokes to ask that "he keep his hands off." 
 
 "Why," said the Governor, "all I have done 
 was to tell Lentz that if he didn't name a man 
 against you, you'd beat him." 
 
 Colby's crowd worked early and late. As time 
 went on and the excitement grew, men who never 
 had taken part in politics joined in what they 
 agreed was the "greatest game they ever sat in at," 
 the great game of politics. Everybody was wel- 
 come, and everybody was happy. It was a popu- 
 lar election, every man's election, and they won. 
 Won ? The completeness of their victory at the 
 primaries astonished them. They carried every- 
 thing. The next morning Major Lentz told 
 Colby the convention was his, Colby's, and 
 Colby might "run it" to suit himself. Very 
 gracious, indeed, was this defeated boss, but he 
 hoped (and he hopes) to be boss again. 
 
88 UPBUILDERS 
 
 "I've been thinking," he said to the victor, 
 "that maybe I ought to resign. What do you 
 think, Colby?" 
 
 " I think you might as well. Major," said Colby, 
 vrho thought Lentz meant what he said. But 
 Lentz didn't mean anything of the kind. 
 
 "Well, I won't," he answered in a huff. "I 
 didn't mean resign the chairmanship of the county 
 committee; I meant as manager of the campaign." 
 
 Colby said he and his crowd nearly went to 
 pieces on this very point. They held their con- 
 vention, and they nominated the whole legisla- 
 tive and county ticket. That had all been planned 
 in advance. But what next ? What about 
 managing the campaign ? Lentz had the county 
 committee, and the county committee usually 
 ran county campaigns. Colby and his group 
 meant to have their fight made by a joint com- 
 mittee, but their plans were indefinite. 
 
 "We hadn't thought it out," Colby says, "and 
 we made a bad blunder." 
 
 The county committee was to have a meeting, 
 and it was the custom for candidates to go and 
 be presented. Colby left town intending not to 
 recognize the committee, but he was telephoned 
 for by some of his best friends. As a victor he 
 must not show ill-will, etc., etc. So Colby went 
 to the meeting. In the course of the formalities. 
 
EVERETT COLBY 89 
 
 Lentz said something about the campaign being 
 run as usual, and, Colby says, "I should have 
 jumped up then and there to declare that it would 
 not be run as usual. I didn't. Don't know why 
 I didn't, but I didn't. I just hadn't my wits 
 about me, and I let it pass." 
 
 The next day the papers were full of the "Love 
 Feast." "Colby and the boss were together." 
 Colby thinks this was a very "bad break," and so 
 do some of his friends, but mistakes don't count 
 in these criminal days, and he corrected his 
 promptly. He came out with a letter demanding 
 that his own, not the county committee, should 
 run the campaign. This was a repudiation of 
 the organization. Lentz refused to give up, so 
 he ran one campaign, and Colby's committee, 
 with William P. Martin for chairman, ran the 
 other. The machine men cut Colby at the polls, 
 but he won in spite of them. The normal Repub- 
 lican majority in Essex County ranges from ten 
 to twelve thousand. Colby's was 19,986, and 
 some of the other men on his ticket ran a few 
 hundred ahead of him. 
 
 The election of Everett Colby and his ticket 
 ranked in significance with the victories that fall 
 of Jerome in New York, of Weaver's ticket in 
 Philadelphia, of Judge Dempsy's for Mayor of 
 Cincinnati, of Tom Johnson in Cleveland, of 
 
90 UPBUILDERS 
 
 Brand Whitlock in Toledo, of Pattison in Ohio, 
 etc. They all were anti-boss fights. Some of 
 them, like Pattison's and Dempsy's, were min- 
 ority party fights against the majority party boss; 
 some, like Jerome's and Whitlock's, were against 
 "both the bosses" and "all parties"; Colby's, 
 like La FoUette's and Folk's, was within the 
 majority party. No matter how made, these 
 fights were all against the boss, and the boss fell. 
 What next? 
 
 The political boss is nothing but an agent of 
 the business bosses back of him. Some of these 
 anti-boss leaders know this; some do not. Those 
 that do may get somewhere; the others won't. 
 Colby is one of those that can see beyond the boss; 
 that is one reason why he would not make his 
 campaign a personal fight against Carl Lentz. 
 He saw, and he sees, and some of the men with 
 him see, the powers behind Lentz, and he is pro- 
 ceeding now, deliberately and intelligently against 
 them, the real enemies of the state, its active rulers, 
 the class which corrupts it, and its officials, and its 
 people for the sake of the privileges obtained or 
 to be obtained from the state. 
 
 Look at their programme of bills again. In 
 themselves they might not interest you and me 
 very much, but look behind those bills. To 
 "limit franchises" and "to tax them" — these 
 
EVERETT COLBY 91 
 
 will bring these New Jersey leaders in direct, open 
 conflict with the Prudential-Fidelity-Trust-Public- 
 Service interests. To "tax the roadbed of 
 railroads" like any other real estate is to chal- 
 lenge a most profitable privilege of the Penn- 
 sylvania and other railroads. To let voters pledge 
 their legislators to candidates for the United 
 States Senate — that is to make the United States 
 Senate represent the people. All the resources 
 of the railroads, trolleys, and other public utilities, 
 and of all the "protected" businesses of Jersey 
 and of the United States will be called into play 
 to defeat this kind of reform; for this is real reform. 
 It is not a little tap at superficial evils; it is a stab 
 at the source of all evil in all our politics. It aims 
 at democracy, at the restoration of truly repre- 
 sentative government. It is "radical"; it is "dan- 
 gerous." If the corporations do to Colby in 
 Jersey what they have done to La FoUette in Wis- 
 consin, they will stir up envy and hatred against 
 him; they will befool his followers with false 
 arguments or buy them with money or office or 
 "business"; and they will embitter his life, pub- 
 lic and private, too, with misrepresentation and 
 slander. If the fight is fought to a finish, every 
 trick known to expert manipulators of legislatures 
 and public opinion will be tried, but the rings 
 didn't believe it would be fought to a finish. Can 
 
92 UPBUILDERS 
 
 you guess why ? One of them told me what their 
 faith was founded upon. 
 
 "We'll get Colby," he said. "We'll get him 
 before the session is over. He wants something. 
 Every man wants something. It's all a matter 
 of finding out what he wants. He may not know 
 what it is himself, but we'll find out; and he'll 
 get it and we'll get him — or his crowd, or both." 
 
 There is no conceit about Colby, no bluster, 
 and when I told him this, he did not clench his 
 fist and set his jaw. He pondered a moment, 
 then he said : 
 
 "I wonder if they will." 
 
 Colby knows the tremendous power and the 
 infinite ingenuity of the interests that will oppose 
 him, so he wondered, as you or I may, what 
 is going to happen to him. He is as open- 
 minded to the truth about himself as he is to the 
 truth about corruption, and because he is open- 
 minded, and because he can confess his mistakes 
 when he sees them; because he takes fences as he 
 comes to them, and because he says he "will go 
 any length to put a stop to the corruption of men 
 and government," it is likely that the Gentle- 
 man from Essex will fight to a finish. What the 
 end will be in Jersey, Jersey men must decide; 
 they will have to watch the struggle and choose 
 between those representatives who represent them 
 
EVERETT COLBY 93 
 
 and those who do not. But the rest of us should 
 watch, too. Everett Colby is a national leader; 
 the Jersey fight is a national fight. The arena is 
 local, but others are making the same fight else- 
 where; the fight we all must make, sooner or later 
 — the fight to restore the government of the people 
 to the people. 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 
 I. "the ij^ids' court" 
 
 IN the County Court of Denver, one night, 
 a boy was arraigned for larceny. The 
 hour was late; the calendar was long, and the 
 Judge was sitting overtime. Weary of the weary 
 work, everybody was forcing the machinery of 
 the law to grind through at top speed the dull 
 routine of justice. All sorts of causes went to 
 this court, grand and petty, civil and criminal, 
 complicated and simple. The petty larceny case 
 was plain; it could be disposed of in no time. A 
 theft had been committed; no doubt of that. Had 
 the prisoner at the bar done it ? The sleepy 
 policeman had his witness on hand, and they 
 swore out a case. There was no doubt about it; 
 hardly any denial. The Law prescribed precisely 
 what was to be done to such "cases," and the 
 bored Judge ordered that that thing be done. That 
 was all. In the same breath with which he pro- 
 nounced sentence, the Court called for the " next 
 case " and the shift was under way, when some- 
 thing happened, something out of the ordinary. 
 
 94 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 95 
 
 A cry, an old woman's shriek, rang out from 
 the rear of the room. There was nothing so very 
 extraordinary about that. Our courts are held 
 in public; and every now and then , somebody 
 makes a disturbance such as this old woman 
 made when she rose now with that cry on her lips, 
 and, tearing her hair and rending her garments, 
 began to beat her head against the wall. It was 
 the duty of the bailiflF to put the person out, and 
 that officer in this court moved to do his duty. 
 
 But the man on the bench was Ben B. Lindsey, 
 the celebrated Judge of the Juvenile Court of 
 Denver. He wasn't celebrated then; he had no 
 Juvenile Court. He was only a young lawyer and 
 politician who, for political services (some aver, 
 falsely, for delivering a vote for a United States 
 Senatorship) had been appointed to fill out an 
 unexpired term as County Judge. Lindsey didn't 
 want to be a judge; he had asked for the district- 
 attorneyship. His experiences on the inside of 
 politics had shown him that many things were 
 wrong, and he had a private theory that the way 
 to set the evils right was to enforce the law, as the 
 law. But another man, Harry A. Lindsley, 
 had a prior claim on the district-attorneyship, 
 and Ben Lindsey had to take the judgeship or 
 nothing. So he had taken it (January 8, 1901), 
 and he had been administering justice — as 
 
96 UPBUILDERS 
 
 Justice — for several weeks when that woman 
 cried out against his "Justice," and his "bailee" 
 moved to uphold the decorum of his court, the 
 dignity of the Law. And — the Judge upheld 
 the woman. 
 
 "I had noticed her before," he says now. "As 
 my eye wandered during the evening it had fallen 
 several times on her, crouched there among the 
 back benches, and I remember I thought how like 
 a cave-dweller she looked. I didn't connect her 
 with the case, any case. I didn't think of her in 
 any human relationship whatsoever. For that 
 matter, I hadn't considered the larceny case in 
 any human way. And there's the point: I was a 
 judge, judging 'cases' according to the 'Law,' till 
 the cave-dweller's mother-cry startled me into 
 humanity. It was an awful cry, a terrible sight, 
 and I was stunned. I looked at the prisoner 
 again, but with new eyes now, and I saw the boy, 
 an Italian boy. A thief ? No. A bad boy ? 
 Perhaps, but not a lost criminal. I called him 
 back, and I had the old woman brought before me. 
 Comforting and quieting her, I talked with the 
 two together, as mother and son this time, and 
 I found that they had a home. It made me 
 shudder. I had been about to send that boy to 
 a prison among criminals when he had a home 
 and a mother to go to. And that was the Law! 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 97 
 
 The fact that that boy had a good home; the cir- 
 cumstances which led him to — not steal, but 
 'swipe' something; the likelihood of his not doing 
 it again — these were 'evidence ' pertinent, nay 
 vital, to his case. Yet the Law did not require 
 the production of such evidence. The Law? 
 Justice ? I stopped the machinery of justice to 
 pull that boy out of its grinders. But he was 
 guilty; what was to be done with him .? I didn't 
 know. I said I would take care of him myself, 
 but I didn't know what I meant to do — except to 
 visit him and his mother at their home. And I 
 did visit them, often, and — well, we — his mother 
 and I, with the boy helping — we saved that boy, 
 and to-day he is a fine young fellow, industrious, 
 self-respecting, and a friend of the Court." 
 
 This was the beginning, the Judge will tell you, 
 of his practice of putting juvenile offenders, not 
 in prison to be punished, but on probation to be 
 saved. It wasn't. The Judge is looking back- 
 ward, and he sees things in retrospect as he has 
 thought them out since, logically, with his mind. 
 If you should take his word for it, you would get 
 the impression that this first "probation case" 
 was the beginning of his famous" Juvenile Court, 
 the most remarkable institution of the kind in all 
 the world. And if you got that impression in 
 just that way, you might do as the reformers of 
 
98 UPBUILDERS 
 
 some twenty-five states and a few hundred cities 
 have done — you might lose the significance of 
 Judge Lindsey. You might learn his methods 
 and miss the man. You might imitate his " kids' 
 court," and make a mistake with both the " kids " 
 and their "Jedge," as they call him. And you 
 certainly would do, as Denver desires to do, and 
 Colorado — limit the meaning of Judge Lindsey's 
 life-work to the problem of the children. 
 
 Ben Lindsey's "methods" are as applicable to 
 grown-ups as to kids. Man has a way of invent- 
 ing devices to help him to be a man; a spear, 
 an army, the Church, political parties, business. 
 By and by the aid to his weakness comes to be a 
 fetish with him, a burden, an end in itself, an 
 institution. He decorates his spear, keeping a 
 commoner weapon to hunt with. His army 
 returns from fighting his enemies to conquer him. 
 Priests declare the Church holy and, instead of min- 
 istering to men, make men minister to the Church. 
 Political parties, founded to establish principles 
 for the strengthening of the State and its citizen- 
 ship, betray principles and manhood and the 
 State for the "good of the party." Business, 
 the mere machinery of living, has become in 
 America the purpose of life, the end to which all 
 other goods — honour, religion, politics, men, 
 women and children, the very Nation itself — 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 99 
 
 are sacrificed. And so with the laws and the 
 courts. Jurists and legislators note and deplore 
 the passing of respect for the Law and of faith in 
 the courts, and they wonder why. It is largely 
 because we laymen think we observe that legis- 
 lation purporting to be for the common good is 
 bought for the special evils; that laws enacted to 
 help us are manipulated to our hurt; and that 
 our courts, set up to render justice, either make 
 a worship of the letter of the Law or violate the 
 spirit thereof to work deliberate injustice. As 
 for the penal code, nourished by the centuries 
 to prevent crime, it is operated as escapes for the 
 strong criminal or as instruments of society's 
 revenge upon the weak. 
 
 Ben Lindsey's great, new, ancient discovery 
 is that men are what we are after, men and women; 
 and that everything else, business and laws, 
 politics, the Church, the schools — these are not 
 institutions, but means to those higher ends, 
 character and right living. He began with the 
 laws; the Law he was prepared to revere. He saw 
 that the Law was capable of stupid injustices 
 and gross wrongs; and setting humanity up on the 
 bench beside his authority, he has reduced the 
 Law to its proper, humble function — the ser- 
 vice of men and of the State. He has drawn the 
 sting of punishment out of the pen^l «j4e, stamped 
 
100 UPBUILDERS 
 
 out the spirit of vengeance; he has tried to make 
 his Court a place where the prisoners at the bar 
 are helped to become good men and useful citi- 
 zens. His greatest service has been to boys and 
 girls, but that is only because he found in children 
 the most helpless victims of our machine system 
 of "businesslike justice." He has created in his 
 Juvenile Court a new human institution, the 
 beauty and use of which is spreading imitative 
 "movements" all over the land. But, wonderful 
 as his creation is, this man should not be known 
 as the founder of another institution. That might 
 become, like certain societies for the prevention 
 of cruelty to animals or to children, only another 
 "end in itself." 
 
 Judge Lindsey is a man, a brave, gentle man, 
 who is re-introducing into life, all life, and into 
 all the institutions which he can influence, the 
 spirit of humanity. As he puts it in his " Problem 
 of the Children," "these great movements for the 
 betterment of our children are simply typical of 
 the noblest spirit of this age, the Christ-spirit of 
 unselfish love, of hope and joy. It has reached 
 its acme in what were formerly the criminal 
 courts. The old process is changed. Instead of 
 coming to destroy, we come to rescue. Instead 
 of coming to punish, we come to uplift. Instead of 
 coming to hate, we come to love." 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE loi 
 
 That the man has this more general significance 
 is shown by the gradual, apparently accidental 
 way in which he developed his "methods" and his 
 Court. He didn't think them out with his mind. 
 That isn't the way big, human things are done 
 in this big, human world of ours; they are felt out 
 with the heart. The man Lindsey had heart, 
 and the cave-dweller's cry reached it, and when 
 the Judge felt her agony, he found himself. That 
 was all. His judgment in this case was but the 
 beginning of Judge Lindsey's practice of putting 
 heart into his business. He didn't know what 
 probation was when he said he'd take care himself 
 of the cave-dweller's boy. We have seen that 
 he hadn't thought of being a judge, and the idea 
 of a Juvenile Court hadn't dawned upon him. 
 It took other cases to "set him thinking." The 
 other cases came. 
 
 One day a " burglary" appeared on his calendar. 
 The Judge says he looked around curiously for 
 the burglars. He saW none till the case was 
 called. Then three boys were haled whimpering 
 before him, three ordinary, healthy American 
 boys, from twelve to sixteen. What had they 
 burglarized ? A pigeon-loft. A pigeon-loft ! Yes, 
 your Honour, they broke into a pigeon-loft and were 
 caught red-handed stealing pigeons. That was 
 burglary; there was no doubt about the crime. 
 
102 UPBUILDERS 
 
 What was to be done with the burglars ? They 
 were to be sent to the reformatory, of course; 
 the Law prescribed the penalty. The Judge 
 shook his head, "No." 
 
 He didn't say so in court then, but he tells now 
 how he was recalling the time when he, as a boy, 
 went robbing a pigeon-loft. He didn't actually 
 commit "burglary," but he would have if he 
 hadn't lost his nerve. He was " scared " ; the other 
 kids had told him so, and it was true. And they 
 left him, in contempt and ashamed, while they 
 robbed the coop. So he wasn't an ex-convict, 
 not because he was a good boy, no; nor because 
 he was "smaller than them," though that was a 
 plea set up in the gang in his behalf. He wasn't 
 a burglar, like these boys before him now, simply 
 because he didn't have as much "sand" as 
 they had. Was he going to punish them as 
 burglars, "send them up" for crime, to live among 
 criminals ? No. 
 
 But the complainant had a view to present. 
 A worried, old, persecuted man, he told how boys 
 were forever stealing his pigeons; how he had 
 "laid for them" again and again; how they gen- 
 erally escaped; and how, finally, after many fail- 
 ures, he had caught these three. He wanted them 
 punished; he begged to have them "sent to jail." 
 
 There was something familiar in the appear- 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 103 
 
 ance of the poor old pigeon fancier, and the Judge 
 questioned him: where he lived; where his barn 
 was; just where the pigeon-loft was; what his 
 name was; whether he had a nickname. The old 
 man answered, peevishly, but fully enough for the 
 Judge to learn what he wanted to know. This 
 was the very man, his were the pigeons, his loft 
 was the same old loft which he, the Judge, and 
 his gang had burglarized years ago. And now 
 the Law expected him, a Judg^, to send to prison 
 these boys who were no worse than he was; nay, 
 who were better, for they had the "sand" he 
 lacked ! If he, the Judge, had been sent up for 
 burglary he might not have become County Judge, 
 and if he didn't send up these boys as burglars, 
 they might become county judges, or — since they 
 had more " sand " — something better. 
 
 But there was the Law; what about that ? 
 The boys had committed a crime; what was the 
 Judge to do with them ? He didn't know; he 
 would have to "think it over." And he thought 
 it over. He went back to first principles. What 
 did the complainant really want ? Only to have 
 his property protected. And what was the law 
 against burglary for? To protect property by 
 preventing burglary. Wasn't there any other way 
 to achieve these common ends except by punish- 
 ing these boys as burglars ? And if he put them 
 
I04 UPBUILDERS 
 
 in prison might not other boys go on robbing the 
 pigeon-loft ? The Judge says it is " out of the 
 mouths of babes" that he has learned wisdom. 
 He took the prisoners into his chamber, and he 
 talked with them. 
 
 Now, the Judge's talks with boys and girls are 
 regarded with superstition by some people; he 
 gets such wonderful results — the truth, for 
 example. Children who lie to their parents, their 
 teachers, and the police, tell him everything. 
 The police started a story that Judge Lindsey is 
 a "hypnotist," and others speak wisely of his 
 "method." His "method" is very simple; he 
 employed it, before he knew it was a "method," 
 with his Italian " thief" and his first trio of " burg- 
 lars." Friendship is the key. Judge Lindsey 
 talks to boys as one boy talks to another. 
 
 His personal appearance helps him. The 
 "Jedge" is a short, slight, boyish-looking young 
 man, open-faced, direct, sincere, and he lays off 
 the ermine, figuratively speaking, very readily; 
 indeed, he hardly ever puts it on now, even on the 
 bench. In chambers he comes right down to 
 earth, using boy-talk, including slang. For this 
 he has been criticized by good people who think 
 of English as an institution, to be kept pure. 
 The Judge answers that he has something else in 
 mind than the purity of the language. He has 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 105 
 
 found "after four years' experience that the 
 judicious use of a few of these slang terms not only 
 does not hurt the boy, but actually helps him, and 
 wins his confidence," and, since the boys are what 
 he is after, he declares he will "continue to talk 
 to the boys to a certain extent much the same as 
 they talk with one another." 
 , As a matter of fact, it is an instinct with the 
 Judge, a part of his simple naturalness and his 
 native desire to understand others, which prompts 
 him to say " fellers " ; " ah, say, kids, let's cut it out." 
 When he called in his burglars, it was no judge 
 that asked them if they belonged to a gang. It 
 was no fatherly elder, wisely pretending to a 
 superior sort of Interest in the habits and cus- 
 toms of their "crowd," and the limits of their 
 range or habitat. It was "one feller askin' th' 
 other fellers, on the level now, all about swipin' 
 pigeons." The reason he, the Judge, and his 
 gang robbed the coop was to get a certain variety 
 of fan-tail pigeons which the old man wouldn't 
 sell, and he understood it when the boys explained 
 that what they were after, really, was to get back 
 some of their pigeons which had joined the old 
 man's bigger flock. Also, however, the boys under- 
 stood the Judge when he reflected that it wasn't 
 right to go and "rob back" your pigeons; that it 
 annoyed the old man, wronged him, and hurt the 
 
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 boys. Maybe the old man was grouchy, but, 
 gee, the coop was his, and "swiping" wasn't 
 "square." It was sneaky, it was weak to steal. 
 So he proposed to stop this "weakness" of this 
 gang; not only of the three that had been caught, 
 but of the whole gang. 
 
 Now, the Judge teaches respect for grown-up 
 law by himself invariably showing great respect 
 for "kid law." It is against the law of Boyville 
 to "snitch" (tattle). So he wouldn't let them 
 tell him who the other "burglars" were. "But, 
 say, fellers," he said, "you bring in the other 
 kids, and we'll talk it over, and we'll see if we 
 can't agree to cut out stealing altogether, and 
 especially to stop swipin' pigeons off the old man." 
 
 That was fair, and it was human. They went 
 away, and they got the gang. And the gang 
 entered into a deal with the "Jedge"; "sure they 
 did." Who wouldn't? And do you think they 
 would go back on a Judge like that ? Sure they 
 wouldn't, and they wouldn't let any other feller 
 go back on him either; not much; not if they 
 could prevent it; and they thought they could. 
 And they did, as they reported from time to time. 
 
 It was this case, which, coming home so per- 
 sonally to him, set the Judge thinking. "It 
 seemed to me," he says, "that we were not pro- 
 ceeding just right in such cases. I didn't know 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 107 
 
 anything about it, but it looked wrong to charge 
 these boys with burglary. It was unnecessary 
 under the Law, too; the school law of 1899 P^"^" 
 mitted children to be brought to the County 
 Court as 'juvenile disorderly persons.' And 
 here they were being arraigned as thieves and 
 burglars. We were dealing with the thing the 
 child did, not with the child; and the child was 
 what should concern us. I don't blame anybody 
 in particular. I had been at fault myself. A 
 good many children were brought into my Court, 
 and I had been following the thoughtless routine. 
 The fact is, I was pretty free in sending boys to 
 the Industrial School at Golden till these special 
 cases awoke my special interest. Then I began 
 to consider the situation generally. I found that 
 there was no system about juvenile cases. Some 
 were sent to the District Court, others to the 
 Justice Courts, others to mine. We all were 
 'trying' the boys for the 'crimes' they had com- 
 mitted, finding many of them guilty and send- 
 ing them away. It was absurd; it was criminal, 
 really. The thing a child had stolen was treated 
 as of more importance than the child. This was 
 carrying the idea of property to an extreme. It 
 was time to get back to the idea of men and women, 
 the men and women of to-morrow, and obviously 
 some system of character-building was needed in 
 
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 the Court. Fortunately, there were laws in exist- 
 ence under which juvenile offenders could be 
 brought into court as 'dependent,' 'neglected,* 
 or 'delinquent' children, and these laws were 
 enough as they stood for the starting of a Juvenile 
 Court. We hoped to get other laws later; but 
 those that we had would enable us to treat the 
 children, rather than the children's crimes." 
 
 Judge Lindsey went to District-attorney Linds- 
 ley with the request that all children's cases be 
 brought to his Court; and that they be accused 
 there of delinquency instead of the particular 
 crimes for which they were arrested. The Dis- 
 trict-attorney was willing. Lindsey's request 
 was regarded as "queer," but nobody wanted 
 the bother of these "kids'" cases, so the Judge 
 was permitted to found his "kids' court." And 
 he founded it, and it is the "kids' court," their 
 very own. It is run in the interest of the 
 "bad" boys and girls, and therefore of the state, 
 and the children needed the Court, and so did 
 the state. 
 
 While the Judge was "thinking," the question 
 arose in his mind: "What sort of a place is the 
 Industrial School where I have been sending boys 
 so freely ? " He went to Golden to see. Nobody 
 up there remembered ever having been visited 
 before by a judge on the bench, and this Judge 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 109 
 
 saw boys with the ball and chain on them. He 
 began a quiet reform of the reformatory. Then 
 he asked himself what kind of places the jails were. 
 One Sunday evening he visited the City Jail. 
 
 "It was a dirty, filthy place," he says. "The 
 plaster was off the walls, which were crawling 
 with vermin." 
 
 He went over to the County Jail. The condi- 
 tions were much the same, but what stirred up 
 the Judge's "thoughts" to the bottom of his heart 
 was the sight of boys in the same cells with men 
 and women "of the vilest type." A little further 
 inquiry showed him that these children were 
 allowed to associate freely with grown criminals. 
 Locked up with them in the County Jail, they 
 visited the men in the bull-pen down in the City 
 Jail. The boys liked to listen to the "great crim- 
 inals," and the great criminals liked to brag 
 to the boys. It was a school of crime. The 
 men told the boys how they "beat the police" 
 and, filling them with criminal ideals, taught them 
 how to commit "great" crimes. 
 
 " I found that in the five years before I went on 
 the bench, 2,136 Denver boys had been in these 
 jails for periods varying from a few hours to 
 thirty days, and," the Judge adds in his mild way, 
 "I was satisfied the influence was not good. But 
 that was typical. This was being done all over 
 
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 the country, and it is now in many places. Every 
 boy who makes a mistake or, if you will, every 
 child that shows any tendency to crime is sent 
 to a school where crime is taught. Is it any won- 
 der that juvenile crime is on the increase ?" 
 
 And the Judge found that juvenile crime was 
 on the increase generally in the United States. 
 He engaged the services of a clipping bureau, and 
 he quotes, in his " Problem of the Children," some 
 of the results: "Five Thousand Boys Arrested 
 Last Year" (in one city); "4,000 out of 16,000 
 Arrests Last Year Were Boys Under Twenty" (in 
 a city of less than 150,000) ; " Bandits Caught Mere 
 Boys" (a frequent head line); "Over Half the 
 Murderers Last Year Were Boys"; " Boy Burglars 
 Getting Common"; "Thieving Increasing Among 
 Children"; "Desperate Boy Bandits Captured" 
 (aged twelve, thirteen, and fifteen). And he cites 
 the Van Wormer boys of New York; the Bid- 
 dies of Pennsylvania; the car-barn murderers 
 of Illinois; the Collinses of Missouri; the boy 
 murderers of Nebraska; the Youngblood mur- 
 derers of Denver; the boy train-wreckers of the 
 West, and the reform-school boy murderers of 
 California. The phrase "mere boys" indicated 
 that the news editors regarded juvenile crime 
 as exceptional and remarkable; it isn't. Three- 
 quarters of the crimes committed in the United 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE in 
 
 States, the Judge says, are done by boys under 
 twenty-three ! 
 
 "And why not?" he asks. "The children of 
 parents who die or fail in their duty are taken 
 by the State and sent for their schooling into the 
 streets or jails where they pick up false ideals and 
 criminal arts. With few exceptions, all these 
 boy criminals named above, whom society has 
 sent to the slaughter-house to be killed, had been 
 sent to jail in their teens by society for other 
 crimes. And most of them were first imprisoned 
 as little children." 
 
 In other words, our criminal court system does 
 not prevent, it fosters crime. Our "businesslike" 
 procedure of heartless, thoughtless "justice" 
 makes criminals. What should the State do ? 
 The Judge says that when the State gets hold of 
 a "bad" child, it takes the place of the parent, 
 and like a good parent, it should try to mould 
 that child into a good citizen. He gives an illus- 
 tration in his " Problem of the Children." 
 
 "We recall the case (and it is one of hundreds)," 
 the Judge says there, "of a young man who had 
 been in the criminal courts at the age of thirteen. 
 At twenty he shot down a policeman who was 
 heroically doing his duty. Suppose that at the 
 age of thirteen that boy had been studied, helped, 
 looked after, and carefully handled; would that 
 
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 policeman be maimed for life, or dead, a young wife 
 and child a charge on the community, and a strong, 
 robust young man a charge on the State for life ? 
 Perhaps not, and even so we could have felt better 
 about it, and in the sight of God less accountable. 
 Was the State responsible ? Yes, even more than 
 the boy, for he was in jail in the plastic stage. 
 The State had him in time, and it did nothing — 
 not even try. The State treated him as a man, 
 this boy. . . Strange that if his money or 
 property were involved he could control none of it; 
 he would need a guardian in that case. A boy's 
 property is important. But his morals — the boy, 
 the man in embryo, the citizen to be — needed no 
 guardian. This boy needed no help. He needed 
 punishment. He "needed retribution, and so as 
 a boy he got what men got, that which is often 
 barbarous even for men. I have seen them, 
 eleven to fifteen years of age, in the same bull- 
 pen with men and women, with chains about 
 their waists and limbs. And I have seen them 
 crowded together in idleness, in filthy rooms where 
 suggeStiveness fills the mind with all things vile 
 and lewd. Such has been too often the first step 
 taken by the great State in the correction of the 
 child." 
 
 Judge Lindsey founded his Juvenile Court to 
 correct and save to the State the children who were 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 113 
 
 caught up in the meshes of the criminal law, and 
 his first step was the correction of himself and of 
 the Court. Having to start with only the idea, 
 which was really little more than a sentiment, 
 that the welfare of the child prisoner was the chief 
 consideration, he had to institute proceedings to 
 meet the needs of the child. What were those 
 needs ? The Judge didn't know, and he had no 
 theory; he had to find out for himself. How did 
 he go about finding out ? Very simply, very 
 naturally. He asked the child. 
 
 One of the first, most obvious observations he 
 made was that children came into Court with 
 either tears or defiance in their eyes. They hated 
 the policeman, and they feared the Judge, and 
 since the "cop" and the Court were the personi- 
 fication of justice and the State, these young 
 citizens were being reared in the spirit of dread 
 and hatred of law and authority. This was all 
 wrong, and yet it was perfectly natural. 
 
 "The criminal court for child-offenders," writes 
 the Judge, "is based on the doctrine of fear, 
 degradation, and punishment. It was, and is, 
 absurd. The Juvenile Court was founded on 
 the principle of love. We assumed that the child 
 had committed, not a crime, but a mistake, and 
 that he deserved correction, not punishment. 
 Of course, there is firmness and justice, for 
 
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 without these there would be danger in leniency. 
 But there is no justice without love." 
 
 The Judge drove out fear from his Court, and 
 hate and brutality; for awe, he substituted con- 
 fidence and affection. How did he do this ? 
 By coming down off the bench to the boy. Since 
 the boy was the centre of interest,- the Judge sub- 
 ordinated his own "dignity" and the whole 
 machinery of the Court and even the "stolen 
 property," to win back the prisoner at the bar. 
 The good of the boy, obviously paramount in the 
 mind of the Court, was made paramount in the 
 mind of the boy, who was led to feel that every- 
 body cared about him, that everything done was 
 done for him in his interest. "Of course," he 
 says, "the Law is important, but the vital thing 
 is the relationship established with the child. 
 The case from the boy's standpoint must be under- 
 stood." Each case, the Judge means. He seeks 
 to get for himself a personal, sympathetic under- 
 standing of each separate case. There are no 
 hard and fast rules. No fixed routine will do the 
 work. The Judge didn't turn away hate, quiet 
 fear, and dry tears by any "methods." When 
 a child is brought weeping or scowling before 
 him, Ben Lindsey is dragged off that bench by 
 his heartstrings, and when he sits on a stool beside 
 the boy in trouble, or goes for a walk with him, 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 115 
 
 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 
 
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 mistakes. That's nothing. I've made mistakes 
 myself, worse'n yours, I guess." Then turning 
 to the policeman, he asks: "What is it, officer ?" 
 The policeman tells about the crime, say theft. 
 "Stealing isn't right," says the Judge, and he 
 appeals to the boys in the court room, "Is it, 
 fellers ?" Putting his hand on the boy's shoulder, 
 he gives him a shove back and a pull forward. 
 " It's weak to swipe things." That hurts. Boys 
 learn in the street that it's smart and brave to 
 steal, and the only evil thing about it is getting 
 caught. Lots of men take this view, too, but 
 Judge Lindsey sets up another standard. "I 
 know how it is," he says. "It's a temptation. 
 It's a chance to get something easy, something 
 you want; or something you can sell to get 
 something you want. Wanted to go to the show, 
 maybe. Well, it takes a pretty strong feller to 
 down the desire to take the chance and see the 
 show. But it's wrong to swipe things. 'Tain't 
 fair; 'tain't brave; it's just mean, and it hurts the 
 feller that steals. Makes him steal again, and 
 by and by he is caught and sent up — a thief. 
 Now you ain't a thief, and you don't want to be. 
 Do you ? But you were too weak to resist the 
 temptation, so you were caught. Ought to cut 
 it out. Not because you were caught. That 
 isn't the rieason a feller oughtn't to steal. It's 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 117 
 
 because it's mean and sneaky, and no feller wants 
 to be mean and sneaky. He wants to be on the 
 square. 
 
 " But what are you crying for ? You've been 
 crying ever since I began to talk to you. Afraid 
 of being punished ? Pshaw, a feller ought to 
 stand up and take his medicine; but we don't 
 punish boys. We just try to help 'em get strong 
 and be square. Even when we send fellers to 
 Golden, it isn't for punishment; it's only to help 
 a kid that's weak to get strong enough to control 
 himself. So we aren't going to punish you. I 
 believe you can control yourself without going to 
 Golden. We'll see. But first off, a kid ought to 
 be strong enough and sufficiently on the square 
 to tell the truth about himself. Ought to tell 
 not only about this time, when you're caught, 
 but all the other times, too. You wait, and 
 after court we'll go back in chambers and we'll 
 have it all out, just us two." 
 
 This is rather reassuring, isn't it ? It proved 
 so to the children who sat waiting their turn at 
 the first sessions of the Juvenile Court. There 
 was no terrorism in it, no trace of hardness, there 
 were no awful forms. The children felt the dif- 
 ference. "The Judge, he gives a feller a show," 
 said one boy to me. And as they saw the pro- 
 ceedings in court, so the children heard about the 
 
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 scenes in chambers. These were the best of all, 
 best for the kids and best for the Judge. There 
 is where Lindsey saw into the hearts of children, 
 and where they saw into his. 
 
 "Never let a child get away with a lie on his 
 soul," the Judge says. "A clean breast is half 
 the battle." Children are wonderful liars, but 
 the Judge thinks he can tell when they are lying 
 and they admit that he has an instinct for the 
 truth. One foundation for their respect for him 
 is that with all his kindness he isn't sentimental; 
 and he isn't "easy." "You can't fool the Jedge," 
 the boys say, and the police tell, as an illustra- 
 tion, the story of a "tough kid" on whom all 
 the Judge's appeals seemed to fail. He "lied 
 straight," and since the Judge will not help (try) 
 a boy who will not tell the truth, he told the offi- 
 cer to take the boy away. On the way back to 
 jail, the boy changed his mind. He asked to be 
 taken again before the Judge. "You're right. 
 Judge," he said, "and you're game, too. I lied 
 to you; I lied like a horse thief; and I couldn't 
 fool you a little bit. You've beat me. Judge, 
 and I'll tell you th' truth." And he did. 
 
 The Judge in chambers reasons with the boy 
 that while it is wrong to "snitch" on other fel- 
 lows, it is all right to "snitch" on yourself. The 
 boys understand this. It is made clear to them 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 119 
 
 that there is no punishment, , only "help for a 
 feller if he needs it," and among the most inter- 
 esting experiences that the Judge has to tell, are 
 the discussions he has with boys as to whether 
 they "need to go to Golden." 
 
 There's a little, old, young, big man, called 
 " Major," whom I saw in command of the battalion 
 at Golden. He is somewhere between twelve and 
 sixteen, but with an old, old face; very tiny of 
 stature, but very tall in dignity. He never smiles, 
 so sober and sensible is he. But he had what the 
 kids and their Judge know as the " movin'-about 
 fever." The Major had come honestly by it. 
 He had no home, and he wanted none, for he 
 could range all over the West, from Chicago up 
 into Idaho and down into New Mexico, and 
 always, everywhere, he was known, for his pom- 
 pous dignity, to hoboes, cow-boys, miners — 
 to all men as "the Major." The Judge gave him 
 trial after trial, and it was no use; the time always 
 came when the Major had to "move on." If 
 they must move, the Judge lets boys go, but he 
 expects them to call on him to say good-bye and 
 be pledged to write to him regularly and not to 
 steal. Well, once when the fever was coming upon 
 the Major, he called on the Judge. The Judge 
 urged the Major to down the temptation. The 
 Major tried, but he couldn't; he confessed that 
 
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 he was too "weak" to resist. Then the Judge 
 suggested Golden; they would help him there, all 
 right, to stay. The Major received the sug- 
 gestion thoughtfully. He raised objections which 
 the Judge answered, but they separated with- 
 out a decision, and the Judge says that for a week 
 or two he and the Major weighed ponderously the 
 mighty question, till in the end the Major agreed 
 that perhaps he'd better go up to Golden and be 
 helped to cure that moving-about attack and 
 thus learn to "stay put." That's how the Major 
 came to go to Golden, and that's how he won the 
 rank and title which the "movin'-about" world 
 had given him as a "little shaver." 
 
 And that's the spirit in which the Judge in 
 chambers persuades boys to "snitch up" ori them- 
 selves and look upon the reformatory as a help. 
 As they begin to tell him things bit by bit, he 
 expresses no horror, only understanding; he sym- 
 pathizes with a feller. If a kid describes how he 
 saw an easy chance to steal and not get caught, 
 the Judge exclaims: "Gee, that was a chance. 
 That's certain. But 'tain't square. Hank." " Mis- 
 take" after "mistake" is confessed, "weakness" 
 after "weakness"; no crimes, you understand, 
 for the kid and the Judge, they see things through 
 the kid's eyes, with all the mitigating circumstances. 
 And so they come to discuss the question whether 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 121 
 
 the kid can "cut it out." The Judge is sure the 
 boy can, surer than the boy, but then, it's up to 
 the boy, because the boy has to do the hard work 
 of resisting. The Judge can "only help; th' 
 feller has to do the business himself." "Inter- 
 est is everything in a boy's life," the Judge says 
 sagely. "If you want his loyalty, excite his 
 interest." Well, the game of correction is inter- 
 esting, especially when you are the centre of the 
 game. It's one of the most interesting games 
 "a feller" ever played, and the Judge has a fas- 
 cinating way of playing it. Having done some- 
 thing wrong, you try to do something that's right, 
 positively right. This is the Judge's great doc- 
 trine. He calls it "overcoming evil with good." 
 There's nothing "sissy-boy" about it. You have 
 done an evil thing; you are not, therefore, bad, 
 only so much weakened. So you go and do a 
 good thing. This not only balances the evil; 
 it " strengthens a feller." 
 
 Now then, a good thing a feller can usually 
 do right away is to go out and bring in some 
 other kids that are "swipin' things." You 
 mustn't tell the Judge who the other fellers 
 are. That would be snitching. But it's all 
 right to get the other fellers to come in and 
 "snitch up" on themselves just as you have 
 "snitched up" on yourself. That gets them 
 
122 UPBUILDERS 
 
 into the game; helps them and, since the more 
 fellers there are in on it, the easier it is for 
 you — it helps you. 
 
 One of the early cases in the Juvenile G)urt 
 was that of seven boys brought before him by a 
 policeman who had caught them wiring up signal- 
 boxes, hopping cars, stoning motormen and con- 
 ductors, and otherwise interfering with the traf- 
 fic of the street railway. The boys were either 
 tearful or sullen, and they denied the testimony 
 of the officer and his witnesses. The Judge 
 took them into his chambers. There he cleared 
 away all ideas of punishment, and got down to 
 the truth. The Judge could see that it was fun, 
 but also he could see that what was fun for the 
 boys was trouble for the conductors and motor- 
 men; it made life hard for them, delayed them, 
 and got them home late. The boys hadn't thought 
 before of these railroad men as human beings, 
 only as " fair game," as " fellers what'd give you a 
 chase if you held 'em up." So the Judge gave 
 the boys a good view of the men's side of the fun, 
 then he said: 
 
 " 'Tain't fair, is it, fellers ?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "Well, what do you say to cuttin' it out ?" 
 
 They agreed. But there was more for these 
 boys to do than simply to quit themseh es. There 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 123 
 
 was an evil deed done to be overcome with good. 
 There was the gang. 
 
 "Will you fellers bring in the rest of the gang 
 to-morrow ? " 
 
 "Sure they would." But they didn't. The 
 seven turned up the next day without their 
 "crowd." 
 
 "The other fellers was askeared to come," they 
 reported. 
 
 " Well, what are you going to do ? " the Judge 
 asked the seven. 
 
 They believed that if the Judge would write a 
 letter to the gang, they would come. 
 
 "A warrant," said the Judge, seizing the chance 
 to take the terror out of another instrument of 
 the Law. "I'll write you out a warrant, and you 
 shall serve it on the gang. But what'U I write ? " 
 
 One little fellow spoke up. "You begin it," 
 he said; "begin by saying, *No kid has snitched, 
 but if you'll come, the Judge'U give you a square 
 deal.'" 
 
 This showed what the matter was, and it brought 
 home to the Judge the force of his own feeling 
 against snitching. 
 
 The Judge began the "warrant" as the little 
 fellow suggested, and thus he ended it, too. The 
 boys took it, and evidently they served it, for the 
 next day the gang came pouring into the court, 
 
124 UPBUILDERS 
 
 fifty-two kids. There was a talk, straight talk, 
 like that which he gave the seven. Only the 
 Judge put more faith into it. He was going 
 to see if they couldn't get along out where that 
 gang lived without any policemen. The peace 
 of the neighbourhood was to be left to the gang, 
 but the gang had to play fair, and give him a 
 square deal. 
 
 "For," said the Judge, making a personal 
 appeal to their honour, "I have told the com- 
 pany that I would be responsible for their having 
 no more trouble. The company don't trust you 
 kids; and they say I'll be fooled. They said you'd 
 go back on me. But I said you wouldn't, and I 
 say now that you won't. So I'm depending on 
 you fellers; and I don't believe you'll throw me 
 down. What do you say ? " 
 
 "We'll stay wit' you, Jedge," they shouted. 
 And they didn't throw the Judge down. They 
 organized, then and there, a Kid Citizens' League, 
 and the League played square with the Judge. 
 
 It will be noticed that Lindsey made eflFective 
 use in this case of the "gang" which the police 
 and all prematurely old reformers seek only to 
 "break up." The "kids' Jedge" never thought 
 of breaking up such organizations. His sense 
 is for essentials, instinctively, and there's nothing 
 wrong about gangs as such. They are as natural 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 125 
 
 as organizations of men. The only trouble with 
 gangs is that they absorb all the loyalty of the 
 members, turning them from and often against 
 the home, the Law, and the State. But that 
 happens in grown-ups' gangs, too. Railroad and 
 other corporations are gangs which, in the interest 
 of their " business," corrupt the State. Churches 
 are "gangs" whose members submit to evils 
 because, if they fought them, the church might be 
 hurt. So with universities, and newspapers, and 
 all kinds of business organizations. Tammany 
 Hall is only a gang which, absorbing the loyalty 
 of its members, turns it, for the good of the 
 gang, against the welfare of the city. Judge 
 Lindsey simply taught the members of his kid 
 gang what many gangs of grown-ups have to 
 learn, that they are citizens also, and he 
 turned the loyalty of the Kid Citizens' League 
 back to the city, using the honour of the gang 
 as his lever. 
 
 Another similar case came up when two boys 
 were brought in by a policeman from the Union 
 Station. The policeman said they belonged to 
 a gang the members of which stoned him w)^erever 
 they saw him. Why ? Well, he was trying to 
 keep them out of the station and off the grass 
 around the station. What were the boys doing 
 at the station and on the station lawn? They 
 
126 UPBUILDERS 
 
 explained, and they explained with many mani- 
 festations of hate for the cop. They were there 
 to sell papers. It was their place of business, 
 and everybody had acknowledged it — not only 
 all the other newsboys, but everybody else — till, 
 one day, some other bigger boys with red caps 
 appeared there selling papers and things. Then 
 "this cop chased us off." Why? Why had the 
 cop suddenly interfered with their business ? It 
 was his turn to explain, and he explained that the 
 railroad company, having come to realize that the 
 trade in newspapers at the station was profitable, 
 had decided to take a share in it. The con- 
 cession was let to a man who employed the boys 
 with red caps. The man wanted a monopoly. 
 So the policeman had received orders to drive off 
 the other boys. He had obeyed. No explana- 
 tion was given to the boys; no notice. They sud- 
 denly found themselves deprived of their means 
 of livelihood, and resenting it, blamed the cop 
 and — stoned him. 
 
 Thus it was all a misunderstanding, not a 
 "crime" at all, and the Judge undertook to clear 
 it up to the satisfaction of all concerned. Hav- 
 ing explained it to the two boys under arrest, he 
 enlisted their services in behalf of the Court to 
 bring in the others who were "in it" but had not 
 been caught. The policeman, knowing how hard 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 127 
 
 it had been to catch two, was scornful of the 
 Judge's confidence of getting the rest, but he was 
 invited to be present at the hour appointed for the 
 "round up," and he was not a little chagrined 
 when his two prisoners returned with twenty- 
 four other kids. The Judge lined up the gang 
 on one side of the room, the policeman and his 
 friends on the other. This was the Juvenile 
 Court in session; let the Judge describe what 
 happened : 
 
 "I proceeded to explain why it was that the 
 owners of the station had a right to grant 'con- 
 cessions' to the man who employed the boys 
 with the red caps to sell papers and carry bag- 
 gage to the exclusion of all others; why, if the 
 company demanded it, they had a right to pro- 
 tection for their lawn; how all of this was justi- 
 fied by the Law, which secured the right of every 
 man in the enjoyment of his property; how it 
 was not the officer's doings, but the Law that 
 required him to perform his duty; how, therefore, 
 they had no real grievance against the police- 
 man — rather their sympathies should be with 
 him. After the sympathetic admission by both 
 the officer and the Court that if it were our station 
 and grounds all boys could play on the grass and 
 sell papers there, there was gained for the pohce- 
 man sympathy and loyalty. As 'little citizens,' 
 
128 UPBUILDERS 
 
 interested in a * decent town of decent kids,' they 
 agreed not only to 'keep off' and 'keep out' them- 
 selves, but to keep other boys out; and everyone 
 agreed 'on the square' that he would give any 
 kid there leave to ' snitch ' to me, if any boy broke 
 his word and was not square. Thus harmony 
 was established between their world and ours, 
 and we all pulled together one way." 
 
 As the Judge remarked to me, those boys did 
 what few men would do; they gave up their busi- 
 ness "just because it was right." All that was 
 necessary was to make them understand the right 
 and their duties, and then to interest them in the 
 "game of correction." 
 
 The arena for the great game of correction is 
 the Court of Probation. Held every other Satur- 
 day forenoon, it is a picturesque and a very pleas- 
 ant spectacle. All the "bad" boys in town who 
 have been caught committing mistakes or who 
 have "snitched up" on themselves, assemble 
 there to report. It isn't new. Like the Juvenile 
 Court itself, the "method" of putting children 
 on probation did not originate with Judge Lind- 
 sey. • Yet he discovered it himself. As I quote 
 him as saying above, he didn't know about such 
 things. When he went first to the home of the 
 "cave-dweller" to investigate, he was performing 
 one function of a probation officer; and when he 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 129 
 
 went there again and again, he was holding a 
 court of probation. So with the three pigeon 
 burglars and their gang; he went to see them, 
 but there was no method as yet. It was only as 
 the cases grew that the Judge had to ask the 
 boys to come to see him, and then, finally, to 
 appoint a time and place where most of the boys 
 could meet all together with him; and that was 
 the origin of Judge Lindsay's Court of Probation, 
 the institution. 
 
 But there is more than that to the story of it. 
 The Judge feels that he suffered as " a little shaver" 
 from lack of approbation. He was born in Ten- 
 nessee and his family, well-to-do Southern people, 
 were brought to trouble and to Denver by 
 the War. His father died, and Ben had to work 
 hard as a boy. For a long time he had three 
 jobs: he carried newspapers in the early morn- 
 ing; worked all day in a lawyer's office; and, 
 after hours, served as janitor. Always slight of 
 build, he was often worn out; apd nobody appre- 
 ciated it. He was only doing his duty, and it 
 nearly killed him — literally. He sank under 
 his load to the very verge of despair; and he learned 
 the value of a kind word of sympathy and good 
 cheer. 
 
 Many of the bad boys who came to his court 
 were lonely little fellows. They had no home and 
 
I30 UPBUILDERS 
 
 no friends, and he found in their hearts a long- 
 ing which he knew all about. He gave them the 
 sympathetic hearing and the kind word he had 
 wanted, and "they drank," he says, "they drank 
 in my friendship as if they were famished." 
 Right there we have one secret of his "hypnotic" 
 influence over children. The Judge is proud now 
 of the fact that he has made himself a friend of 
 every boy in town, or, at least, of every "feller 
 that needs a friend," and he will tell you the 
 philosophy and the use of his method if you care 
 to listen. He will tell you how he learned from 
 the gangs that the members thereof did bad things 
 largely because some big fellow, who was bad, 
 or some leader of their own, suggested to them 
 evil and praised them for its accomplishment. 
 He will reason it all out for you, now, if you wish, 
 showing how by his method he has put himself 
 in the place of the big fellow; made himself the 
 fountain of praise, the source of approbation, 
 "the feller" for whose good words kids do good 
 things now. In short, Ben Lindsey is the actual 
 leader of most of the gangs of Denver. And the 
 loyalty which the boys give to him, he is giving 
 back to the State. 
 
 All this, however, is but the unforeseen result 
 of this kind man's native sweetness and strength. 
 The only definitely thought-out method is that 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 131 
 
 of having the boys bring reports from the schools. 
 " If you want a boy's loyalty, excite his interest." 
 It was easy enough for the Judge to excite the 
 boy's interest; the problem was to keep it. In 
 the early history of the court, before the new laws, 
 he had no probation officers to follow up his cases, 
 and since there was too much for him to do, he 
 bethought him of the school teachers. The Judge 
 has always been clear on the point that his Juve- 
 nile Court is merely supplementary, that the home 
 and the school are the places where juvenile char- 
 acter should be moulded, and that he had to do 
 only with those children who, for some reason. 
 Were not successfully treated in the regular way. 
 Thus he was helping the teachers, and since he 
 needed help, he went to the teachers for it, and 
 he got it. The school teachers of Denver have 
 been his mainstay. All that the Judge required 
 of the teachers was a report as to how the boys in 
 his Court of Probation were doing in deportment 
 and studies. 
 
 "What I was after," the Judge explained, 
 "was something for which I could praise the boy 
 in open court. Believing in approbation as an 
 incentive, I had to have their reports for the boy 
 to show me, in order that I might have a basis 
 for encouraging comment, or, if the reports were 
 not up to the mark, for sympathy. It didn't 
 
132 UPBUILDERS 
 
 matter to me very much what the reports were 
 about. Some of the teachers couldn't see at first 
 why they should report on the scholarship of a 
 boy who was good at school and bad — a thief, 
 perhaps — out of school. But you can see that 
 these fortnightly reports were an excuse for keep- 
 ing up my friendly relationship with the boy, 
 holding his loyalty, and maintaining our com- 
 mon interest in the game of correction he and 
 I were playing together. Since we had a truancy 
 law, the teachers were in touch and thus could 
 keep me in touch with every boy under school age 
 in the city, and their reports were my excuse for 
 praise or appeal." 
 
 Judge Lindsey's Court of Probation is thus a 
 Court of Approbation. It serves other purposes; 
 indeed, it is everything to the boys of Den- 
 ver. It is the State, the Law, and Justice; it is 
 Home, School, Club, and Society; it is Friend- 
 ship, Success, and the scene of Triumphs; it is 
 the place also where Failure goes for Help 
 and for Hope renewed. It is all that Judge 
 Lindsey is; all that he means to the minds of 
 the boys. For the Judge's personality makes it, 
 his and the boys', and they made it up out of 
 their own needs. 
 
 The boys assemble early, two or three hun- 
 dred of them, of all ages and all sorts, "small 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 133 
 
 kids" and "big fellers"; well-dressed "lads" 
 and ragged "little shavers"; burglars who have 
 entered a store, and burglars who have "robbed 
 back" pigeons; thieves who have stolen bicycles, 
 and thieves who have "swiped" papers; "toughs" 
 who have "sassed" a cop or stoned a conductor, 
 and boys who have talked bad language to little 
 girls, or who "hate their father," or who have 
 been backward at school and played hookey 
 because the teacher doesn't like them. It isn't 
 generally known, and the Judge rarely tells just 
 what a boy has done; the deed doesn't matter, 
 you know, only the boy, and all boys look pretty 
 much alike to the Judge and to the boys. So 
 they all come together there, except that boys 
 who work, and newsboys, when there's an extra 
 out, are excused to come at another time. But 
 nine o'clock Saturday morning finds most of the 
 "fellers" in their seats,^ looking as clean as pos- 
 sible, and happy. 
 
 The Judge comes in and, passing the bench, 
 which looms up empty and useless behind him, 
 he takes his place, leaning against the clerk's 
 table or sitting on a camp-chair. 
 
 "Boys," he begins, "last time I told you about 
 Kid Dawson and some other boys who used to be 
 with us here and who 'made good.' To-day 
 I've got a letter from the Kid. He's in Oregon, 
 
134 UPBUILDERS 
 
 and he's doing well. I'll read you what he says 
 about himself and his new job." 
 
 And he reads the letter, which is full of details 
 roughly set in a general feeling of encouragement 
 and self-confidence. 
 
 "Fine, isn't it!" the Judge says. "Kid Daw- 
 son had a mighty hard time with himself for 
 awhile, but you can see he's got his hand on his 
 throttle now. Well, let's see. The last time, 
 I talked about snitching, didn't I ? To-day 
 I'm going to talk about ' ditching. ' " And he is off 
 on the address, with which he opens court. His 
 topics are always interesting to boys, for he 
 handles his subjects boy-fashion. "Snitching," 
 the favourite theme, deals with the difference 
 between "snitching," which is telling on another 
 boy to hurt him; and "snitching on the square," 
 which is intended to help the other fellow. " Ditch- 
 ing" is another popular subject. "To ditch" a 
 thing is to throw it away; and the Judge, starting 
 off with stories of boys who have ditched their 
 commitment papers, proceeds to tell about others 
 who, "like Kid Dawson out there in Oregon," 
 have "ditched" their bad habits and "got strong." 
 I heard him ori Arbor Day speak on trees; how 
 they grew, some straight, some crooked. There's 
 always a moral in these talks, but the Judge 
 makes it plain and blunt; he doesn't "rub it in." 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 135 
 
 After the address, which is never long, the 
 boys are called up by schools. Each boy is greeted 
 by himself, but the Judge uses only his given or 
 nickname. "The boys from the Arapahoe 
 Street School," he calls, and, as the group comes 
 forward, the Judge reaches out and seizing 
 one by the shoulder, pulls him up to him, saying: 
 
 "Skinny, you've been doing fine lately; had a 
 crackerjack report every time. I just want to 
 see if you have kept it up. Bet you have. Let's 
 see." He opens the report. "And you have. 
 That's great. Shake, Skin. You're all right, 
 you are." Skinny shines. 
 
 Pointing at another, he says : " And you. Mumps, 
 you got only 'fair' last time. What you got this 
 time ? You promised me * excellent,' and I know 
 you've made good." He tears open the envelope. 
 "Sure," he says. "You've done it. Bully for 
 you." Turning to the room, he tells " the fellers " 
 how Mumps began playing hookey, and was so 
 weak he simply thought he couldn't stay in school. 
 "He blamed the teacher; said she was down on 
 him. She wasn't at all. He was just weak, 
 Mumps was; had no backbone at all. But look 
 at him now. He's bracing right up. You watch 
 Mumps. He's the 'stuff,' Mumps is. Aren't 
 you. Mumps ? Teacher likes you now all right, 
 doesn't she? Yes, And she tells me she does. 
 
136 UPBUILDERS 
 
 Go on now and keep it up, Mumps. I believe 
 in you." 
 
 "Why, Eddie," the Judge says, as another boy 
 comes up crying. "What are you crying for? 
 Haven't you made good ? " 
 
 "No, sir," Eddie says, weeping the harder. 
 
 "Well, I told you I thought you'd better go to 
 Golden. You don't want to go, eh ? Get an- 
 other job, you say ? But you can't keep it, Eddie. 
 You know you can't. Give you another chance ? 
 What's the use, Eddie ? You'll lose it. The 
 best thing for you, Eddie, is Golden. They'll 
 help you up there, make you stick to things, just 
 make you; and so you'll get strong." 
 
 Eddie swims in tears, and it seemed to me 
 I'd have to give that boy "another chance," but 
 the Judge, who is called "easy," was not moved 
 at all. His mind was on the good of that boy; 
 not on his own feelings, nor yet on the hoy's. 
 "You see," said he to me, "he is hysterical, abnor- 
 mal. The discipline of Golden is just what he 
 needs." And he turned to the room full of boys. 
 
 "Boys," he said, "I'm going to send Eddie up 
 to Golden. He hasn't done wrong; not a thing. 
 But he's weak. He and I have tried again and 
 again to win out down here in the city, and he 
 wants another trial. But I think a year or so at 
 Golden will brace Eddie right up, and make him 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 137 
 
 a strong, manly fellow. He's not going up there 
 to be punished. That isn't what Eddie needs, 
 and that isn't what Golden is for. Is it, fellers ?" 
 
 "No, sir," the room shouted. 
 
 "It would be unjust to punish Eddie, but 
 Eddie understands that. Don't you, Eddie?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, but" (blubbering), "Judge, I think 
 if I only had one more show I could do all right." 
 
 "Eddie, you're wrong about that. I'm sure 
 I'm right. I'm sure that after a year or two you'll 
 be glad I sent you to the school. And I'll be up 
 there in a few days to see you, Eddie, myself. 
 What's more, I know some boys up there — 
 friends of mine, that'll help you, Eddie; be friends 
 to you. They won't want to like a kid that cries, 
 but I'll tell 'em you need friends to strengthen 
 you, and they'll stay with you." 
 
 All forenoon this goes on, the boys coming up 
 in groups to be treated each one by himself. He 
 is known to the Court, well known, and the Judge, 
 his personal friend, and the officers of the Court 
 and the spectators, his fellow-clubmen, all rejoice 
 with him, if he is "making good," and if he is 
 doing badly, they are sorry. And in that case, 
 he may be invited to a private talk with the Judge, 
 a talk, mind you, which has no terrors for the 
 boy, only comfort. They often seek such inter- 
 views voluntarily. They sneak into the Judge's 
 
138 UPBUILDERS 
 
 chambers or call at his house to "snitch up" 
 that they are not doing well. And the boys who 
 sit there and see this every two weeks, or hear all 
 about it, they not only have forgotten all their 
 old fear of the Law; they go to the Court now as 
 to a friend, they and their friends. For Judge 
 Lindsey had not been doing "kid justice to kids" 
 very long before all Bojrville knew it. The 
 rumour spread like wildfire. The boys "snitched" 
 on the Judge, "snitched on the square"; they 
 told one another that the County Judge was all 
 right. 
 
 The Judge tells many stories to illustrate the 
 change that followed. Once as he approached 
 a group of boys, one of them said : " There's th' 
 Jedge, fellers," and two kids dived down an 
 alley. The others gathered around the Judge. 
 
 "Who were those boys that ran away?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "Who.? Them? Oh," came the answer, 
 "the/re kids from K. C." (Kansas City); "they 
 ain't on to the game here." 
 
 Another time the Judge was walking along the 
 street arguing with me that stealing isn't a 
 heinous crime in a boy, and that it shouldn't 
 be treated with holy horror. Most boys swipe 
 something at one time or another; and to prove 
 his point, he halted before a "gang." 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 139 
 
 "Say, kids," he said, and, as they looked up, 
 he asked : " how many of you fellers have swiped 
 things ? " 
 
 Every boy's hand shot up in the air. The 
 Judge had proved his point, but he had proved 
 also another thing. Those boys knew he was 
 the Judge, yet they were not afraid to tell the truth. 
 Or, to state the situation more completely: those 
 boys knew he was the Judge and therefore they 
 were not afraid to tell him the truth. Not all 
 these boys had been in his Court; in fact, only one 
 or two had; but that didn't matter. All the boys 
 of Denver know of the Judge, and what they know 
 of him is that though he represents the Law and 
 the State, he is "all right." 
 
 One afternoon, a boy of about ten years stuck 
 his head into the door of the Judge's private 
 room. 
 
 " Is the Judge in ? " he asked. 
 
 "Yes," said the Judge. 
 
 " Is this him ? " the boy asked. 
 
 "Yes, my boy. I'm the Judge." 
 
 "Well, I'm Johnny Rosenbaum, and I came 
 down here to see you." 
 
 "Yes ? I'm glad you've come, John, but what 
 did you come for ? " 
 
 "Well," he said, "Joe Rosenthal, he used to 
 come down here, and he 'swiped' things once. 
 
HO UPBUILDERS 
 
 And I 'swiped' something, and he said I better 
 come down here and see you about it." 
 
 " All right, but what have you come to me about 
 it for?" 
 
 The tears started. "Well," he said, "I came 
 down here to tell you I'd cut it out and never do 
 it again. And I thought I better get here before 
 the cop did. Joe said the cop *ud ditch a kid that 
 swiped things, but that you'd help a feller to 
 ditch the swipin'." 
 
 "Yes, I'll help you ditch swipin', but you're 
 a mighty little boy; how did you find the way 
 down here alone ? " 
 
 "Oh," he said, "'most every kid I seed knew 
 about it, and they passed me down th' line to 
 here." 
 
 Johnny Rosenbaum was put on probation, and 
 he began overcoming evil with good, as he proved 
 one day in court. Sometimes the Judge will turn 
 to the boys and ask whether any feller has done that 
 week a thing good enough to make up for an evil 
 thing done before. Once, when he asked this 
 question, Johnny rose and said : 
 
 " Judge, some of the kids I run with was diggin' 
 a cave, and we wanted a shovel, and they said: 
 'Let's go and swipe one.' So they wanted to put 
 me into Mr. Putnam's barn where the shovel 
 was, through a little hole that nobody but a little 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 141 
 
 kid could crawl through. And I says, 'No, I 
 gotter report down to th' Judge, and I told him 
 that I'd cut out swipin' and when I got a chanct 
 I'd do a good thing. Now is my chanct,' I says. 
 ' I won't swipe th' shovel,' I says, ' and you mustn't,' 
 I says to them. "Now I ain't goin' to snitch on 
 who the fellers was because they says 'AH right, 
 we won't swipe the shovel.' And I went 'round 
 and I ast Mr. Putnam to borrow us the shovel, 
 and he said he would. So we got the shovel on 
 th' square. But, Judge, if I hadn't done that 
 they would have swiped the shovel, wouldn't 
 they ? " 
 
 "Yes, John," said the Judge. "They would 
 have swiped the shovel, and if you ever swiped 
 anything in your life, you have more than made 
 up for it by doing the right thing this time." 
 
 Another case of "making good" was that of 
 Eli Carson. Eli told at a meeting how his news 
 gang down in the Post alley were going to " swipe 
 a box of cherries ofF'n Wolf Londoner's grocery 
 store." "I says it wasn't square," said Eli, 
 "and the other kids, they all allowed it wasn't 
 either. Texas was th' kid that said first to swipe 
 th' cherries; and he thought afterwards it was best 
 not to do it. And I wanted to tell you. Judge, 
 that I had done a good thing, but Texas he didn't 
 want me to. But by and by Texas changed his 
 
142 UPBUILDERS 
 
 mind, and says I could tell you. So I'm not 
 snitchin', am I ? " 
 
 "An experience like that," the Judge said by 
 way of comment, "goes to show that my theory 
 is correct, that all we need is an influence for 
 good to counteract the influence for bad of the 
 gang. For Texas is a well-known newsboy, and 
 had Eli not been a member of our gang, coming to 
 Court where he could tell his experiences in the 
 presence of one hundred and fifty other boys, 
 and be praised, why, then, Eli would have wanted 
 to please Texas. As it is, he wants to please me 
 and the Court gang; and Texas does, too." 
 
 Another instance of faith in the Court: The 
 Judge had been trying a case all day. It was a 
 grown-up case, difficult and slow, and when the 
 adjournment came late, at six o'clock, the Judge 
 was tired. As the court room cleared, however, 
 he saw a child in a back seat. " He was so small," 
 the Judge says, "that I thought someone must 
 have gone oflF and forgotten him, and I told ' Uncle 
 John' Murrey (the bailiff^ to find out whose child 
 it was. But when Uncle John spoke to him, the 
 little fellow got up, and I saw he was almost ten 
 years old. I called him up to the bench, and he 
 came, and when he reached me he dropped his 
 head on my shoulder and began to sob. 
 
 "Judge," he said, "I'm Clifford, and my 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 143 
 
 mamma don't live here, and I stay with my aunt 
 
 down on Street, so I been swipin' things, 
 
 I have, and I come here to 'cut it out.'" As 
 the tears flowed more abundantly, he said he 
 was sorry and would never do it again if the 
 Judge would "give him a show," as he had another 
 boy he named. The Judge took the little fellow 
 back in his chambers; they had a long talk, and 
 the boy, put on probation, reported regularly 
 and well. " He turned out to be a splendid boy," 
 the Judge says. 
 
 But the best example the Judge gives of the 
 difference in results between the old criminal 
 court system of vengeance and fear and the new 
 method of friendship and service, is a story he tells 
 of two brothers. "Both were wayward," he 
 says. "The older was brought to the criminal 
 court for some boyish offence in the days before 
 the establishment of the Juvenile Court. He 
 was flung into a filthy jail and herded with men 
 and women, where he heard and saw vile and 
 obscene things. He was dragged into court by 
 an officer and put through the poHce court mill. 
 He was only a little boy. He had been sinned 
 against long before his birth. Both by heredity 
 and environment he had been driven to lawless- 
 ness. But the State took no account of this. It 
 had its chance to make a good man of him. He 
 
144 UPBUILDERS 
 
 wanted bread ; the State gave him a stone. • It 
 branded him a criminal, made him a criminal. 
 It made the pressure of evil upon him inexorable. 
 To-day he is a man and in the penitentiary. 
 
 "The younger brother was as wayward as the 
 elder. Four years ago he was brought to the 
 Juvenile Court, defiant and frightened, just as 
 his brother had been taken to another tribunal. 
 The policeman told me the boy was a very Ananias, 
 and I replied that, given the same conditions, he 
 (the cop) would probably have been the same, 
 and the officer went away convinced that there 
 was no use bringing the boys to the Juvenile Court, 
 where the Judge 'did nothing to them.' The 
 policeman would count as nothing the many hours 
 during many weeks that I laboured for that boy. 
 He told me the truth; he convicted himself, but no 
 stigma of conviction was put upon him, and he 
 was not punished. He was put on probation, 
 and encouraged to do his best. He was made to 
 feel that the State was on his side; that the forces 
 of the Law were working for him rather than 
 against him; that the Court was his friend, his 
 appeal when he was in trouble. And that Morris, 
 as I will call him, did feel perfect faith in the Court 
 the Law, and the State, he proved once in an 
 amusing way. 
 
 "One day I was trying an important will case. 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 145 
 
 Millions of dollars were involved. The door 
 opened cautiously, and Morris poked his freckled 
 face in, piping up that he wanted to see the Judge. 
 The bailiff started to shoo him away, but I called 
 in the boy. I ordered a recess. No doubt the 
 distinguished counsel were shocked; certainly 
 they looked shocked. But a live boy looms larger 
 than a dead man's millions to me, and when this 
 boy came into my Court, unafraid, smiling, and 
 sure of justice, I remembered the flash of fear and 
 hatred that I once had seen on this same freckled 
 face. So I beckoned Morris up to me, and I 
 heard his case then and there. He was in busi- 
 ness. He sold newspapers, and his place of busi- 
 ness was a certain busy corner where he dealt 
 not only with pedestrians, but with passengers 
 on passing cars. The 'old cop,' it seemed, had 
 let him 'hop the cars,' and all had gone well till 
 a new cop had come there. The 'new guy,' as 
 Morris called him, had ordered the boy off the 
 corner. 'Thinks 'cause he's a cop he owns the 
 whole town,' said Morris, who was losing about 
 fifty cents a day. The case stated, I asked Mor- 
 ris what he would have me do. 
 
 "Evidently Morris had been reading, as well 
 as selling, his newspapers, for he was ready with 
 his answer. 
 
 "'Judge,' he said, 'can't you gimme one o' 
 
146 UPBUILDERS 
 
 them ihere things they call 'junctions against 
 de fly cop ?' 
 
 " I gave him one. Why not ? I called for 
 an injunction blank, and on it I wrote a note to 
 the policeman. I told him about Morris; not 
 much, but enough to make him understand that 
 the boy was one of my probationers who was try- 
 ing to 'make good'; that he was bringing me good 
 reports from his teachers; and that I hoped the 
 officer would give the boy all the leeway possible. 
 To the boy I explained that the officer repre- 
 sented the Law, as I did, and must be respected 
 accordingly. Morris went away gleefully with 
 his writ." 
 
 And the writ "worked." The Judge says 
 that the next time he saw Morris, he asked the 
 boy about it. Morris said he had "served it all 
 right." 
 
 "An' say. Judge," he said, " it worked fine. De 
 cop liked to 'a' dropped dead when he read it. 
 He tinks I got a pull wit' de Court, so he wants 
 to be my friend. And I don't know but I'll let 
 him in." The Judge spoke for the cop. He 
 told Morris he must be a friend of the policeman, 
 and the boy reported later that he had "let the 
 cop in." And he had. The Judge learned that 
 they became good friends. 
 
 In his comment on this incident, the Judge 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 147 
 
 attributes the difference between Morris and his 
 brother to one thing: "opportunity." "The 
 State," he says, "surrourfded the boy who is in 
 the penitentiary with everything to make him do 
 evil; hence the State must support him now in the 
 penitentiary. The State surrounded Morris with 
 ievery influence to make him do right; hence he is 
 growing up a good citizen who will support the 
 State." There is a great difference there. But 
 I want to point out another "difference," a 
 " method " of the Judge to which he does not refer 
 in anything he ever says about the celebrated 
 injunction case of Morris, the "bad" boy, vs. 
 the new cop on his corner. Recall what the 
 Judge wrote into that injunction. How did he 
 make the policeman obey the writ which the boy 
 served on him ? The Judge simply told the 
 policeman about the boy. Having told the boy 
 about the cop, he related enough of the history of 
 the newsboy to get the cop interested in the boy 
 and in the game of correction which he and the 
 boy were playing together. In other words, 
 Ben Lindsey, the man of heart, reached for the 
 heart of the policeman, and since the heart is a 
 vital spot, it is no wonder "de cop Hked to 'a' 
 dropped dead." 
 
 This, then, is Judge Lindsey's "method." 
 It is an old method. He didn't discover it. A 
 
148 UPBUILDERS 
 
 great religion was founded on "faith, hope, and 
 love" once. That was long ago. The only new 
 and interesting thing about Lindsey's experi- 
 ment is that he finds that this anciept, neglected 
 method " works " — works, too, as I said at the 
 outset, with grown-ups as well as with children, 
 with cops as well as with kids. It has won his 
 fight for him. Yes, he fights. The kids' Judge 
 has had to fight, and, as we shall see, he has 
 fought. The fight isn't finished yet. The "bad" 
 men of Colorado haven't been taught by their 
 State and their courts to see things as the bad boys 
 of Colorado are learning to see them. They 
 also go to the courts for injunctions, and some of 
 them get their writs. Ben B. Lindsey is a man 
 with a man's fight for men on his hands, and he 
 is the kind -of man that finishes his fights. He 
 will win with good men or — he'll wait and win it 
 with bad boys. For his bad boys will grow up 
 some day, and they know what the State can be 
 to a feller and that "there can be no justice with- 
 out the love of man for man." 
 
 II. WHAT MAKES BAD CHILDREN BAD 
 
 If you care to take the measure of Chris- 
 tian civilization in the United States to-day. 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE jUST JUDGE 149 
 
 reflect for a moment frankly upon the meaning 
 of this fact : There is opposition to Judge Lindsey. 
 That men like Heney and La Follette, Everett 
 Colby, and (even) Mark Fagan, should have to 
 fight for the right to do right, is significant enough 
 of the power of evil among us; but Ben Lindsey! 
 This man is so just and so gentle; his purposes are 
 so pure, his work is so beautiful, so successful, 
 and — you would think — so harmless, that no 
 one would expect to see any man's hand raised 
 against the Judge of the Juvenile Court of Den- 
 ver. Callous souls might show indifference, but 
 why opposition ? And such opposition ? 
 
 The two bosses of the two political parties con- 
 spired together once to keep Judge Lindsey off 
 the bench. At another time, some men tempted 
 him to disgrace with a woman ! Legislation is pro- 
 posed (and has been passed) to divide his Court 
 and thus limit his power as a judge to serve the 
 children of his county. Physically delicate, 
 the only rest this overworked man takes is when 
 he travels, as he does, thousands of miles to tell 
 people what wonders "justice with love" has 
 done for the "bad kids" of Denver. This time- 
 off he justifies on the ground that his lectures 
 further the cause of the children elsewhere, and 
 bring in money to carry on his plans for his own 
 "Court gang" at home; and he spends thus all 
 
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 he makes from these lectures, and out of the 
 ;^4,6oo which the county pays him, he retains 
 some other judge to fill his place while he is away. 
 I ask the thousands of men and women who have 
 heard Judge Lindsey tell his stories of boys and 
 girls, to consider what it means, that powerful 
 men in Colorado have drawn a bill that shall 
 "put a stop to this little whipper-snapper's run- 
 ning around all over the country lecturing." This 
 is hate. And the other attacks upon him and 
 his work show a deeper-seated opposition. Why ? 
 
 There's a reason. There are two reasons. 
 One is that Judge Lindsey does not confine him- 
 self to saving the children that are "lost in crime"; 
 he began early to inquire into the causes of juve- 
 nile crime. He asked what made bad children 
 bad. That led him to a study of the conditions 
 of child-life; that led him to the conclusion that 
 the typical environment of an average Christian 
 community was such that even little children could 
 not be good; and that led this man to attack those 
 conditions. In other words, Judge Lindsey has 
 sought not merely to cure but to prevent the evils 
 of child-life. 
 
 "Don't tear down all the time," men shout 
 at reformers. "What we want is reconstructive 
 work." It was Lindsey's "reconstructive work" 
 that threatened to "hurt business." 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 151 
 
 There we have one all-sufficient reason why 
 he has to fight; but there's a second: Ben Lindsey 
 does not limit his labours to the cause of the 
 children. He is celebrated for his juvenile sys- 
 tem, and in Denver you hear that he is " a philan- 
 thropist, and if he would stick to his philanthropic 
 work, he might go on forever." That's a lie. 
 But, as I said, this man should not be known only 
 as the founder of the Juvenile Court; he is doing 
 a man's work for men. The "kids' Judge" of 
 Denver was elected as the County Judge of Den- 
 ver, and as such he dealt out justice to bad men 
 as well as to bad boys, and when by accident one 
 day he discovered evidence of graft in his Court, 
 Judge Lindsey forced the grafters to trial and to 
 conviction. 
 
 Ben Lindsey does his duty, his whole duty as a 
 man, as a citizen, and as a public official, and 
 that's what makes him a menace to Things As 
 They Are in Colorado and in the United States. 
 Like Heney, and La FoUette, and Colby, and (even) 
 Mark Fagan, Ben Lindsey is up against the Sys- 
 tem, and, therefore, like them and like every hon-. 
 est man you hear of in this land, the just Judge 
 has to fight. 
 
 A large part of the opposition to Judge Lindsey^ 
 especially at first, was honest. It was ignorant, 
 but sincere and natural. For, you understand. 
 
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 Lindsey's methods are applied Christianity. With- 
 out thinking much about it he was putting into 
 practice in actual life, and, of all places, in the 
 criminal courts, the doctrine of faith, hope, and 
 charity. In a Christian community this was 
 revolutionary and, "as it was in the beginning," 
 caused a great rumpus. The Bar was shocked. 
 When the Judge, searching the juvenile mind for 
 causes of juvenile crime, saw fear of the Law 
 and hate of the Court in the eyes of the little pris- 
 oners and, looking about him, realized that there 
 was reason for this dread, we have seen how he 
 threw off authority, came down off the bench, 
 subordinated the machinery of justice to the good 
 of the boy, and for routine and vengeance substi- 
 tuted sympathy and help. He took the boys' view 
 of boys' "mistakes," and when he sent a "feller" 
 to the reform school at Golden, it was only upon 
 his own confession and for his own good. The 
 boys understood, but the lawyers wagged their 
 heads: the lawyers, I mean, who regard the Law 
 as a sacred Institution. When they saw a judge 
 who was " a lawyer, and a good lawyer," sweeping 
 aside technicalities and ignoring "good prac- 
 tice" to get at the real, human interest of the 
 prisoner at the bar, they were deeply pained. 
 But the Judge, who understands men as well 
 as he does boys, understood this feeling, and 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 153 
 
 he was patient to explain, and, since this was 
 an honest opposition, he overcame it. He tells 
 the story: 
 
 "I sent a boy to the Industrial School on the 
 charge of 'needing correction for his own good.' 
 The boy had made a clean breast of it to me, and 
 we had such a perfect understanding, that boy 
 and I, that he had taken his commitment papers 
 and gone off by himself to Golden. Then 
 appeared Counsel employed by his parents, de- 
 claring that he had been dealt with without due 
 process of law, no jury trial, etc., etc. He (the 
 lawyer) said he would apply for a writ of 
 habeas corpus. I assured him I could make no 
 objection, but that the boy had been guilty of two 
 or three offences constituting technical burglary, 
 so that while he might be released for the pur- 
 pose of obtaining due process of law, this pro- 
 cess would not only make the boy a burglar and 
 a thief, but would return him, so branded by the 
 records, to the place whence he might be brought 
 upon the habeas corpus writ. 
 
 " The case," says the Judge, " was never brought." 
 Lawyers still lift their brows at Judge Lindsey's 
 "loose practice," but though he has dealt with 
 more than five thousand children's cases, the ques- 
 tion of due process has been raised but once since 
 — at home. A Boston judge demurred not long 
 
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 ago. Lindsey lectured there, teaching his doc- 
 trine that the boy is more important than the 
 Law, and that where justice, bUndfolded, 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." 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 155 
 
 "No," the Judge replied, "all they lack is a fair 
 show and — understanding." And he gave the 
 boys and girls a "show and understanding," 
 and they showed that they understood. He had 
 to fight the doubts of their elders, but he believes 
 in fighting. "The world needs fighting men," 
 he teaches. "Every good, great man was a 
 fighter." So he enlisted the children in his fight 
 for a "decent town of decent kids," by telling 
 them how he was called foolish for putting faith 
 in "bad kids." But also he teaches that "a 
 good example and loving service — these are the 
 weapons of peace." And this, likewise, the kids 
 understood. The difficulty was to make their 
 elders understand, but he was patient, and the 
 children helped him. 
 
 A city ofiicial of high degree, exasperated by the 
 outrageous depredations of a "gang up his way," 
 called on the Judge once to send to prison three 
 of the boys that were under arrest. 
 
 " Born criminals, that's what they are," said the 
 oflicial, and some of their acts were " burglaries." 
 
 The Judge talked with the boys. He got them 
 to bring in the others, and among them was the 
 son of the ofiicial of high degree ! 
 
 "Your son isn't a born criminal," said the 
 Judge, "and neither are the others." 
 
 He sent none of the boys to prison. The Judge 
 
156 UPBUILDERS 
 
 taught them some elementary lessons about 
 crime and, putting them on their honour, let them 
 go "on probation." Their "crimes" ceased. 
 
 The Judge says his service in the Juvenile 
 Court has taught him many things about chil- 
 dren, but the information he has gained there 
 about parents he characterizes as "amazing." 
 He ranks fool fathers and incompetent mothers 
 among the first causes of the troubles of children, 
 and if you add vicious and negligent parents you 
 have nine-tenths of all his children's "cases" 
 accounted for. 
 
 "Children don't rebel at authority," he says, 
 "only at ignorant authority," and there is where 
 many parents fail. "Every father and mother 
 ought to know more about their own children than 
 anyone else. Perhaps, in most cases, they do, 
 but it is amazing how often they don't. And the 
 reason they don't is that they haven't enough 
 love for children to understand them, and not 
 enough character to hold their respect. Their 
 children lie to them, and it is the parents' fault. 
 I recall hardly a single case in the thousands I 
 have dealt with when we did not get the truth 
 from the child; yet in hundreds Tlf these cases the 
 children had lied to the parents. Why ? They 
 were afraid of their parents; they were not under- 
 stood at home." 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 157 
 
 The reference here is not to the parents of the 
 poor "bad kids"; they also have their fauhs, and 
 the Judge has had his troubles with them. But 
 the poor have in poverty an excuse for neglect, 
 and where one parent is vicious, the other is 
 pathetically glad, usually, of help such as Judge 
 Lindsey gave. The poor are "down on" the 
 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Chil- 
 dren, of New York; but for Judge Lindsey, of 
 Denver, they will fight — even at the polls. He 
 won over the poor easily enough. 
 
 His hardest honest battles were with the well-to- 
 do father who "had no time to fuss with his boy," 
 except now and then to "lick him,"and the vain 
 and frivolous mother who "just knew that her" 
 nice little boy" or her "nicer" little girl "wouldn't 
 do such things." Now, the Judge finds that all 
 children are pretty much alike at bottom; they 
 all are "nice," but the Old Harry who is in their 
 parents is in the kids, too; and the Judge doesn't 
 mind. The Judge has a sneaking, human preju- 
 dice against "little prigs"; he rather favours 
 husky lads and mischievous little girls who, if 
 they can do wrong, can do right with equal energy. 
 But the "nice" parents are forever making prigs 
 and snobs of their children or proving to them 
 their elderly assininity. 
 
 "I remember a gentleman," the Judge relates. 
 
158 trPBUILDERS 
 
 "who was most violent in his complaints to me 
 about boys in a certain (fashionable) district who 
 swiped ice-cream and other good things to eat 
 from back porches, and he declared he had for- 
 bidden his boy to go with the suspects. He was 
 the surprised dad of one, the worst of the gang. 
 I had to find it out for him. He should have 
 known it himself. He was too busy downtown all 
 day, and at night too busy denouncing his neigh- 
 bours' children. He is busier now studying his 
 own son. 
 
 " The mother of a very well-to-do family once 
 swept into my chambers, highly indignant that 
 I had sent to the school for her boy who had been, 
 with others, complained against for a serious 
 offence. I had preferred not to send an officer to 
 arrest him. 'I would have you to understand,' 
 she excitedly declared, 'that my boy is no thief; he 
 never did anything wrong in his life.' She knew 
 it because she heard her boy say his prayers every 
 night at her knee. And she knew how he 
 came to be so falsely accused. For she said : ' I 
 know Mrs. A. across the street has been lying 
 about Frank. She is a mean, contemptible old 
 thing. She told Mrs. B. that he did so and so, and 
 I know it is a lie, because Frankie told me so.' 
 I had never heard of Mrs. A. before," the Judge 
 says; "I had got at the truth from the boys them- 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 159 
 
 selves, and Frank had told me all about his part 
 in it. Indeed, we had just finished our talk, and 
 Frank was in the next room waiting for the type- 
 writer to copy a note I had dictated to ask his 
 father not to lick the boy. Frank feared his 
 father, and I knew that the licking would be, not 
 to correct the boy, but to sate the anger of the 
 parent and salve his wounded pride. Children 
 know, and I know, and you know how many a 
 licking is as selfish as that. Well, as the mother 
 ended her tirade, the boy came back with the 
 letter to be signed. His face fell when he saw 
 his mother. 'Now, Frank,' I said, 'tell your 
 mother what you have told me.' He did. She 
 sank into a chair with a frightened little sigh : ' Well 
 who would have believed it ? ' Another mother, 
 in an exactly similar situation, after nearly faint- 
 ing away, suddenly arose and, with the image of 
 Mrs. A. plainly in her mind, persuaded her little 
 Frankie to repudiate his confession and stick to 
 the lie. Her little Frankie didn't turn out as well, 
 but the one I saved from a 'lickin" has been a 
 princely little fellow ever since this, his first real 
 lesson." 
 
 Experiences like these would make an ordinary 
 man feel like "licking" Frankie's busy father 
 and humiliating his silly mother, and Judge Lind- 
 sey has some very healthy, human feelings about 
 
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 such things, as he shows by the way he writes of 
 them. The man has humour and heat, but also 
 he has charity and infinite patience. He was as 
 gentle with those parents as he was with their chil- 
 dren. Having discovered early that many parents 
 thought less of their children than of what their 
 neighbours might say, the Judge provided privacy. 
 We have seen him calling up boys in his Pro- 
 bation Court by schools, and addressing them by 
 their first or "nick" names. This he does to 
 spare not only the pride of the boy, but the vanity 
 of his father and mother. And so he abolished 
 criminal records in the Juvenile Court, not only 
 to save a boy from growing up with a rogue's 
 name to burden him, but to shield his family from 
 " disgrace." 
 
 But the best example of his practice of privacy 
 and consideration for both parents and children 
 is his method of dealing with girls. He himself 
 seldom speaks of this part of his work, and the 
 reason is that he finds it is a sex-problem. Some 
 women, who themselves are students of delin- 
 quent children and who admire Lindsey's ser- 
 vice with boys, say that he errs with girls. 
 
 "Little girls steal, lie, and do all the other things 
 that boys do," they say. "The police don't 
 arrest them as often, but the problem of the girls 
 is as various and as complex as that of the boys." 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE i6i 
 
 However that may be, Lindsey finds the sex-prob- 
 lem big enough to alarm him; and he says his ob- 
 servations are borne out by men who know in 
 other cities. 
 
 In brief, it is another case of parental ignor- 
 ance and Anglo-Saxon prudery. Parents do not 
 like to tell their children the essential, natural 
 facts of sex; they think their children too inno- 
 cent. The result is that their children learn them 
 at school or at play from other people's children, 
 "bad" boys and "forward" girls, who impart all 
 this knowledge in the very vilest form. And 
 the Judge, probing into the doings of boys and 
 girls brought before him for other things, dis- 
 covered that these lessons had taken a practical 
 turn; that in certain schools, where the thing got 
 started, it had spread to include, in one case fif- 
 teen, in another nearly all the little girls in the 
 school. What did he do about it ? 
 
 First, he got the truth. Girls lie more readily 
 and more obstinately than boys, but he per- 
 suaded them to tell all about it. And this he 
 accomplished by affecting no horror of the sub- 
 ject. He treated it naturally. He didn't take the 
 course the world would have taken, and especially 
 the women's world — he didn't make the poor 
 little girl feel that she was lost forever and ever. 
 As with boys, he called it " all a mistake," and a 
 
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 mistake that could be retrieved. Having the 
 truth, he called in the mother. It is a fact for 
 mothers to ponder that no children wanted mamma 
 and papa to know; they would get no such can- 
 dour and no such sympathetic understanding 
 at home as they got from their Judge. But the 
 Judge insisted, and after an hour with the child, 
 he often had to spend hours with the mother to 
 prepare her to be motherly. She was horror- 
 stricken; she thought of the disgrace; of what Mrs. 
 A. would say. But the Judge had foreseen all 
 that. He had other women calling on him the 
 same day, other mothers and unmarried women. 
 The shocked mother's good name was shielded, 
 and she and her daughter were brought together. 
 For once, no lies, no vanities, no hypocrisies, and 
 no false modesty stood between them, and there- 
 fore there was no lack of a perfect understanding. 
 In one case the Judge was so stirred by the extent 
 to which the schools had been cursed by this evil 
 that he called a "meeting of mothers." No one 
 knew what it was for; mothers not involved were 
 invited with those that were in trouble; school 
 teachers and other women; some of the "best" 
 women in town. There, all together, the women 
 of Denver were informed, warned, and instructed 
 in private. It was beautifully done. No names 
 were mentioned, of course, not even the name of 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 163 
 
 the school, and no breath of the purpose of that 
 meeting ever leaked out. 
 
 The head of one of the public utility companies 
 once marked Lindsey for defeat, and one of his 
 executive staff remonstrated. 
 
 "Oh, no," he said, "not Lindsey." 
 
 "What!" exclaimed the magnate. "You, 
 too ? Everywhere I turn it is, ' Oh, no, not 
 Lindsey.' My wife is for Lindsey,, my mother 
 is for Lindsey, my sisters are for Lindsey. 
 And now you are for Lindsey. What is it that 
 makes everybody and everything fight for this 
 judge?" 
 
 Everybody doesn't fight for Judge Lindsey; only 
 those are for him who know how he has conspired 
 with them in secret to help their little boy or their 
 little girl. But these are legion. Poor and rich, 
 "everybody" has knowledge of private calls 
 made by this man; of hours, days, weeks spent 
 on the case of somebody's bad little boy whom 
 they have seen afterward being "good" to 
 " show 'em that th' Jedge is dead right in bankin' 
 on th' honour of a kid." Opposition ? That 
 of the parents of Denver melted like one of Den- 
 ver's summer snows. 
 
 All the opposition to faith in mischievous 
 boys soon disappeared, but there remained the 
 fear of this treatment for "really bad" boys. 
 
1 64 UPBUILDERS 
 
 The police represented the old policy of ven- 
 geance and prison. When the Judge received 
 official permission to deal v?ith all juvenile 
 cases, and they saw what his treatment was — 
 faith and hope and love — they snorted. The 
 town snorted with them, and when the police 
 held back its "criminals born," public opinion 
 backed the police. But the Judge is a politi- 
 cian, too; he knows the game, and he went after 
 the police. How ? He might have exercised 
 his authority, and he has done that since, in his 
 fights with the dishonest opposition of the police. 
 But this was honest opposition, this that came 
 first. It was nothing but the natural conservatism 
 of human nature, and he was patient with it. 
 He reasoned with the police. He "showed 
 them." He got the bad boys to help him "show 
 'em," just as the "nice" boys had helped him 
 show the "good" people up on the hill. Judge 
 Lindsey came down off the bench to go into the 
 jails and bring into his Court the "criminals 
 born"; and he brought them there, and there 
 he gave to them also trust, encouragement, and 
 service, and, like the good boys, the bad ones 
 gave him back faith for faith, hope for hope, and 
 for his love, their loyalty, and — his greatest 
 triumph. 
 
 That is what most of the admirers of Judge 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 165 
 
 Lindsey call his practice of trusting young 
 "criminals" to go alone to Golden. Other 
 triumphs of his seem to me to be greater, but 
 certainly the sight of "a convict," and a boy 
 convict at that, receiving his commitment papers 
 from the Judge and passing through the streets, 
 taking train and changing cars to get to Golden, 
 and there delivering himself up — this is indeed 
 a spectacle to see. And it is a common spec- 
 tacle in Denver. Judge Lindsey hardly ever 
 sends an officer with a boy now, and out of the 
 hundreds he has trusted, only three have failed 
 him. One of these I saw. He was " Eddie," the 
 boy I told about in the first part of this story, who 
 was hysterical, and the Judge had doubts about 
 him; indeed, he put him privately in charge of a 
 "tough kid" who was going also to the school, 
 and it was the tough kid who reported by tele- 
 phone from the station where they changed cars, 
 that "Eddie can't seem to make it. Judge. He 
 don't say he won't, but he cries, and I guess he 
 ain't strong enough." 
 
 Another of the three failures was a boy who 
 was started twice, and when the Judge reproached 
 him for his weakness, suggested a way to beat 
 himself. "Try me by another road. Judge," 
 he said. "This road goes right by my old 
 stamping ground, and when I see th' gang playin' 
 
i66 UPBUILDERS 
 
 'round, I can't help it. I just have to drop ofF 
 th' car." The Judge gave him tickets over 
 another route, and that night received word that 
 the boy had "made it." 
 
 Well, this practice of the Judge was begun on 
 an impulse in this first, honest conflict with the 
 police. They had caught two "dangerous young 
 criminals," boys with records for serious. crimes 
 and jail breaking, and the Judge, having found 
 them in the cells, talked with them. One night 
 the Judge telephoned to the warden to send over 
 two of the boys. An officer brought one. "I 
 think," the Judge says, "that the warden's idea 
 was that it was dangerous to send two at one 
 time without handcufi^s on them, and the police 
 knew it offended me to have them come into my 
 Court or my chambers with young fellows hand- 
 cuffed." 
 
 When the officer came In with the boy, he spoke 
 in an undertone to the Judge, warning him that 
 the prisoner was the "worst in the bunch," and 
 that every time he had brought him to that 
 room, the boy had eyed the window with the 
 fire-escape. 
 
 " Better let me stay here," said the officer. The 
 Judge said he would take his chances. "All 
 right," said the officer, and he smiled, "but we 
 shall have to hold you responsible. You know 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 167 
 
 what it has cost the county to catch this prisoner." 
 The Judge knew, and he promised to give a 
 written order of court, if necessary, and the 
 officer left. 
 
 It was ten o'clock at night, dark and cold. 
 The boy, sixteen years old, was strong, and his 
 face was not very prepossessing. The Judge 
 is built like a flower, but he had worked hard 
 on this boy, and he believed in his "method." 
 So when the door closed behind the officer, he 
 went straight up to the boy. 
 
 "Henry," he said, "the officer who brought 
 you here says you had your eye on the fire-escape, 
 and that you are looking for a chance to 'skip.' 
 He said he wouldn't be responsible for your 
 return to jail if I made him leave you alone in 
 this room with me. He said that you'd be down 
 that fire-escape quicker'n a wink. Now, I don't 
 believe it. I believe in you, Henry, and I hope 
 you believe in me." 
 
 With that, the Judge went to the window 
 and, throwing it up as high as it would go, 
 he said : 
 
 "There, Henry, there's the fire-escape and the 
 night and two hours the best of it, for I'll promise, 
 if you decide to ' duck,' not to report to the Warden 
 till twelve o'clock. Now, then, if you think you 
 are not worth saving, not worth helping — if 
 
1 68 UPBUILDERS 
 
 all the hours I have spent with you in jail are to 
 go for nothing, you 'scoot.' I'll not interfere. 
 I leave it to you. I can't save a fellovsr, you 
 know, not by myself; I can only help a fellow to 
 save himself, if he wants to. If he doesn't want 
 to, and I can't convince him that he ought to 
 want to, then I do not see much hope. So, go 
 or stay, as you wish, Henry." 
 
 "Do you mean that. Judge?" the boy asked, 
 and the Judge thinks his impulse was to go. 
 
 "You know what I mean," he answered, and 
 for a moment the two looked at each other. 
 
 "Then," says the Judge, "I thought I saw a 
 peculiar shadow cross his face, and I believed 
 he understood. I went back to my table and sat 
 down. I must confess it was an anxious moment 
 for me. I wasn't sure that I had made on that 
 boy the impression I hoped to make. He looked 
 so hard. And he wavered there. I hardly 
 dared to look at him. I thought of the ridicule 
 of the police, of the failure and what it would 
 mean: the defeat of the policy I was coming to 
 believe in. And there that boy hung, swinging, 
 actually swinging. Well, he had a certain pecu- 
 liar swinging gait, and when he made a lurch 
 for that window, my heart rose in my throat. 
 His hand went up in the air, and I thought he 
 was gone. But no — the hand that went up 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 169 
 
 seized the window and brought it down with a 
 slam and a bang. Then the boy came and sat 
 down at my table. 
 
 "'Judge,' he said In a very simple, almost 
 boyish way, 'I'll stay with you. I never had 
 nobody talk to me like you. I'll do anything 
 you say for me to do.' " 
 
 So they talked. The Judge told the boy he 
 might have to go to Buena Vista (the peniten- 
 tiary), and they discussed that. And they 
 discussed crime and the police, till it was time 
 for Henry to go back to the jail. And then — 
 the Judge sent him back alone, and he went 
 back alone, and he took voluntarily his place 
 behind the bars! 
 
 It "worked," this "method" did, so the Judge 
 adopted it as a method. It would strengthen the 
 boys. He told the police that he proposed 
 thereafter to trust all prisoners to go alone to 
 Golden. The police laughed. It is said that 
 they passed the word to put up a job on the 
 Judge. At any rate, the next boy for Golden 
 was Billy B., a chronic little runaway, and with 
 the two policemen who brought him in came 
 two reporters. The officers excused their double 
 patrol by pointing to a brand-new shine-box 
 which Billy carried as evidence that he meant 
 to "skip." That kid had given them a two 
 
170 UPBUILDERS 
 
 weeks' chase, they said, and they weren't taking 
 any chances on him. The Judge might, they 
 implied, but there were the two reporters to bear 
 witness that, if Billy skipped, it was no fault of 
 the police. As a matter of fact, one of the re- 
 porters told the Judge that the papers had been 
 "tipped off to send them out and get a good story 
 on the Judge." 
 
 When the case was called, everybody was 
 laughing in his sleeve, everybody but the Judge 
 and Billy B. The Judge was anxious, and the 
 boy was sobbing in a corner with his shine-box 
 hugged to his breast. Billy was only twelve 
 years old. He had no father, and his mother 
 was a washerwoman. He had learned early to 
 tramp. The Judge had worked with him, but 
 when the " movin'-about fever" got hold of Billy, 
 Billy had to move. And he had the fever now. 
 He admitted it to the Judge, and when the Judge 
 said he must go to Golden, the little fellow burst 
 into tears. He had visions of stone walls and 
 iron bars, with a policeman standing over him 
 with a club all the rest of his days. That is what 
 prison means to boys, and Golden was prison to 
 Billy. So he dropped on his knees and begged 
 the Judge not to send him away, promising piti- 
 fully "never to do it again." Billy was simply 
 afraid. 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 171 
 
 "Billy," said the Judge, "you are crying be- 
 cause you are scared. What are you scared of? 
 Me ? Why should you be afraid of me ? 
 Haven't I given you a square deal ? Haven't I 
 given you every chance I could, helped you every- 
 way to be a good boy at home ?" 
 
 "Yes," Billy sobbed, "but " 
 
 "You can't be a good boy at home. You 
 don't get a fair chance at home. You vrant to 
 move on all the time, and by and by you'll just 
 be a 'vag.' Now, you don't want to grow up 
 to be a bum; do you ? No, you want a chance 
 to learn a trade and be a man." 
 
 The Judge explained at length that Golden 
 wasn't a reformatory or a prison. It was only 
 a school, a good industrial school, where a poor 
 kid that hadn't a chance at home could learn a 
 trade. "Why," said the Judge, "I've been there. 
 I like to go there. And I tell you everybody up 
 there just loves a kid that tries to do his best, 
 and they help him. Nobody hates a kid at 
 Golden. No, siree." 
 
 By and by, the tears ceased to flow. The 
 Judge described the school, its shops, its mili- 
 tary organization, its baseball nines, and then, 
 as the Judge relates, "when fear vanished, 
 and interest began, I appealed to the boy's 
 nobility, to his honour, pride, his loyalty to me." 
 
172 UPBUILDERS 
 
 Judge Lindsey seized for this purpose the very 
 preparations the police had made for their 
 "jokeon the Judge." He introduced Billy to the 
 reporters. 
 
 "What do you think the cops have told these 
 reporters, Billy?" he said. "They have told 
 them that that fool Judge was going to trust little 
 Billy B. to go to the industrial school all by 
 himself, and that they were going to have the 
 laugh on the Judge because they knew Billy 
 better than the Judge did. They say they 
 know you'll never go, and they are saying what a 
 fine joke it will be to have the reporters write a 
 story to-morrow telling how the Judge trusted 
 Billy, and Billy threw the Judge down, ditched 
 his papers, and ran away. And, gee whiz, it 
 would be tough if I did get thrown down. But 
 I'm not scared. I believe in you, and I'm going 
 to trust you. I am going to give you these, 
 your commitment papers, and your railroad 
 ticket, and we'll see whether you stay with me 
 or stay with the police. I want these reporters 
 to tell just what happens, so it'll be up to you, 
 Billy, to go to Golden or skip." 
 
 As the Judge proceeded, Billy's head began 
 to go up in the air. By and by he pushed the 
 cold tears out of his eyes, and when the Judge 
 ceased to speak, those eyes were blazing. 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 173 
 
 "Judge," he said, "you know John Handing, 
 don't you?" 
 
 The Judge hesitated. 
 
 "You know, Judge; the kid th' fellers call 
 Fatty Felix." 
 
 "Yes, yes," said the Judge. 
 
 "Well," said Billy, "he's my chum. Fatty 
 is. Now, here's my shine-box. You give that 
 to Fatty, and you gimme them papers. I'll 
 show 'em. You trust me, and I'll stay wit' ye, 
 Judge, and we'll fool 'em, all right." 
 
 And off went Billy B., twelve years old, out of 
 the court-room, down through the streets — 
 the streets he loved — to the car; then over three 
 railroads to the little town of Golden where, 
 asking his way, he climbed the long, lonely hill 
 road to the industrial school — just to show a 
 doubting world that "it" works. 
 
 Was the world convinced ? No. The grown- 
 ups marvelled, and even the boys sneered. The 
 Judge "fixed" the boys. He heard that they 
 called Billy B. a "chump" up at Golden, so he 
 went up there, and he told the story in a speech 
 which made Billy B.'s face shine like his old 
 shine-box. That speech, repeated again and 
 again, at Golden and in Denver and all over the 
 State, has made it an honour to go alone to Golden : 
 a test of pluck, loyalty, and self-control. And, 
 
174 UPBUILDERS 
 
 on the other hand, to "ditch your papers and 
 run," is a disgrace in Boyville now. A boy 
 called on the Judge one day with an offer from 
 the gang to " lick" any kid that ditched his papers 
 or in any other way went back on the Judge, 
 and the Judge had some difficulty in explaining 
 why that wasn't "square." 
 
 Wonderful ? Yes, it's wonderful, if you don't 
 see what "it" is, and Denver didn't — at least, 
 official Denver didn't. The Judge saw that he 
 had to "win out" with what the world calls 
 "young criminals born," so he watched for a 
 chance; and the chance came. 
 
 "One morning," he says, "the newspapers 
 reported the capture of Lee Martin and Jack 
 Heimel, two notorious boy burglars known as 
 'The Eel,' and 'Tatters.' They were the lead- 
 ers of the River-Front gang of sneak thieves, 
 pickpockets, burglars, etc., and they had done 
 time in the reform school and jails in Colorado 
 and elsewhere. The newspapers, having told all 
 about them and their crimes, went on to say that 
 these criminals had amply qualified for a long 
 term, and they should therefore be tried in the 
 criminal court, not before the new-fangled, grand- 
 motherly juvenile department. Here was my 
 chance and a challenge. 
 
 "I visited the jail. The boys were in separate 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 175 
 
 cells, handcuffed to their benches. They had 
 just come out of the sweat-box where the police 
 had been bullying and threatening them for hours 
 in an effort to make them tell on the other members 
 of the gang, and they were bruised and battered. 
 Tatters looked more like a pirate than the 
 fifteen-year-old grammar school boy he was. 
 A picture of uncleanliness, he scowled at me 
 out of sullen black eyes, and the sinister effect 
 was increased by the livid bruises on his swarthy 
 face. I talked with him, but could get nothing 
 out of him. His lips were padlocked, for he was 
 plainly suspicious of me. 
 
 "Lee Martin presented a very different appear- 
 ance. He was slight, fair, and scrupulously 
 neat, despite the unutterable prison filth. About 
 him was an air of childish innocence hard to 
 reconcile with his established reputation as the 
 most expert and reckless boy criminal within a 
 thousand miles. There was something pecu- 
 liarly winning about him. I have never met so 
 interesting a boy, or one so full of vital, human 
 experiences learned in the hard school of life. 
 He had gentle, blue eyes, just now glaring with 
 hate. It was an expression I was to see in them 
 often during the next few months, for hatred 
 and revenge Were then the dominant emotions of 
 his life. 
 
176 UPBUILDERS 
 
 "As I stepped across the cell, he drew himself 
 up with an odd touch of dignified pride peculiar 
 to him. He was only a little boy, hunted and 
 run to earth like a wolf, cuffed and kicked and 
 flung into a dark cell prior to being railroaded 
 through the court to the reformatory, but he was 
 staunch and 'game' still to his comrades. 
 
 "'I ain't no snitch,' he flung out before I had 
 said a dozen words. 
 
 "'Good for you,' I told him. 'There's always 
 good in a fellow that won't snitch on his chums.' 
 
 "He looked at me, greatly surprised but still 
 suspicious. He asked me who I was. I told 
 him. 'Are they going to try me in your Court ?' 
 he asked. I answered that he would probably 
 be tried in the criminal court. 'They'll send me 
 up, all right,' he said with conviction. 'Would 
 you?' he demanded. 'I'd give you a square 
 deal,' I told him. He sneered in my face." 
 
 Not a very promising beginning, was it ? The 
 Judge did not give up. He called again on the 
 boys, and again and again. He told them the 
 truth. He told them he was labouring to have 
 them tried in his Court, and why. He talked 
 about his Court, and what it meant; how it was 
 opposed, and why. He had no secrets; he kept 
 nothing back. He discussed crime, his view of 
 it, the police view of it, the world's. He didn't 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 177 
 
 know who was right. " Gradually their suspicion 
 of me disappeared," the Judge says. "They 
 came to regard me and my Court as engaged In 
 a fight for them against the hated police." The 
 Judge let them think that. It was true. He 
 explained how it was true, how "the police were 
 not to blame," not the policemen. They were 
 reared in a school that taught them that it was 
 their duty to fight crime with crime, craft with 
 craft, violence with force, and maybe that was 
 the only way. Certainly, "fellers" like Tatters 
 and the Eel made it hard for the police. Hadn't 
 the boys added to the work of the *'cops," and 
 to their worries ? 
 
 They had indeed. The Judge laid down the 
 kid law, which was the criminal law, about 
 "snitching"; how snitching on the other fellow 
 was wrong, but snitching on yourself was all 
 right, if you believed what you told was to be used 
 to help you. This they understood, and as their 
 confidence grew, they began to snitch on them- 
 selves. 
 
 They told the Judge their stories, and they 
 were amazing stories of crime and of hate. " The 
 Eel especially hated anything in the nature of 
 legal machinery with a bitterness that amazed 
 me," the Judge says, "till I had heard his story." 
 And then the Judge tells the Eel's story. His 
 
1 78 UPBUILDERS 
 
 father was foreman in a machine-shop, honest 
 enough, but brutal to the boy, who loved his 
 mother, who loved, but was too weak to help, her 
 son. He "bummed" the streets day and night, 
 dodging his father, who cuffed and cursed him 
 whenever their paths crossed. Lee ran away, and 
 to keep himself became a sneak thief. Before 
 he was ten, he had "bummed" his way from 
 Chicago to Denver and become a "pretty slick 
 thief." Arrested now and then, and railroaded 
 by the law, he was patted on the back in the jails 
 by hardened criminals who taught him to pick 
 pockets. Caught at this, he learned burglary 
 from burglars in the jail and, at the age of twelve, 
 nearly killed himself trying to blow a safe. The 
 "Bull-pen" had shown him how, but he put the 
 powder in the wrong place. He was full of 
 courage. An experienced "hobo," he travelled 
 twenty-five thousand miles in one year on brake- 
 beams till, tiring of that, he learned to sneak into 
 Pullmans and hide and sleep in a vacant upper 
 berth. Once he was awakened by an excla- 
 mation from the porter: "Good Lawd, they's a 
 kid in heah!" The Eel tells the rest: "I flew th' 
 coop when the coon guy went to tell th' conductor. 
 That ditched me in a town they call Reno, 
 Nevada. 'Course, I was broke. I touched a 
 guy for a half and bought me a cane and some 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 179 
 
 chewing-gum. I walked into a bank and up to 
 th' guy in th' monkey cage. I says I wanted 
 work, and when he went to see de head guy, I 
 rammed th' gum in de end of my cane, shoved 
 it through the cage, and swiped a twenty that 
 stuck to th' gum. Then I hiked out on th' 
 express that night." 
 
 Where did the boy learn that trick .? In jail. 
 That's where the State taught him his trade, 
 and, when he had learned a new crime, he could 
 break out and try it. Twice he had broken jail, 
 cleverly, boldly. Once when an officer, Roberts, 
 tried to recapture him, Lee smashed a lantern 
 in the man's face and then led him a chase through 
 a back yard where clothes-lines hung in the dark. 
 Caught under the chin by a line, the officer 
 turned a "flip-flop," and the boy got away; 
 not unscathed, however; the officer fired several 
 shots at him, and one hit the boy in the hand. 
 
 To kill that policeman was one of the vows 
 the boy had made to himself. "He tried to kill 
 me. I was only a kid, and he tried to kill me. 
 I'm going to kill him one of these nights." 
 
 The Judge listened to these stories, noted 
 what they meant, and he sympathized with the 
 boys. But that isn't all he did. He sympathized 
 with the Law and with the policeman, too. He 
 showed, the boys just where he thought things 
 
i8o UPBUILDERS 
 
 were wrong in the Law and in the courts, and the 
 boys came to understand. It wasn't easy to 
 correct the teachings of the jails and the police 
 and the home and the streets, but this man did 
 it with those boys. He showed them, for example, 
 how the officer, Roberts, was acting in good faith, 
 doing his duty, and how he must have been 
 exasperated with the Eel. And the Eel saw it. 
 And when the Judge saw that he saw it, he brought 
 the boy and the officer together, and — they are 
 good friends now. 
 
 So with the Law; the Judge explained what 
 the' machinery of justice was for. It had been 
 perverted from its true function, justice, to ven- 
 geance, but it could help a fellow, and he proved 
 it, the Judge did. He got the cases. And he got 
 them with the consent of the police. One captain 
 who was loudest in his protestations, said: 
 
 "You can't baby Lee Martin, Judge. He's 
 been in jail thirteen times, and it hasn't done him 
 any good." 
 
 "No," said the Judge, "and if I fail, I'll still 
 have twelve times the best of you. You've 
 failed with him your way. It's my turn now. 
 It has cost the city in officers' fees alone, 
 $1,036 to make a criminal of him. Let's see what 
 it'll cost to turn him into an honest boy." 
 
 The captain ran over a list of his crimes. The 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUSt JUDGE 18 1 
 
 Judge brought out a longer, more correct, type- 
 written list. 
 
 "How in the world did you get that?" the 
 officer asked, astonished. 
 
 "They've confessed to me everything." 
 
 " How did you do it ? We couldn't sweat it 
 out of them." 
 
 "I made them see that I was their friend," 
 the Judge said, "and that I wanted to use the 
 information for and not against them." 
 
 It was a strange, new point of view to the 
 police, but they saw that there was something 
 in it, so they tried the boys before the kids' Judge. 
 
 The evidence was plain. Burglary was the 
 specific charge, and the police proved it; the Judge 
 was convinced formally of what he knew (for 
 the boys had told him all about it). What did 
 the Judge do to the boys ? 
 
 He put them on probation. Yes, to the horror 
 of the police and the town, he did by these bad 
 boys just as he did by good boys; he gave them a 
 "show." What was the result ? 
 
 A day or two later the boys called on the Judge. 
 With them were two others, "Red" Mike and 
 Tommy Green. The Judge understood; these 
 were members of the River-Front gang, for whom 
 the police were on the lookout. But nothing 
 was said about that. "We had a general talk 
 
i82 UPBUILDERS 
 
 about crime," the Judge says, " and the principles 
 of the Juvenile Court." The Judge was expect- 
 ant, so were Lee and Tatters, but it was left 
 to the newcomers to do their own snitching, and 
 they did it. After a while, "Red" turned to 
 Tommy. "Don't you think it's about time we 
 were snitchin' up ?" he asked. Tommy allowed 
 that it was, and then followed what the Judge 
 calls "a snitching bee." "And," the Judge 
 adds, "I had two new probationers for my 
 Court." A week or so more, and these four 
 called with a fifth "kid," and he, a "soft, mushy 
 one," as the Judge describes him, he also 
 "snitched up." Another period, and the five 
 brought in two more. That finished the "crim- 
 inal" list of the River-Front gang. "Not one 
 of these boys had snitched on another," the Judge 
 says. "Each one had told only on himself." 
 
 All those "young criminals" were put on 
 probation, "and," says the Judge, "six out of 
 the seven have stuck. The seventh made the 
 pluckiest fight I ever saw before he slipped back, 
 and I still have hopes of his ultimate success." 
 
 What does the Judge mean by a plucky fight ? 
 "A plucky fight" means what the Judge means 
 by probation — the game of correction, the game 
 of overcoming evil with good. These young 
 criminals had not only to be good; they couldn't 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 183 
 
 be good. That's too negative for husky kids, 
 and the River-Front gang were a husky lot. 
 The Judge says boys are bad because, while 
 they have lots of opportunity to do wrong, they 
 have none to do good. So, as in the case of mis- 
 chievous boys, he gave these criminals opportu- 
 nities to do good. There were other "fellers" 
 starting on careers of crime. If they were 
 allowed to go on, they would be caught, jailed, 
 and made criminals by the police, who, though 
 they didn't mean to be, were really criminal- 
 manufacturers. The game was to beat the police 
 and beat public opinion by showing the opposition 
 that the Judge was right about kids, that "there 
 ain't no bad kids." So the game was for the 
 River-Front gang to bring in kids that were 
 going wrong, get them into the Court gang, and 
 thus prove by the good they all could do to- 
 gether that "it" worked. And "it" did work. 
 
 The loyalty of the River-Front gang to the 
 Judge as leader of their new gang was superb. 
 It was mistaken sometimes. Once when Jack 
 Heimel's mother was away, he slept in a cheap 
 boarding-house. A drunken man cried out that 
 he had been robbed, and he accused Jack and a 
 friend of Jack's. The lodging-house keeper 
 knew Jack and, of course, believed the charge, 
 so, sending for the police, he placed himself in 
 
1^4 UPBUILDERS 
 
 the door to bar the way out. Jack made a dash, 
 hit the man behind the ear and, dropping him, 
 leaped out and away with his chum. The police 
 searched for them all night, but couldn't find 
 them. The Judge found them. When he went 
 down to Court the next morning the boys were 
 "layin' for him." Jack explained: 
 
 "We didn't take th' money, Judge, but I 
 had to hit de guy, because, you see, if de cops 
 had 'a' jugged me, me name would 'a' been in 
 the papers, and then, wouldn't they say that 
 this was de feller what de Judge ought to 'a' 
 sent up and didn't ? And, say, wouldn't dat 
 'a' got you into trouble, and maybe lost you 
 yer job ?" 
 
 It developed afterward that the drunken man 
 hadn't lost the money at all, so Jack Heimel 
 was cleared, and that was his last "scrape." He 
 got a job as a mechanic in the railroad shops and, 
 loyal always, his last report to the Judge was that 
 he had sent East for a book on mechanical engi- 
 neering. He was rising, and he feels to this 
 day that his success means much, not only to 
 him, but to the Judge and the Court gang, and 
 the methods thereof. 
 
 The Eel had a hard time. "This boy, whom 
 the police called a depraved criminal, has done 
 more to discourage crime," the Judge says. 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGfe 185 
 
 "than any ten policemen in the city." He 
 brought in boy after boy to "snitch up," and he 
 helped keep his own gang straight. "Red" 
 Mike slipped back once. Arrested for robbery, 
 he escaped, and the police were after him. The 
 Eel was troubled. He called on the Judge. 
 He knew where "Red" was hiding, and he knew 
 the Judge knew he knew, but the Judge asked 
 no questions. He and Lee simply talked the 
 matter over till they agreed that it would be 
 better for "Red" to come in and surrender 
 than to be driven" deeper into crime. And a 
 day or two later "Red" appeared at the Judge's 
 house, "ready," as he said, "to take his papers 
 and go to the reformatory." 
 
 Lee became an unofficial officer of the Court, 
 and the Judge used him freely. Once a boy 
 stole a pocketbook from a woman in the store 
 where he worked. The Judge sent for Lee. 
 "Something ought to be done," the Judge said, 
 "to get that boy back in the right path." Lee 
 went after him. He found him in a cheap 
 theatre, "treating a gang," brought him volun- 
 tarily in, and — to-day the boy is a trusted 
 employee in that same store. 
 
 Another time, Teddy Mack, a fourteen-year- 
 old "criminal," who was arrested for stealing 
 a watch, sawed his way out of jail and got out of 
 
i86 UPBUILDERS 
 
 Denver. All summer the police searched, and 
 the Judge and Lee Martin often talked over the 
 case. One day Lee said: 
 
 "I'd like to get that kid for you. Judge. I'll 
 bet he's down to the fair at El Paso. You send 
 me down there, and — I won't be a * snitch 
 cop,' but I believe I kin get him to come in." 
 
 The Judge gave Lee five dollars, and the boy 
 went across the line to the bull-fight. There 
 was Teddy. The two boys took in the fair 
 together, but Lee talked "crime, and the prin- 
 ciples of the Juvenile vCourt" to Teddy, and 
 back these two came together to the "Jedge." 
 Teddy "snitched up." The Judge gave him 
 twenty dollars to redeem the watch he had 
 pawned for three dollars, and when Teddy 
 returned with the watch and the exact change, 
 he was sent to deliver the watch to the owner 
 and to admit that he was the thief. That settled 
 the case, and that settled Teddy. "We had no 
 more trouble with Teddy Mack," the Judge says, 
 "though he had been one of the worst boy 
 thieves in the city." 
 
 The boy with whom Lee Martin had the most 
 trouble was Lee Martin. He could not settle 
 down. The habit of "bumming," developed in 
 him from early childhood, was too strong, and 
 every once in a while that " movin'-about fever" 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 187 
 
 would get him. "It was like a thirst for drink," 
 the Judge says, "and I told him that when he 
 felt it he must come to me. Once or twice when 
 I saw that the call of the road was too strong 
 to be resisted, I let him take a ride as far as Colo- 
 rado Springs and back." But that didn't always 
 satisfy him, and he would throw up his job and 
 "skip." It hurt him to do this; it was regarded 
 as disloyalty to the Judge, and that was awful. 
 
 "One Sunday evening," the Judge relates, 
 "word reached me that Lee was going to 'fly 
 out.' This worried me so much that I started 
 for his home. I found his mother in tears. The 
 Eel was gone. 
 
 "'He just couldn't stand it any longer, Jedge,' 
 she apologized. 'He lay on the floor there and 
 sobbed just like he was in a high fever. "What'U 
 the Judge think? What'U the Judge think?" 
 he kept saying, an',' the woman added, 'he told 
 me to tell you he'd write.' 
 
 " I went home much troubled, but the promised 
 letters reached me, one from Albuquerque, then 
 another from El Paso, a rapid succession of them. 
 They were like wails from a lost soul. He im- 
 plored me not to think he had ' thrown me down.' 
 That was the burden of them all. He was coming 
 back, he said; he just had to get on the move for 
 a while, but he hadn't thrown me down. I 
 
i88 UPBUILDERS 
 
 wrote him not to steal, and he didn't. When 
 he came back a month later, he showed me a 
 letter from a man he had worked for to prove it." 
 There is more of the story, more triumphs, 
 and more disappointments, and there are more 
 stories just like it, of other gangs. For all the 
 time the Judge was devoting himself to the 
 "River-Fronts," he was giving himself with the 
 same devotion to his other "cases." And there 
 were failures as well as successes, and the police 
 and the cynics clung to the failures. As the Judge 
 says, however, the failures were really weak 
 boys. "The husky kids, the kind the cops call 
 'dangerous,' they stuck with me; they showed the 
 police that there 'ain't no really bad kids.' Bad ? 
 I believe," the Judge said, smiling, and he quoted 
 Riley: 
 
 '"I believe all childern's good 
 Ef they're only understood — 
 Even bad ones, 'pears to me, 
 'S jes as good as they kin be!'" 
 
 He smiles as he quotes, then the smile disap- 
 pears, and he adds, "And that's so of men, too." 
 "Yes, but," you say, "there are criminals born ?" 
 "Yes," he replies, "there are criminals born, 
 and there are criminals bred, minors and majors, 
 too. But who bears them, and — what breeds 
 them ? What makes bad boy§ bad \ What 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 189 
 
 makes bad girls bad ? And what makes men 
 and women bad?" 
 
 That's his answer, another question: one 
 question; the fortunate, fatal question which 
 got Ben Lindsey into his fights with the dishonest 
 opposition of Denver, the fights which — because 
 he won them, he and the children, and because 
 they led him straight to the cause of crime, 
 juvenile, and grown-up, too — have made the 
 "kids' Jedge" of Denver one of the leaders of 
 the great war that is going on in Colorado. The 
 outside world couldn't understand why the people 
 of his state wanted the Judge of the Juvenile 
 Court to run for Governor; nor why he was 
 willing to take the nomination. The reason, as 
 we shall see, was that Ben Lindsey is no mere 
 philanthropist, but (in the true sense of the word) 
 a politician; no mere saver of little victims of 
 wrong, but a man leading men to destroy th^ 
 opportunities for evil-doing, and to give all the 
 children of men a "show" to "do good." 
 
 III. BATTLES WITH "bAd" MEN 
 
 Early in the history of Denver's Juvenile 
 Court, a boy was arraigned for stealing lumber 
 and sand from a contractor. The contractor 
 
190 UPBUILDERS 
 
 was indignant; he "wanted to know whether 
 Judge Lindsey was going to coddle that kid 
 or protect the property of the citizens of Denver 
 from thieves." The Judge said he would take 
 the case under advisement. He did. He took the 
 case "for a walk and a talk." 
 
 Once out of that stiff old, stuffy old court room, 
 the tears dried up, and the two got acquainted. 
 
 "What did you want the lumber for, kid?" 
 the Judge asked. 
 
 "We were building a shack in my back yardj 
 and we needed more boards than we had." 
 
 The Judge used to build shacks, and he and 
 the kid discussed the different kinds you could 
 build. The Judge bragged about some he'd 
 put up. But he never used sand in a shack. 
 
 "What did you swipe the sand for ?" he asked. 
 
 "Well," said the kid, "girls can't build shacks. 
 They can keep house in 'em after they're built, 
 but my sister and the other fellers' sisters, they 
 wanted something to do till the shack was done. 
 So while we was gettin' the boards, we seen the 
 sand, and we swiped a little pile for the girls to 
 play in." 
 
 And coming into the back yard, the kid showed 
 the Judge the shack and the sand-pile — aban- 
 doned now. All work was suspended, pending 
 a decision in their case. The kid wanted to 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 191 
 
 know what the Court was going to do to him. 
 The Judge said he'd take the case under advise- 
 ment, and he did. He took a walk down to the 
 contractor, and he told said complainant all about 
 the shack and the sand, and the contractor 
 furnished all the lumber and sand necessary to 
 finish the job in that back yard. As for the 
 children, they "cut out" all "swipin'." 
 
 The Judge kept the case under advisement, 
 however. He kept on walking around in back 
 yards, and talking with young "thieves" and 
 "builders." He saw many signs of energy and 
 enterprise, and nothing to do; nothing good. 
 Everywhere was private ; nowhere to play. Every- 
 thing was property to steal. The grown-ups 
 had "hogged" everything, and children had 
 nowhere to play and nothing to play with. 
 
 The Judge set about organizing a juvenile 
 association of grown-ups to furnish materials 
 for young builders to build with; playgrounds 
 to build on; water to swim in; jobs in the beet 
 fields for vacation kids that had to work, and 
 mountain trips for the rest. In brief, the Judge's 
 Juvenile Association for the Protection and 
 Betterment of Children, which he is trying to 
 make a national organization, originated out of 
 his discovery that society had forgotten to provide 
 children with opportunities for good. 
 
192 UPBUILDERS 
 
 But society provided opportunities for evil. 
 Denver offered plenty of these, and the children 
 knew them all. "I was amazed to hear what 
 children knew," the Judge says. "I talked to 
 them, and I walked with and among them; I 
 visited back alleys at night, hung around cheap 
 theatres, visited the tenderloin and the slums. 
 Standing in the shadow just outside of saloons, 
 I saw children come with pitchers in their hands, 
 sent there for beer by their parents, and while 
 they waited, I heard men tell obscene stories. 
 The children listened, boys and little girls. I 
 talked with the boys, and I found that they under- 
 stood everything that was vile. You see, I was 
 trying to get at the causes of criminality in chil- 
 dren, in children whom I found responsive to 
 the noblest sentiments of honour and fair dealing. 
 Well, I thought I saw what the causes were: the 
 problem is one of environment; manifold oppor- 
 tunity for evil and none for good; and then, back 
 of this, certain social and economic conditions. 
 What could I do to relieve these conditions ? I 
 asked myself that again and again. My Court 
 could correct the evil done, some of it, but how 
 could I prevent the evil from being done?" 
 
 Perfectly simple and logical, all this. The 
 Judge had no answer ready, but he attacked the 
 worst condition, one that stirred him to his depths. 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE; 193 
 
 He found that the Denver saloons had wine- 
 rooms, and that not only boys, but girls, were 
 allowed in them and ruined. The law forbade 
 these places to women, but the law wasn't en- 
 forced. Why ? Everybody knows, in a general 
 way, why. Denver is a typical American city 
 government, and Lindsey, a former member of 
 the Democratic State Executive Committee, knew, 
 in a general way, the reason for a "liberal" 
 excise policy. It helped business. When cow- 
 boys and miners and other visitors came to town, 
 they wanted to have a good time, and it was 
 good for all business to help them spend their 
 nioney. But the Judge saw that however good 
 for business it might be to neglect to enforce 
 the wine-room law, it was bad for the children; 
 and he put that view of it before the Police Board. 
 He knew well the president, Frank Adams, and 
 the members of the Board. Frank is a Democrat, 
 like Ben, so Ben urged Frank to enforce the law 
 in the interest of the children. The Judge also 
 addressed the Chief of Police. The Chief 
 couldn't do anything but refer the letters to the 
 Board, which wouldn't or, at any rate, didn't, 
 do anything. The Judge then proceeded in his 
 own way to compel the Board to enforce this law. 
 Colorado is a great place for injunctions. The 
 "interests" there use' the courts very much as 
 
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 in other states they use legislatures and governors. 
 The brewers own the saloons, and brewing is an 
 interest. It "contributes" to both parties. The 
 brewers and the dive interests got out a writ en- 
 joining the Police Board from enforcing the law. 
 Judge Lindsey says the Police Board got out 
 the writ against itself, and there was some ground 
 for this suspicion. In the first place, the attorney 
 for the brewers was the Democratic State Chair- 
 man. In the second place, Frank Adams, who 
 is a member of the Adams family, famous in 
 Colorado politics, was the "iceman" in Denver. 
 There were other icemen, but the saloons generally 
 bought of him. So he may have been doing his 
 customers a favour, on the side. But certainly 
 the brewers were interested, for they warned 
 Lindsey that if he went on making trouble for 
 them, they would defeat him for reelection. 
 No matter about that, however. Judge Peter 
 L. Palmer — of whom it has been said that he 
 would "enjoin the birds of the air from flying 
 and the fishes of the sea from swimming" — 
 Peter L. Palmer held that since, under the con- 
 stitution of Colorado, women had the same rights 
 as men, the law forbidding them the wine-rooms 
 was unconstitutional. Wherefore he enjoined the 
 Police Board, and the Police Board obeyed his 
 order. Judge Lindsey didn't. He fined a dive- 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 195 
 
 keeper in the face of it, and the Supreme Court 
 of the United States upheld his ruling. 
 
 It takes time to go through the courts, however, 
 and while the case was pending on appeal, girls 
 were being haled into the Juvenile Court as 
 "incorrigible"; and they did look "bad." But 
 the evidence showed that they had been made 
 bad in wine-rooms. 
 
 "And I found that these wine-rooms were 
 'protected' by the police," the Judge says. "I 
 tried time and again, with Frank Adams and with 
 the other commissioners and with the Chief of 
 Police to get the wine-room keepers arrested, and 
 in vain. Children they would bring in, the boys 
 and girls, but no adults. I investigated further. 
 I called on the Humane Society, and the Secre- 
 tary, Mr. E. K. Whitehead, told me of the most 
 horrible details. He also had complained in 
 vain to the police. Then I went out and I saw 
 some of these things. I saw sixteen boys gambling 
 in one place, and when I reported it to the police- 
 man on the corner, he insulted me. I wrote 
 about this and about the wine-room to the Chief 
 and to the Commissioner. No answer. 
 
 "One Sunday I went to visit one of my proba- 
 tioners, and I found him cursing his mother 
 vilely, with an amazing command of oaths. 
 Looking about, I saw that it was partly a house 
 
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 of assignation, partly a home for the very poor, and 
 all the children were masters of men's language. 
 Looking further, I saw, ten feet from the door of 
 this house, the rear entrance to a wine-room — 
 wide open, though it was a Sunday morning. I 
 went to the mistress of the house of assignation, 
 and she, hardened though she was, told me that 
 this wine-room had supplied more than one bad 
 place with inmates. Only a week before, she 
 said, she saw two girls halt at that wine-room 
 door. One was afraid to go in. The other 
 was urging her, and while they were talking three 
 men came out, seized the reluctant girl, and' 
 dragged her in. The next day the woman heard 
 groans and sobs across the way, and she went 
 to see what was the matter. She found the 
 girls in the cellar, naked and drunk! 
 
 "My God!" the Judge exclaimed, "where was 
 the policeman all this time?" 
 
 "Oh!" she said, "he knew all about it. He 
 was in there, too, drinking with them!" 
 
 " It would be hard for me to repeat," the Judge 
 says, "all the things I saw and heard that har- 
 rowed my very soul. But they were the causes, 
 this crime and vice and this police partnership, 
 of many of the woes and troubles that come into 
 my Court." 
 
 What could he do ? The Judge knew that 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 197 
 
 besides the "ice" and the brewers' contributions, 
 there were other powers back of all these condi- 
 tions. The railroads ruled the state, the rail- 
 roads and the mine-owners and the American 
 Smelting Company. Under them, in Denver, 
 and for them, were all the public utility companies 
 which, having grants of privileges, rewarded the 
 people of the city and state by corrupting their 
 government. "It's necessary," they say. Now 
 the corrupt business interests that ruled Denver 
 and Colorado ruled partly by ballot-box stuffing, 
 and it was the dive-keepers, thieves, loafers — all 
 the hangers-on of vice and crime — who did the 
 stuffing. Lindsey, who long had known this, 
 realized now that he had nowhere to turn to appeal 
 for some little consideration of the children of 
 his town, except to the people of his town. 
 
 He invited the Police Board to visit the Chil- 
 dren's Court on Saturday morning. May 24, 1902. 
 He also invited reporters. Frank Adams didn't 
 come, but the other commissioners did, and the 
 bailiff gave them seats in the jury-box. There 
 the children could see them, and they could 
 see the children, and there were some two hundred 
 children on hand that morning: two hundred 
 "bad" boys who knew all about everything, 
 including that Police Board. When they were 
 all ready. Judge Lindsey entered and took his 
 
1 98 UPBUILDERS 
 
 place on the bench. He looked over his gang of 
 kids, and then he spoke to those officials, typical 
 American officials. 
 
 "I have asked you gentlemen to come here 
 and look at these boys," he said. "There are 
 also girls in this city who report on Fridays," 
 he added. The commissioners looked at the 
 boys, and the Judge went on to say that while 
 these children were brought there as delinquents, 
 it was not alone the children who were delin- 
 quent. "Parents, in many cases, and adults who 
 violate the law, and particularly police officials 
 who refuse to enforce the law, they are more re- 
 sponsible than the children," he said. 
 
 He illustrated: "It became the duty of this 
 Court recently to send a young girl to the In- 
 dustrial School. She was not depraved or vicious; 
 she was capable of being a good, pure woman 
 with any kind of favourable environment. But 
 she was subject to temptations. What were 
 these temptations ? The wine-rooms; not one, 
 but many. She was induced to enter such places. 
 You knowingly permitted them to run in viola- 
 tion of the law. Yet the child is punished and 
 disgraced. You and the dive-keeper, the real 
 culprits, you go scot-free." 
 
 The Judge — from the bench, mind you — 
 said this to those commissioners. Then he 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 199 
 
 spoke of a young man who had lost his life in 
 the same place where this girl was ruined. He 
 told the rooming-house woman's story, and he 
 described also her terror lest the police should 
 learn that she had informed on the dive-keepers! 
 Then he described what he knew of gambling by 
 boys. 
 
 "I have seen a pitiful, gray-haired old lady, 
 bent with years, her face dimmed with tears, 
 pleading in this Court to recover the all she had 
 on earth, lost by a son in a gambling hell tolerated 
 by you. And here in broad daylight those who 
 conduct the place come, and they tell of the 
 open game of this young man and the loss of 
 that money, and this they do with the prosecuting 
 officer passing In and out. . . . It is nonsense 
 to talk about these things not being known to 
 your Board. It only subjects you to contempt 
 and ridicule." 
 
 Frank Adams had been appealing to the Judge 
 in the name of "business" and "the party," not 
 to "rip up" the liquor question. The Judge 
 answered that appeal now with another: 
 
 "Flesh and blood, body and soul, the future 
 of little children is so sacred," he said, "that it 
 is a monstrous sacrilege to permit any other 
 consideration to interfere. ... I know it is 
 unusual to speak thus publicly, but all things 
 
200 UPBUILDERS 
 
 usual have been done, and something unusual 
 is justifiable. I therefore beg of you in this public 
 manner, in the presence of these children, for 
 their benefit, that you earnestly and diligently 
 war upon these places. ... I assure you 
 that you will have then the good will and respect 
 which are denied you now. That is worth more 
 than all the vaunted boastings of all the devil's 
 agents in this town. It is to these that you are 
 catering now, and until you break the spell they 
 have over you, you will be storing up misery, hell, 
 and damnation for the present and future genera- 
 tions." 
 .„ It was a terrible arraignment, there before 
 those children, whose eyes bored into those 
 officials. There was silence for a moment; 
 then one commissioner, Charles F. Wilson, rose 
 to answer. He said the Board had closed the 
 place where the Judge had seen the boys gambling. 
 The two hundred boys looked at the Judge; he 
 hesitated. Didn't he know about that ? Some of 
 the boys did, and one of them sprang to his rescue. 
 Leo Batson, twelve years old, rose, and pointing 
 his finger at Commissioner Wilson, he said : 
 
 "Yes, you closed it up, but you opened it up 
 again, like you generally do. It was open inside 
 of a week. And it's open now, 'cause I seen 
 boys in there myself." 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 201 
 
 There was silence when Leo sat down. The 
 boys looked at the commissioner. He was still 
 a moment, then he went on without answering 
 the boy. He referred to Peter L. Palmer's 
 injunction. It was the Judge's turn. 
 
 "The issuance of that injunction was without 
 sense or precedent," said Judge Lindsey. "And 
 it didn't tie your hands. You could have brought 
 your cases to my Court. In this tribunal you will 
 find the whole power of the Court on the side of 
 the law." 
 
 The newspapers all turned "yellow" with this 
 story, and that settled the matter for the time being. 
 The tip was passed that the police couldn't " stand 
 for wine-rooms where young girls went — for a 
 while." 
 
 The Judge went on walking and talking with 
 the children, and he listened, too, and the things 
 they suffered kept his feelings aroused, while 
 their wisdom "put him wise." It was appalling, 
 what these children knew. 
 
 "Huh, business men! They steal, too!" said 
 a cynical little thief one day when the Judge 
 held out to him the prospect of growing up to be 
 a "respected business man," if only he would stop 
 stealing. "Don't the street railway swipe fran- 
 chises ? And the gas company and them, don't 
 they steal 'em ? Guess I can read. And my boss, 
 
202 UPBUILDERS 
 
 that's kicking to have me sent to jail, don't he 
 sell cheap jewelry for eighteen carat fine ?" 
 
 In this and similar cases the Judge had to reach 
 down below the teachings of the world of business 
 to the nobility born in the "born thief," to save 
 him. "It's mean to cheat and steal," he said, 
 and it was the success of this appeal that con- 
 vinced Ben Lindsey that human nature was good 
 enough to go to war for. 
 
 Of course, he didn't realize at first what he 
 was warring against. Brought up in a perfectly 
 conventional way, his notions of life and economics 
 were perfectly commonplace; but when men 
 came to him and in the name of "business," 
 "the party," and "property" besought him not 
 to fight so hard for the children, he began to see 
 that the enemy of men, as of children, was not 
 men, but things. Once he and a police captain 
 had a dispute in chambers over the custody of 
 some boys arrested for stealing bicycles. The 
 police wanted to hold the boys. Why ? The 
 Judge couldn't make out till the officers said 
 something about the owners of the wheels wanting 
 to "get back their property." 
 
 "Oh," said the Judge, "I see the difference 
 between you and me: you want to recover the 
 property, while I want to recover the boys." 
 
 The Judge recovered both. 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 203 
 
 A cotton mill was set up in Colorado. That 
 was a new industry, and the men who established 
 it were applauded for their "enterprise, which 
 could not but benefit the whole State." To 
 compete with the South, however, this mill had 
 to employ child labour. The kids' Judge heard 
 that they were importing large families and 
 setting the little children to work. Colorado 
 had a child-labour law, and the Judge went to 
 the mill to see if the law was being violated. It 
 was, and the conditions were pitiful. 
 
 "These imported people were practically 
 slaves," he says. "They had come out under 
 contracts, and the children, unschooled, toiled 
 at the machines first to liberate their parents, then 
 to support them." 
 
 The Judge warned the milling company, but that 
 did no good, so he had criminal proceedings in- 
 stituted, and not only against the superintendent, 
 but against the higher officers also. 
 
 This is not the custom in the United States, 
 and the president of the mill, who was also one 
 of the big men in the Colorado Fuel & Iron 
 Company, called on the Judge to explain that he 
 was a respectable citizen. The Judge suggested 
 that it wasn't proper to try to influence a judge 
 in a pending case, but the president "didn't 
 want to do anything improper"; all he wanted 
 
204 UPBUILDERS 
 
 was to remind the Judge that a conviction in the 
 case would make him (the president) a criminal. 
 "And I am no criminal," he said. The Judge 
 replied that he was if he broke the law. But the 
 president didn't break the law. If the law was 
 broken, it was by his superintendent, and it was 
 all right to fine his superintendent. But the 
 president was a gentleman and a "big man." 
 
 "I'd rather fine you than your superintendent," 
 said the Judge. "He is only your agent, and, 
 as you intimate, you wouldn't mind if he were 
 punished. So I'll punish you as I warned you; 
 I told you that if he persisted in violating the law 
 for you, I'd hold you responsible." 
 
 "But, Judge," he said, "if you are going to 
 keep up this fight, we will close the mill ! " And 
 he proceeded to tell what a great industry it 
 was; how many people it gave employment; 
 how much good it was doing to the city (he 
 meant the business) of Denver; and how much 
 money had been invested in it by himself and 
 other capitalists. 
 
 "His point of view," the Judge says, "was 
 perfectly plain. Money was sacred, men were 
 of no account. If business went well, children 
 could go to — well, let us say, to work. And 
 he blamed me, not the Law, not the State; he had 
 no fear of these. I, personally, with my queer 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 205 
 
 regard for men and women and children — I 
 was a menace to business." 
 
 "I warn you right now," he said to the Judge, 
 "that if this thing keeps up, we will shut down 
 the mill, and you will have to share the conse- 
 quences." 
 
 And Judge Lindsey replied: "We are here to 
 protect the children and to enforce the Law, 
 and all I regret is that the penalty isn't imprison- 
 ment instead of a fine, so that I could be sure 
 of preventing you from employing young chil- 
 dren." 
 
 And the Judge persisted, and the mill was 
 closed down. Other causes contributed, but 
 Lindsey never shirked his "share of the respon- 
 sibility." 
 
 What is more. Judge Lindsey had the child- 
 labour law made stricter. He can put "money" 
 in prison now if it hurts children. He had to 
 fight business and politics and the police to do 
 it, but he did it; he and the kids and the men and 
 women of Denver. 
 
 We have seen that the Judge set out to correct 
 the evils of child life under the laws as they 
 stood. He had been making notes, however, 
 of legislation he wanted, all the while he was 
 walking and talking and trying cases. For 
 example, the Juvenile Court existed by the 
 
2o6 UPBUILDERS 
 
 courtesy of the District-attorney, who was a 
 machine man; Lindsev gave himself the legal 
 right to demand all children's cases. He had 
 exercised discretion; he gave himself explicit 
 authority to exercise discretion. He had found 
 adults at fault for the criminality of children; 
 he drew a paragraph making parents, employers, 
 business men, and all other grown-ups amenable 
 to the criminal law for neglect, abuse, or temptation 
 of children. This is his now famous "con- 
 tributory delinquency law against adults." Need- 
 ing probation officers, he authorized the 
 appointment of them, and since the police and the 
 Sheriff and the District-attorney were all tied 
 up with the liquor and other business interests, 
 he gave his probation officers certain police 
 powers. The child-labour law was only one 
 item in the legislation Judge Lindsey went after. 
 The Judge's bills were most important legis- 
 lation, and to put them through he had to proceed 
 most carefully. He began in the convention, 
 by taking a hand in the nomination of legislators. 
 His enemies fought him there, and they beat his 
 man, but he came up on good terms with the 
 others. They introduced his bills and started 
 them through the mill, very quietly. Hardly 
 any notice was taken of them. Apparently the 
 lobbyists didn't do their work well, for the interests 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 207 
 
 were amazed after it was all over to see in the 
 new laws "what Lindsey had been up to." An 
 officer in one of the telegraph companies said 
 the "interests" would never have let either the 
 child labour or the adult delinquency bill pass 
 if they had known of them. The Judge had 
 learned that the messenger service was a degrading 
 influence for boys; they were sent to all sorts of 
 vile places, saw all sorts of vile things, and caught 
 respectable citizens in predicaments the knowl- 
 edge of which made the boys cynical and vicious. 
 So he advised, and he still advises, both boys 
 and parents against the messenger service. But 
 he wished also to have a club to hold over the 
 companies; wherefore he had drawn into one 
 of his bills a clause including officers of telegraph 
 companies under the "adult delinquency law." 
 The companies, suspecting the Judge, twice 
 sent a lawyer to the capital to see "Lindsey's 
 bill," and he saw one bill, an inoffisnsive one, 
 never the other. He didn't know there was 
 another. It was the other that "hurt our busi- 
 ness," he said. Thus beaten, the companies 
 never dared to move for a repeal; they surrendered, 
 and, calling on the Judge, came to an understand- 
 ing with him about what they might and might 
 not do with boys. 
 
 There was a fight on these bills, however. 
 
2o8 UPBUILDERS 
 
 It is known among the good citizens and bad 
 kids of Denver as "the fight against the jail." 
 After moving along regularly through the Senate, 
 the Judge noticed that his bills suddenly stuck in 
 the House. "What was the matter?" the Judge 
 inquired. The clerk couldn't explain. One eve- 
 ning a reporter called at the Judge's house. 
 
 "Judge," he said, "Frank Adams is fighting 
 your bills. His brother Billy, you know, is a 
 power in the Legislature. They don't dare come 
 out in the open and fight you, but they are telling 
 it around that you are crazy on the children 
 subject, and that the boys fill you up with lies!" 
 
 "What had I better do?" the Judge asked. 
 
 "Stir 'em up," said the reporter. "Give me 
 an interview and tell all about the jail." 
 
 "That's grand-stand playing," the Judge said, 
 smiling. 
 
 "It's appealing to public opinion," said the 
 reporter, "and that's against the rule of graft, 
 but what do you care ? You aren't a grafter." 
 
 The Judge made out a statement, but it was 
 too mild. The reporter rejected it, and with 
 the facts the Judge told him and what he and all 
 police reporters knew, Harry Wilber (for that 
 was the reporter's name) did what newspaper 
 men love to do when they get the chance — he 
 wrote the truth, and he wrote it to kill. United 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 209 
 
 States Senator Patterson's paper, the Rocky Moun- 
 tain News, printed the interview in red, and 
 it was sensational. The Judge says it gave 
 him a sensation himself. But it' was true, so he 
 "stood for it." Frank Adams answered it with 
 a denial. The boys were liars, he said, and as 
 for Judge Lindsey, he was crazy. 
 
 "I knew then," says the Judge, "that I was 
 up against it. I must make good. So I wrote 
 to the Police Board offering to hold an inquiry. 
 They were willing, they answered, but not then. 
 I wanted it then, and I ordered it for two o'clock 
 the next day in my court room. And lest the 
 Board, recalling the last time they met the boys, 
 might not come, I invited also the Governor, 
 the Mayor, the District-attorney, other officials, 
 fifteen ministers and rabbis, and others. I 
 didn't expect many to come, but they all accepted, 
 even Governor Peabody — all but Frank Adams 
 and the police commissioners. The Board sent 
 a dummy to represent it." 
 
 It was Saturday morning when the Judge got 
 his acceptances, and he had to hurry. Calling 
 in a friendly deputy sheriff, he asked him to get 
 ten witnesses named on a list he had made of 
 boys who had been in the jails. "I must have 
 them by two o'clock," the Judge said. The 
 officer declared it impossible, He should have 
 
2IO UPBUILDERS 
 
 had two days' notice. The Judge was in despair, 
 but he ran ov6r his list till he came to the name 
 "Mickey." 
 
 Mickey was a street boy. He had been in 
 jail often, and the last time was only a month or 
 so before. After he got out, he and the boys 
 in with him had called on the Judge to com- 
 plain. They stated their case. They were run- 
 ning through the street when one of them knocked 
 over a sign to which some shoes were attached. 
 The man in the store rushed out and sent the 
 policeman after the boys. They had stolen his 
 shoes, he said, and the policeman arrested them. 
 The boys hadn't taken a shoe, and absolutely 
 the only evidence against them was the fact that 
 one of the boys needed shoes! His feet had 
 come through his old ones. They were thrown 
 into cells among criminals, bums, and drunks, 
 then put all together in one cell next to drunken 
 women of the street. During the evening one 
 of them broke a window, and when the jailer 
 came and cursed and kicked them about, they 
 wouldn't tell who had done it. In a rage, the 
 man knocked down one of them and, when the 
 rest scattered and ran, pursued, and bowled 
 them over with his great keys. They were de- 
 tained a week and then released without a hearing. 
 
 The Judge had the boys examined by a physi- 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 211 
 
 cian, who found evidences enough that they had 
 been beaten. But the Judge went down to the 
 jail, and he learned the truth there from his 
 regular sources of information. Satisfied of the 
 justice of their complaint, the Judge went with 
 the boys to lodge a protest with the Police Board. 
 The commissioner refused to believe the boys' 
 stories. It was this case, and many, many cases 
 like it that had convinced Judge Lindsey that 
 the jails were not only schools where older crim- 
 inals, male and female, taught boys crime and 
 vice, but places where the police practised brutal 
 injustices which made the boys hate the police, 
 dread the law, and despise everything that we 
 mean by "civilized society." It was the experi- 
 ences of boys like Mickey and his gang which 
 had prompted the Judge to write the bill which 
 had been held up, the bill providing a detention 
 school and forbidding juvenile offenders to be 
 held in jail at all. 
 
 "This was Mickey's fight that I was making," 
 the Judge says, as he tells the story, " and I knew 
 I could count on the little chap, I asked the 
 officer if he could get me Mickey. He said he 
 could, and I begged him to go and tell the boy 
 I needed help." 
 
 In a few moments Mickey burst breathlessly 
 into the Judge's chamber. 
 
212 UPBUILDERS 
 
 "What's the matter, Judge?" he asked. 
 
 "Mickey," the Judge said, "I'm in trouble, 
 and you've got to help me. I helped you. I 
 went down and I made a fight for you fellows. 
 Didn't I?" 
 
 "That's what you did," said Mickey. "Betcher 
 life you did." 
 
 "Well, now you've got to stay with me." And 
 he told Mickey what he wanted — all the kids 
 he could find that had been in jail. "The offi- 
 cer can't get them; says there isn't time enough. 
 Can you .?" 
 
 " Can I ? Well, you watch me ! Don't you 
 worry about the kids. Judge! Gimme a wheel, 
 and I'll get kids, kids to burn !" 
 
 The Judge went out, and he and Mickey 
 borrowed a wheel. It didn't fit, but Mickey 
 hopped on and went spinning down the street. 
 
 "It was a relief to me to see him go," the Judge 
 says, "but my worry wasn't over. The invited 
 ofiicials began to arrive before Mickey returned. 
 At ten minutes before two, when the Governor 
 appeared, there was not a kid in sight. The 
 entire company had assembled in my chambers 
 before I saw sign of any witnesses, and I was 
 troubled. It was painful. I knew I could count 
 on Mickey, and the kids generally, but suppose 
 he couldn't find them!" 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE jUSt JUDGE 213 
 
 But Mickey found them. Just at two there was 
 a murmur outside. It grew into a hubbub 
 which, as it came down the hall, developed into 
 an alarm. The Judge's guests were startled, 
 and even the Judge wasn't sure. It sounded like 
 a mob, and up the stairs it rattled, then down the 
 upper hall toward his chamber. As it approached, 
 the Judge, knew. He flung open the doors, and 
 there were thirty or forty boys, with Mickey 
 radiant at their head. 
 
 " Here's the kids. Judge. Got more'n I thought 
 I would." 
 
 "Bully for you, Mickey!" said the Judge. 
 "You've saved the day." 
 
 " I told ye I'd stay wit' ye. Judge." 
 
 The Judge took the "mob" into a side room. 
 There he told them what was up. They were 
 to tell the truth about the jails. "The police 
 say you have lied to me," he said. "If you have, 
 I ask you now to tell the truth. But tell it. 
 Tell it as you tell one another. Tell it in your 
 own words. They may be bad words, but these 
 gentlemen want to know the truth. So tell them 
 all. Tell them what you see — the dirty things; 
 tell them what the older prisoners say, and what 
 they do to you." 
 
 He put Mickey in charge. "Pick out your 
 best witnesses, Mickey," he instructed him, 
 
214 UPBUILDERS 
 
 "and send them in one by one." And Mickey 
 began to sort his witnesses. As the Judge left 
 the room, he heard Mickey say, with a shove, 
 "You get back there, Skinny, you've only been 
 in five or six times. Fatty Felix has been in 
 twenty-three times and " 
 
 Mickey led in his witnesses, one by one. Fatty 
 Felix, Teddy Healy, Teddy Mack, and the 
 rest, till the Governor and the ministers cried 
 "enough!" 
 
 Those boys told what was what. They told 
 of lessons in crime by older criminals; stories 
 they had heard there of injustices by judges 
 and of cruelties by the police. They showed up 
 the world as the criminals see it and as those 
 criminals showed it to the boys. And they also 
 related scenes of vice and foulness too revolting 
 to repeat. And those boys made that company 
 of grown-ups believe them, too. Once or twice 
 the police representative interrupted, but, as the 
 Judge says, "Teddy Healy's answer, direct, 
 awful, and yet innocently delivered, made the 
 matter ten times worse." The officials dropped 
 all thought of cross-examination. Once a minis- 
 ter asked Mickey about the visits of the clergy 
 to the jail. 
 
 "Never saw one," said Mickey. Then he 
 remembered. "Oh, yes, seen the Salvation Army 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 215 
 
 there onct, but they sang 'Praise God from 
 Whom All Blessings Flow,' and we'd heard that 
 before, and besides, there didn't seem to be no 
 blessings flowing our way." 
 
 It was the officials' turn to smile, and the 
 ministers, they also ceased to cross-examine. 
 The boys were left to talk, watched by Mickey 
 and frankly guided by the Judge. It went on 
 for an hour or two, then a preacher rose. 
 
 "My God," he said, "this has gone far enough! 
 It is too, too horrible !" And, as he left. Governor 
 Peabody got up. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he said, "I never in my life 
 heard or knew of so much rot, corruption, and 
 vileness as I have learned this day from these 
 babes — almost — and I want to say that nothing 
 in my administration will be so impprtant to me 
 as signing Judge Lindsey's bills. I don't care 
 to read those bills. If he says they are designed 
 to correct these conditions, I am satisfied. And," 
 turning to the representative of Frank Adams, 
 he added, "if Judge Lindsey is crazy, I want 
 my name written right under his as one of the 
 crazy people. And as to those boys lying, any- 
 one who says they have been lying to-day must 
 be himself a liar." 
 
 With that the meeting broke up. The Judge 
 went back to the boys, and he thanked them 
 
ii6 UPBUlLDERS 
 
 and Mickey. He was careful to explain again 
 what it was all about. "'Skill in handling 
 marble is as nothing to skill in handling men, ' " 
 he quotes, and he wished to be sure that no false 
 impressions were left in these boys' minds. "I 
 am fighting for a decent place to keep kids that 
 are too weak to be on the level," he said. "The 
 jails are not decent; and Mickey, you boys have 
 beaten the jail to-day, you and all the good kids 
 in Denver. Go out and tell them so, for it is 
 their victory." 
 
 That was true. It was a victory. The pulpits 
 rang with the story the next day. The men and 
 women of Denver heard, and so did the grafters, 
 and the grafters felt the effect in public opinion. 
 Lindsey's bills came up from the bottom and 
 were passed and signed and made part of the 
 laws of Colorado within a week. And now other 
 states are copying them. 
 
 Reformers, whose notion of reform consists 
 in "getting a law passed," are often amazed to 
 find that their good law does no good. The reason 
 is that neither public opinion nor public officials 
 enforce the new laws. Lindsey had waited for 
 his legislation till he had the support of public 
 opinion, and then he enforced his new laws; 
 he, and the boys and girls, and public opinion. 
 
 They were effective laws. They gave the 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 217 
 
 Judge control of the whole children's case. He 
 proceeded gently to the enforcement of his power. 
 He had written into the laws full authority to 
 exercise his discretion, with adults as with children, 
 and he did this because he meant to be human 
 and charitable to men as he had been to children. 
 It had worked with the children; he would try 
 it on their elders. So he was firm but not unkind. 
 When the police brought in a boy for getting 
 drunk, the Judge asked for the man who sold 
 the boy the liquor, and the police had to fetch 
 the man. Sometimes the Judge fined him; 
 sometimes he imprisoned him; sometimes he 
 suspended sentence. For he talked to the men 
 as he did to the boys, and if he found that they 
 hadn't thought of the evil they did by carelessly 
 serving boys and girls with tobacco and liquor, 
 the Judge explained it to these saloon-keepers. 
 And if he thought they were impressed, he put 
 them also "on probation." That gave him a 
 hold on them, which prevented crime and vice. 
 For the Judge knew what was going on. He 
 had thousands of eyes. The boys and girls 
 watched for him. When the Judge had got his 
 legislation, he told the children that the new 
 laws were their laws — enacted for them and by 
 them; for Mickey and his "gang of jailbirds," 
 who carried the day, represented the children of 
 
2i8 UPBUILDERS 
 
 Denver. The children, therefore, must obey 
 these laws and help enforce them. He broad- 
 ened the doctrine of "snitching on the square." 
 It was mean to spy; it was wrong under the law 
 to "get a man to break the law and then peach 
 on him." No child was to be "smart" and hunt 
 for evil. But when a man sold cigarettes and 
 liquor to children, that man was "making kids 
 bad," and for a pitifully small profit, too. Where- 
 fore, the thing for a kid to do was, first, to warn 
 the man, then, if he didn't "cut it out," to tell 
 the Judge. 
 
 This was a very delicate part of the Judge's 
 policy, and many a man will shake his head 
 over it. We all despise spying. But boys de- 
 spise it more than men, and I know no better 
 way to prove that the Judge made it clear and 
 right than by stating that the boys of Denver, 
 the "big fellers," approved the doctrine and 
 practised it. Take the "Battle-Axe gang" of 
 Globeville, for example. Globeville is a suburb of 
 Denver, and the Battle-Axes were the toughest 
 "fellers" over there. Their leaders were three 
 brothers, known as the Cahoots — " Big Cahoot," 
 "Middle Cahoo^," and "Little Cahoot." The 
 whole gang frequented dives, drank, smoked, 
 chewed (they were named after their favourite 
 brand of plug tobacco); they did everything that 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 219 
 
 men di4, and other things besides. The Judge 
 got hold of this gang, in the usual way; one or 
 two were arrested, won over, and persuaded to 
 bring in the rest. They all came, and were 
 interested in the game of correction. The good 
 they could do, the Judge told them, was to help 
 enforce the laws of the kids' Court. They did it, 
 too. They had trouble at first. One day Big 
 Cahoot went to a saloon where some of the little 
 fellers in his gang had bought tobacco. He 
 told the man about the law and asked him not 
 to sell to any Battle-Axes. The saloon-keeper, 
 taken aback, became angry, and started for the 
 boy. Big Cahoot wasn't afraid. He stood his 
 ground; there was a fight, and the young tough 
 was kicked out into the street. But he told the 
 Judge, and the Judge sent the man to jail for 
 fifteen days. After that it was easier for the boys, 
 who are still reporting to the Judge that the law 
 is respected "over in Globeville" and that "the 
 Battle-Axes are doin' all right." 
 
 One curious development of this policy was 
 that many of the liquor dealers, having been made 
 to understand what all this meant to the children, 
 came to like the Judge and to help him to carry 
 out his policy. The Baker case will illustrate. 
 
 One day a girl was brought in. She told her 
 story; it was a wine-room story, and the Judge 
 
220 UPBUILDERS 
 
 had the wine-room keeper, Baker, arrested. He 
 tried him in the Juvenile Court, and sent him up 
 for sixty days. 
 
 "The girl I kept on probation," he says, "and 
 I was talking to her one day — the day before 
 Christmas — when I was told that a boy, Paul 
 Baker, wanted to see me. Putting the girl in a 
 side room, I had the boy in. He was a handsome, 
 wholesome little fellow, and he came up to my 
 table, halting, but with a frank look on his face. 
 
 "'Judge,' he said, 'you put my papa in jail, 
 but everybody says that you like boys and do all 
 you can to help a boy. So I came to ask you 
 to let my father come home for Christmas.'" 
 
 He began to cry, and the Judge spoke. 
 
 "Yes, I like boys," he said, "and I like men, 
 too. Do you think I dislike your father ? Not 
 a bit! I was sorry to put him in jail. And did 
 it never occur to you that it wasn't I that put 
 him in jail .? It was the Law. And the Law is 
 right. Do you know what your father did ?" 
 
 The boy knew. "Well, I like little girls as 
 well as I like boys, and you know that wine- 
 rooms are bad places for little girls. This little 
 girl and her mother, they are suffering just as 
 you and your father are suffering; all because he 
 broke the law." 
 
 The Judge sent for the girl, and he introduced 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 221 
 
 the two children. He drew the girl on to tell 
 what "trouble" the violation of the law had 
 caused her and her mother. The Judge ex- 
 plained why she should not hate, but be sorry for 
 the man, since he was only thoughtless, as she 
 was, and was in trouble, too. 
 
 "Here is his son, Paul, who has come to ask 
 that his father may be allowed to come home for 
 Christmas to see his family. His mother suffers 
 as yours does; his sister has wept as you have 
 wept. It is all, all trouble, and no one is worse 
 than another. Now, what shall I do about 
 letting Mr. Bakervgo home for Christmas?" 
 
 "Let him go," the girl said, and she and the 
 boy joined in the plea. The Judge consented. 
 
 When Paul brought in his father to see the 
 Judge, on the day after Christmas, the Judge 
 sent the boy out of the room, then he praised the 
 son to the father. It was a pity, he said, to bring 
 up that boy in such a business. 
 
 "Ju'dge," the man said, "you are right. I've 
 been thinking it all over in jail, and I've made 
 up my mind to get rid of this business and go 
 back to the mountains where I came from." 
 
 The Judge did not send Baker back to jail; 
 he suspended sentence, as his law authorized him 
 to do, and the man did sell out and go back to 
 the mountains. Now, when they come to town. 
 
222 UPBUILDERS 
 
 he and his boy always call on the Judge, their 
 "best friend." 
 
 "You see," the Judge says, "Baker wasn't a 
 bad man. He did a bad thing, and that bad 
 thing made a little girl bad. But what made 
 him do the bad thing ? To make his business 
 good; to increase his profits. But there was the 
 Law and the power of the State to compel him 
 to restrict his enterprise within limits where it 
 wouldn't hurt anybody else. That's where the 
 System broke down; that's where it breaks 
 down all the time. Why ?" 
 
 Baker told him why. He said that he broke 
 the law because the bosses told him he might. 
 He contributed to their campaign funds, paid 
 blackmail, and furnished "stufFers" to vote, so 
 they told him he was "protected." "Then you 
 came along. Judge, and you sent me up. I 
 don't blame you. I blamed them, and I went 
 to them for their protection. They said they 
 couldn't handle you. They said they didn't 
 mean I could break juvenile laws, but they 
 didn't tell me that. I paid them, and they 
 couldn't deliver the goods. That's why I blame 
 them." 
 
 Baker blamed the bosses, and so did the other 
 saloon-keepers. So did the people of Denver; 
 most of us blame the political bosses. The 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 223 
 
 Judge himself blamed them for a long while, 
 and he ought to have known better. One of 
 his first political services was to help Governor 
 Thomas destroy the power of Boss Thomas J. 
 Mahoney, famous in Denver politics. And they 
 did destroy Mahoney's power. But that made 
 no difference. Only the man was down and 
 out; the boss lived. Who was the boss of 
 the political boss ? For whom was black- 
 mail collected from the saloon-keepers in 
 return for which they were permitted to break 
 the law, sell liquor to boys, and keep wine-rooms 
 where girls might be ruined ? The parties ? 
 For whom did the parties work ? The parties 
 worked for the big business interests of Denver 
 and Colorado, as the Judge found out. 
 
 You hear in Denver that "the trouble with 
 Ben Lindsey is that he 'butts into' everything." 
 He does and he must. His critics mean that 
 Judge Lindsey might solve the problem of 'the 
 children, if, for their sake, he would not inter- 
 fere with other evils. Many good men and 
 women adopt that policy. Temperance reformers, 
 to get their prohibition laws through, trade votes 
 with the railroads; and charities and churches, 
 colleges and all sorts of benevolent and reform 
 groups, to say nothing of businesses, professions, 
 and interests generally — we, all of us, are 
 
224 UPBUILDERS 
 
 standing in with Evil, in the hope of destroying 
 the particular little evils against which we are 
 fighting. Lindsey won't. This is the institu- 
 tional idea; this is the fallacy which makes men 
 sacrifice civilization — for no less is at stake — 
 for their church, their party, or their grocery 
 store. If Lindsey should make this common, 
 almost universal, mistake he might build up his 
 Juvenile Court, they tell him, into a national, 
 yes, an international institution, and send his 
 name reverberating down through the ages. 
 But Ben Lindsey won't do it; and he won't 
 because he sees that he can't. 
 
 He can't for two reasons. One, as he soon 
 learned, is that the problem of the children isn't 
 a separate problem. Ben Lindsey discovered 
 that bad children are made bad by the conditions 
 which men create. And he went after some of 
 those conditions, and when it was found that his 
 legi'slation gave him power over adults that hurt 
 children, as well as over the children, the leading 
 citizens of Denver were incensed. Why ? His 
 authority over saloon and other vice interests 
 looseijed the hold the machines had over the vicious 
 elements of society, and menaced the election 
 frauds on which the business and political system 
 of the state was built. And Lindsey saw, and 
 he was told (though not in these words) that the 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 225 
 
 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 con- 
 stituted 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 charac- 
 teristic. When he was a young lawyer he was 
 beaten in a damage suit against the street railway 
 by a "fixed" jury. Inquiring into th^ matter, 
 he learned that jury-fixing was a common prac- 
 tice, and he attacked that practice. He drew a 
 
226 UPBUILDERS 
 
 bill to enable a majority of jurors to render a 
 verdict. The company offered his firm an an- 
 nual retainer, but Lindsey declared that it was a 
 bribe and refused it. "This was my first sight 
 of the grand System," he says, "but I didn't 
 recognize it as such. I've learned since that 
 this is the way the interests get their first hold 
 on promising or troublesome young lawyers." 
 Lindsey put his bill through. Challenged as 
 unconstitutional, it was first upheld, then 
 thrown out by the Supreme Court of Colorado; 
 "which gave me my first sight of the Supreme 
 Court as a part of the System,'/ he says. 
 
 His practice developed along probate lines, 
 and he found the laws obscure and unfair. He 
 revised them, and his revision, enacted, has been 
 highly praised by the law journals. Indeed, his 
 knowledge of probate law was one of the justifi- 
 cations for putting so young a man on the county 
 bench. Lindsey is the author of the present 
 election laws of his state. Everybody was com- 
 plaining of the old laws, but nothing was done 
 about them till Lindsey went to work and got 
 them changed. I could go on for a page with 
 practical reforms taken up by this man, all of 
 them suggested by his accidental, personal contact 
 with evils, and all having nothing to do with 
 children. If Judge Lindsey had never heard of 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 227 
 
 the problem of the children he would have been 
 known as a man doing a man's work for men. 
 
 But the incident in his career which will show 
 this best is his exposure of the County Commis- 
 sioners. That also was begun by accident. 
 
 At the close of the Juvenile Court one Saturday 
 afternoon, the Judge picked up idly from the 
 clerk's desk a paper, which, as he talked, he 
 glanced at. "To 1,000 sheets paper, ^280." 
 It was a bill, and the price interested the Judge. 
 He asked the clerk about it. The clerk hadn't 
 seen the bill. He "guessed" it was there by mis- 
 take; bills didn't come to him; "must have been 
 meant for the clerk of the County Board." 
 Lindsey sent the clerk to "see Mr. Smith, of the 
 Smith-Brooks Publishing Company (which fur- 
 nished the paper), and ask if the bill was correct." 
 The clerk brought the answer that his (Smith's) 
 "damned boy had taken the bill to the wrong 
 place,- and the price was none of our business." 
 The Judge sent to the County Clerk for other 
 bills chargfed to the County Court. 
 
 "I was amazed at the charges," he says. "Six 
 letter files at $6 apiece; these cost me personally 
 twenty-eight and thirty cents apiece. Paper which 
 was charged for at the rate of ^^48 a thousand I 
 could get for ;^6. I spent the night on those bills, 
 and the next (Sunday) morning I took expert 
 
228 UPBUILDERS 
 
 advice. I found that the County was paying 
 several hundred per cent, too much for all supplies 
 to my Court." 
 
 As with the children and as wit the Police 
 Board, the Judge wished to give the County 
 Commissioners a hearing, so he wrote them a 
 letter containing the facts. "I thought prob- 
 ably they didn't know about these overcharges. 
 I didn't want to misjudge them, and I wanted 
 to examine into the situation with them privately 
 and personally. I believe if they had come up 
 with the truth, I'd have been satisfied if they 
 had promised to cut it out." 
 
 The Judge received no reply to his letter. 
 He sent another, and still no response; that is to 
 say, none that was direct. There was an in- 
 direct response, however, which interested the 
 Judge profoundly. Both the Police and the 
 County Boards of Denver were bi-partisan, but 
 the fighting line in the politics of the city was a 
 machine, not a party line, and the Police and the 
 County Boards were at odds. The County 
 Board had appointed Lindsey a judge. When 
 he went after the Police Board, Frank Adams, 
 the president, unable to believe in honesty and 
 sincerity, had looked around for an explanation 
 of "Lindsey's enmity" to him; and the theory' 
 he fixed upon was that Lindsey, out of gratitude 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 229 
 
 to the County Board for his job, was "hurting 
 the party" to help Frank Bishop, the president 
 of the County Board, who was a candidate for 
 the nomination for Governor of Colorado. So 
 now, when Ben "got after Frank Bishop's 
 Board," he puzzled Frank Adams and all the other 
 men in Denver who, to account for the conduct 
 of others, read their own souls. 
 
 "What does Ben mean.? Is he an ingrate ? 
 You go ask him what the hell he means." This 
 was said by Commissioner Watts to the Judge's 
 clerk, whom the Board had also "given his job." 
 Cass Harrington called; the attorney to the 
 County Board, this man had resigned to be "of 
 counsel" to the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company. 
 Others called, many prominent men. "This 
 stealing," the Judge says, "had friends, political 
 and business friends, and they were powerful 
 men, all of them." He saw that he would also 
 need friends, so the Judge paid some visits. He 
 called on some other judges; he told them the 
 facts, and he asked them to move with him for 
 an investigation. They wouldn't. 
 
 "Why, Judge," said one of them, "you have 
 your hands full now. You are doing more than 
 two or three men can do. You oughtn't to want 
 to know about this. I don't. That would make 
 me responsible, and I don't want to have anything 
 
230 UPBUILDERS 
 
 to do with it. Go to the District-attorney. 
 , . . Well, then, that means that you know 
 what politics is in this town. My advice to you 
 is, let the whole thing alone." 
 
 This from a judge! And other officials took 
 the same view or a similar view: "You can't do 
 anything"; or "The County Board appointed 
 you; I believe in sticking by your friends"; or 
 "It will ruin you, Judge"; or "It will spoil your 
 work for the children." 
 
 The Judge went on investigating, and the. 
 evidence he discovered and the things his 
 "friends" told him to stop him, showed him that 
 this County graft was well known, and that it 
 was but a small part of a system of graft. For 
 example, business men were in on the deals; 
 each commissioner had merchants for graft- 
 partners. And besides, the County Board was 
 a board o^ tax revision; it had remitted the taxes 
 of public service corporations, and it could "hurt" 
 or "help" property-holders generally. But the 
 Judge got help. Some of the early commissioners, 
 "snitched" to the Judge; they didn't snitch like 
 the boys, "on the square" — they "squealed" to 
 save themselves, and the others squealed on the 
 squealers to get even. Oh, he got the facts ! He 
 appointed a committee to investigate, and the 
 committee reported the facts — to the Judge. 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 231 
 
 A concerted effort was made to have the Judge 
 suppress his report. Many respectable friends of 
 the grafters went to the front for graft. They 
 pretended to represent "business," the "party," 
 "the fair fame of Denver," etc. They used the 
 names of United States Senators Patterson and 
 Teller. They were panic-stricken. As for the 
 Judge, he was awed at the show of influence. 
 "And," he says, "I was really in doubt lest I 
 might be doing a great harm to accomplish a 
 little good." But he was reassured. He sounded 
 the United States Senators, and both Mr. Patter- 
 son and Mr. Teller sent back word to "go ahead 
 and show up the grafters regardless of party." 
 That was the first encouragement the Judge got. 
 Finally, three of the County Commissioners 
 called, and their pleadings decided him. They 
 also prayed in the name of "the party," the 
 "credit of business," Denver, gratitude, their 
 families; but — there was no word about stopping 
 the stealing! The Judge published the report 
 in the Democratic newspaper, the News. 
 
 The County Board had to act; and it began 
 with an investigation of its own — a farce, of course. 
 " One thing I learned from it, however," the Judge 
 says, " and that was that many men of business 
 are cowards. The same experts who had told 
 me that the commissioners were thieves, went 
 
232 UPBUILDERS 
 
 on the stand and perjured themselves." And 
 their perjury was all in vain. District-attorney 
 Lindsley had to act. Lindsley is the man who 
 got his office when Lindsey wanted it, and the 
 Judge urged him now to do what he, himself, had 
 thought of doing: use the power of the public 
 prosecutor to prosecute public criminals and 
 clean up the city. Lindsley wouldn't; he was 
 in the gang, and other gangsters said he didn't 
 dare. He proposed that the Judge meet with a 
 committee of the party leaders and discuss what 
 should be done. The Judge refused. And the 
 newspapers made demands. So Lindsley had 
 to make a show of action. He called on the 
 Judge and talked about doing his duty. He has 
 a peculiar whine, Lindsley has, and in that 
 whining way he protested to the Judge that while 
 he didn't believe the commissioners could be 
 convicted, he would do his duty. Judge Lindsey 
 happened to go down to the Democratic Club 
 right after this talk, and he found Lindsley there 
 drinking with one of the accused commissioners. 
 And the information that this District-attorney 
 drew was under a statute which limited the 
 penalty to ;^300 fine and removal from office. 
 
 The newspapers; principally Senator Patter- 
 son's, forced this case to trial. District-attorney 
 Lindsley refused to appear in it himself; he 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 233 
 
 appointed a deputy, George Allan Smith, who, 
 the Judge says, was faithful. (And evidently he 
 was, for he was forced to resign after the trial.) 
 No local judge cared to sit on the case, so a judge 
 of the Pueblo district (controlled by the Colorado 
 Fuel & Iron Company) was called in. For the 
 grafters appeared Charles J. Hughes, a leading 
 attorney for the corrupt corporations of Colorado 
 (since elected a United States Senator). The 
 story of the trial is a story of "jury work," stolen 
 papers, conspiracies and plots, and an attempt 
 to brand Judge Lindsey as "an ingrate" (to the 
 System), a "reformer," and a "grand-stand 
 player." (How they do hate to have a man 
 serve and appeal to the people!) Nobody ex- 
 pected anything but a verdict of acquittal, and 
 then. Judge Lindsey was to have been put on trial. 
 But the jury convicted those grafters. How 
 it happened I couldn't learn. Somebody blun- 
 dered, I heard. The jurors apologized; the 
 District- attorney apologized; the very judge 
 apologized. Judge Voorheis delivered from the 
 bench to those prisoners at the bar a speech which 
 was eulogistic of them. He spoke of their stand- 
 ing and usefulness as Christian gentlemen and 
 good citizens. He said they were victims of an 
 evil System. He regretted that he had to impose 
 any punishment, but he must; so he gave the 
 
234 UPBUILDERS 
 
 smallest penalty provided by the law: "Ten dollars 
 and costs! " 
 
 The learned judge was right: there is a 
 System, and the penalties that System imposed 
 upon Judge Lindsey were not light. His sentence 
 was destruction. Knowing that money couldn't 
 prostitute him, women were tried. The janitor 
 of the County Court House wouldn't clean Lind- 
 sey's court-room and so neglected his closet that 
 the Board of Health had to interfere. He was 
 cut on the street by other officials and, to avoid 
 hearing himself called insulting names, had to 
 stay away from his club. His party council 
 allowed the convicted County Commissioners to 
 name their successors and to reject from the 
 platform a plank declaring for honesty in office. 
 
 This persecution continued for a year or two 
 andi it must be confessed, the Judge was aggra- 
 vating. He not only refused to surrender; he 
 went right on fearlessly supporting in public 
 every good reform measure and movement that 
 anybody proposed. For example, a convention, 
 called for by the so-called Rush Amendment to 
 the State Constitution, drew for Denver a good, 
 new, home-rule charter. The big business in- 
 terests "had to" beat it, however, because it 
 gave the people a vote on all franchise grants 
 and permitted municipal ownership. The only 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 235 
 
 way to beat it was to have the ballot-boxes 
 stuffed. Yet, when some inexperienced young 
 men organized a League for Honest Elections, 
 this County Judge came down off the bench to 
 help the league. And, as usual, his speech 
 was no mere perfunctory address on the sacred- 
 ness of the ballot-box; he named names, and he 
 named not merely the despised agents who did 
 the dirty work; Judge Lindsey called the roll 
 of the officials who employed and protected the 
 ballot-box stuffers ! The people, already aroused, 
 became so inflamed that finally their rulers had 
 to elect a pretty good charter themselves. 
 
 Do you see the situation ? Do you see Ben 
 Lindsey doing his duty, all of it, not only as a 
 judge of children, but as County Judge, and not 
 only as a judge on the bench, but as a man 
 on the bench and off it ? and fighting all the 
 while for his life; cheerfully, without malice, but 
 without fear ? Paul Thieman in the Denver 
 Post once called Ben Lindsey "the first citizen 
 of Colorado," and declared that, not the mines 
 and the mills, not the railroads, the farms, and 
 the banks, but Ben Lindsey's work was "the 
 greatest thing the state has produced." And 
 from the point of view of the history of man, 
 this is true. It looks absurd from a shop window, 
 but Paul Thieman was seeing things through 
 
236 UPBUILDERS 
 
 the eyes of a little boy he mentions, who, sitting 
 silent one day watching the Judge deal out justice, 
 suddenly rushed up and kissed him on the cheek. 
 "I love you!" the child said. 
 
 The test came at the elections of 1904. The 
 Judge had to run then, and he sought the office. 
 "I had to," he says apologetically; "my work 
 was only just begun." His enemies meant to 
 defeat him. Who were his enemies ? There 
 was Frank Adams and his Police Board, whose 
 co-partnership with vice and crime he had 
 exposed and disturbed; they were still in office 
 and powerful in his party. Then there were the 
 County Commissioners whom he had driven to 
 trial for grafting; they controlled the County 
 Board, and the party machinery. These two 
 groups with all their followers hated the just 
 Judge, of course, and they proposed to beat him 
 openly for the nomination. But wiser counsels 
 prevailed. Other, cooler enemies, passed the 
 word to beat him quietly. Lindsey was "popu- 
 lar" with the women and children, the leaders 
 said, and — women vote in Colorado. The big 
 leaders advised caution, and the scheme was to 
 make him decline the nomination himself. They 
 proposed to nominate as his associate on the 
 County Bench a man who was "going to knock 
 out all this kid business." They expected the 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 237 
 
 Judge to revolt, and he did; he said he would 
 "denounce his fellow-candidate from the stump." 
 This was the excuse the Democrats wanted, and 
 they decided to drop the Judge. 
 
 But a hitch occurred. There was a row in 
 the Republican party, and the dominant state 
 leader, to affront the Denver boss, William G. 
 Evans, nominated Judge Lindsey on the Repub- 
 lican ticket. This p^ut the Democrats in 
 an awkward attitude. They demanded that 
 Lindsey be loyal to his own party and decline 
 the Republican nomination. He refused. They 
 offered him a better associate judge, if he would 
 run only on the Democratic ticket. But the 
 Judge knew that they meant to knife him, so he 
 accepted their associate, but declared he would 
 accept any and all nominations from all parties. 
 And he did. And his party decided again not 
 to nominate him. This was three days before 
 the convention, but that was time enough for the 
 Judge. 
 
 He went to the people. He published an open 
 letter in the Denver Post. The newsboys, all 
 friends of the Judge, cried it as news, and not 
 only that, they sent kids as couriers to raise the 
 gangs. Men took the letter home, and mothers 
 turned out. But the children were before them. 
 They poured out into the streets and, collected 
 
238 UPBUILDERS 
 
 and organized by the newsboys, marched up and 
 down the main streets, yelling for Lindsey. 
 By the time the procession had reached the Demo- 
 cratic Club, the cries of the children had developed 
 into a song which they sang as they marched 
 and countermarched and halted before the club: 
 
 "Who, which, when ? 
 Wish we was men. 
 So we could vote for our little Ben." 
 
 And they kept it up all that night and all the 
 next day. It was most embarrassing to the 
 
 politicians. "Little sons of !" exclaimed 
 
 a leader in the club, "they are doing more than 
 anybody else to beat us." But the answer was 
 that cry from the street, "Who, which, when.'"' 
 All day long, everywhere, the boys kept at it. 
 And then the mothers of the city held a mass- 
 meeting at the Women's Club. And then there 
 was a mass-meeting of men, women, and children 
 in the Opera House. 
 
 Ben Lindsey was nominated, " amid howls and 
 curses" — and on his own terms, on his own party 
 ticket, and all other tickets, excepting only that 
 of the Socialists. Nominated by the people, 
 he was elected by their unanimous vote; but that 
 didn't settle it. 
 
 The Judge believed that the election of two 
 County Judges was unconstitutional; if it was. 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 239 
 
 the Mayor of the city would have to choose 
 between him and his colleague. The Mayor, 
 Robert Speer, was a Democrat and the leader 
 of Lindsey's party. The Judge asked him 
 whom he would choose. This Democratic Mayor 
 said he would have to consult with William G. 
 Evans, the Republican boss, before he could 
 answer, and he did see Mr. Evan.s and the 
 answer was that there would be no choice; 
 the spring election was legal and would stand. 
 But if it should not be held legal, then, the 
 Mayor made plain. Judge Lindsey would not be 
 the Judge. 
 
 "That's enough for me," said Lindsey. "I 
 fight." And he went forth to fight. He went 
 to the editors of Senator Patterson's two papers, 
 the News and the Times, and to the Denver 
 Post. They sounded the alarm, and they kept 
 it up, too. Paul Thieman rehearsed the whole 
 story of the kid's Judge as a serial. The people 
 began to be interested, but they were too late; 
 the conventions of both parties met and ad- 
 journed without nominating the Judge, and 
 "Bill" Evans left for New York. 
 
 Mayor Speer, the Democrat, was in charge 
 of this business for both parties, but he could 
 not control the younger Republicans. They 
 made such a fuss that the older leaders consented 
 
240 UPBUILDERS 
 
 to recall the convention. It was to nominate 
 Lindsey, of course, but this "matter of course" 
 was so insisted upon by the System's organ, the 
 Republican, that Lindsey became suspicious. He 
 inquired, and he heard the night before the 
 convention that all this talk was part of the game 
 to keep the young Republicans away from the 
 convention; another man was to be nominated 
 in the Judge's place. 
 
 Lindsey called up his friends among the dele- 
 gates, and the young men wanted to give up. 
 The caucus had been held; the slate was fixed; 
 it was too late to make a fight. The Judge 
 wouldn't hear of quitting, however, so, in their 
 desperation, one of them suggested seeing David 
 H. MofFatt. Mr. MofFatt is the leading banker 
 and financier of Colorado, and to go to him was 
 to appeal over the heads of all the political 
 bosses and the apparent business bosses to the 
 very head of the System. MofFatt was the man 
 to go to, but Lindsey didn't know MofFatt. 
 
 "Well, you know Walter Cheesman; go to 
 him." ■ 
 
 Walter Cheesman was a religious man, very 
 rich and benevolent and an active supporter 
 of the Humane Society and of Lindsey's Juvenile 
 Improvement Society. So the Judge knew Mr. 
 Cheesman, but it was not because of his benevo- 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 241 
 
 lence that those young men suggested seeing him. 
 Walter Cheesman was president of the Denver 
 Water Company, and therefore "had to" be part 
 of the System which causes the corruption and 
 the evils that, as a philanthropist, he "had to" 
 contribute money to ameliorate. 
 
 The Judge went to see the philanthropist. He 
 told Mr. Cheesman about the plot and the caucus. 
 
 "You, Mr. Cheesman, you know," he said, 
 "what I have done in that office. You know 
 I have slaved and worked and fought; that it 
 has been often a hell on earth. You know, too, 
 that I have saved the county very much money, 
 in many ways; that I have tried to walk straight 
 and do right; and that I have begun for the 
 children a work that must not stop now." 
 
 "Judge," said Mr. Cheesman, "I am sorry, 
 and I have just been talking to Mr. Field about 
 your case." 
 
 Mr. Field ? Mr. Field was the president of 
 the Telephone Company, another privileged 
 business. The Judge was seeing the System 
 plainly. 
 
 "Mr. Field and I discussed the case, -Judge," 
 said Mr. Cheesman, "and we are very sorry, 
 but we can do nothing. With us, politics is 
 business and — business comes first. You might 
 as well understand it. My advice to you is to 
 
242 UPBUILDERS 
 
 let go the judgeship, and the Children's Court. 
 Mr. Shattock will be nominated by the Repub- 
 lican convention; Mr. Johnson will be nominated 
 by the Democratic convention. That's certain. 
 And I want to give you one bit of advice. Don't 
 you run independent. I know what I'm talking 
 about. You can't be elected." 
 
 So that was the situation; that was the System. 
 The Judge rose: 
 
 "I'm going to fight," he said, "and I'm going 
 to fight till I'm licked good and hard." 
 
 He went back and he told his young men. 
 There was no time to appeal to the voters, but 
 it wasn't necessary. Those young men scoured 
 the town; they filled the streets and the conven- 
 tion hall. The excitement was intense. Speer, 
 the Democrat, wired to Evans, the Republican, 
 that the Republicans were pulling away, and 
 that if they did, the Democrats would have to 
 quit, too. Evans wired his orders back, but 
 Lindsey was nominated by the Republicans, 
 and the Democrats had to nominate him. They 
 had to nominate and run their whole County 
 ticket over again, ' and (this is the funniest thing 
 that I know in politics) the Democratic gang 
 that had hatched this scheme to "lose Lindsey 
 somehow in the mix-up" — these grafters, elected 
 in the spring and settled at their graft, were 
 
BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE 243 
 
 defeated in the fall ! Lindsey alone was reelected. 
 And the Supreme Court did declare the spring 
 election void. The gang had beaten themselves. 
 And the people — the women, the children, the 
 honest men of Denver — they had saved Ben 
 Lindsey. 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS: A BUSINESS 
 REFORMER 
 
 IT IS important to know Rudolph Spreckels. 
 He is a business man. He never has been 
 anything but a business man. He did not go to 
 college and, except for some interrupted private 
 schooling and tutoring, all the education he ever 
 had was in business. That was thorough and 
 practical. It began when, as a boy, he sat, 
 silent, listening to his father and older brothers 
 talking business at home. And he caught the 
 spirit of modern business. His boyish ambition, 
 confessed to the amusement of the family, was 
 to be a millionaire. That was all. He didn't 
 mean to run a locomotive, find the North Pole, 
 write a sonnet, or set the world on fire. He 
 didn't dream even of the management of some 
 great business. No, young Rudolph looked past 
 the work to the end thereof; he was "for results." 
 He wanted millions. And he succeeded; before 
 he was twenty-six he was able to retire a million- 
 aire, self-made. 
 
 Certain events in the business world called 
 him back to life in a year or two, and — to get 
 
 244 
 
C'.'iJjriiiht by tlarria & Ewiiiy 
 
 BEN B. LINDSEY 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS ^^ 
 
 to the point — this rich young man of business 
 went in for political reform in his city. That 
 alone is important, but that doesn't half express 
 Rudolph Spreckels's mind. He has said that 
 he will devote the rest of his life — and, if need 
 be, his fortune — to reform : general reform. 
 For when he has "made good" in San Francisco, 
 he proposes to try some other cities. New 
 York attracts him; so do Chicago and Denver. 
 
 New York will arch its brows and smile; 
 Chicago may laugh. But Rudolph Spreckels has 
 tackled big men and big jobs; he never has 
 failed; he is unlicked. He has "hate of hate, 
 scorn of scorn." -He doesn't care who laughs 
 first. With his quizzical, winning smile, he says: 
 
 "I don't care who sneers in the beginning, or 
 who doubts. I don't doubt. I fix my eyes on 
 a purpose, and — I'm sure of the end." 
 
 It won't do to waive this man lightly aside. 
 He has health and youth, will-power, and per- 
 sistence, and ability. This young captain of 
 industry is the kind of man that has done ro 
 much evil in this country. He was born and 
 bred to the type that has built and robbed rail- 
 roads, "made" and unmade states; corrupting 
 business and courts and governments, but — 
 accomplishing its end. When the goal of such 
 a man is the creation of a monopoly of all the 
 
246 UPBUILDERS 
 
 food or all the oil or all the steel in our world, 
 we take him seriously — too late. I think that 
 Rudolph Spreckels, capitalist, bank president, 
 captain of industry, who, at thirty-five, has de- 
 voted his knowledge of men and business methods 
 good and bad; his patient impatience; his talent 
 for organization and his executive ability, to 
 reform in the united cities of America — such a 
 man is worth our study. 
 
 At any rate, he is the political ideal of the busi- 
 ness world. All over the country I have heard 
 business men say that what we want is some 
 good business man who will apply good business 
 methods to politics and government and give us 
 a good, businesslike administration. The effi- 
 cacy of this solution is dubious, but never mind. 
 Here we have the business men's dream come 
 true; here we have the business man "sacrificing 
 his money and his still more valuable time" to 
 the public service. How do business men receive 
 " the devotion of Rudolph Spreckels ? Do they 
 like and applaud and support him ? 
 
 No. Business men do not like and applaud 
 and support Mr. Spreckels. They denounce 
 him and they oppose him and they oppose his 
 reform. The leading business men of San Fran- 
 cisco hate and they vilify him, and they oppose 
 his prosecution of criminals. They and their 
 
From a photograjjli by Habenicht, San Francisco 
 
 RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 247 
 
 organs fight on the side of graft against this 
 young business man who has gone in for politics. 
 And not only the San Franciscans; the business 
 men of the East, and especially of New York, 
 have turned their newspapers against him. And 
 Mr. Spreckels smiles; he expected all this. Why? 
 There was no doubt about the badness of 
 politics in San Francisco. "Labour ruled there," 
 and the business world has been "long" with 
 pity for "poor old 'Frisco." Why then this 
 opposition of the San Francisco business men to 
 Mr. Spreckels ? What do they say against him ? 
 Not very much. They attribute political ambition 
 and, in the same breath, a business motive to 
 his efforts for political reform; they say he wanted 
 a street railway franchise and sought to "get in 
 on" the United (Street) Railways of San Francisco. 
 Patrick Calhoun offered him an interest in that 
 company, and Spreckels declined it; and he has 
 promised publicly that he will never own, directly 
 or indirectly, a share in any public utility company 
 and that he will take no office in the city govern- 
 ment. Nothing has been produced from his 
 business record against him. That must be well 
 known, and since it was a record of "success," I 
 expected to hear of sharp deals and queer turns; 
 but, no, nothing of the sort. Mr. Spreckels 
 must indeed be a good business man. You will 
 
248 UPBUILDERS 
 
 hear, as I did, that "Spreckels got a lot of people 
 into a railroad and then sold it out to the Santa 
 Fe." That is true. Spreckels did that, but not 
 Rudolph Spreckels. That was an act of his 
 father, Claus Spreckels. Again, they asked me 
 if I didn't know that the public utility system of 
 San Diego was a Spreckels monopoly. I did, 
 but I happened to know what many Californians 
 seem not to know, that the Spreckels of San 
 Diego is not Rudolph, but a brother of his and 
 a personal enemy. Claus Spreckels is interesting; 
 the whole Spreckels family may be well worth 
 knowing, but most of them are in business or 
 private life. Our subject is Rudolph Spreckels, 
 the business reformer; not his family — except 
 as "blood will tell." 
 
 The Spreckels family is an institution in 
 California and, generally regarded as a unit, 
 is not popular. The Spreckelses fight. They 
 fight hard. But they don't fight together. They 
 are not a unit. The family fights inside as well 
 as out, and not all the members speak to one 
 another. They differ among themselves in char- 
 acter, tastes, methods, purposes and, apparently, 
 in morals. All they seem to have in common is 
 a certain aggressive independence. They are 
 in business what Labour would call "scabs." 
 They work by themselves and each bj himself. 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 249 
 
 They play with others, and the family "stands 
 well" both downtown and up, but there is more 
 fear than affection in their social and financial 
 reception. They are a family of individuals, and 
 individuality is offensive not alone to organized 
 labour; organized capital hates it, too. And 
 the Spreckelses are capitalists. 
 
 Claus Spreckels, the sugar magnate, was the 
 head of the family. A German peasant, he came 
 to this country when he was about eighteen years 
 old, with two German thalers in his pocket. But 
 he had the capitalist's instinct in his heart. After 
 clerking one year in a grocery store, he bought 
 the business — on credit; and he extended both. 
 In a few years he sent home to the village next 
 to his for the young girl who became the mother 
 of his family. 
 
 The Spreckelses moved to California in 1856, 
 opened a grocery store in San Francisco and — 
 extended the business. Seeing that there was 
 money in beer, Claus Spreckels built a brewery. 
 Seeing that there was money in sugar, he built 
 a refinery. There were other refineries; Claus 
 Spreckels beat his competitors, but when the 
 American Sugar Refining Company came along 
 and, buying them up, offered to buy him out or, 
 as Labour says of "scabs," "beat him up," he 
 fought. And he fought not only in self-defence — 
 
250 UPBUILDERS 
 
 he took the offensive; he built an independent 
 refinery at Philadelphia and, carrying the war 
 thus into the enemy's own field, Claus Spreckels 
 compelled a division of the territory; the Pacific 
 Coast for his. Because of a personal affront 
 by the president of the Gas Company in San 
 Francisco, he started a rival concern and he 
 marked down the price of gas so low that it never 
 did get all the way back. And because he was 
 dependent in business on the Southern Pacific 
 Railroad monopoly, he did not "lie down"; he 
 helped build that competing line which became 
 a part of the Santa Fe system. 
 
 "He sold out," they say. Yes, he sold out, 
 but at his price, and he never "stood in"; he 
 never was " satisfied," " safe," " reasonable. " And 
 that's why "they" are down on Claus Spreckels. 
 If he had been "satisfied" with his grocery- 
 store, he might have become a patient grocer. If 
 money was all he was after, he might have been 
 a rich brewer. If he had been "reasonable" 
 with the Sugar Trust, "fair" to the gas company 
 and had stood "in" with the railroad, he might 
 have become an "organized capitalist" and a 
 dummy director in these and in many other busi- 
 nesses. But he must dominate whatever he 
 took part in. Impatient, implacable, ruthless, 
 his "Dutch obstinacy" made him fight, and the 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 251 
 
 result was that Claus Spreckels was a captain 
 of industry, retired, but victorious; not only 
 rich, but an independent financial power. You 
 hear that his, methods were — those of big 
 business. I don't know anything about them, 
 nor do I care. It isn't the father that is trying 
 to clean up San Francisco, it's the son. 
 
 And Rudolph Spreckels is the son of Claus; 
 not only of his loins, but of his spirit. He was 
 the eleventh or twelfth child; he couldn't recall 
 which, off hand, and it does not matter, for now 
 he is the first. This masterful father tried to 
 dominate his masterful son, and they clinched. 
 It was a long, bitter business fight and, in the 
 courseof it, Rudolph Spreckels discovered that there 
 is such a thing as Organized Capital. He learned 
 that a financial power like Claus Spreckels can close 
 all the banks and shut off credit to his "scab" 
 enemies. But Claus Spreckels learned some 
 things, too — among them the character and 
 resources of his own son. 
 
 "I never was beaten but once in my life," 
 he is quoted as saying not long before his death, 
 " and that was by my own boy." 
 
 This sounds like pride, and it was known 
 in financial circles downtown that when the 
 head of the Spreckels family went away, he left 
 his affairs in the hands of Rudolph, his eleventh 
 
252 UPBUILDERS 
 
 or twelfth child, the president of the Fi|»t 
 National Bank. 
 
 Rudolph is only thirty-five years old,^ but he 
 began his career early. He was, like Roosevelt, 
 an asthmatic child, and when the attacks were 
 upon him he used to go off by himself on his 
 pony, seeking relief "on the ranch" or in the 
 woods. When he first disappeared in this sudden 
 way, the family was alarmed, but as he continued 
 to do it, no further protests were offered. Self- 
 reliant by birth, this boyish practice developed 
 that trait in him, and some power of reflection, 
 too. For solitude is good for the mind. But 
 Rudolph could not go regularly to school, and 
 his progress seemed to be irregular and aimless. 
 
 When he was seventeen, his father walked 
 into the library one day and bade him choose 
 on the spot one of three courses: college; a 
 trip around the world with his tutor; or busi- 
 ness. Rudolph chose business on the spot. 
 And, on the spot, the father directed him to go 
 to Philadelphia and help his brother, Claus 
 Augustus, run the independent refinery that was 
 fighting the Trust. The boy went and, advanced 
 rapidly from department to department, he 
 learned early the principles of business and — 
 the lack of them. 
 
 Young Rudolph saw machinery destroyed by 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 253 
 
 his father's employees. Sticks, stones, tools 
 were thrown in among the parts, which were 
 broken, of course. Watching, the boy caught 
 the vandals and learned that they were bribed 
 by agents of the Trust to do what they did ! 
 
 He saw, in the morning, pans of sugar spoiled 
 during the night. Staying up one night, the boy 
 tried to find out who was to blame, but he saw 
 no workman neglect his duty. Nevertheless^ in 
 the morning there was the same old trouble with 
 the vacuum pans. Rudolph discharged the night 
 superintendent, and, taking the place himself, 
 filled it for four to six months, and he did the 
 work well or, at any rate, honestly. No more 
 sugar was spoiled at night. 
 
 In the course of this fight, it became manifest 
 that the Trust knew the secrets of their rivals' 
 business. They seemed to have each day the 
 exact condition of the independent's stock, orders 
 and finances. There was a period of mystery 
 till suspicion settled upon the chief accountant. 
 Shadowing him, they saw him copy the figures 
 and take them to a certain cigar-dealer, who 
 carried them in the morning to the Trust. 
 
 Thus it was that before he was twenty years 
 old, Rudolph Spreckels learned at first-hand 
 that capital "throws bricks"; that it "destroys 
 property" and "hurts business"; and that it 
 
254 UPBUILDERS 
 
 bribes men, not alone in politics, but in business. 
 This schooling did not make a cynic of him, how- 
 ever, nor a "crook." He fought these methods, 
 and he beat them and the Trust. 
 
 At one great crisis in the fight, when his brother 
 Gus was away sick, Rudolph carried through a 
 coup which is remembered yet in the trade. 
 The Spreckelses were overstocked with sugar; 
 all their warehouses were filled; great purchases 
 of raw were coming forward and, because the 
 price was being cut every few days, the dealers 
 were living from hand to mouth. One night 
 Rudolph (age eighteen, remember) told his 
 city and outside salesmen to meet him the next 
 morning at seven o'clock. When they reported, 
 he bade them wire all brokers that sugar was to 
 be advanced l-l6th of a cent a pound. The 
 older men were aghast. What if the Trust kept 
 the price down ? 
 
 "Never mind," said the boy. "Say we will fill 
 immediate orders at the old price, but after 
 that " 
 
 The orders came in with a rush. Rudolph 
 watched the Trust. He knew that he had this 
 advantage: he was in command in his refinery. 
 In the Trust the principals were probably away 
 from town or not yet up; subordinates were in 
 command, and subordinates cannot take chances 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 255 
 
 on losing their jobs. They would hardly dare 
 take the initiative and keep prices down. So he 
 reasoned, and he was right. The Trust followed 
 Rudolph Spreckels's lead, and three times that 
 day he advanced the price. And he sold out all 
 his stock and all that he had in sight. The 
 cutting of prices was resumed, but once again 
 the boy beat the Trust by this same trick. And 
 so, before he was twenty, Rudolph Spreckels 
 measured himself with great captains of industry 
 and — became sure of himself. 
 
 At any rate, he was bold enough to fight his 
 father, and he knew what that meant. This 
 quarrel, alluded to above, broke out during their 
 struggle with the Trust. On one side were Gus 
 and Rudolph; on the other, the father and his 
 other sons. It was a general business row at 
 first, but as it grew the Spreckels sugar planta- 
 tions on the Hawaiian Islands became the bone 
 of contention. A losing business, Rudolph visited 
 them; he saw neglect, mismanagement, extrava- 
 gance and stealing, and he declared that the 
 plantations could be made to pay. He and Gus 
 bought them; Rudolph took charge and, cutting 
 out the graft and introducing method and disci- 
 pline, was getting things on a paying basis, when 
 a crisis occurred. They needed more time and 
 money. The rest of the family wouldn't give 
 
256 UPBUILDERS 
 
 them either. Very well, Gus and Rudolph 
 would borroyi^ of the banks. Their security 
 was good, the plantations were sure payers, but 
 the banks refused any "accommodation." The 
 young men went from one bank to another till 
 they realized that there was an understanding 
 among these Organized Capitalists; the word 
 had been passed not to let the two Spreckels 
 boys have a cent. For a while they stared at 
 ruin, but they hustled around and finally found 
 a private capitalist who backed them; and they 
 made good. They sold the plantation at a price 
 which netted them a fortune each. 
 
 Rudolph thought he was through with business. 
 Investing his money in real estate and gas stock, 
 he retired to the country and, content with his 
 rents and dividends, was neglecting his duty as 
 a stockholder to develop a beautiful estate in 
 Sonoma County, when bad news came. His 
 father had started the gas war in San Francisco. 
 It seemed that the gas works were blowing 
 smoke in the old man's windows. He protested, 
 in vain, and one noon at the Pacific Union Club 
 he met the president, Joe Crockett. 
 
 "Look here, Joe," he said, "I've had enough 
 of that smoke of yours. You'd better dp some- 
 thing " 
 
 "The Club is no place to discuss business," 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 257 
 
 said Crockett, and he turned on his heel and 
 walked off. 
 
 Claus Spreckels was amazed, and angry. 
 "I'll make you regret this!" he said, and in 
 twenty-four hours he had organized the Inde- 
 pendent Gas and Electric Company. Rudolph 
 Spreckels knew that a fight with Claus Spreckels 
 meant economy and able management for the 
 old company. Gas was ^1.25, and the Inde- 
 pendent proposed to sell it at 75 cents. When Ru- 
 dolph saw his stock drop from 85 to 60, he came 
 to town to attend to his duties as a stockholder 
 and — to learn what graft is in business; and 
 what politics is in business; and what the relation 
 of said business corruption is to political cor- 
 ruption. 
 
 Rudolph Spreckels made some swift, super- 
 ficial inquiries about the gas company, and he 
 heard that it had a big floating debt. There 
 were other signs of neglect in the management, 
 yes, and of inefficiency. The directors were all 
 "leading citizens," "prominent business men," 
 "veterans in finance." They were just the sort 
 of men that business men would put upon a 
 board of aldermen or supervisors to give' good 
 business government. Yet this young man found 
 that these picked business directors were neg- 
 lecting their duty to him as a stockholder, very 
 
258 UPBUILDERS 
 
 much as his supervisors neglected their duty to 
 him as a citizen and property holder. And that 
 wasn't all: the company wasn't earning the divi- 
 dends it was paying to him ! Why ? The price 
 of gas was high enough; gas companies elsewhere 
 earned big dividends at a much lower rate, and 
 his father was proposing to reduce the price from 
 $1.25 to 75 cents. Young Mr. Spreckels couldn't 
 get answers to his questions from the officers 
 and directors; they wouldn't listen to him. So 
 he did as reformers do in politics; he appealed 
 "to the people," and the people heard him 
 gladly. In other words, the stockholders to 
 whom he addressed a circular elected Rudolph 
 Spreckels to the Board of Directors. Then he 
 found out what the matter was. 
 
 Those respectable old business men on the 
 board were dummy directors. They took orders 
 like our dummy legislators, and, like these 
 despised politicians, were organized by a boss 
 who ran this business as our political bosses 
 run cities and states, inefficiently and dishonestly. 
 Mr. Spreckels sent to Chicago for a chief account- 
 ant; and he sent so far because he needed a man 
 who would be free from local reverence for the 
 standing of the officers and directors of the San 
 Francisco Gas Company. He feared "pull" 
 and "corruption." And the Chicago man came; 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 259 
 
 and he soon was keen on the scent. He became 
 excited. He was on the track, he told Mr. 
 Spreckels, of "something sensational." 
 
 "Go ahead and get it!" Mr. Spreckels ordered. 
 
 "But, no"; the accountant said it was so big 
 that he must first have a talk with his Chicago 
 chief about it. The Chicago chief came; there 
 were a few days of mystery, then the accountant 
 and his chief both left the coast together. 
 
 " I never got that something big," Mr. Spreckels 
 says now, with a smile. He wasn't balked, 
 however. He put other investigators to work 
 and, though they found nothing "big," they did 
 find something small, very small. Besides gen- 
 eral confusion, mismanagement, unearned divi- 
 dends and inefficiency, there was graft. The 
 directors got gas, electric light, gas ranges, coke, 
 and other supplies free. That was their price, 
 perhaps. That was the way the boss, Joe Crockett, 
 bribed them, but the business boss had another 
 political method of control. He gave places to 
 relatives and friends of the directors and other 
 influential men. The pay-roll was "padded," 
 like a city pay-roll, to make jobs for persons 
 with pull. 
 
 How can business men despise politics so ? 
 How can they pretend to dread the inefficiency, 
 the pulls and the graft of public ownership of 
 
26o UPBUILDERS 
 
 public utilities, when they know that this San 
 Francisco Gas Company is a typical example 
 of "private" or business management of this 
 class of business ? And Mr. Spreckels didn't 
 find out for whom and for what Joe Crockett 
 wanted to run the company; but the rest of us 
 have. We learned in the life insurance and 
 railroad investigations what that "something 
 big" is. 
 
 Mr. Spreckels was busy. He reported to that 
 board of directors what he had discovered, and 
 he suggested that they cut out all this "dry rot" 
 — the financial term for corruption. There was 
 a scene. There was just such a howl at this 
 reform in business as there is in politics, and 
 more hypocrisy. Those old directors were in- 
 digant. To think that they, gentlemen, men 
 of business standing and years of experience, 
 were to be insulted and dictated to by a boy of 
 twenty-eight! He should learn that he couldn't 
 dominate them. They were having troubles 
 enough from one Spreckels already; they wouldn't 
 put up with another "in their midst." 
 
 But that boy of twenty-eight was, indeed, a 
 Spreckels. Independent, wilful, he was sure of 
 the end. He had the facts. He appealed again 
 to the stockholders, who, like him, had been 
 allowing themselves to be voted by "the party 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 261 
 
 in power." He reported to them the condition 
 of things and, offering a ticket in opposition to 
 the regular ticket, he won. Enough of Spreckels's 
 directors were elected to give him control. He 
 did not take the presidency. Because his father 
 was fighting the company, he put up W. B. 
 Bourn for president, but Rudolph was boss. 
 And he cut off more than ^^300,000 of useless 
 expenses (graft, politics, and inefficiency) in the 
 first year! 
 
 It was while he was in control of the gas com- 
 pany that young Spreckels got his first ii^sight into 
 the government of the city. He found upon the 
 padded pay-roll a man employed at ^^500 a 
 month to collect the bills against the city for public 
 lighting. Inquiring why, Mr. Spreckels was 
 told that "this arrangement facilitated" the col- 
 lections; that the collector was a politician, with 
 a following and a pull; he could get the money 
 without delay, and — besides — was " useful in 
 many ways." Mr. Spreckels understood. He 
 discharged the man. 
 
 "What was the result ?" I asked Mr. Spreckels, 
 when he told me of this incident. 
 
 "Some delay; that was all," he said. 
 
 One day an employee brought Mr. Spreckels 
 the bill for gas furnished to the city gas inspector. 
 This official had always ignored his bills and the 
 
262 UPBUILDERS 
 
 company had never cut oflF his gas. What would 
 Mr. Spreckels do about it ? 
 
 " Treat him like anybody else," was the answer. 
 
 When Mr. Spreckels told me of these incidents, 
 I explained to him that such things happened in 
 most cities; that this was part of what business 
 men called political blackmail; that business 
 men, especially those in public service corpora- 
 tions, commonly submitted to and excused this 
 corruption on the ground that, to protect the 
 interests of their business and stockholders, they 
 "had to." They were "held up." 
 
 "What do you say to that, Mr. Spreckels?" 
 
 " I say that you don't have to be blackmailed, 
 even if you are in the public service business. 
 A little backbone is all that is needed — unless 
 you want things you shouldn't have." 
 
 "And that is true even as against a Labour 
 government?" 
 
 Mr. Spreckels smiled. He knew that the 
 "Labour" government was no more "labour" 
 than the Republican party was "republican" 
 and the Democratic party "democratic." He 
 knew that the boss and the leaders of the Labour 
 party, and the oificials of the Labour adminis- 
 tration, were willing to sell out their followers 
 and the city to capital. And this he knew at 
 first-hand. Soon after he and the Labour boss 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 263 
 
 came into power, Spreckels in the San Francisco 
 Gas Company and Ruef in San Francisco, they 
 met. Mr. Spreckels has told under oath the 
 story of that meeting. He says : 
 
 "Ruef was brought into my office by Mr. 
 Charles Sutro and introduced and left there, 
 and he stated to me that he thought he had legal 
 ability and could be of service to the corporation 
 'otherwise.' He suggested that he be employed 
 as counsel for the company." 
 
 To have the political representative of Labour 
 offer to represent a "hated capitalistic" corpora- 
 tion shocked Mr. Spreckels, the capitalist, no 
 more than it did citizens or the workingmen 
 themselves. That was old and, as newspaper 
 men understand, it is news, not evil, that stirs 
 men. Mr. Spreckels declined Ruef's offer, but 
 let it pass without a protest. When, however, 
 a little later, the boss came back and proposed 
 to him to use Organized Labour as a " capitalistic 
 club" in the interest of a capitalist, Mr. Spreckels 
 was aroused. That was news. Mr. Spreckels 
 has recounted this experience also under oath: 
 
 "Mr. Ruef called on me at the time of the 
 issuing of the city bonds," Mr. Spreckels's affidavit 
 reads, "and he asked me to get up a syndicate 
 for the purpose of taking them over. He said 
 it could be guaranteed that the bonds would be 
 
264 UPBUILDERS 
 
 sold to my syndicate. I asked him how he 
 could possibly guarantee such a thing when it 
 (the bond issue) was open to public bidding. 
 Ruef said that was easy. They could call a 
 strike on the street-car system of San Francisco, 
 and with every street-car line tied up, he would 
 like to see the capitalists or bankers, other than 
 the (inside) syndicate, that would bid." 
 
 That was the incident which fixed the deter- 
 mined mind of Rudolph Spreckels upon political 
 reform. His present enemies — business men, 
 who cannot conceive of a business man taking 
 part in public affairs except for a business motive 
 — date Mr. Spreckels's interest in his city from 
 1906, when, they say, he failed to get a certain 
 street railway franchise that he wanted. But 
 this bond issue experience was two years before 
 that, in 1904, and from his interview with Ruef 
 that day, he went straight to a luncheon where 
 to several men of his acquaintance (who remem- 
 ber) he told the story and declared he was going 
 to employ detectives, investigate the government 
 and present evidence to convict the men that ran 
 the city and Labour. He talked to others about 
 It. Professor Loeb, the biologist, recalls that 
 Mr. Spreckels talked of his plan to him on an 
 overland train in September, 1904. So there 
 are witnesses for those who doubt, but I happen 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 265 
 
 to know from conversations with Older and 
 Heney in Washington, before the franchise matter 
 came up, that Spreckels was the man who was 
 to back their investigation in San Francisco. 
 
 The franchise matter is, however, a most 
 important incident in the development of the 
 public character, interest, and ideas of Rudolph 
 Spreckels; and, likewise, in the history of the 
 corruption and reformation of the city. Brown 
 Bros., bankers, of New York, managed the 
 consolidation of the San Francisco street railways. 
 These had been held separately by the Southern 
 Pacific crowd and by other groups of capitalists. 
 As the earnings increased, the fare had to be 
 reduced, higher dividends paid, or the stock 
 watered, and, of course, the stock had been 
 watered. The consolidation meant more water- 
 ing, and the result was a capitalization amounting 
 to several times the cost of construction. 
 
 This over-capitalized consolidation was taken 
 over by Mr. Patrick Calhoun, of New York, 
 Cleveland, St. Louis, and Pittsburg. And genial 
 San Francisco merchants, in conversation with 
 me, sympathized with this very charming gentle- 
 inan, "because," they said, "he really was 
 cheated by our Mr. Huntington." But Mr. 
 Calhoun has left everywhere the reputation of a 
 very astute financier; he probably knew what he 
 
266 UPBUILDERS 
 
 was about; he knew how he could make San 
 Francisco pay dividends on his watered stock. 
 At any rate, he added about one-third more water. 
 
 His scheme was to take out the old cables 
 and put in the overhead trolley. He knew how 
 people object to that system, but in an easy- 
 going community like San Francisco and with a 
 "Labour" government, anything should go. He 
 was so sure of success that he recommended his 
 stock to his friends and to the bankers who 
 direct the investments of widows and orphans. 
 Moreover, he filled solid with cement some of 
 the cable conduits, which might have served for 
 the underground wires. Mr. Calhoun was sure 
 of himself and of San Francisco. 
 
 But one day, while the scheme was fresh, 
 Rudolph Spreckels was invited by Charles Page, 
 an attorney, to join with some other property 
 owners on Pacific Avenue to consider the proposed 
 overhead trolley. He went to the meeting and 
 he heard them decide to oppose the change — 
 as to Pacific Avenue. A petition to the super- 
 visors had been drawn to that effect. Mr. 
 Spreckels remonstrated. He said that he, too, 
 objected to overhead wires, but he thought it 
 wasn't right to fight for their own street in the 
 interest of their property alone. 
 
 "I don't want an overhead trolley in front of 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 267 
 
 my property," he said, "but I suppose that other 
 people don't want It in front of their property, 
 either. Certainly the city's supervisors should 
 treat all streets alike, and we shouldn't ask them 
 to favour us particularly." 
 
 He moved that they oppose the overhead 
 trolley on the whole Sutter Street (cable) system. 
 That was agreed to; the old petition was torn up 
 and a new one drawn. Solicitors were engaged 
 to get signatures, and with 75 per cent, of the 
 property-owners' names upon it, the paper was 
 presented to the Board of Supervisors. And the 
 supervisors refused the grant. But this was the 
 old, so-called Phelan Board, which held over 
 into the Schmitz administration. In 1905, when 
 "Labour" came into complete control, the out- 
 look for Mr. Calhoun and his street railways 
 was better. It was known that the "Labour" 
 supervisors would sell out to "Capital." And 
 it was supposed that, of course. Capital would 
 sell out to Capital. 
 
 The United Railways Company tried to "get" 
 Rudolph Spreckels. I mean that Patrick Cal- 
 houn offered Rudolph Spreckels a bribe. Let 
 me hasten to add that business men may not 
 call it bribery; such as Mr. Calhoun would call 
 his proposition to Mr. Spreckels "business"; 
 and it was "business." But one of the evidences 
 
268 UPBUILDERS 
 
 that have gone to persuade me that the ethics 
 of American politics is higher than the ethics 
 of business, is that this typical piece of "business" 
 would be called bribery and corruption in politics, 
 even by the low-down politicians themselves. 
 They might take the bribe, but they would take 
 it knowing that it was a bribe. 
 
 The company tried "reason" first. Arthur 
 Holland, the then president of the United Rail- 
 ways, and Chapman, the general manager, called 
 upon Mr. Spreckels. He had become the head 
 and front of the opposition, and they asked him 
 to withdraw. His reply was that he had read 
 all the published arguments of the company 
 against underground trolleys. There was nothing 
 in them, he said, and he asked if they had any 
 others. They said no, that the engineering 
 impossibilities were all they had to offer. There 
 were some sixteen deep depressions on the pro- 
 posed lines, and in the rainy season these could 
 not be drained. 
 
 "That, then, is your only reason?" Mr. 
 Spreckels asked. 
 
 That was all, they said. 
 
 "There is no other?" Mr. Spreckels made 
 sure. "You don't mind the difference in cost?" 
 
 Not at all; they were sure. 
 
 "Very well," Mr. Spreckels sai(J. "Then I 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 269 
 
 have a solution. I will put drains on the present 
 (cable) conduits, and keep them dry. I will 
 keep them so dry that you will yourselves admit 
 that they are dry. But, if I do that, I shall expect 
 you to install the underground trolley in those 
 conduits." 
 
 They refused this proposition, and Mr. Spreckels 
 told them why. 
 
 "You haven't given me your real reason, 
 and I will continue to fight." 
 
 Then came Mr. Patrick Calhoun talking 
 "business." There were three meetings. The 
 first was a general, pleasant chat at the Bohemian 
 Club between Messrs. Calhoun, R. B. Hale, 
 James D. Phelan, Rufus B. Jennings, and others. 
 They couldn't get very far without Mr. Spreckels, 
 so he was sent for, and Mr. Calhoun soon saw 
 that Spreckels was the man. He was keen, firm, 
 amiable, but not to be charmed or fooled. Evi- 
 dently Patrick Calhoun made up his mind then 
 to "get" Spreckels, for, after the meeting, he 
 asked for a second meeting with him alone. 
 
 They met at the Canadian Bank and went to 
 a private room in the Mercantile Club upstairs. 
 After some preliminaries, Calhoun offered to 
 modify his overhead trolley plans to this extent: 
 he would except Pacific Avenue. That was the 
 street on wljich Spreckels lived. Mr. Calhoun 
 
270 UPBUILDERS 
 
 would leave the cable there for the present, at 
 least, and, if he ever did apply electricity to that 
 line, would use the underground conduit. Mr. 
 Spreckels understood the proposition perfectly, 
 as his reply showed. He said that no concession 
 to him or to his street could break his allegiance 
 to the other property owners. Mr. Calhoun 
 went away disappointed. But he tried again. 
 
 The third meeting was again in the Canadian 
 Bank building, and Mr. Calhoun had a witness 
 present, his brother-in-law and manager. Mr. 
 Spreckels had none, so I must be careful. Mr. 
 Spreckels says that Mr. Calhoun explained that 
 he couldn't put in conduits all over the city. 
 But he could put in some, and he told where. 
 Also, however, he would tunnel the Powell Street 
 hill and make Powell and Sutter the most valuable 
 transfer-point in the city. 
 
 "Is that because I own property at that point ?" 
 Mr. Spreckels asked. 
 
 "Why, no," Calhoun answered. "Are you 
 interested ? I didn't know that." 
 
 Besides this offer, Mr. Calhoun bid to remove 
 street-cars altogether from Pacific Avenue and 
 take the parallel street, Broadway. That would 
 make Mr. Spreckels's street more attractive, and 
 as for the convenience, Mr. Spreckels and his 
 friends used automobiles and carriages. And 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 271 
 
 Mr. Calhoun went on to tell Mr. Spreckels in a 
 very flattering way that he was the kind of man 
 he wished to have with him, and he suggested 
 that Mr. Spreckels take a stock interest in the 
 United Railways. Mr. Spreckels put the whole 
 business aside with a reference to "people that 
 didn't live on Pacific Avenue and did not ride 
 in automobiles and carriages." He was quiet 
 about it, but he understood it. He was being 
 offered personal inducements to betray the other 
 property owners with whom he had associated 
 himself and of whom he was the leader; the price 
 held out to him was expected to bribe him over 
 to the side of the United Railways. 
 
 "Did you understand this to be bribery?" I 
 asked Mr. Spreckels. 
 
 "Of course it was bribery," he answered. 
 "Bribes aren't always offered in cash, and cor- 
 ruption isn't confined to politics. Anything that 
 ternpts any man from what he thinks to be his 
 duty, is corruption." 
 
 Mr. Spreckels resisted the temptation easily. 
 He told Calhoun, as he told Calhoun's prede- 
 cessors, that he would fight, and he went out 
 and organized a company to build and operate 
 an underground trolley line in Bush Street. That 
 is the offence charged up to him by his fellow- 
 capitalists now. At the time he proposed his 
 
272 UPBUILDERS 
 
 scheme it was not regarded as bad. On the 
 contrary, it was spoken of as public-spirited. It 
 was perfectly understood then that Rudolph 
 Spreckels sought only to prove on Bush Street 
 that the underground trolley was feasible. He 
 expected to incur no loss; he must make the 
 road pay to prove his point. But there was to 
 be " no big money in it," either. One of the terms 
 stated in the papers and to be fixed in the franchise 
 grant from the city, was an agreement that the 
 city was to take over the plant at cost plus interest, 
 at any time it pleased after the demonstration 
 had been made. The scheme was conceived 
 neither as a self-sacrifice nor as selfish; it was 
 only a weapon made for a particular fight, the 
 fight for the city beautiful as against Patrick 
 Calhoun and dividends on the watered stock 
 of the street railway company. 
 
 But the earthquake knocked that weapon out 
 of Rudolph Spreckels's hand. The articles of 
 incorporation were filed a day or two before the 
 disaster of April i8, 1906, and Rudolph Spreckels, 
 invited by Mayor Schmitz to join the Committee 
 of Fifty that was to rehabilitate San Francisco 
 and govern it, at last, as it should be governed, 
 by its best citizens in its own best interest, as a 
 community of men and women — Mr. Spreckels 
 left his company in the air and devoted himself 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 273 
 
 to this bigger, finer task. And he was absorbed 
 for a while. It was an inspiring spectacle, that 
 of those fifty leading men leading a whole city 
 of men and women in the work for the common 
 good. But Spreckels was the first to see that the 
 grafters smelt the graft and that the fifty, reduced 
 to forty, caught the smell, whiffed, and dashed 
 all together — low politicians, high financiers, 
 and dignified attorneys — for the graft. Herrin 
 was on hand; Harriman came flying to the rescue 
 and — to get his rails farther into the city. Cal- 
 houn came out to get, while the city was down, 
 the franchise held up before, but "arranged for," 
 and — he got it. But Rudolph Spreckels saw 
 now that the fight wasn't with Mr. Calhoun; and 
 neither was it with Schmitz and Ruef. It was 
 with some sort of a big, general condition. So 
 he went back to the big, general war he had 
 planned with Heney and Burns — before the 
 earthquake; before that franchise for Calhoun 
 came up — his plan as outlined years before to 
 his friends at lunch, the day Ruef offered to lend 
 him Organized Labour to knock out Organized 
 Capital and seize a bond issue. Rudolph 
 Spreckels went on with his plan for such an 
 investigation and fight of the corruption in San 
 Francisco as he had made and won in San Fran- 
 cisco gas. 
 
274 UPBUILDERS 
 
 That's Rudolph Spreckels's story, in brief. 
 Can you see the man ? Stress has been laid 
 upon his youth and his self-reliance, his fearless 
 readiness to fight. But there is an amiability 
 about the man that is very winning. He is hard, 
 hard as youth, both in conflict and in his judg- 
 ments of men. "Are you with me?" he asked 
 a friend, and when the friend began to " explain," 
 Spreckels cut him short: "Then you're against 
 me. That's all I wanted to know." And his 
 friend didn't like that; none of the men that 
 know him do; Spreckels is so cold-blooded in 
 opposition. But he is reasonable, most generous, 
 and even charming as an ally. When Heney's 
 friends learned that he was "with Spreckels," 
 they warned him. 
 
 " Look out, Frank ! You want to run yourself 
 and all your own undertakings. So do^s Spreckels, 
 and Spreckels will run this prosecution of yours. 
 He must dominate." "I know," said one banker; 
 "I've gone into business schemes with him, but 
 I never do now any more unless I'm willing to 
 have him be the whole show. It's safe to let 
 him — he is a master manager; but I found out that 
 if anybody opposed him, he would bust the 
 scheme, you, and himself rather than not have 
 his own way." 
 
 So Heney expected to have trouble with 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 275 
 
 Spreckels, and the two have clashed sharply, 
 as only two such men can. But Spreckels, 
 aggressive though he is, and positive, is not quick- 
 tempered like Heney. He is serene and, when 
 Heney storms, he waits. Heney is just and — 
 he has humour. So Spreckels smiles till Heney 
 laughs. Then, whoever is right wins, and who- 
 ever is wrong doesn't care, for there isn't a 
 petty trait in either of these men. If they ever 
 fall out, it will be because they ought to, for 
 the big difference between them is fundamental. 
 
 Heney is a democrat; Spreckels is an aristocrat, 
 and an autocrat. Both of them have been too 
 active all their lives to have thought out their 
 philosophies to the definiteness of policy, and 
 they should be able to go far together before they 
 split. For they both are, and probably long will 
 be, fighting what both of them detest, a rotten 
 plutocracy, founded on class hate. But, by and 
 by, when they come to build up where they have 
 torn down, either Heney or Spreckels will go 
 asunder or Spreckels will go on learning what 
 Heney knows by heart. 
 
 I say "go on" learning because I think I 
 never have seen a man learn so fast as Mr. 
 Spreckels has. That is why I believe in him. 
 Since the first time I met the man, I have never 
 doubted his integrity; nor the singleness of his 
 
276 UPBUILDERS 
 
 unselfish purpose; nor his capacity to do great 
 deeds. All the stated objections of his fellow- 
 business men to this business man in politics 
 are silly and all their real objections are nothing 
 but the symptoms of the corruption of the com- 
 mercial mind and its class-conscious folly. The 
 trouble with Mr. Spreckels is that he is, like his 
 critics, a business man and that his scheme for 
 political reform is a business scheme. 
 
 He believes that all men are divided into two 
 classes: good men and bad men. Anybody who 
 has thought about actual life knows that there 
 is something in the plea of railroad and public 
 utility men, that they "have to" be bad; that 
 there are certain businesses which no man can 
 "succeed" at and be honest. But Mr. Spreckels 
 has that great fault of the self-made man; he has 
 learned not from the experience of others, but 
 only from his own, and what he doesn't know 
 isn't known. He is unacquainted with the 
 literature and the history of politics and govern- 
 ment; he has no economic enlightenment at all. 
 He is truly a practical man, and his practical 
 experience is exceptional. He knows that he, 
 as a gas magnate, did not bribe anybody and 
 that he didn't "have to." If you call his atten- 
 tion to the salient fact that he didn't make a 
 "success" of gas; that he didn't "finance" the 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS i']) 
 
 company, but only managed it in the interest of 
 the stockholders, he smiles. 
 
 "That is all any public utility man should be 
 allowed to do," he says. 
 
 So Mr. Spreckels proposes to put the bad 
 men of San Francisco in jail. But what then ? 
 What is to prevent the generation of other bad 
 men ? 
 
 There is where Mr Spreckels thinks his scheme 
 excels all others. He knows it won't suffice to 
 have Heney "put away" the few "bad men" 
 Burns can catch. He knows that eternal vigi- 
 lance is the price of good government. So he 
 proposes, after this prosecution is over, to establish 
 a permanent bureau, a staff composed of an 
 expert accountant, to keep watch of the city's 
 books, contracts, etc.; a detective to shadow for- 
 ever the men in public office; and an attorney to 
 receive, order, complete, and present the evidence 
 in court. This has been done before, but never 
 mind; it has never been done as Rudolph 
 Spreckels is proving that he means to do it. 
 There may be some objection to spying, but 
 Mr. Spreckels says such a watch is the common, 
 every-day practice in banks and in other business. 
 So let that pass. 
 
 But what is to prevent Mr. Spreckels's account- 
 ant from "selling out"; his detective from 
 
278 UPBUILDERS 
 
 "standing in"; his attorney from "taking per- 
 fectly proper fees" from other clients ? The 
 vigilance of Mr. Spreckels. He will watch his 
 watchers. So it comes down, finally, to the 
 character of Mr. Spreckels. That happens to 
 be about as sound a foundation as any one 
 man can furnish, but it is a one-man scheme. 
 It isn't democratic. The democratic theory is 
 founded on the expectation that self-government, 
 by its very abuses, will tend gradually to develop 
 in all men such a concern for the common good 
 that human nature will become intelligent and 
 considerate of others. That sounds almost Chris- 
 tian, and it isn't business. In business the old 
 autocratic practice prevails; one man is boss, 
 and he runs everything and everybody. 
 
 That is why business men's reform movements 
 seek to abolish or subordinate the board of alder- 
 men and to concentrate all power in the mayor. 
 They want a good, responsible king. And if 
 they would only elect men who would be king, 
 they might be satisfied, but the "good" business 
 man they choose Is usually of the sort that looks 
 up to "big" business men; he has the prejudice 
 of his class against the political boss, but when 
 he discovers that this low-down politician is the 
 mouthpiece of the high-up business men, he takes 
 orders as well as the ordinary heeler. "Better," 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 279 
 
 says ex-Boss Buckley, of San Francisco, who tried 
 him out. 
 
 Business men ought to elect a "big" business 
 man mayor. Rudolph Spreckels is the very type. 
 He wouldn't look up to anyone and no politician, 
 no matter whom he represented, could get Mayor 
 Spreckels to "take programme," as they say in the 
 West. But big business men "despise politics" 
 and scorn office-holding; they are too proud, or 
 something, to "appeal to the people," and they 
 have a class aversion to publicity. Mr. Spreckels, 
 possessed of the virtues, has some of the faults of 
 his class. He, too, despises politics; he told me 
 he never had voted in his life; and he promises, 
 with pride, not to take office. It is sometimes 
 a duty to take office; it is as ridiculous for a 
 citizen in a republic to boast that he won't as it 
 would be to announce with pride that he will 
 not go to the front in time of war. As for the 
 fine instinct of your sensitive gentlemen for 
 privacy, criminals have that. And as for render- 
 ing an account to the people, somebody has to; 
 and Mr. Spreckels lets Heney issue the statements 
 of the' prosecution to the public. 
 
 Now I have shown, I think, why business men 
 should be for Rudolph Spreckels. Why haven't 
 I shown why real democrats should be against 
 him? There are two good reasons: one is that 
 
28o UPBUILDERS 
 
 while he has some of the faults of his kind, he 
 hasn't all; he lacks those that are dangerous. 
 The other is that he is getting over those that he 
 has. His original idea was to let whosoever 
 would nominate and elect whomsoever they 
 pleased. But politics is interesting, and I noticed 
 that Mr. Spreckels could not keep his hands off. 
 He regretted it, but he had to help run the board 
 of aldermen after the members confessed; and 
 he had to help name a mayor when Schmitz was 
 convicted. And in doing these things, he had 
 to consider the wishes of the public, as he wanted 
 to. Well, this was politics, and it was amusing 
 to observe that Mr. Spreckels showed a native 
 talent for the game. He says he won't, but he 
 will play it, as he should. 
 
 And he will be boss. He thinks not, of course; 
 he hates the word. We all do. But he will 
 have the power. Since he is back of the prose- 
 cution, and will be back of his vigilantes, men 
 do, and they will continue to come to him for — 
 advice. His advice may be good, and he may 
 be, therefore, a good boss. But a boss he is and 
 a boss he must be. But his scheme, like the whole 
 idea of the San Francisco prosecution, is extra- 
 legal and unsafe. 
 
 Mr. Spreckels now, like any other boss, is 
 working through agents: Heney, Langdon, etc. 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 281 
 
 They are doing well; they may do better; but they 
 may do something that Mr. Spreckels would 
 not have done. Mr. Langdon may become jealous 
 of his prerogatives; the mayor may adopt a policy 
 that is repugnant to Mr. Spreckels, and yet not 
 criminal. Mr. Spreckels will see then that he 
 can't, and that he shouldn't, carry out his ideas, 
 no matter how good they are, except in a legal 
 office where he has himself the power and is, 
 in his own person, responsible to the other citi- 
 zens of the city, who should be free to elect or 
 defeat him. 
 
 That means going to the people, yes, but 
 Mr. Spreckels has learned something about the 
 people. When I first met and heard him talk 
 about "business," I said: 
 
 " But, Mr. Spreckels, business won't help you. 
 You'll find, if you go far enough into this political 
 corruption, that business graft is at the bottom 
 of it. And when you touch that, your own class, 
 the business men of San Francisco, will go back 
 on you." 
 
 He smiled; he knew all that. But what he 
 didn't know, and what I saw him find out when 
 his own class did go back on him, was that the 
 people, yes, even Labour, would listen. Organ- 
 ized Labour, led by the same kind of selfish 
 grafters that lead Organized Capital, held off 
 
282 UPBUILDERS 
 
 like Its capitalistic twin, but the rank and file 
 were reasonable and capable of some little self- 
 sacrifice. And Mr. Spreckels's personal experi- 
 ences were private, with a few men. He won't 
 address a crowd, but Heney does and he sees 
 that Heney rarely fails to get a response from 
 his juries and from "the masses" generally. 
 Well, the masses decide in this country and 
 their decisions are good, and the reason they 
 are good is not because the people are better 
 than their "betters," but because they are dis- 
 interested. They are not in on any graft, so 
 they can be fair. 
 
 But the best hope of Spreckels lies in this rare 
 trait: he has mental as well as moral integrity. 
 He has class prejudices, but they take a peculiar 
 form. A capitalist, he can see the beam in the eye 
 of capital as clearly as he can the mote in the eye 
 of labour; and the only sense of class that he 
 shows is in his real scorn for the workingman's 
 brick and the politician's petty blackmail. He 
 would let them go to get the big, real deviltry 
 of his own class, which is the source of our 
 corruption, political, business, and labour, too. 
 And he did. 
 
 Mr. Spreckels was fair. He gave his own 
 class a chance. He passed the word in business 
 circles that he was going after grafters; that he 
 
RUDOLPH SPRECKELS 283 
 
 knew business men were held up; he argued 
 that they couldn't like to be held up and, there- 
 fore would undoubtedly be glad to help expose 
 and destroy the whole blackmail system. He 
 invited the business men of San Francisco to 
 turn state's witnesses and help him "get" the 
 politicians. But no business man accepted his 
 hospitality. They all "stood pat"; some of 
 them went on being "held up" by the politicians 
 who — did accept Mr. Spreckels's invitation. For 
 he sent it to them also. 
 
 And when they turned state's witnesses, there 
 was clamour downtown. A strike was impending, 
 the car-men's strike, and Spreckels himself has 
 suffered from labour's tyranny. "Everybody" 
 wanted the unions smashed and Patrick Calhoun 
 promised to smash them. No matter. A whole 
 lot of leading business men, the very leaders of 
 the city, were indicted for bribery or corruption 
 and Calhoun was among them. Spreckels "went 
 back on his class." That's what was said, and he 
 was "cut"; his family was punished; his bank 
 suffered a (rich depositors') run. Spreckels was 
 unmoved; he was getting publicity, but he took 
 it. He called at his bank; lunched at "the" 
 Club; and he appeared constantly in court. 
 He was following the evidence. 
 
 This is all that JS necessary. Let such a man 
 
284 UPBUILDERS 
 
 as this — honest, fearless, young and open-eyed 
 — let Rudolph Spreckels but follow the facts; 
 they will teach him the truth, and, no matter 
 what the truth may be, he will tackle it; and he 
 will tackle it right or — quit. 
 
 "And Spreckels can't quit," Heney says. "I 
 don't say he won't; he can't." 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 
 
 OREGON has more fundamental legislation 
 than any other state in the Union excepting 
 only Oklahoma, and Oklahoma is new. Oregon 
 is not new; it is and it long has been corrupt, yet 
 it has enacted laws which enable its people to 
 govern themselves when they want to. How 
 did this happen ? How did this state of graft 
 get all her tools for democracy ? And, since it 
 has them, why don't her people use them more ? 
 The answer to these questions lies buried deep 
 in the character and in the story of W. S. U'Ren 
 (accent the last syllable), the lawgiver. 
 
 They call this man the Father of the Initiative 
 and Referendum in Oregon, but that title isn't 
 big enough. U'Ren has fathered other Oregon 
 laws, and his own state isn't the limit of his in- 
 fluence. The Dakotas have some similar legisla- 
 tion. Meeting on a Western train one day a 
 politician who seemed to know all about things 
 there, I inquired into the origin of the Dakota 
 laws. 
 
 "There's a fellow over in Ore^n," he an- 
 swered — " funny name — he tipped us off and 
 
 28s 
 
286 UPBUILDERS 
 
 steered us; sent drafts of bills and pamphlets 
 containing arguments. I can't recall his name." 
 
 "U'Ren?" 
 
 "That's it; that's the man." 
 
 They are getting good laws in the State of 
 Washington, also. I asked in Seattle where 
 they came from. Very few knew, but those that 
 did said: "U'Ren of Oregon." 
 
 The first time I heard this name was in Rhode 
 Island. Ex-Governor Garvin, the advocate of 
 democratic legislation for that law-bound state, 
 knew about U'Ren. After- that I used to come 
 upon his influence in many states and cities 
 where men were tinkering with the sacred con- 
 stitutional machinery that won't let democracy 
 go. But my last encounter with the mysterious 
 ubiquity of this singular man's influence was 
 amusing. Spreckels, Heney, and the other 
 fighters for San Francisco thought of going to the 
 people on a certain proposition and, seeing thus 
 the uses of the referendum, wanted it. I sug- 
 gested writing to U'Ren. They never had heard 
 of him, but they wrote, and he came. And he 
 heard them out on their need of the referendum. 
 
 "But I think," said U'Ren, "that you have 
 it in your city charter." Everybody looked 
 incredulous. "Where is the book?" U'Ren 
 asked. "I think I can find it. I certainly had 
 
WILLIAM S. U'REN 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 287 
 
 some correspondence with the makers of that 
 charter; I think I drafted a section — yes, here 
 it is. [He read it to himself.] It isn't mine — 
 not very clear — but [handing back the book] 
 good enough for your purpose, you see." 
 
 William Simon U'Ren, the lawgiver, was born 
 January 10, 1859, at Lancaster, Wisconsin. His 
 father is a blacksmith, and his father's seven 
 brothers were blacksmiths; their father was a 
 blacksmith, and their father's father, and his 
 father, and his. As far as the family can trace 
 from Cornwall, England, back into Holland, 
 they see an unbroken line of blacksmiths. And 
 preachers. Five of U'Ren's seven uncles preached 
 and, among their ancestors, other blacksmiths 
 preached. And William U'Ren himself is both 
 a blacksmith and a preacher in a way; in a very 
 essential way. 
 
 " Blacksmithing is my trade," he says. "And 
 it has always given colour to my view of things. 
 For examplej when I was very young, I saw 
 some of the evils in the conditions of life, and I 
 wanted to fix them. I couldn't. There were no 
 tools. We had tools to do almost anything with 
 in the shop, beautiful tools, wonderful. And so 
 in other trades, arts and professions; in every- 
 thing but government. In government, the com- 
 mon trade of all men and the basis of all social 
 
288 UPBUILDERS 
 
 life, men worked still with old tools, with old 
 laws, with constitutions and charters which 
 hindered more than they helped. Men suffered 
 from this. There were lawyers enough; many 
 of our ablest men were lawyers. Why didn't 
 some of them invent legislative implements to 
 help the people govern themselves ? Why had 
 we no tool makers for democracy?" 
 
 U'Ren is a very quiet man. He never would 
 strike one as a blacksmith. He never would 
 strike one at all. Slight of figure, silent in motion, 
 he speaks softly, evenly, as he walks; and they 
 call him, therefore, the "pussy cat." 
 
 "You see," he purred now, "I saw it all in 
 terms of the mechanic." 
 
 But he feels it all in the terms of religion. 
 His mother, also Cornish, also of the class that 
 labours hard, was also religious — a Methodist. 
 She taught her children from the Bible. Je- 
 hovah, Moses, and Jesus were the ideals of this 
 humble family, and, for some reason, Moses 
 caught the imagination of her oldest boy, William. 
 He always wanted to hear about Moses, the 
 lawgiver, and when he could read for himself. Ex- 
 odus and Numbers were the books he loved best. 
 And just as some boys want to be Napoleon, so 
 young U'Ren dreamed that when he grew up 
 he would be Hke Moses, the giver of laws that 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 289 
 
 should lead the people out of Darkness into the 
 land of Promise. But, of course, the Biblical 
 hero-worship, taught him first by that pious 
 woman, his good mother, made it a religious 
 influence, as it still is, for when U'Ren, the black- 
 smith, is fashioning his legislative tools he works 
 not alone with the affection of the true mechanic, 
 but with the devotion of a faith that his laws 
 will indeed deliver the people from bondage. 
 
 All his life WiUiam U'Ren had heard of liberty. 
 His father's father lived in Cornwall on land 
 leased for ninety-nine years; his mother's father 
 on land leased for "three lives." That's why 
 his father emigrated at seventeen, and his 
 mother at ten, to the "land of the free." And 
 one of William's first recollections of "American 
 liberty" is of our war against slavery. His 
 mother told stories of "poor little black children 
 sold away from their mothers," and his father 
 pointed out the power of the "slave interest." 
 He realized the Power of Evil, that father did. 
 
 A strong, independent spirit, he wanted to 
 work for himself. He was an expert mechanic. 
 The son tells how once when they got a job 
 together, he boasted of his father's skill, and the 
 next time a piece of work came along calling for 
 a master workman, the elder U'Ren was put to 
 it. He did it to a turn "in one heat." So he 
 
290 UPBUILDERS 
 
 was in demand as "a hand," but he had a head 
 and he "hated a boss." He wouldn't stick to 
 a good job, no matter how good it was. He 
 must " move on," seeking liberty — freedom to 
 do his own work in his own way. He couldn't. 
 The best pay for a blacksmith was in big organi- 
 zations like the copper mines of Lake Superior. 
 He tried farming. He led his family West, 
 from Wisconsin to Nebraska; over into Colo- 
 rado; back to Wisconsin; down again to Wyo- 
 ming and Colorado. It was no use. Father 
 and sons, they all worked as only border farmers 
 work; they couldn't earn enough ahead to buy 
 their liberty; or, if they got a start, something set 
 them back. 
 
 U'Ren visualized one tragic day out of this life 
 for me. His father had taken up a homestead in 
 Nebraska, and they had made a farm of it. William 
 remembers halting, on his way to town one morn- 
 ing, to look back from a hill over the rich, yellow 
 level of their crops spread out under the sun. 
 When he came home that afternoon, he stopped, 
 stunned, on that same hill-top. The sun still 
 shone, but the homestead, the whole country, 
 was bare and brown. The boy understood then 
 what one of the plagues of Egypt was. The 
 grasshoppers had passed, a cyclone of them, 
 and in four hours the U'Rens were ruined. 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 291 
 
 "I was brought up in the fear of the poor," 
 U'Ren says, "the terrible fear of poverty." But 
 not in hate; at least, not in the hatred of men. 
 "Things make men do bad things," he says. 
 He does not believe in bad men and good men, 
 and, as we shall see, he deals placidly with both 
 kinds. "G>nditions are to blame for all evil," 
 he pleads patiently, "conditions that can be 
 changed." His father, who pointed out condi- 
 tions to him, taught him also to fight. But he 
 was to fight for justice, not for hate. 
 
 Since the family moved about so much, William 
 seemed always to be "the new boy" at school. 
 The others picked on him. He was still a child, 
 quick-tempered, but not aggressive. And the 
 first time he was tempted to fight, when he was 
 seven years old, he took his mother's counsel 
 that only 
 
 "Dogs delight to bark and bite; 
 It is their nature to." 
 
 William didn't fight. But when, not long 
 after that, at Nevadaville, Colorado, Davie 
 RadclifFe called Willie U'Ren a liar, Willie con- 
 sulted his father. The father reflected a moment, 
 then said in a way the boy never forgot: 
 
 "Never hunt a fight, boy, but never run from 
 one; never suffer wrong or injustice." 
 
 The next day Willie U'Ren hunted the fight 
 
292 UPBUILDERS 
 
 he had avoided. He found Davie; Davie didn't 
 care to fight then. But another boy accommo- 
 dated Willie. Johnnie Badger, the fighter of the 
 school, licked Willie that day; and the next; 
 and the next. Willie came back for his daily 
 licking till his father happened to hear of it. 
 
 "What's the matter, WiUiam?" he asked. 
 "Can't you Hck that boy ?" 
 
 "Not yet," said William, "but I will some day." 
 
 The father took his boy in hand, taught him 
 how to use his fists and — Willie went to school 
 and licked Johnnie Badger. "And then," U'Ren 
 says, "we became good friends." 
 
 A salient trait of U'Ren, the man, is his perfect 
 self-possession. His father developed that in 
 him. One day William was sent to a neighbour's 
 for a set of double-trees for a wagon. He hitched 
 a trace to it and, letting his horse drag it home, 
 lost one of the clevis pins. His father rebuked 
 him sharply, and William flew into one of his 
 violent but infrequent passions. His father was 
 silent. He didn't want to break the boy's spirit; 
 he waited till William "felt bad." They were 
 haying together then, and at one of the pauses 
 to rest the father talked quietly about self-control. 
 One must learn to govern one's self, he said, 
 and he concluded: "If you don't, William, you 
 might kill" 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 293 
 
 No one who meets W. S. U'Ren now could 
 believe that he ever had a temper. It took time, 
 but the characteTrhuilding done for the boy 
 both by his parents and by himself was good work 
 well done. And his m ental deve lopment was still 
 more interesting. Though his father's discontent 
 kept the conditions of their life critically before 
 him, there was no understanding of causes. The 
 family read "Greeley's Paper," and both father 
 and son followed politics. But the first definite 
 sense of the economic problems underlying politics 
 came to William himself when he was hardly 
 thirteen. The farmers in the Nebraska district 
 where his father had his homestead, needing a 
 school, met to devise ways of making the absentee 
 land-owners pay for it. 
 
 "It seemed to me, as a boy," U'Ren says 
 now, "that something was wrong in this. If it 
 was right for those non- voting landholders to 
 own the land, it was wrong to tax them for the 
 school they did not use. Or, if it was right to 
 tax them, it was wrong for them to hold the land 
 they did not use. I puzzled over this, but I could 
 not put my finger on the injustice I felt lurking 
 somewhere." 
 
 He never spoke of this. He was a solitary soul, 
 as his sports show. He didn't dance, nor even 
 play much. He liked to hunt and think, to work 
 
294 UPBUILDERS 
 
 and think, to read and — dream. While he 
 learned his trade, and learned to love it, and 
 while he worked the farm and took pride in his 
 straight rows of corn, his ambition ran off to 
 politics. But not to the game. Congress was 
 his goal. That was where the lawgivers gathered. 
 To fit himself to make laws, he must study law 
 and, in Denver, he entered an office as a student, 
 but not with the idea of making law his career. 
 One of the firm, Merrick A. Rogers, encouraged 
 U'Ren there. "Money-getting isn't a very high 
 object, not for a life," he used to say. And de- 
 spite his terror of poverty, U'Ren has always 
 regarded the practice of his profession as a secon- 
 dary consideration. He is a legislator. 
 
 Politics comes first with U'Ren. He makes 
 his living with his left hand; his right is for the 
 state. And that such citizenship can be effective 
 is demonstrated by this remarkable fact: The 
 Father of the Initiative and Referendum, the first 
 legislator of Oregon, has held office but once in 
 his career. He has done what he has done as a 
 citizen in politics. 
 
 His first experience of the game was in Denver 
 when he was a law student. The Presidential 
 campaign of 1880 was on and U'Ren had just 
 come of age. The Republican party needed the 
 help of all good men and true, and first-voters 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 295 
 
 were invited to work. U'Ren volunteered. He 
 offered his services with the enthusiasm of youth 
 and the fervour of that secret inspiration of 
 Moses. And the leaders welcomed the boy. 
 They put him to work. They directed him to 
 aid in colonizing voters in a doubtful ward! 
 
 U'Ren was stunned. He did not know such 
 things were done. He was horrified, but fasci- 
 nated. He said nothing; he didn't do the work, 
 but he hung about watching it done. The dreamer 
 was allowed to see the inside. There were anti- 
 Chinese riots in the town. The mob marched 
 through the streets crying "The Chinese must 
 go!" and threatening to kill them. U'Ren be- 
 came excited. Here was oppression of the weak. 
 At his request, he was appointed a deputy to 
 "protect the poor Chinamen," and he served 
 in all earnestness till an insider explained to him 
 that the mob was organized and the riots were 
 faked — to get the good citizens out to the polls 
 to vote for "law and order and the Republican 
 party." 
 
 The elders forget how young people feel when 
 they first discover that the world isn't what 
 schools and grown-ups have taught them. It 
 would be better to teach the truth; then the new 
 citizens would be prepared for the fray. As it is, 
 the sudden shock carries away not only the 
 
296 UPBUILDERS 
 
 "illusions," but more often the character of 
 youth. Not so with U'Ren, however. His dream 
 of Congress vanished, but his hope of inventing 
 laws to make such evils less easy and profitable 
 — that stayed. Indeed, this was the time when 
 the dominant idea of his life took its first definite 
 form. 
 
 "As I watched this fraud, and saw that it 
 was the means by which the other evils were 
 maintained, I felt clearly that a modicum of 
 the thought and ingenuity which had been 
 devoted to machinery, if given to government, 
 would make this a pleasant world to live in. 
 That men were all right at bottom, I was con- 
 vinced, for I noticed that we young men were 
 honest and capable of some unselfish service. 
 It was the older men that were * bad.' " 
 
 Sickness befell U'Ren, a long, lingering, weak- 
 ening illness, that took all the sand out of him. 
 He was admitted to the bar, and practised long 
 enough to see the trickery and the injustice of 
 the Law. He edited a newspaper at Tin Cup, 
 a mining town, but he saw that that business 
 had its frauds, too, and that the editor is no freer 
 than his father, the blacksmith, was. So he quit, 
 and began just such a wandering life as his father 
 had led. In pursuit of liberty and health, he 
 moved about from Denver to Iowa, back to 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 297 
 
 Colorado, on to California, the Hawaiian Islands, 
 and Oregon, and back, getting better and worse 
 till 1889-90, when something happened; some- 
 thing for which these wander-years and his whole 
 life and his father's had prepared him. 
 
 He read "Progress and Poverty." It is won- 
 derful how many of the men who are working for 
 political reform got their inspiration from Henry 
 George. "I am for men," George said, and he 
 made men. No matter what the world may 
 decide to do about his single tax, some day it 
 will have to acknowledge that Henry George 
 brought into the service of man more men of 
 more different kinds than any other man of his 
 day. U'Ren is not an orthodox single-taxer 
 to-day; U'Ren cannot be classified economically 
 at all; he thinks for himself. He read other books 
 then; he reads other books now. Open-minded 
 in the period when, as he says, "the hard condi- 
 tions and selfish interests of life are ossifying 
 most men," he never has been able to close up 
 his mind. He is wide open to any truth from 
 any source. 
 
 The way he started on his career as a 
 legislator shows this. One day toward the end 
 of his wander-years, as he was changing from 
 the train to the boat on the Oakland (California) 
 mole, somebody thrust into his hand a leaflet on 
 
298 UPBUILDERS 
 
 the "initiative." There was nothing about the 
 "referendum," and U'Ren had never heard of 
 either. But he had noticed that all the political 
 evils of all the cities and states, where he had 
 idly watched men defeat themselves, culminated 
 in the betrayal of the people by their representa- 
 tives. And this leaflet showed how the people 
 themselves, outside of and over the heads of their 
 elected representatives, might initiate and pass 
 laws. Here was a tool for democracy; here was 
 a means to achieve the reforms Henry George 
 indicated. U'Ren determined then and there 
 to hammer this leaflet into a bill and pass it — 
 somewhere. 
 
 U'Ren didn't care where. The need of it 
 was universal in the United States. He thought 
 how useful it would be in Denver, in Iowa, in 
 Wisconsin; it was needed right there in California. 
 But he happened to be going to Oregon and — 
 that's how U'Ren came to be the lawgiver "of 
 Oregon." 
 
 The initiative — as a tool, remember; as a 
 means to an end; as a first political step toward 
 changing our economic conditions — this idea 
 gave purpose to his life. His health improved. 
 He went to Portland and, mousing around for 
 books and men, came upon E. W. Bingham. 
 
 "Ed. Bingham," U'Ren says, "was a law- 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 299 
 
 maker. He had the most wonderful constructive 
 talent for law-building that I ever encountered." 
 
 Bingham was working with an Australian 
 Ballot League. He was secretary, and he taught 
 U'Ren to be secretary of things. "Never be 
 president," he said. "Never be conspicuous. 
 Get a president and a committee; and let them 
 go to the front. The worker must work behind 
 them, out of sight. Be secretary." 
 
 U'Ren has always been secretary; clerical, 
 impersonal, but busy, like Bingham. He has 
 given credit for all his work to other men. The 
 first time I met him, he talked of leagues and 
 committees of leading citizens — bankers, rail- 
 road men, corporation attorneys, corrupt politi- 
 cians — whom he named. But I noticed that 
 while the members of U'Ren's several committees 
 knew something about their own work, they 
 seldom knew anything about that of the other 
 committees of which U'Ren was secretary; and 
 when it came to precise information, they all 
 would say, "You must see our secretary, a 
 Mr. U'Ren, for that." A Mr. U'Ren was the 
 one man in Oregon who knew all about all this 
 legislation. 
 
 Well, Bingham had drawn the Australian 
 ballot law for his league, and he talked it over, 
 section by section, with U'Ren, who thus got 
 
300 UPBUILDERS 
 
 from an expert his first lesson in law-building. 
 The next thing was to pass it. U'Ren asked 
 why they didn't get the platform committee of 
 the Republican Convention to endorse the bill. 
 Bingham laughed, and so did a senator who was 
 present, but the dreamer " rushed in where angels 
 feared to tread." You will hear to-day in Oregon 
 that U'Ren is "the smoothest lobbyist" in the 
 state, and he is. He is calm, conciliating, per- 
 sistent; and he fits his argument to his man. 
 He talked politics to that platform committee; 
 he gave, not his reasons for wanting the Australian 
 ballot, but arguments which appealed to these 
 party politicians. And they listened. Then 
 Bingham appeared. Unlike U'Ren, Bingham 
 was aggressive. He came into the committee 
 room with fire in his eye, bulldozing, begging, 
 reasoning, and threatening. They could put off 
 U'Ren; Bingham hung on like a bulldog, and in 
 the end, they got his bill endorsed by the Repub- 
 licans. Then they went to the Democratic 
 Convention and there also they won. And the 
 Legislature, thus pledged, adopted Bingham's 
 Australian ballot. 
 
 Started thus first in the public service, U'Ren 
 had still to make his living. About that time 
 he fell in with an interesting group of people, 
 the Luellings of Milwaukee (Oregon), orchardists 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 301 
 
 and nurserymen. Seth developed the well-known 
 cherries, "Bing" and the "Black Republican," 
 which latter the South re-named the " Luelling." 
 Seth and his wife, and Alfred Luelling, were 
 live-minded people, and they gathered about 
 them other active brains. They thought, and 
 they read; they had lectures and they recited 
 from the English poets. Lacking orthodox teach- 
 ers, they guided themselves through studies 
 ranging from economics to spiritualism. Una- 
 fraid of any new idea, they gave a welcome and 
 a hearing to any apostle of any ism. U'Ren 
 was well received among them. He was taken 
 into partnership in the business. When that 
 failed in the panic of 1893, there was a quarrel, 
 and bitter feelings which endure to this day, 
 but U'Ren says that his health, his heart, and 
 his mind all were better for this life among these 
 people. 
 
 It was here that he heard first of the referen- 
 dum. They were all members of the Farmers' 
 Alliance, and Alfred Luelling brought to a 
 meeting one night J. W. Sullivan's book on 
 direct legislation in Switzerland. It contained 
 the whole set of tools of which, hitherto, U'Ren 
 had heard of but one, the initiative. This would 
 enable the people to make laws; the referendum 
 would enable them to stop legislation initiated 
 
302 UPBUILDERS 
 
 by their legislators. U'Ren was enthusiastic; 
 th? whole alliance was. With these tools, the 
 people could really govern themselves. And 
 that is what these people wanted; they were 
 Populists. 
 
 We of the East despised the "Pops"; but 
 their movement was to the reform movement 
 of to-day what the "extreme" Abolitionists of 
 New England were to the great movement that 
 produced Lincoln and the Republican party. 
 U'Ren became a Populist. But that party was 
 to him — what the Republican party is to him 
 now; what any party must be to any man who has 
 in mind the good, not of an organization, but of 
 a people — a means to an end, an instrument, a 
 political tool.. The "Pops" were sincere people 
 who wanted to change things for the better. 
 There was a use for them, and U'Ren, who saw 
 it, joined them and soon was secretary of the 
 Populist State Committee. 
 
 And when, as secretary of the Populists, he 
 had worked the initiative and referendum plank 
 into their platform, he went forth as secretary 
 of a Direct Legislation League to the conven- 
 tions of the other parties. And he lobbied 
 initiative and referendum planks into the plat- 
 forms of all of them, excepting only the Prohibi- 
 tionists, who, like the Socialists, "won't play" 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 303 
 
 with anybody else. Having the parties pledged, 
 he set about making them keep their promises. 
 He lighted a fire behind them. 
 
 U'Ren went to the people. They were ready 
 for him. The year was 1893. Discontent was 
 widespread. Agitation had taken the form of 
 a demand that the Legislature to be elected in 
 1894 should call a constitutional convention to 
 rectify all evils, and U'Ren was one of the many 
 workers who went about pledging candidates. 
 But he and the Luellings concentrated on the 
 "L & R.," as they called the initiative and referen- 
 dum. As secretary of the Direct Legislation 
 League he got up a folder stating simply the demo- 
 cratic principle underlying the initiative and 
 referendum and the results to be expected from 
 it. Direct legislation was an acknowledgment of 
 the right of the people to govern themselves and 
 a device to enable them to do so. The "L & 
 R." would put it in the power of the voters to 
 start or stop any legislation, just like a boss. In 
 other words, it would make the people boss; 
 the legislators would have to represent the voters 
 who elected them, not railroads and not any other 
 "interest." Nobody could object (openly) to 
 this; at least, nobody would out there in that 
 Western state where the failures of democracy 
 were ascribed, not as in the East, to the people. 
 
304 UPBUILDERS 
 
 but to the business and political interests that 
 actually are to blame. 
 
 Everybody worked. The women sewed the 
 folders; two-thirds of the houses in Milwaukee 
 were thus engaged that winter (1893-94); they 
 prepared 50,000 folders in English and 18,000 
 in German; and the alliances and labour unions 
 saw that the voters got and read them. The 
 effect was such that when the politicians pleaded 
 ignorance of the initiative and referendum, U'Ren 
 could answer: "The people know about them." 
 And that was, true. After the election, these same 
 workers, men and women, circulated a petition 
 which, with 14,000 signatures, was presented to 
 the Legislature. 
 
 Now, that is as far as a reform movement 
 usually goes. U'Ren went further. Knowing 
 that the representatives elected by the people are 
 organized in the Legislature to represent some- 
 body else, U'Ren went to Salem as a lobbyist, 
 a lobbyist for the people, and he talked to every 
 member of that Legislature. He saw the chicanery, 
 fraud, and the politics of it all, but he wrung from 
 a clear majority promises to keep their pledge. 
 
 "And we lost," he told me quietly. "We 
 lost by one vote in the House and in the Senate 
 also — by one vote." 
 
 "Fooled?" I asked. 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 305 
 
 "Fooled," said U'Ren. "It was done in the 
 Senate by a wink, a wink from Joe Simon" 
 (president of the Senate and boss of Portland). 
 
 "You understood. How did you feel?" 
 
 "We were angry," U'Ren answered. "I com- 
 pletely lost my self-control and I said and did 
 things that were wrong. And when I saw my 
 mistake, I remembered what my father used to 
 say about self-control, and I tied a string on my 
 finger to remind me. That device of the children 
 worked with me. I think I never afterward 
 completely lost my temper." 
 
 The act which U'Ren calls his mistake was to 
 go out from that Legislature to punish the mem- 
 bers who had broken their pledges; and that is 
 what I can't help believing must be done. But 
 U'Ren is one of those very, very few men that 
 believe, after these 2,000 years, in the Christian 
 spirit as a practical force. 
 
 "Alfred Luelling first questioned the wisdom," 
 he said, "of punishing faithless legislators. We 
 talked it over and I thought a lot about it. And 
 I decided that he was right. After that, we never 
 again punished men. Of course, we voted 
 against a delinquent, if the parties gave us a 
 choice; but our policy was to publish, not a man's 
 delinquencies, but his promises." 
 
 Coming from a practical politician, this is a 
 
3o6 UPBUILDERS 
 
 most important tip for reformers. And U'Ren 
 is a practical politician. He learned something 
 from that Legislature. Watching it as, when a 
 boy, he watched Denver politics, open-eyed, he 
 saw what he saw, and his mind, never taught 
 to blink the facts, took in what his ears and eyes 
 perceived. When he came home, he organized 
 his county, and he organized it well. The 
 "dreamer" became the boss of his (Clackamas) 
 county, but he was not a selfish boss. This 
 was his chance to realize his young dream of 
 Congress. The Populists wanted him to go, but 
 he knew now what Congress was, and "What 
 could I have done against the combine that ran 
 it?" he asked. "I could do nothing but protest 
 at Washington," he added. "In Oregon I 
 could get the initiative and referendum through." 
 So he ran for the assembly and was elected. 
 This was in 1896. Bryan was running for Presi- 
 dent, and Oregon was a Free Silver state. Even 
 Republicans like Senator Mitchell were for 
 silver; they were called "Silver Republicans" 
 just as in the East we had "Gold Democrats." 
 The Populists elected thirteen assemblymen, 
 the Democrats three, the Republicans forty-four; 
 in the senate the Populists had three votes, the 
 Democrats three, the Republicans twenty-four. 
 And this is important because that Legislature 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 307 
 
 never was organized; it was the famous hold-up 
 session, a scandal yet in Oregon. And U'Ren 
 was one of the managers of that hold-up. Oh, 
 he had learned a lot of politics ! 
 
 The demand for a constitutional convention 
 was waning. Leaders like U'Ren realized that 
 a convention might not be so amenable to public 
 opinion as the Legislature, so he was for the initia- 
 tive and referendum by legislative amendment. 
 That would require the passage of the resolution 
 through two legislatures in succession and then a 
 vote by the people. This way looked long, but 
 U'Ren, as a boy, had proven on Johnnie Badger 
 that he was built to fight till he won. And he 
 had a plan. He had seen in the last session how 
 a delegation such as the "Pops" had now could 
 be used to play politics with, and U'Ren had made 
 up his mind to play politics — for the people. 
 He began right after election. 
 
 Oregon at the time was in that primitive stage 
 of corruption where personalities still played a 
 part and any cash briber had a chance for high 
 office. The railroads ruled, but the dominant 
 road, the Southern Pacific, was a foreign corpora- 
 tion. Its bosses might have gone to the United 
 States Senate from Oregon if ' they had lived 
 there, but they were elected by California, so 
 Oregon was open to its own rich men. And 
 
3o8 UPBUILDERS 
 
 many of them sought the "honour." They 
 paid out great sums trying to get it. The poHti- 
 cians told me that these bankers, editors and 
 business men were "played for suckers" year 
 after year; and any Oregonian will tell you with 
 a laugh the names of the victims of this long- 
 drawn-out comedy. 
 
 U'Ren understood this. In 1897 Senator 
 Mitchel was to be reelected; U'Ren had no 
 doubt of that, and he called on him to trade 
 "Pop" votes for his help on the initiative and 
 referendum. Politician as he was, Mitchell 
 talked favourably in August, not at all in Novem- 
 ber, and just before the session, "went back on" 
 the measure entirely. He told U'Ren why. 
 
 " I've got three " Pop " votes that nobody can 
 get away," he said. 
 
 "Are you sure ?" asked U'Ren, who could 
 hardly believe that the Populists, so new and so 
 enthusiastic, would surrender so soon to "the 
 conditions that make men bad." 
 
 Mitchell was sure; he advised U'Ren not to 
 introduce the bill. "My people won't stand 
 for it," the Senator said. 
 
 Mitchell had made one other shift of position. 
 A Silver Republican all through the Oregon 
 campaign (which ended in the June election), 
 he came out after it for McKinley and gold. 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 309 
 
 Some of his lieutenants left him, among them 
 Jonathan Bourne, Jr., a man we must know. 
 He is now a United States Senator from 
 Oregon. You have heard of black sheep ? Well, 
 Jonathan Bourne was the black ram of a rich 
 old New England family. After a wild time at 
 Harvard University and a wilder time "about 
 town," he went West and had the wildest time 
 of all. I think U'Ren will not charge him up 
 to conditions; I've heard him say that Bourne 
 was improved by age. Bourne learned his game 
 from Mitchell, who learned his from Quay in 
 Pennsylvania, whence Mitchell came (after a 
 change of name). And the lesson of the Quay 
 school of politics was not to organize like Tam- 
 many for the year around, but to "let her rip" 
 till just before a campaign, then make a new 
 " combine." 
 
 When Mitchell made his gold "combine," 
 Bourne made his new silver "combine" and — 
 U'Ren joined Bourne. Mitchell didn't have 
 the three Pop votes. U'Ren found that his dele- 
 gation was solid, and ready to trade. All they 
 wanted was (i) the initiative and referendum, 
 (2) a good registration law (Ed. Bingham's), 
 and (3) Pop judges and clerks of elections. 
 Bourne wanted to be Speaker. He was willing 
 to swing his delegation to the Pop bills in return 
 
310 UPBUILDERS 
 
 for their votes for his speakership. This settled 
 the House; they looked to the Senate. The 
 President, Joe Simon, was the man who beat the 
 constitutional convention with a wink. No 
 matter. U'Ren wasn't punishing men. He 
 called on Simon. He knew Simon wanted to go 
 to the United States Senate. Simon didn't say 
 so. No. Simon's conversation suggested that 
 President Corbett of the First National Bank 
 would make a good Senator, but the politicians 
 understood that Corbett was "only Simon's 
 rich sucker." And so it turned out, for when, 
 later, Simon did control a legislature for Corbett, 
 Simon, not Corbett, was elected to the United 
 States Senate. But U'Ren wasn't interested in 
 senatorships. He believed that Simon would go 
 into a strong combine to beat Mitchell. And he 
 was right. Since the terms — U'Ren's "fool" 
 legislation and Bourne's speakership — were satis- 
 factory, Simon delivered the Senate. 
 
 Does it begin to appear now how U'Ren got 
 his good laws in the bad state of Oregon ? Do 
 you begin to understand why it was that " leading 
 citizens" and "corrupt politicians," the very men 
 who are against reform elsewhere, "passed all 
 these reform measures ascribed to U'Ren ?" Most 
 of these men didn't know what they were doing, 
 and they didn't care. They wanted something 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 311 
 
 for themselves; U'Ren wanted something for the' 
 people. On that basis, William U'Ren went 
 into every political deal that he could get into. 
 
 And that he was a factor to be reckoned with, 
 he proved right away. Quick, quiet, industrious, 
 he had his "combine" organized before Mitchell 
 woke up. The Simon-Bourne-Pop crowd cap- 
 tured the temporary organization of the House. 
 This they did by a snap. They weren't ready 
 to elect a United States Senator, and since the 
 election must be held, by law, on the second 
 Tuesday after the permanent organization was 
 effected, their play was to put off the election of 
 a Speaker. U'Ren himself made that play. 
 , There was a contest over one seat in the House. 
 U'Ren was on the committee and he controlled 
 three of the five votes. He wouldn't report. 
 The minority, seeing the game, rushed back and, 
 reporting a row in the committee, caused a row 
 in the House. And a mad scene it was. The 
 Mitchell men rose in a rage and, all on their feet, 
 were crying "Fraud!" and demanding "Action." 
 When U'Ren arrived, his side, uninformed and 
 without a leader, was in a state of confusion. 
 They greeted him with a cheer and he took the 
 floor. Quietly, with great courtesy and unex- 
 expected ability, he met the attack. Everybody 
 else was excited. U'Ren alone was cool and, as 
 
pi UPBUILDERS 
 
 man after man arose to accuse him, he, with the 
 papers they wanted in his pocket, answered with 
 reason and with tact. And his self-possession 
 soon possessed the House. "It is wonderful!" 
 a woman spectator exclaimed. "Whenever that 
 man speaks, you can feel a sense of quiet settle 
 upon the whole House." Little known in the state 
 and known to the politicians as "the dreamer," 
 U'Ren's debate that night made him a reputation. 
 The recollection of everybody present was vivid 
 ten years afterward, when I inquired, but when 
 I mentioned it to U'Ren, he smiled; he never 
 fools himself. 
 
 "It is easy to make a reputation as a parlia- 
 mentarian," he said, "when you have the chairman 
 on your side." 
 
 He won out; that is what he recalls. He beat 
 permanent organization that Monday night, and 
 thus put off the senatorial vote for two weeks. 
 And then followed, not two weeks, but a session, 
 of bribery, drunkenness, hate, and deadlock. 
 Men were bought, sold, and bought back again. 
 Both sides used money fiercely; and since there 
 was no appropriation bill, the members got from 
 the state no salary, no mileage, nothing; they 
 had to have money. Well, they got it. Bourne 
 set up a private house, somewhat like the 
 "House of Mirth" at Albany, N. Y., where he 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 313 
 
 "kept" men on his side. Mitchell ran the price 
 of votes up to thousands of dollars, and he and 
 his lieutenant, Charlie Fulton (later a United 
 States Senator from Oregon), paid out the 
 money in cash. The Pops caught them at it. 
 
 Johnson Smith, assistant warden of the Peni- 
 tentiary, then a Pop assemblyman, proposed to 
 go to Mitchell and take some of his money for 
 evidence. 
 
 "Go ahead," said U'Ren. "We'll vouch for 
 your purpose in doing it." 
 
 So Smith got from Mitchell and Fulton ;^ 1,500 
 as for himself, and ;|525o as for the go-between. 
 The next day, when the Mitchell men were 
 trying to gather a quorum, Smith stood outside 
 in the lobby. Rushing up to him, Fulton 
 ordered him to his seat. Smith laughed. 
 
 "Why! Aren't you going in?" said Fulton. 
 And when Smith said he wasn't, Fulton flew 
 into a rage. "Didn't you take our money and 
 promise to go in ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Smith, "I took your money. 
 You were so damn fresh and free with it, I 
 thought I'd take a piece. But it's you that's 
 sold, not me." 
 
 There was more to this dialogue, but the sequel 
 will interest the people of the United States who 
 want to know about their United States Senators. 
 
314 UPBUILDERS 
 
 Governor (now U. S. Senator) Chamberlain of 
 Oregon made an affidavit for Francis J. Heney- 
 to send to President Roosevelt, deposing and 
 swearing that when Smith was under consid- 
 eration for appointment to the penitentiary, 
 Fulton protested on the ground,^ not that 
 Smith had taken Mitchell's money, but that, 
 having taken it, he had not stayed bought! 
 Charles W. Fulton is fundamentally corrupt. 
 
 "No," says U'Ren. "That was in war time, 
 and we mustn't judge men in the heat of battle 
 by the standards of cold blood." But U'Ren 
 is excusing the bribery of 1897; the Senator's 
 protest to Governor Chamberlain was in 1903 
 — in cold blood. But never mind Fulton. How 
 about U'Ren ? That deadlock, which he helped 
 to manage, lasted to the end. Nothing was ac- 
 complished; no Senator was elected, no legisla- 
 tion passed, and everybody concerned was under 
 suspicion. U'Ren himself had charges to answer. 
 He was accused of taking money from Bourne, 
 and calling together the Pop committee, he 
 admitted that he had borrowed $So. He had to, 
 he pleaded. He had opened a law office in 
 Oregon City, but a "country lawyer" in politics 
 earns very little, and since there was no appro- 
 priation bill, he got no pay as an assemblyman. 
 He earned none, he admitted, and he abided by 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 315 
 
 that. For when the next Legislature voted full 
 salaries and mileage to its predecessor, U'Ren 
 and one other member, George Ogle, sent back 
 their warrants. So he never did get any money 
 for that time and, to exist, he had to borrow 
 from Bourne. But the ;^8o was a loan, not a 
 bribe; he has long since paid it back and, since 
 he suggested the whole deal, the money did not 
 affect his conduct. His committee exonerated 
 U'Ren, but the transaction hurt him, and so did 
 some letters of his which, published later, showed 
 how he traded with the powers of evil; as he did 
 ^ and as he went on doing — deliberately, in 
 cold blood, as George Ogle knows. 
 
 George Ogle, farmer and Populist, is notoriously 
 honest. He was U'Ren's best friend, and when 
 in the fall of 1898 Ogle's mother died, he asked 
 U'Ren to deliver the funeral address. The next 
 day Ogle mounted his horse and rode back to 
 town with U'Ren. It was a cold ride in the rain 
 through slush, but they had a warm talk, those 
 two. U'Ren had run for the Senate that summer 
 against George C. Brownell, the Senator from 
 Clackamas who, as chairman on the committee 
 on railroads, had represented for years the corrupt 
 system of Oregon in the Senate. He beat U'Ren, 
 who turned right around and made a deal with 
 him. U'Ren promised to help elect Brownell 
 
3i6 UPBUILDERS 
 
 to any office he might choose to run for next time, 
 if the Senator would work in good faith for the 
 initiative and referendum. Ogle knew this be- 
 cause he was one of the " Pops" U'Ren had asked 
 to join in his bargain. And Ogle had been 
 thinking it over ever since, and now, out there 
 in the mud and sleet of that country road, he 
 asked U'Ren what the fight was to cost him, 
 U'Ren. 
 
 U'Ren understood, and he answered, "I am 
 going to get the initiative and referendum in 
 Oregon," he said, "if it costs me my soul. I'll 
 do nothing selfish, dishonest, or dishonourable, 
 but I'll trade off parties, offices, bills — anything 
 for that." 
 
 Ogle objected. "Good things are not worth 
 that price," he said. 
 
 They were both thinking of Brownell, of course, 
 and U'Ren said he had to deal with the men in 
 office. "We can't choose our human instru- 
 ments," he argued, " and we can't change political 
 methods till we have passed some legal tools to 
 do it with." And he recalled a story Ogle had 
 told him once of a cattleman who discharged a 
 cowboy because he returned from a search for 
 some cattle with an explanation of his failure to 
 find them. "I want my cattle, not your excuses," 
 the cattleman said, and "that," said U'Ren, "is 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE l^AWGIVER 317 
 
 what the people say to us." It was the old ques- 
 tion whether the end justifies the means. 
 
 They quarrelled over it, those two good friends. 
 It was a quiet quarrel and it is being made up 
 now, but they parted then for many years, Ogle 
 returning to his farm, U'Ren to the lobby at 
 Salem. 
 
 And U'Ren used the lobbyist's means to attain 
 his end. He and Frank Williams watched their 
 "friends" and made new ones. Brownell was 
 true; also he was clever. He didn't pretend to 
 believe in the "crank" measure. "I've got 
 to vote for it," he would say to his "practical" 
 colleagues. "My district is chock-full of 'Pops' 
 and I have to placate them. And what does the 
 initiative and referendum amount to anyway ? 
 It's got to go through two sessions. Pass it now 
 and we can beat it next time." But Brownell's 
 best service was in trading. Once, for example, 
 Williams, one of Lincoln's old secret-service 
 men, learned that two Senators were quarrelling 
 over an appropriation for a normal school. 
 U'Ren arranged through Brownell to get 
 appropriations for both. Two normal schools 
 for two "I. & R." votes! And it was either 
 at this session or the next that U'Ren and his 
 friends connived at what he calls a "vicious 
 gerrymander." 
 
3i8 UPBUILDERS 
 
 "We helped through measures we didn't 
 believe in," U'Ren says in his plain way, "to get 
 help for our measures from members who didn't 
 believe in them. That's corruption, yes; that's 
 a kind of corruption, but our measures were to 
 make corruption impossible in the end." 
 
 The "I. & R." passed in 1899, 44 to 8 in the 
 House, 22 to 6 in the Senate. And U'Ren went 
 on working. The moment the session closed, 
 the Direct Legislation League (W. S. U'Ren, 
 secretary) set about making it impossible for 
 Brownell's friends to "beat it next time." U'Ren 
 instructed the voters. The propaganda was 
 systematic, thorough, complete, and the politi- 
 cians knew it. And the politicians knew now 
 that U'Ren's word was good, and his support 
 worth having. So in 1901, when the measure 
 came up for second passage, U'Ren, from the 
 lobby and after more dickering, saw it go through 
 unanimously. And at the next general election 
 (1902) the people approved it, 11 to i. 
 
 Thus it was, then, that the people of Oregon 
 achieved actual sovereignty over their corrupted 
 state — by the methods of corruption. What 
 good has it done them ? They have the power 
 to change their constitution at will; to make 
 laws and to veto acts of their Legislature, but laws 
 and machinery are of no use to a people unless 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 319 
 
 there are leaders to apply them. The referendum 
 which U'Ren found in the charter of San Fran- 
 cisco was a dead letter; Heney didn't even know 
 it was there. And Heney's exposure of Oregon 
 came two years after U'Ren had his "I. & R." 
 In brief, to repeat the question raised at the be- 
 ginning of our story, Why don't the people of 
 Oregon use their power to change the system ? 
 
 The answer is, as before, "W. S. U'Ren." 
 He knows the "I. & R." is nothing but a tool; 
 that it is worth while only as it can be used to 
 change the "conditions that make men do bad 
 things"; and he means to use it. Indeed, he 
 proposed, when he got it, to proceed at once to 
 economic reforms. But wiser heads counselled 
 that, until the new instrument had been tempered 
 by custom, it would be better to use the "I. & 
 R." only to get other new tools. So the Direct 
 Legislation League gave way to a Direct Primary 
 League, and W. S. U'Ren, secretary, drew a bill 
 for the people to initiate that should enable them 
 to make their own nominations for office and thus 
 knock out the party machines. While this was 
 doing, a railroad planned a referendum to delay 
 a state road which the Chamber of Commerce 
 wanted, and the Chamber, in alarm, threatened 
 an initiative for a maximum rate bill. That 
 settled the railroad, pleased the business men 
 
320 UPBUILDERS 
 
 and showed them the use of the new tool. And 
 when, in July, 1903, a circuit court declared the 
 "I. & R." unconstitutional, there was backing 
 for the tool. U'Ren was able to get Senator 
 Mitchell, Brownell, and eight other political 
 and influential corporation attorneys to appear 
 before the Supreme Court, to defend the "I. & 
 R.," which was sweepingly upheld. 
 
 The Direct Primary Bill was passed by the 
 people in June, 1904, 56,000 to 16,000. A local 
 option liquor bill was passed by initiative at the 
 same time, and in November several counties 
 and many precincts went "dry." U'Ren had 
 nothing to do with this last, but he did have 
 very much to do with another important enact- 
 ment — the choice of United States Senators by 
 direct vote of the people. 
 
 This radical reform was achieved without 
 secrecy, but yet without much public discussion. 
 It was a bomb planted deep in the Direct Primary 
 Bill, and U'Ren planted it — with the help of 
 Mitchell, Brownell, Bourne and two or three 
 editors of newspapers. The idea occurred to 
 U'Ren to write into the Primary bill a clause: 
 that candidates for nomination for the Legisla- 
 ture "may" pledge themselves to vote for or 
 against the people's choice for United States 
 Senators, "regardless of personal or party pref- 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 321 
 
 erence." Mitchell helped to draw the clause, now 
 famous as Statement No. i, which legislators might 
 sign, and he expected to be and, if Heney hadn't 
 caught him grafting, he would have been elected 
 on it without having to bribe legislators. U'Ren 
 would have helped him. As it happened, Mulkey 
 (for a short term of six weeks) and Bourne were 
 the first Senators elected under the amazing law 
 which hardly anybody but U'Ren realized before- 
 hand the full effect of. 
 
 That Jonathan Bourne, Jr., should have been 
 the first product of the popular election of Sena- 
 tors has been used to disparage this whole Oregon 
 movement, but Bourne had backed all these 
 reforms with work and money, and U'Ren says 
 he is sincerely for them. But U'Ren tried to 
 get another man to run, and turned to Bourne 
 only when he was convinced that, to establish 
 Statement No. i as a custom in Oregon, the first 
 candidate must be a man rich enough to fight 
 fire with fire if the legislators should be bribed 
 to go back on their pledges. So, you see, U'Ren 
 was still thinking only of the tool, and he won 
 again. For the knowledge of Bourne's resources 
 and character (and, also, a warning from the 
 back country that the men with guns would come 
 to Salem if their Legislature broke its .pledge) 
 did have its effect. The Legislature confirmed 
 
322 UPBUILDERS 
 
 Bourne without bribery and with only four votes 
 against him. 
 
 The Direct Primary Law settled, a People's 
 Power League was organized (W. S. U'Ren, 
 secretary) to use the people's power, but U'Ren 
 still stuck to tool making. Other reformers 
 used the "L &. R." for particular reforms. The 
 Anti-Saloon League passed a local option bill; 
 the State Grange enacted two franchise tax acts, 
 which the Legislature had failed on; and U'Ren's 
 league put through a constitutional amendment 
 to cut out the state printer's graft. On the other 
 hand, a graft bill to sell the state a toll road, 
 another for woman's suffrage, and a liquor 
 dealers' amendment to the local option bill were 
 all beaten by referendum. But U'Ren and the 
 League worked hardest for and passed, by initi- 
 ative, bills extending the "L & R." to cities 
 and towns, and giving municipalities complete 
 home rule — more tools. And so — next year, 
 initiative bills were passed to let the people 
 discharge any public officer of the state and choose 
 his successor by a special election (this is the 
 famous "recall"); a corrupt practice act; to 
 make the people's choice of United States Sena- 
 tors mandatory; and, deepest reaching of all, pro- 
 portional representation. All tools. There were 
 referendum petitions out, also; two against ap- 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 323 
 
 propriations, one to make passes for public offi- 
 cials compulsory, another to beat a sheriff's graft. 
 But U'Ren was still after the tools. 
 
 But will this tool-making never be over ? 
 "Yes," said U'Ren; and he added very definitely, 
 "Reform begins in 19 10." And one proposition 
 in the list for 1908 showed what we may expect. 
 This was a bill "to exempt from taxation factory 
 buildings and machinery; homes and home im- 
 provements, but not the lots nor the farms." 
 Quietly worded though this was, the reform involved 
 is economic, and economic reforms are, jis we 
 have-seen, what U'Ren is after. And he will get 
 them, he and the people of Oregon. I believe 
 that that state will appear before long as the 
 leader of reform in the United States, and if it is, 
 W. S. U'Ren will rank in history as the greatest 
 lawgiver of his day and country. 
 
 But what about the man ? What about re- 
 forms got as he has got his ? It must be remem- 
 bered, before passing judgment, that Oregon 
 was in that stage of corruption where the methods 
 were loose, crude and spontaneous. Perhaps 
 the condition I mean can best be brought home 
 by citing an agreement written by Harvey W. 
 Scott, the really great editor of that really great 
 newspaper, the Oregonian (and of its afternoon 
 edition, the Telegram), one night in 1903. There 
 
324 UPBUILDERS 
 
 was a contest on for United States Senator. 
 Scott bad hopes. Bourne had had them, but he 
 had nothing left but a small minority of legisla- 
 tors. These he owned, however; they had cost 
 him ;?25,ooo. Scott wanted Bourne's legislators, 
 so on the last night of the session he wrote the 
 agreement printed below, and Wm. M. Ladd, 
 the leading banker of Portland, wired it (hence 
 the verbal errors) to Salem. Here it is: 
 
 "In case I receive Jonathan Bourne, Jr.'s, 
 support for United States Senator at the joint 
 session of the Legislature to-night, I hereby agree 
 to use the full power of the Morning Oregonian 
 and the Evening Telegram to defeat John H. 
 Mitchell at the next senatorial election,^ and elect 
 Jonathan Bourne, Jr., in his place. 
 
 " I further agree that if I receive the support 
 of Jonathan Bourne, Jr., for United States Senate 
 in the joint session of the Legislature to-night, 
 that if elected I will turn all the Federal patronage 
 over to Jonathan Bourne, Jr. 
 
 " I hereby further agree in lieu [view] of receiv- 
 ing the support of Jonathan Bourne to-night at 
 the joint session of the Legislature, that whether 
 elected or not, I will pay to Jonathan Bourne 
 ^5,000 in United States gold coin." 
 
 Scott didn't get his senatorship; Brownell 
 threw it to Fulton, but that is neither here nor 
 
W. S. U'REN, THE LAWGIVER 325 
 
 there. Other contracts like this are in the 
 the safe-deposit vaults of Portland, and they 
 illustrate the state of corruption W. S. U'Ren 
 worked his reforms through. And all U'Ren 
 did was to trade, dicker, and connive. I've told 
 the worst of it — yes, practically all of it; and it 
 may not be considered as very bad; certainly it 
 never was selfish; but it was corruption. So I ask: 
 "Isn't U'Ren only our damned rascal?" 
 I put the question to U'Ren himself one day. 
 I was at his home, a small cottage on a point 
 of land that looks up the Willamettte River to the 
 famous Falls. One afternoon, when the country 
 lawyer was telling me his story, the "wrong as 
 well as the right of it," and we were in the midst 
 of one of his deals, his wife looked into the parlour 
 and asked him if he wouldn't get her some wood. 
 He rose and we went out to the wood-shed; and, 
 as he chopped, I said: 
 
 "How well off, are you, U'Ren?" 
 He rested his axe to answer: "I think," he said, 
 "that I am one of the richest men in Oregon." 
 "How is that? Have you made money?" 
 "My earnings average about ^1,800 a year. 
 But that isn't what I mean. I haven't any 
 money, but I haven't any wants either, not for 
 myself." 
 
 "What about your conscience?" I persisted. 
 
326 UPBUILDERS 
 
 "What have those compromises with corruption 
 cost you?" 
 
 "Nothing," he said. "I never have done a 
 dishonest or a dishonourable thing." 
 
 "No, but you have made bargains with the 
 devil to get him to pass your laws. You remem- 
 ber Moses? He also broke the covenants of the 
 Lord, and you know what happened to him. 
 He was taken up where he could see the Lan^ of 
 Promise, but he wasn't allowed to go over into it. 
 Why won't it be so with you ? You may have 
 saved the people of Oregon, but haven't you lost 
 your own soul ? Won't you go to hell ?" 
 
 He was looking down while I spoke, and he 
 didn't see that I was speaking half in fun. Evi- 
 dently he considered the prospect seriously, for 
 after a moment, he looked up steadily at me, 
 and in even tones answered out of his delibera- 
 tion. 
 
 "Well," he said, "I would go to hell for the 
 people of Oregon!" 
 
 THE END 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adams, Frank, 193, 199, 208, 
 209, 228, 236. 
 
 Administration, Mayor 
 Fagan's first, 24. 
 
 Alliance, the Farmers', 301. 
 
 Amendment, Rush, to Denver 
 State Constitution, 234. 
 
 American, Sugar Refining 
 Company, 249. 
 the real, issue: represen- 
 tative government, 30. 
 Smelting Company, 197. 
 
 Anti-saloon League, the, 322. 
 
 Attorney-general McCarter, 
 22, 23, 24. 
 
 Australian, ballot law adopted 
 
 in Oregon, 300. 
 
 Ballot League, 299. 
 
 Bacon, Edgar B., 17, 23. 
 Baird, David, Repub. boss of 
 
 Camden, 80. 
 Baker, the, case, 219. 
 "Battle-Axe Gang" of Globe- 
 
 ville, 218. 
 Bingham, E. W., "a law- 
 maker," 298. 
 his Australian ballot law 
 adopted, 300. 
 Bishop, Frank, president of 
 County Board of Den- 
 ver, 229. 
 Bosses, ward, 7. 
 big, II, 12. 
 little, II, 12. 
 Republican, 19, 35. 
 
 Bosses — Continued 
 
 Democratic, 19, 35. 
 political, not really bosses, 
 
 67. 
 real, are business men, 
 67. 
 Bourn, W. B., 261. 
 Bourne, Jonathan, jr., his 
 silver "combine," 309. 
 sets up a private house, 
 
 312. 
 should have been first 
 product of popular 
 election of Senators, 
 
 321- 
 mentioned in Scott's writ- 
 ten agreement, 324. 
 
 Brownell, George C, 315, 320. 
 
 Browning, J. A., a teacher who 
 teaches, 48. 
 
 Calhoun, Patrick, 247, 265, 
 
 269. 
 plans for overhead trolley, 
 
 266. 
 offers R. Spreckels a 
 
 bribe, 267. 
 proposed to smash the 
 
 unions, 283. 
 Carey, Robert, 17, 23. 
 Carson, Eli, another case of 
 
 "making good," 141. 
 Cassatt, A. J., 76. 
 Caucus, the, 54. 
 Chamberlain, Governor, of 
 
 Oregon, 314. 
 
 327 
 
328 
 
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 Cheesman, Walter, Pres. of 
 Denver Water Co., 
 240, 241. 
 
 Children, Society for Preven- 
 tion of Cruelty to, 157. 
 
 Colby, Charles L., builder of 
 Wis. Central Railroad, 
 
 47- 
 Colby, Everett, Repub. Assem- 
 blyman from Essex Co., 
 
 32. 
 
 elected Senator, 32. 
 
 born, 1874, 47. 
 
 prepared for Brown, 48. 
 
 graduated, 48. 
 I makes tour around the 
 world, 48. 
 
 studies law, 48. 
 
 becomes a Wall Street 
 broker, 49. 
 
 appointed chairman of 
 executive committee of 
 Repub. organiz., 51. 
 
 offered Senatorship, 52. 
 
 nominated and elected, 52. 
 
 introduces Dickinson's 
 bills in the House, 53. 
 
 made floor leader of 
 Rep. majority, 57. 
 
 presents limited fran- 
 chise bill, 77. 
 
 Orange issue: limited 
 franchise, 84. 
 
 the "Love Feast," 89. 
 
 elected Senator, 89. 
 Colorado Fuel and Iron 
 
 Company, 203, 233. 
 "Combine, the, 9. 
 Company, Fidelity Trust, 21, 
 69. 
 
 United Gas Improve- 
 ment, 21. 
 
 conference of, held at 
 Sherry's, 22. 
 
 Company — Continued 
 
 United States Steel, 56. 
 Colorado Fuel and Iron, 
 
 203, ^Z3- 
 American Sugar Refining, 
 
 249. 
 Independent Gas and 
 
 Electric, 257. 
 San Francisco Gas, 250, 
 
 257- 
 United Railways, 247, 
 
 264. 
 Corporation, Public Service, 
 
 21, 22, 31, 32, 33, 69, 
 
 78, 80. 
 Corporations, the, 11, 18, 35, 
 
 58, 91 •. 
 
 dodge their share of taxes, 
 18. 
 
 Jersey, 81. 
 
 corrupt, of Colorado, 197. 
 Correction, the game of, as 
 instituted by Judge 
 Lindsey, 128, 182. 
 Corruption, what the political 
 and financial, of the 
 U. S. is built up on, 8. 
 
 political, in Jersey City, 1 1 . 
 
 political, in San Fran- 
 cisco, 247. 
 Cotton mill, set up in Color- 
 ado, violates^child-labor 
 law, 203. 
 Court, Juvenile, of Denver, 
 95, 97, 100, loi, 131, 
 205. 
 
 founded on principle of 
 love, 113. 
 
 merely supplementary. 
 
 Judge Lindsey's, of Pro- 
 bation, 128, 132. 
 
 Supreme, of Colorado, 
 226, 243. 
 
INDEX 
 
 329 
 
 Crime, j u v e n i le, on the 
 increase in U. S., no. 
 
 causes of, 150, 156, 192. 
 
 the jails, schools of, 109. 
 Criminal manufacturers, 183. 
 Criminals, born, 188. 
 
 bred, 188. 
 
 Davis, " Bob," the Democratic 
 
 boss, 7, 11,36, 45. 
 Democratic, County of Hud- 
 son, 10. 
 machine, 34. 
 boss, 19, 35. 
 Denver, County Court of, 94, 
 228, 229, 230. 
 typical American city 
 
 government, 193. 
 winerooms in, saloons, 
 
 193-. 
 
 Juvenile Court of, see 
 Court. 
 
 County Board of, 227-236. 
 
 school teachers of, 131. 
 
 fight against the jail in, 
 208. 
 
 County Commissioners 
 of, 228 — 236. 
 Dickinson, Col. Sam, Repub- 
 lican boss, II, 18, 21, 
 
 22, 23. 34. 45> 52- 
 appointed Secretary of 
 State by Gov. Murphy, 
 12. 
 calls on Mayor Fagan, 13. 
 appointments recom- 
 mended to Mayor by, 
 16. 
 Direct Primary Bill, passed, 
 
 320. 
 "Ditching," 134. 
 Dryden, John F., sent to 
 United States Senate. 
 22. 
 
 Dryden— rContinued 
 
 gives a yachting party, 22. 
 the man back of McCar- 
 ter, 67. 
 Duffield, Edward, the House 
 leader, 75. 
 
 Evans, William T., the Den- 
 ver boss, 237, 239. 
 
 Fagan, Mark, birth, 3. 
 schooling, 4. 
 learned the trade of 
 
 frame-gilder, 5. . 
 undertaker, 5. 
 started in politics, 8. 
 elected virard leader, 8. 
 nominated Mayor, 11. 
 elected Mayor, 12. 
 dreams of making Jersey 
 
 City "a pleasant place 
 
 to live in," 15. 
 policy to equalize taxa- 
 tion, 18. 
 raises rates on the tax 
 
 dodgers, 19. 
 learns that trolley is king 
 
 of his state, 24. 
 first administration, 24. 
 re-nominated and elected, 
 
 26. 
 famous letter to Gov. 
 
 Murphy, 28. 
 how and why, will make 
 
 J. C. "prettj;," 46. 
 raised present issues of 
 
 N. J. politics, 59. 
 issue: equal taxation, 84. 
 Farmers' Alliance, the, 301. 
 Fidelity Trust Company, 21, 
 
 69. 
 Folk, 36, 86, 90, 149, 151. 
 Franchise, tax fight, 31. 
 in Jersey City, 31. 
 
330 
 
 UPBUILDERS 
 
 Franchise — Continued 
 
 "grabs," 31. 
 
 perpetual, 33. 
 
 limited, 33. 
 Fry, Edward, 17. 
 Fulton, Charles W., 313. 
 
 fundamentally corrupt, 
 314- 
 
 Garvin, ex-Governor, of 
 
 Rhode Island, 286. 
 George, Henry, 16, 297, 298. 
 Golden, Industrial School at, 
 107, 108. 
 what, is for, 117, 137. 
 trusting young criminals 
 to go alone to, 165. 
 Graft, 9, 20, 46. 
 
 county, in Denver, 227. 
 in San Francisco, 259. 
 Grafters, the, 22, 36. 
 
 Republican business, 69. 
 of Denver convicted, 233. 
 
 Hale, R. B., 269. 
 Harrington, Cass, 229. 
 Heimel, Jack, a boy burglar, 
 174. 
 "Tatters," 174. 
 Heney, Francis J., 86, 273, 
 275,280,282,284,314. 
 his exposure of Oregon, 
 
 319- 
 Higgins, Frank J., 17. 
 Holland, Arthur, President of 
 
 United Railways, 268. 
 Hughes, Charles J., 233. 
 
 "I. and R.", the, 303. 
 
 passed in 1899, 318. 
 
 nothing but a tool, 319. 
 
 declared unconstitutional, 
 
 1903; defended by 
 
 U'Ren and others, 320. 
 
 "I. zndR."— Continued 
 
 used for particular 
 
 reforms, 322. 
 Independent Gas and Electric 
 
 Company, 257. 
 Industrial School at Golden, 
 
 107,108,117,137,165. 
 Initiative, the, 298. 
 
 U'Ren, father of, 285. 
 
 Jennings, Rufus B., 269. 
 Jersey City, 3, 6, 13, 21, 23, 24, 
 25, 26. 31, 33, 36. 
 corporation offices and 
 
 properties in, 11. 
 "nothing but a railroad 
 
 terminal," 15. 
 corrupt, neglected, 
 
 robbed, 15. 
 Fagan's hopes for, 15. 
 trolley lines, ig. 
 Fagan's "group plan" of 
 government in, 84. 
 Johnson, Tom, 36. 
 Jury-fixing a common prac- 
 tice, 225. 
 Juvenile crime, see Crime. 
 Juven ile Improvement 
 Society, 240. 
 
 Kelsey, Frederick W., 70. 
 Kids Citizens' League, 124. 
 
 "Labour" government in San 
 Francisco, 262, 266. 
 comes into complete con- 
 trol, 1905, 267. 
 
 Ladd, William M., the lead- 
 ing banker of Portland, 
 Oreg., 324. 
 
 La FoUette, 36, 86, 90, 91, 
 
 149. 151- 
 Law, the School, of 1899, 
 107. 
 
INDEX 
 
 331 
 
 League, Kids Citizens', 124. 
 for Honest Elections, 235. 
 Australian Ballot, 299. 
 Direct Legislation, 302- 
 
 Direct Primary, 319. 
 People's Power, 322. 
 Anti-saloon, 322. 
 Lentz, Carl, Repub. boss of 
 
 Essex County, 50, 66. 
 Mayor, ■]%. 
 Life, Prudential, 21, 69, 74. 
 Lindsey, Ben B., 95, 99, 112, 
 
 115, 130. 
 the " methods " of, 98, 147. 
 founds his "kids' court," 
 
 108. 
 visits the City Jail, 109. 
 visits the County Jail, 
 
 109. 
 his "Problem of the 
 
 Children," 100, no, 
 
 III. 
 opposition to, 149. 
 elected County Judge of 
 
 Denver, 151. 
 up against the System, 
 
 151- 
 methods are applied 
 
 Christianity, 151. 
 " 1 e n i e n c y," so-called, 
 
 '54- 
 
 practice of privacy, 154. 
 
 consideration for both 
 parents and children, 
 160. 
 
 his Juvenile Association 
 for Protection and 
 Betterment of Chil- 
 dren, 191. 
 
 his bills in the interests of 
 children, 216. 
 
 his "fight against the 
 jail," 208. 
 
 Lindsey — Continued 
 
 attacks "jury-fixing," 
 
 225. 
 the author of the present 
 
 election lavrs of his 
 
 state, 226. 
 his exposure of the 
 
 County Commissioners, 
 
 227. 
 investigates and exposes 
 
 graft in Denver, 227- 
 
 ^34- 
 "The first citizen of 
 
 Colorado," 235. 
 re-elected County Judge 
 on his own terms, by 
 unanimous vote of the 
 people, 238. 
 Lindsley, Harry A., 95, 108, 
 
 232. 
 Luelling, Alfred, 301, 305. 
 Luellings, the, of Milwaukee, 
 300. 
 
 Mack, Teddy, a fourteen- 
 year-old "criminal," 
 185. 
 
 Mahoney, Boss Thomas J., 
 223. 
 
 "Major," the case of, 119. 
 
 Martin, Lee, a boy burglar, 
 174, 186. 
 "The Eel/' 174. 
 
 Martin, William P., 69, 89. 
 
 McCarter, Tom, the Attorney- 
 general, 22, 23, 24. 
 President of P. S. C, 22, 
 
 67, 69, 81. 
 Robert, made Attorney- 
 general, 22. 
 Uzel, 74, 81. 
 
 Messenger service, a degrad- 
 ing influence for hoys, 
 207. 
 
332 
 
 UPBUILDERS 
 
 "Mickey," the story of, 210. 
 
 Mitchel, Senator, 308, 320, 
 321. 
 his gold "combine," 309. 
 
 MofFatt, David H., leading 
 banker and financier 
 of Gjlorado, 240. 
 
 Morgan, Randall, 23. 
 
 Morris, the celebrated injunc- 
 tion case of, 144. 
 
 Murphy, Governor, 12, 27, 
 31, 58. 
 
 "New Idea," the, 84, 87. 
 Newark, the metropolis of 
 N. J., 69. 
 Greater, plan to create a, 
 
 70. 
 
 Ogle, George, farmer and 
 
 Populist, 315-317. 
 Oregon, fundamental legis- 
 lation of, 285. 
 
 corruption of, 285. 
 
 a state of graft, 285. 
 
 W. S. U'Ren, the law- 
 giver of, 285. 
 
 railroads ruled in, 307. 
 
 the famous hold-up ses- 
 sion in, 307. 
 
 how thepe'ople of, 
 achieved actual sover- 
 eignty over their cor- 
 rupted state, 318. 
 
 Palmer, Judge Peter L., 194. 
 
 his injunction, 194. 
 Patterson, United States 
 
 Senator, 231. 
 Phelan, James D., 269. 
 Populists, the, 302, 308. 
 "Problem of the children," 
 
 not a separate problem, 
 
 224. 
 
 Quay school of politics, the, 
 309- 
 
 Railroad, Pennsylvania, 21, 
 62, 78, 80. 
 property taxed separately 
 
 in New Jersey, 25. 
 taxation, a great question 
 
 in N. J., 26. 
 rates, 45. 
 Railroads, 26, 31, 59. 
 Record, George L., 16, 17, 18, 
 20, 22, 23, 32, 55, 59, 
 82, 84. 
 Referendum, the, 298. 
 U'Ren, father of, 285. 
 Where U'Ren first heard 
 of, 301'. 
 River-Frontgang,the,l74,l8l. 
 Rockefeller, Percy, 57. 
 Rogers, Merrick A., 294. 
 Rosenbaum, Johnny, the case 
 of, 139. 
 
 San Francisco, political bad- 
 ness of, 247. 
 United Railways of, 247, 
 
 264. 
 Gas Company of, 250, 
 
 257, 258, 260. 
 Gas War in, 256. 
 Earthquake in, 272. 
 
 Scott, Harvey W., editor of 
 the Oregonian, 323. 
 
 Session, famous hold-up, 307. 
 
 Sewell, General, 11. 
 
 Simon, Joe, 310. 
 
 Smith, George Allan, 233. 
 
 Smith, George T., 12. 
 
 Smith, James, jr.. Democratic 
 business boss, 69. 
 
 Smith, Johnson, assistant 
 warden of the Peniten- 
 tiary, 313. 
 
INDEX 
 
 333 
 
 "Snitching," 134. 
 
 Speer, Robert, Mayor of 
 
 Denver, 239, 242. 
 Spreckels, the, family, an 
 
 institution in Cal., 248. 
 Clans, 248, 249, 250, 251, 
 
 257- 
 
 a, monopoly, 248. 
 Spreckels, Rudolph, a self- 
 made millionaire, 244. 
 
 the political ideal of the 
 business world, 246. 
 
 opposed by business men, 
 246. 
 
 a business reformer, 
 248. 
 
 president of First Nation- 
 al Bank, 252. 
 
 goes to Philadelphia 
 
 with his brother, 252. 
 
 carries through a coup, 
 
 254- 
 elected to Board of 
 Directors of Gas Co. by 
 stockholders, 258. 
 determines upon political 
 
 reform, 264. 
 the type of "big" busi- 
 ness man for Mayor, 
 279. 
 has mental as well as 
 moral integrity, 282. 
 Statement No. i, 321. 
 Steel's, U. S., "20 per cent. 
 
 consent" bill, 57. 
 Stetson, Francis Lynde, 57. 
 Stokes, Edward C, 31, 55. 
 nominated Governor of 
 N. J., 65. 
 System, the, 50, 53, 55, 58, 66, 
 151,222,225,226,234, 
 240, 241. 
 Republican, the organ of, 
 in Denver, 240. 
 
 Teller, United States Senator, 
 
 231. 
 Thieman, Paul, tells the story 
 
 of the Kids' Judge, 
 
 235, 239. 
 Thomas, Governor, 223. 
 
 United Gas Improvement 
 
 Company, 21. 
 
 Conference of, 22. 
 United Railways Company 
 
 247, 264. 
 United States Steel Company, 
 
 56. 
 "20 per cent, consent" 
 
 bill, 56, 57. 
 popular choice for. Sen- 
 ators, 84. 
 U'ren, W. S., the lawgiver 
 
 of Oregon, 285. 
 Father of the Initiative 
 
 and Referendum in 
 
 Oreg., 285. 
 giver of laws to Dakota, 
 
 285. 
 born, Jan. loth, 1859,287. 
 family, 287. 
 a blacksmith by trade, 
 
 287. 
 his first fight, 291. 
 studied law in Denver, 
 
 294- 
 aids in colonizmg voters, 
 
 presidential campaign 
 
 of 1880, 295. 
 admitted to the bar, 296. 
 reads " Progress and 
 
 Poverty," 297. 
 how, became lawgiver 
 
 "of Oregon," 298. 
 has always been secre- 
 tary, 299. 
 "smoothest lobbyist" in 
 
 Oregon, 300. 
 
334 
 
 UPBUILDERS 
 
 U'ren — Continu ed 
 
 becomes a Populist, 302. 
 
 secretary of Pop. State 
 Committee, 302. 
 
 Secretary of Direct Legis- 
 lation League, 302. 
 
 a practical politician, 306. 
 
 becomes boss of Clacka- 
 mas County, 306. 
 
 runs for Assembly, and is 
 elected, 1896, 306. 
 
 how, got his good laws 
 in the bad state of 
 Oreg., 310. 
 
 runs for Senate and is 
 beaten, 315. 
 
 defends the "L and R.," 
 320. 
 
 U'ren — Continu ei 
 
 helps effect enactment 
 
 concerning U. S. 
 
 Senators, known as 
 
 Statement No. i., 320, 
 
 321. 
 secretary of People's 
 
 Power League, 322. 
 after economic reforms, 
 
 323- 
 
 Wanser, -General, 13, 20, 
 calls on Mayor Fagan, 19. 
 Williams, Frank, 317. 
 Wilson, Charles F., 200. 
 
 Young, E. F. C, II, 19, 
 21.