Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/224

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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 policeman 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 probationers, and I found him cursing his mother vilely, with an amazing command of oaths. Looking about, I saw that it was partly a house