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 legislation purporting to be for the common good is
bought for the special evils; that laws exacted to
help us are manipulated to our hurt; and that
our courts, set up to render justice, eit ler make
a worship of the letter of the Law or v plate 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 service of men and of the State. He has drawn the sting of punishment out of the penal code, stamped
