Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/177

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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 ancient, 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,