Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

political thinking and acting to elements in the community that are less worthy and less intelligent.

Yellow journalism.--Another influence which is very, very potent in the degradation of criminal justice in the United States is yellow journalism. We have already shown how newspaper enterprise has degraded the bench, a newspaper enterprise which regards sensationalism as being the only kind of policy which can secure for the paper an income for its stockholders. We are shown how the judges are subjected to these insidious forces, and how newspaper enterprise makes of judges and public officials mountebanks and time servers. But this is only one of the sins of the newspaper in the administration of criminal justice. A newspaper will publish the news of the activities of public officials and publish it soon enough so that those who are being sought can make good their escape. Many examples can be shown of this sort of lack of a sense of public responsibility. Another influence of the newspapers is that which breaks out during a criminal trial and that is the making of opinion and atmosphere in which a trial is held. When a sensational murder case is being tried, the sob sisters of the newspapers work untiringly to produce an impression either of sympathy or of hatred of the person on trial, an atmosphere which seeps down and permeates the attitude of the jury itself, to such an extent that the newspapers themselves may be said to conduct trials and to deliver verdicts-verdicts which are not determined upon the justice of the case, but which are determined upon considerations of a purely mercenary character. An uneducated, commercialized bar.-The characteristics of the bar of American cities are very clearly shown in an analysis of the Cleveland bar. A questionnaire sent out by the survey to the lawyers of the city indicates that of those lawyers whose talent fits them for consideration of the important human elements involved in criminal justice shun criminal practice as they would shun a kind of disgraceful pursuit. It was found that criminal jurisdiction is left almost entirely to the undesirable elements in the bar, while the more able and talented and educated members are engaged in the pursuit of wealth in the civil practice. We also found that due to the lack of standards on the part of the state bar examiners, the bar of Cleveland has become more and more poorly educated. The type of legal education which produced the legal giants of the past generation is the same type which developed in modern city life is productive of the worst sort of results. It can be said with the coming of the night law school the city of Cleveland, which now possesses two flourishing types, the legal profession is easier to enter than plumbing or bricklaying. Thus the profession which because of its strategic position, its specific interests, its training, and its inherent independence is the logical group in the community to which the uninformed, disorganized public should look for leadership, is so immersed in its own commercialism and is itself so poorly equipped that it has lost its position of leadership in the community. Again I state that it was not from the legal profession that the initial demand came for a fundamental study and a reform of the administration of criminal justice in Cleveland. It may be that in every community this leadership being lacking in the legal profession it must be asserted by the humble profession of social work. An indication of the lack of pride on the part of the bar for the processes of justice is shown by the fact that in the year 1919, out of many thousand cases only seven cases for perjury were begun while in only one case was perjury punished, and this in spite of the fact that most lawyers recognized frankly and fully the fact that perjury was being practiced constantly in the courts of Cleveland. Therefore behind the breakdown of the administration of criminal justice is a bar so

[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

ator tue habemy of Metrane (wnct citaty recognize the part the medica proiesBot must commute to the treatmer o crime, the League of Women Voters and Moreover tucs agencies are activen rather tuar merety nommalty members uth new son of a jegeration Tur association is arrean in operation. It manLane trainer, worken: whs are i constant attendance at the crimina courts It has estiulasuet & compete cart, iger of al ferones committet st that there is now in its oficer a more complete recomt of the operation of the courts thar the courts themselves Tue cardina prmclipse upor which the association works is that the undesirable ofminal lawyer auc tue professiona bonusmar now operate so successfulty in American courts because they can be assured that it the complicated processes of justice they wave no tracks tenind Therefore we nave sought to determine for constant check auc permanent secoit every move tuey make Moreover the actions of every judge and every proser utor are known to the association to its fifty thousand constituent memben, and wher the association deem it wise to the public at large. We hope to give the good judge and the good proser utor the assurance that an agency which unlike the dewajraper Goes not live on sensationalism wil give credit for quiet, unspectacular, but valuable public service and wil' give such service adequate publicity. This policy 1 believe will make it good politire to play the game in the public interest rather than for the multitude of sinister private concerns which assai the officeholder.

It is early to predict what the association is accomplishing for the city of Cleveland But improvements are acknowledged by the most doubtful. The county court baz established a complete probation department, a feature which some of us have sougin for year to bring about, a vastly improved personnel has been placed in the cały prosecutor' office and through more businesslike methods have reduced the time consumed in criminal cases to one third of that of 1919. And I close with the observation which I do not offer as a claim that after a series of years every one of which was marked by some sort of outbreak of crime and disorder, we have in Cleveland passed

through a winter without a "crime wave"-a winter which has been marked by a definite decrease in the amount of crime and an increase in the effectiveness and speed with which the criminal courts have operated. This is in sharp contrast with many other cities which have revealed this winter all of the familiar symptoms of crime, disorder, and official incompetence.

THE FUTURE OF A COMMUNITY IN AN INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION

THE WASTE OF HUMAN EFFORT IN INDUSTRY

Hon. Herbert C. Hoover, Secretary, United States Department of Commerce, Washington I have been asked to speak upon some of the waste of human effort in industry. The subject in full would require much more exhaustive treatment than this occasion permits. The waste of intermittent employment, of seasonal unemployment, of labor turnover in strikes and lockouts, tides of unemployment due to the business cycle, the wastes due to wrong adjustment of the hours of labor, the wastes from the dulling of the mind due to repetitive work, and above all, the waste due to the wrongs of child labor, each of them would comprise sufficient subject for a dozen addresses.

There are one or two points on which I would like to touch with some emphasis. One of them is this problem of child labor, which now again forces itself into the field of emergent action. Every well-wisher of children must feel deeply the failure of the last effort in national prevention of child labor. A study of the situation as it stands will show that a majority of states have forward-looking and effective laws in child protection; that some others have enacted legislation that at least goes part way. But there is a minority that are still in the Middle Ages in their attitude to childhood.

Child labor in these backward states is competitively unfair to industry in the states that have responded to the moral and social ideals of our people. But far beyond this, the moral and economic results of debilitated, illiterate, and untrained manhood and womanhood that must spring from these cesspools where child labor is encouraged and is legitimate, infect the entire nation.

All of us would agree in the wish that the sense of local government and local responsibility in our country were such that each and every state would advance itself to the forefront of progress in this so vital a question. It would be far better for the future of the Republic if this were true, for I know of nothing more disheartening than the impulse and justification given to the centralization of government by continuous failure of local government in matters that affect the nation as a whole. With the growing population and growing complexity of our industrial and social life, the constant resort to federal control for solution of difficulties will yet undermine the very basis of social progress by the destruction of the sense of local responsibility.

However, if it is impossible to secure this necessary safeguard to our people by local government, I am one of those who consider the losses in our sense of local responsibility are less than the losses to the nation as a whole and if all else fails I stand for amendment to the federal Constitution that will give the necessary power and authority to compel action in those states which are negligent of their responsibilities. Let us have our eyes open to the fact, however, that the necessity for so doing is a definite

step in undermining the autonomy of local government, and the sacrifice in this autonomy that a few states are imposing on all the whole will only open the gates of encroachment through the Constitution every time some local social cesspool must be drained. It is with this thought in mind that I should like to suggest to you that a final effort be made to bring all states into line to abolish child labor. If that cannot be accomplished quickly, I regretfully join with those in favor of federal action.

Clearly, if economic waste is reprehensible waste of child life whether viewed economically or in terms of common and universal betterment is a blight that in its measure is more deplorable than war.

I have no need to argue the case and cause of childhood, but it may be worth recounting that our system of individualism can only stand if we can make effective the supreme ideal of America. This ideal is that there shall be an equality of opportunity for every citizen to reach that position in the community to which his intelligence, abilities, character, and ambition entitle him. I am a strong believer in this progressive individualism as the only road to economic, social, and spiritual safety and to human progress. Without this tempering ideal that America has evolved, individualism will not stand. There is no equality of opportunity where children are allowed by law and compelled by parents to labor during the years they should receive instruction; there is no equality of opportunity unless this instruction is made compulsory by the state. There is no equality of opportunity for children whose parents are not restrained by law from exploiting them, and compelled to give them participation in the beneficent privileges that the state provides for them.

Lest some would think because of the deep feeling of many of us upon this subject that these statements can be recited as evidence of the failure of America, let me also add: Out of some 26,000,000 children between five and sixteen years of age in America the use of child labor so far as it retards proper development and education of children, probably affects less than 300,000 children. This number is 300,000 below the ideals of America, but no other nation can show so small a proportion.

Another of the problems in which there is much discussion is that of the hours of labor. In any discussion of this subject, we must embrace three points of view-the engineer's, the economist's, and the social student's. Both the engineer and the economist must insist on the maximum productivity. For the maximum production is the only foundation on which we can obtain more general higher standards of living. The argument is simple enough, for the more cheaply commodities can be produced the larger are the number of people who can participate in them.

The engineer, however, does not advocate unlimited hours: he does not obtain the maximum production when fatigue and deterioration in product begin to supervene. His view of human fatigue and of human deterioration leads directly to the restriction of hours to that number that will permit of best performance and efficiency in the tasks in the long view. The engineer takes more than the immediate view of a day's work, for there are some tasks of repetitive character which tend to intellectual and moral deterioration in the long run. It is one of the first problems in front of the engineer to find such a diversion and stimulation to intellectual interests either directly in the task itself or indirectly in some association with it that will prevent not only fatigue but deterioration itself. While this problem is of high importance, I am not one of those that thinks that the fabric of the nation is about to collapse because we have developed mechanical tools for mass production, for the very minor malign results that have

accompanied these inventions can be overcome. The length of hours of labor in the vision of the engineer will vary with every task. There are many tasks in which four hours is too long for continuous action. There are other tasks such as that of the caretaker of an empty house where twenty-four hours, six days in a week, would not be absurd from a physical point of view.

The social student must approach the question from another and equally vital point of view, and that is family life, citizenship, and opportunity for recreation and intellectual improvement. These limitations are mandatory, and whatever the right hours may be as between these vital social limitations and the limitations imposed by the view of productivity it is a certainty that the twelve-hour day or seven-day week cannot be entertained by any well-thinking social student. We have set up as a matter of public sentiment eight hours as an approximate standard, yet no empirical number can be right. The engineer is the preponent of scientific study into the hours in which maximum productivity can be obtained and maintained. We need these studies by the engineer and social student in every industry, for hours too short are an injury to the rest of us in that they impose lower standards of living upon us; and hours too long are an injury to the individual and through him to the race.

The President recently called a meeting of the leading steel manufacturers of the country and made an appeal to them in the name of social progress that they should take steps to abolish the twelve-hour day which now remains in respect to about 15 or 20 per cent of the employees in that industry. For competitive reasons this abolishment needs to be brought about coincidently in the whole industry and the President's action gain this opportunity for united action. This request was based solely upon social grounds and indeed the social necessity is sufficient justification for this or any other step. Many employers are in favor of it and I trust that this great step will be quickly brought about. I do not believe it is possible to develop proper citizenship or proper family life, whether men work twelve hours by necessity or by preference. And I think you will agree with me that 90 per cent of the public opinion of the entire country is solidly behind the President in his expression that we have now reached a stage of social conceptions wherein this anachronism should be abandoned.

The industrial losses through unemployment and intermittent employment constitute a problem that is not to be solved by any formula. It must be attacked in detail. There are phases of our seasonal employment that no doubt could be mitigated by more co-operation in industry. There is one feature now being given consideration in many directions that I believe is of interest and promises ultimate results, and that is the accurate study by civic bodies of the character of the particular industries in any particular center in the endeavor to discover opportunity for integrating industries to intermesh with each other in reduction of seasonal idleness. Every city in the United States would be well advised in the interest of its own development to consider its industries with view to a determination of what industries might be introduced that would take up the slack in seasonal employment of their already existing establishments.

One of the tremendous wastes through unemployment is due to the fluctuation of the business cycle. We are constantly reminded by some of the economists and business men that this is inevitable, that there is an ebb and flow in the demand for commodities and services that cannot from the nature of things be regulated. I have great doubts whether there is a real foundation for this view. Thirty years ago our business community considered that a cyclical financial panic was inevitable. We know now

« AnteriorContinuar »