Los Angeles
County
Biographies
HON.
BEN B. LINDSEY
The
name of Judge Ben B. Lindsey, one of the superior judges of Los Angeles County,
needs little introduction to the readers of southern California history. In fact, it needs little introduction to the
readers of any country in the world, for his reputation as a jurist, as an
authority on juvenile delinquency and the remedy for it, as an attorney, and as
one with a keen knowledge and interpretation of social conditions, is known
wherever civilized peoples live, for his theories and his practices in putting
his ideas into effect offered a solution of problems age old, problems which
had been a source of perplexity through generations. As will be noted, Judge Lindsey’s solution of
the matter was one which he himself put into practical use and proved its
correctness, and this accomplishment aroused the plaudits of all humanity.
Judge
Lindsey was born in Jackson, Tennessee, November 25, 1869, and is a son of Landy Tunstall and Letitia (Barr) Lindsey.
The father had been a man of moderate wealth until the Civil War came
and caused him to lose everything. Ben
B. Lindsey attended school in Jackson, Tennessee, and in Notre Dame, Indiana,
but when he was eighteen years of age his father died and he was left with the
care of his mother and three younger children, their home then having been in
Denver, Colorado. He resolutely faced
the responsibility which had come to him and found employment in a real estate
office, for which service he was paid exactly ten dollars a month. This was not enough to keep the family,
consequently, he sold newspapers and did janitor work in the evenings to
augment the income. At the same time he
was eager to acquire an education, so he studied during every spare
moment. His real estate salary was
increased to twenty-five dollars a month, but this proved not to be an
incentive to remain in that occupation.
The law appealed to him and he turned every effort towards achieving an
education in this profession. Social
problems, the benefiting of humanity and kindred ideas were really uppermost in
his mind, but he built these and strengthened them on a foundation of the law;
in other words, a means to an end.
Quickly he mastered the fundamentals of the law and was enabled, at the
age of nineteen years, to try his first case in the court. His clientele grew and he became known as a
brilliant young lawyer. In 1894 he had a
finely established practice and in 1896 he went into partnership with Frederick
W. Parks of Denver. Mr. Parks, having
been elected to the state legislature in 1897, proposed a law, which had been
written by Mr. Lindsey, which made the vote of three fourths of a jury
sufficient to find a verdict in a civil court case. This brought young Lindsey strongly into the
public eye and was, in truth, the beginning of his great career in the
reformation of the law and the courts in the conduct of certain types of
litigation. In 1899 he was appointed
public guardian and administrator of Denver.
He was active in the promotion of the Colorado law of April 12, 1899,
that is believed to be the first law under which a Juvenile Court was
established. He was the author of some
fifty-two items of Colorado juvenile law that followed. These laws made up the Juvenile Court System
of Colorado. Politics became a field for
his activities in 1900, as he firmly believed, and correctly, that he could
wield more influence and do more good if he entered therein. He became a delegate to the Democratic
Convention, was chairman of the Credentials Committee, and a member of the
Democratic State Executive Committee.
His opponents prevented his nomination for office at this time, but in
December, 1900, he was appointed to fill a vacancy in the county court. At the general election in 1901 he received
the largest vote given any candidate of the county in the history of Denver
politics. He was merciless in his
attacks upon political corruptionists. The
result was that after he began to fight graft and grafters, both party machines
refused to name him as a candidate when time came for reelection in 1904. The pressure brought to bear by public
opinion was so great that the issue was forced and he was given the
endorsements of both political parties.
In 1908 the party machines combined against him and he was defeated for
nomination on either major political party ticket. Undaunted, he appeared on the ticket as an
independent candidate and so great was the confidence and admiration he had inspired
among the citizens that as the first lone independent candidate that ever ran
for any office in Colorado he was elected by an overwhelming plurality of
fifteen thousand votes. In 1907 the
judge resigned from the county court bench to accept the newly created juvenile
and family court, which he had already built up under the aforementioned law of
Aril 12, 1899, as a part of the county court, for he had always advocated a
separate juvenile and family court to deal with the problems of the child, the
home and the family. This placed him on
the heights and he proceeded with his reform campaigns. Since 1901 he was a frequent visitor to
California in behalf of the Juvenile Court, child welfare and social welfare
laws. Intending to make it his home he
came to Los Angeles, California, in July, 1927, and in September, 1927, applied
for admission to the bar of California.
His application was accepted, but so great was the demand upon him as a
lecturer throughout the nation that it was not until May 8, 1928, that he was sworn
in as a member of the California bar.
From that time on he has practiced law here with Los Angeles as his
home. He is still interested in
promoting juvenile court and child welfare legislation in this state. At the general election in Los Angeles in
November, 1934, Judge Lindsey was elected to the superior bench by the largest
vote (nearly 600,000) ever given a candidate in a contested election for
superior court judge in this state.
As
an authority on juvenile delinquency, Judge Lindsey is perhaps best known over
the world. No one has ever surpassed him
in this subject. By general consent he
is referred to as “the father of the juvenile court.” He was not only the author of the Colorado
Juvenile Court laws but he established systems of work under those laws. He put boys on their honor. Young lads sentenced to Colorado reformatory
institutions were allowed to proceed there without guard of any kind and it is
a matter of record that only five out of hundreds of boys so entrusted ever
betrayed the judge, and these five came back, apologized, took their papers and
went alone to such institutions. The
judge also wrote and had passed the laws known as the Contributory Delinquency
and Dependency Laws which were directed against those adults responsible for
wayward youths, including negligent parents and employers. These were the first laws of their kind ever
passed in the United States. Another of
his masterpieces was the so-called Master of Discipline Law, also the first in
America, which conferred upon teachers, schools and such responsible laymen as
members of coordinating councils the power to arbitrate disputes and troubles
formerly handled by the juvenile court.
This kept thousands of children out of courts and reduced
delinquency. There were laws forbidding
a child under sixteen (afterwards eighteen) years of age to be charged with a
crime except in extreme felony cases; also a law forbidding the commitment of
children to jails; and one giving a two thousand dollar right to an estate to
an orphan before creditors could claim a cent.
There was a law making every man responsible for the welfare of children
along moral lines in whatever situation or place they contacted with them. There was a new probate code, and an improved
registration law and one of the first maternity laws in the interest of
motherhood. Through the instrumentality
of Judge Lindsey, playgrounds, public baths, night schools, summer camps, and
day nurseries were established in Denver.
As shown by an official report in 1925, he was the author of more than
one hundred fifty items of social welfare legislation and systems of work for
human betterment. In 1902, with his
backing, the National Juvenile Court Association for the Protection and
Betterment of Children was formed. The
Denver Juvenile and Family Court under his leadership became famous the world
over. It has been a great aid in the
study of criminology. This court and its
work were promoted by Judge Lindsey in every state in the union and many
foreign countries.
As
a lecturer Judge Lindsey has appeared thousands of times, invariably his
subjects having been those which he had created and for which he stood as the
personification. Likewise, as an author,
he has achieved fame, and among his productions which have been widely
published may be mentioned in part:
Problems of the Children (1904); The Beast and the Jungle (1910); The
Rule of Plutocracy in Colorado (1912); The Doughboy’s Religion (1919); The Revolt
of Modern Youth (1925); The House of Human Welfare (1926); The Companionate
Marriage (1927); and The Dangerous Life (autobiographical, 1931). The theory of “the companionate marriage,”
which Judge Lindsey discussed from the platform and upon the printed page, was
a topic of discussion in nearly every important publication in the world and
became a fertile field for debate.
However, as he frequently pointed out, it was not any new kind of
marriage. It was opposed to free love
and trial marriage. It had to do solely
with the legalizing, social and scientific direction of the accepted habits and
customs of modern marriage.
Judge
Lindsey understands youth, their psychology, their mental limitations, their
impulses, and their conception of life, and it was only natural that he should
make them love him and trust him in the depths of their hearts. They saw in his kindly eye and friendly voice
a haven of safety, before which they could unburden their hearts, often heavy
with remorse over something which they knew was wrong and eager to make
amends. Punishment was not the Judge’s
theory of correcting the juvenile mind; it tended towards the cultivation and
nourishment of the good that was in the mind, and in the conduct of his work he
proved this beyond a doubt in the conviction of all intelligent people.
Judge
Lindsey was a candidate for the governorship of Colorado in 1906, and was a
member of the Progressive National Committee in 1912.
Judge
Lindsey was married in Chicago, Illinois, on December 20, 1913, to Miss
Henrietta Brevoort, a step-daughter of Dr. F. J. Clippert of Detroit, Michigan. They have one child living, a little girl, Benetta Brevoort Lindsey, age
eleven.
Transcribed
by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. V, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 483-487,
Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V.
Gerald Iaquinta.
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BIOGRAPHIES