Lindsey Out

"The Juvenile Court in Denver is known throughout the civilized world."--H. G. Wells

"The Ku Klux Klan has done more for Colorado than Judge Lindsey ever did."--Attorney Edward M. Sabin, of Denver

Upon Judge Benjamin Barr Lindsey of the Denver Juvenile Court was last week served a court order officially ousting him from his position. The order was the result of the Colorado Supreme Court's decision last winter that Judge Lindsey's election in 1924 had been illegal. As Judge Lindsey's opponent, Royal R. Graham, had died since the election, the office was declared vacant and the County Commissioners appointed to it Attorney Robert W. Steele. It was under this man's father, then (1899) Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court that Judge Lindsey first began his work in Denver. Said Judge Lindsey: "The ouster writ is the temporary triumph of bigotry and intolerance, of dishonesty and injustice. ... I have not been given the rights of a yellow dog. . . ."

In his 28 years of service with the Denver boys and girls who came before him, Judge Lindsey made the Juvenile Court of Denver internationally famed. Said Judge Lindsey last week: "We have been thanked by resolutions of the Parliament of Great Britain with the approval of the King of England and we have been thanked by prime ministers for the help Denver has furnished them through my court." The work of the Juvenile Court of Denver has been studied by sociologists everywhere; has exerted a strong influence on the nation's Juvenile Court system as it stands today.

Yet many a U. S. citizen doubtless cheered Judge Lindsey's ousting, rejoiced at his "downfall." For within the past year he has become to many thousands of his countrymen a radical, a lunatic, an attacker of the sanctity of the home, an advocate of free love and of birth control. By his advocacy of what he terms "companionate marriage," he has made many warm admirers but countless bitter enemies, has almost obliterated the reputation of Juvenile Court Judge Lindsey with the new reputation of Companionate Marriage Exponent Lindsey.

What is this Companionate Marriage idea which has made Judge Lindsey almost a symbol of evil in many U. S. minds? Briefly, it is based on the fact that some marriages are entered into with the expectation of the wife's bearing children, that other marriages are entered into with no such expectation. Why not, urges Judge Lindsey, recognize the childless marriage as a different but legal form of union? Let a boy and a girl who wish to marry, but who cannot well afford to have children, marry and, with the aid of widespread birth-control knowledge, take care that they have no children. Then, if they do not get along with each other and wish to separate, let them be granted a divorce on grounds of mutual consent and take up single life again. If they do get along with each other and if they decide that they wish to have children, let them enter the regular Family Marriage state as it is at present constituted.

Opposition to this idea has, of course, been based on its advocacy of birth control and of free divorce. Bishop William T. Manning of the New York Episcopal Diocese called it "wicked . . . damnable," said that it was legalized fornication (TIME, July 4). Vivid pictures have been drawn of girls and boys leaping from one "companion" to another; of the "licentiousness" which would result from widespread and legalized use of contraceptive measures. Meanwhile Judge Lindsey has maintained that most of the Companionate Marriages would lead into Family Marriages, that there would be fewer illicit sex unions, that venereal disease would be less prevalent and that a great deal of "hypocrisy" would be taken out of the national domestic life.

Judge Lindsey refused to discuss his future, except to say that he wished to stay in Denver and there finish his life work. He may be a candidate for the Juvenile Court bench when Judge Steele finishes the remainder of his term, in which event his future would depend upon the people of Denver rather than upon the Colorado courts.