A Short Cut to Anarchy

...and when the law recognizes and even enforces such differences between classes, the result is revolution...

...Yet even when every possible aid has been extended to a citizen unable to pay his own counsel, the question has only been shoved to the brink of the next precipice, for what is there in human nature to make an assigned counsel take the same live interest in the case as would retained counsel...

...In such a game the poor stand little chancei against the rich, or the honest against the unscrupulous...

...The fact that there is a department of the government Itself especially for them arouses a spirit of confidence and cooperation that goes far toward the amicable settlement of claims...

...Too often cases among them are handled so roughly as to sow the seeds of radical discontent...

...There are no representative authoritative figures at present available showing the cost to the city, based on population statistics, of maintaining a municipal legal aid bureau...

...A striking comment on this situation is afforded by a new-rich man's naive boast: "Now I can afford to buck the law...

...Private societies, branches of charitable organizations and departments of lodges and fraternities have all done good work in this regard, but such emergency methods have more the nature of partisan organizations in opposition to regular courts than of cooperative bodies...

...And the summing up amounts to this: There can be no democracy without reality of equality...

...If he does not succeed, the case goes to trial In the usual way...

...conformably to the laws...

...The Massachusetts Constitution (and nearly every state In the Union has the same provision) embodies the following statement: Every subject of the commonwealth ought to find a certain remedy by having recourse to the laws for all injuries or wrongs which he may receive in his person, property or character...

...Are we going to attack this situation and better it, or are we going to continue to make a noise like a democracy while crowding down into the lower depths of our society an increasing number of citizens rankling under the injustice of legal delay...

...In his address on The Scandal of the Law's Delay, ex-Secretary of State Elihu Root put the problem succinctly as follows: While law is enforced, justice waits...

...The statement that the best welfare and the greatest amount of happiness for every citizen of the nation can be obtained only by impartial administration of justice is accepted everywhere as a truism...

...A bureau to investigate . . . impositions upon the poor, the ignorant and the foreigner, and to provide a proper and rational defense for men, women and little children without means, is just as much an obligation as to fill the office of districtattorney for the prosecution of crimes, or to provide a city solicitor to enforce health mandates...

...Many of our immigrants know the law only in its punitive aspect...

...whereas the municipal legal aid department is a beneficent embodiment of the law which heretofore they supposed to be composed chiefly of policemen, jails and hostile judges...

...Difference in the ability of classes to use the machinery of the law leads directly and inevitably to differences in the practical rights of classes in the law itself...

...The municipal legal aid bureau has been tried as a method of dealing with the condition that confronts us today...

...The returns of the cityoperated legal aid department are the indirect ones of a satisfied citizenry and reduction of congestion (with its consequent delay and Injury) in the overcrowded courts...

...The possibilities of delay and of forcing a compromise to avoid expense and annoyance induce litigation by those who wish to escape the faithful performance of their contracts...

...The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States backs the state guaranty, and the right Is inviolable—theoretically...

...He sang paeans of praise about the great and good America and ended by saying: "Mister, if ever you want anybody to fight for your city, send for me and my friends...

...he can obtain redress (in theory) for any wrong done him by any other citizen, no matter how rich and powerful that citizen may be...

...Expense of counsel is another consideration that confronts the poor man when he appeals to the law...

...The poor man cannot afford to await the due process of law, much less the overdue process often accorded his small claims...

...Most disputes can be amicably adjusted by a third party whose business it Is to explain the case to the litigants and to act as conciliator...

...But they were almost as large as his wages, and when he got hardly any pay, the Italian made trouble...

...completely and without any denial...

...No need to "a basi" the lawyers, who for the most part are caught up In the machinery, for men are operated by the law as often as the law Is administered by men...

...The municipal bureau is also better than a private organization for psychological reasons...

...If I were not right," he reasons, "would they give me a lawyer...

...While this remains true in theory, we march directly toward anarchy...

...but the necessity for them is so keen as to warrant infinite patience and study in the working out of details...

...Such organizations are likely, in the course of operation, to strike so many practical snags that they throw themselves open to severe adverse criticism...

...The judge in the legal aid office brings the disputants together, hears both sides and explains the matter...

...The fact that these thirty million comprise a majority of a class that is "naturally law-abiding" prevents their disadvantage from being strikingly apparent, but it is not yet determined whether their law-abiding proclivity is cause or effect...

...promptly and without delay...

...It is true that this may be in some degree balanced by the fact that juries are prone to extend sympathy to defendants when it appears that counsel has been assigned to defend them...

...The payments were to be subtracted from his wages each week...

...It forms the backbone of thousandsi of political speeches each year...

...Yet we still neglect its practical application...

...Louis: The duty of the municipality to conduct a proper legal aid department is just as much a civic duty as cleaning the streets and providing water...

...The figures are difficult to compile and still more difficult to justify by tangible returns...

...A few minutes' simple questioning made the misunderstanding clear, the matter was adjusted, and the Italian's wife and children were saved from starvation...

...Where such delay means nothing worse than annoyance to the large manufacturer, it means ruin to the small business man...

...The law, no matter how equitable In Itself, cannot afford protection to all men alike unless the administration of justice (which alone gives effect to the law) is Impartial and prompt...

...He expounds the case and tells the litigants how the decision of the law stands in the question, and how much it will cost in time and money to take the case to court...

...Many, when forced to go to a private organization for aid, feel even more keenly than before how menacing a power the law really is, and they incline to see themselves as reinforced in their opposition...

...Frequently they add to the red tape tangle instead of untangling it...

...They feel that they are in conflict with the law as law, instead of with a specific instance of wrong or misdemeanor...

...But enough has not yet been done...

...Director Tustin tells the story of an Italian factoryhand who, through misunderstanding a salesman, had contracted, in all innocence, for monthly payments on some commodity...

...In theory, the humblest citizen can invoke the protection of the law through the usual channels...

...As a matter of fact, our legal system is quite sufficiently absurd and ponderous to do all the damage attributed to it when normally operated...

...The calendars are crowded with such cases...

...There Is nothing that can save our country from a disastrous collapse of its vaunted democracy except the putting into practice of Its Fourth of July orations...

...It Is a political factor as well as a legal conception...

...He ought to obtain right and justice freely and wathout being obliged to purchase it...

...Individual legal aid work has existed always...

...and the solution is not to be reached by the comprehensive maxim that: "Small businesses must be seen and not heard...

...Upon it are contingent all our other rights...

...Granting all improvements made in the last twenty years toward making the law bear equally upon rich and poor, there remains for consideration this serious fact that, to the poor, justice delayed is justice denied, and that, by the cumbrous nature of legal proceedings, justice is bound to be delayed...

...Under the government of these United States the rights to life, to freedom of thought and conscience, to social benefits, to home, wife and children, all depend on law, and this fact is continually Insisted upon in court decisions, by statesmen, and by writers on social and economic problems...

...It is prompt in action and has the advantage of being easily set in motion...

...The assumption of unfair influence on the part of the rich litigant, and of corruption of court officials Is not always justified, though the man who has suffered through delays and defective legal machinery nearly always blames "the other fellow's money...

...Ignorance and fear combine with poverty to make the cases hard to handle...

...Difficulties in dealing with the poor are very much complicated in this country by the foreign element...

...The purpose of the municipal legal aid bureau, as typified by the Philadelphia organization, was set out briefly by Ernest L. Tustin, director of the Department of Public Welfare, in an address before the American Bar Association of St...

...He was carried off weeping and gnashing his teeth and dumped before a lawyer...

...Director Tustin asks: "If the policeman who arrested the Italian had locked him up 'pending trial,' and his wife or one of his children had died of hunger or cold, is there not reason to believe that, suffering under the injustice of what he did not understand, he might have become one of the implacable enemies of the government...

...By provision of the Bill of Rights, nearly every state guarantees the freedom and equity of justice...

...It has been estimated that over thirty million persons in this country are unable to pay attorneys' fees...

...Another problem arises in this question of extending legal aid to the poor, i. e., the tendency of the client himself to assume all the right of the case' is with him, since he is being supplied with an advocate and cared for as If he was a person of consequence...

...They regard it as a small child views a policeman, as "something that will get you if you don't watch out I" Too often their encounters with the law, even in civil matters of contract or property transfer, leave them with this impression deepened...

...Whenever we feel doubts concerning its practical efficacy we settle the matter by pointing with pride to what has been done in the way of mending the situation...

...If he succeeds in bringing about an amicable settlement, he issues a certificate to that effect that has the force of a judgment...

...They would put me In jail...

...The other municipal departments,—fire, sanitation, lighting, paving, education and recreation,—all have something to show for themselves...