Official proceedings of the annual meeting: 1923

i8o

LAW AND GOVERNMENT

An intangible element in the situation, and yet one as perceptible as the atmosphere, is the attitude of sympathy or of indifference on the part of court officers to
immigrant clients. The court officer is in a position of advantage. The immigrant
client is before him to be dealt with under rules carried out and sometimes made by him.
Sometimes the court officer has a contemptuous attitude toward the immigrant client
because the immigrant is ignorant, and the official does not try to conceal his contempt.
Many of these court officers are sure, not like King David, that all men are liars but
that all immigrants are liars, and do not hesitate to say so. This attitude is deeply
resented by the immigrant client. It may seem strange to the well-dressed, brisk,
prosperous American in the American court that this dirty, uncouth, deprecating foreigner should have a sense of self-esteem and self-respect. But he has; a keen one. He
may not be much to look at, he may not know much about this country, but he has
ideas and traditions of his own. In his own mind he is not just the poor fellow we see
standing there, but the representative of a whole people, with all its fine qualities, great
achievements, and high ambitions. In contrast to these what he knows of our country
may seem inferior in many respects.
The improvements introduced into the courts in the progress of general court
reform are of the utmost benefit to the immigrant client. The small-claims court, the
court of arbitration, the practice of conciliating difficulties before they get to the court,
are all to his advantage. The co-ordinated magistrates' court in large cities which
tends to minimize the possibilities for political "pull," to increase the efficiency of
magistrates through oversight by a presiding judge, and the pooling of wisdom and
experience through conference is a much better place for the immigrant than the old
minor court.
The one feature of most peculiar advantage to the immigrant, however, is one that
should be worked out more completely with a view to the better adjustment of the court
to special immigrant needs, and that is the principle of discretion lately introduced into
the courts, with all that that principle implies. Discretion in the courts, as shown in
the specialized courts for children and for family troubles, in the use of suspended sentence, in the use of an indefinite term of sentence, and in the employment of the probation officer and the parole officer means that the person and the general character of
the person are of importance in the treatment of a case as well as the specific act which
has brought him into relation with the law. It means, then, that officers of the law
should study the person as well as establish the act. Study of the person means an
understanding of the mental processes of the person, understanding of the environmental background, habits, and customs that have been at work together with heredity
to form character.
In court treatment emphasis has already been laid on the study of mental conditions, as abnormal or normal, for all classes of cases. For children the psychology of
the child is studied, and the environment of the child, for the purpose of making the
right adjustment in his case. In family cases the effort is made to adjust differences
by an appeal to motive, which can only be reached by an understanding of the person
concerned. The first offender is studied as an undeveloped person for whom a part, at
least, of the treatment needed is education.
Little attention, however, has been paid to the immigrant as a type with special
characteristics due partly to racial, partly to social, inheritance, which it is important
to know. For instance, many people of foreign birth appearing before the domestic
relations court have got into trouble just because their inherited set of ideas about