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261 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. vii (1949)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0261 and id is 1 raw text is: FOREWORD FIFTY years ago, April 14, 1899, the state legislature of Illinois passed a law which is a milestone in the history of social legislation. It was the first law to create a juvenile court, thereby introducing a new legal concept, delinquency, and a new procedure. The law applied to the entire state but required that counties with more than 500 thousand population (at that time Cook County, in which Chi- cago was located) provide a special judge and courtroom for the hearing of chil- dren's cases. It was designed to provide care for neglected and dependent children and treatment instead of punishment for the delinquent child, who was defined as being a child under the age of sixteen who violates any law of this state or any city or village ordinance (sec. 1). This issue of THE ANNALS contains articles which tell the history, state the phi- losophy, and describe the operation of juvenile courts, but it may not be amiss to dwell for a moment on the events that brought the first statute into being and pay our tribute to its sponsors. In doing so, there is no intention to ignore the work of the many here and abroad who in one way or another had also labored for a better way of dealing with child offenders. I have before me a small work compiled by T. D. Hurley, president of the Visita- tion and Aid Society of Chicago and first chief probation officer of the Cook County Juvenile Court. Its title is Origin of the Illinois Juvenile Court Law (3rd ed., 1907, 189 pp.) and the data presented below have been extracted from it. It appears that there had been for many years considerable agitation in Illinois, especially in Chi- cago, over the plight of child offenders for whom no appropriate institutional care existed. This concern apparently came to a head in 1898 after Miss Julia C. Lathrop had been appointed by Governor Altgeld a member of the Board of State Commissioners of Public Charities. Her inspection of facilities for dealing with delinquent and defective children throughout the state crystallized the sentiment of the board, and one of its members, Mr. Ephraim Banning, was instructed to bring the matter before the Chicago Bar Association at its annual meeting on October 22, 1898. The association appointed a committee of five of its members to investi- gate existing conditions relative to delinquent and dependent children and to co- operate with committees of other organizations in formulating and securing such legislation as may be necessary. Mr. Banning was made chairman of the com- mittee, which had as additional members Judge Harvey B. Hurd, Edwin Burritt Smith, John W. Ela, and Merritt Shaw. At a meeting of the committee shortly thereafter Judge Hurd was unanimously appointed as a sub-committee of one to prepare a bill covering the entire subject which was to be presented to the Legis- lature, in the January following (p. 18). On December 10, a meeting was held in Judge Hurd's office, attended by Judge Hurd, Mrs. Lucy L. Flower, Dr. Hast- ings H. Hart, superintendent of the Illinois Children's Home and Aid Society, State Representative John C. Newcomer, Mr. A. B. Lane, superintendent of schools, John L. Whitman, county jailer, Mr. Carl Kelsey ' from Dr. Hart's office, and Frank G. Soule. Judge Hurd was elected chairman and Dr. Hart secretary. 1 Dr. Kelsey retired a few years ago from the chairmanship of the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a vice president of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. vii

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