GOOD KIDS, HURT KIDS, BAD KIDS
This Short Talk Bulletin has been adapted
from a presentation by Judge Honorable and Brother
Maurice B. Cohill, Jr. to the
Conference of Grand Masters in North
America in 1984. Judge Cohill serves on the U.S. District Court, Western
District of Pennsylvania.
First, let me tell you of my first dream the
one that has already come true. This is the creation of the National Center for Juvenile Justice.
The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges is the oldest judicial
council in the United States, founded in 1937 by the late Judge and Brother
Gustav Schramm of Pittsburgh, and a few other dedicated juvenile
court judges. It's now located on the campus of
the University of Nevada at Reno.
The Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania used to
sponsor training sessions in cooperation with
Judge Schramm. These occurred twice a year,
with the Grand Lodge underwriting the cost of
judges being brought to Pittsburgh from all
over the country to sit and be taught at the feet
of Judge Schramm. They were called the
'Masonic Institutes." Some six years after his
death, I followed Brother Schramm to the
Juvenile Court bench of Allegheny County
(Pittsburgh) and served there for eleven years.
During that time it's been estimated that I
heard some 25,000 delinquent, dependent and
neglect cases everything from rape, murder
and drug abuse to school truancy and
runaways. I was appointed to the federal court
bench by President Ford in 1976.
Not long after coming to the juvenile court in 1965, 1 realized that the
juvenile courts of this country were the stepchildren of the American juvenile
system. I learned that people criticized the juvenile courts and their judges on
the one hand for being too lenient and giving only a slap on the wrist to young,
violent criminals, and on the other hand they were accused of sending innocent young children to
reform schools which were hell holes and
nothing more than schools for crime. At the
same time the judges and their staffs were
struggling with enormous caseloads and few
resources.
While the public and certain public officials
were quick to criticize, no one seemed willing or
able to help. I made 152 speeches the first year I
was on the juvenile bench. I spoke to PTA
groups, churches, teacher conventions and
police-training seminars I spoke to anyone
who would listen.
After that year I concluded that, while
critical, many people would be willing to help if
only given direction. I also learned that there is
not a more dedicated group in the United States
than the juvenile court judges and their staffs.
The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges in Reno had been devoting
most of its efforts to training judges and
juvenile probation officers, this tradition having been started by Judge Schramm's Masonic
Institutes. This was excellent, but still no one
knew for sure what worked and what didn't
with kids; no one even knew how many children
were moving through the juvenile court system;
there was no source from which juvenile court
judges could get answers to tough legal questions and practical solutions to
day-to-day problems.
In 1968, a group of us who were active with
the National Council met in Pittsburgh and
decided to create a research center to seek
answers to those questions. Because of the
tradition established by Judge and Brother
Gustav Schramm in Pittsburgh, and because
there are a number of Pittsburgh corporate and
family foundations interested in innovative
ideas and willing to support them, we decided
to locate the Center in Pittsburgh if I could
raise the money.
After five years of knocking on Pittsburgh doors, and with help from the Law
Enforcement Assistance Administration in
Washington, we opened the Center in 1973.
The creation of the National Center of Juvenile
Justice was my first dream. I've been chairman
of its board from the beginning. It is legally a
part of the National Council of Juvenile and
Family Court Judges, serves as the research
division of the Council, and I feel is a resounding success. The United States Department of
Justice has made it responsible for putting
together all of the juvenile court statistics in the
United States; it also publishes, teaches and
researches.
A couple of years ago I was thinking of Judge Schramm and the help that the
Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania used to give him by sponsoring the Masonic
Institutes. I wrote to our Grand Master, to see if the Grand Lodge of
Pennsylvania would be interested in sponsoring some of the work of the Center. I
am happy to say that he thought this was a good idea and got the ball rolling.
The idea was enthusiastically embraced by his successor Brother Samuel
Williamson. He not only became interested in the work of our Center but, with
great vision, he saw potential for Masonic interest to touch many young lives
and established the Pennsylvania Masonic Youth Foundation. The Pennsylvania Masonic Youth Foundation and the
Grand Lodge now sponsor an annual judicial
training seminar conducted by the Center for
Pennsylvania judges and is underwriting the
cost of an annual publication of the Center called "Today's Delinquent" which is becoming a
classic in the field. This book goes free of
charge not only to Pennsylvania judges but, to
the best of our ability, to every juvenile court
judge in the country.
Our present Grand Master, Brother Carl
Stenberg, also sits on the board of our National
Center for Juvenile Justice.
I have spoken too long about my dream
come true let me tell you about my dream for
all of us.
The young people of this country are our
most precious asset. Significant numbers of
them are being victimized by drugs, pimps, pornographers and, yes, in some cases by their own
parents.
In my opinion, substance abuse the use of
drugs and alcohol by children and young adults
is the primary cause of the wave of crime which
has swept through this country. I saw it in
Juvenile Court, and since I've been in Federal
Court; in every bank robbery case I've had but
two, the bank robbers were drug users and
often robbed to support their habit.
I recently had to sentence a number of
young members of a drug ring in Pittsburgh.
Two of those young people come particularly to
mind. Both were in their 20's. One was a lovely
girl. If my son had brought her home to meet
me, not knowing her background, I'm sure I
would have been delighted. The young man had
a promising future in athletics.
Much has been written and spoken about
the impact of drugs in our society. So far as I'm
concerned, the public, and particularly young
people, are still essentially unaware of this
menace. Despite the publicity the problem has
still been understated.
My dream, and my challenge to you, is for
our fraternity to attack this problem and the
many others which are victimizing our children.
Now how can we unite to do it? Each grand
lodge is an entity unto itself. Each has its own
constituency and rules, but one thing we all
have in common is an objective that we are "Our Brother's Keeper." I am sure
that the Great Architect did not mean for this to stop at the walls of the
temple. I'm sure that we are expected to care for our brother's children as
well. I think it can be accomplished without any Grand Lodge losing any of that
autonomy it so dearly cherishes, while at the same time showing the world what this fraternity is all about.
Freemasonry has been one of the world's best kept secrets; it shouldn't be.
With the exception of some of the ritual there is absolutely
no reason that this should be. I'm convinced
that if the Grand Lodges of the United States
announced a new mission the mission of
holding out a hand to young people everywhere
the good ones, the hurt ones, the bad ones, the
rewards would be fantastic in terms not only
of having a better reason for being but in seeing an upsurge in the recruitment of new
brethren such as we've not seen in many years.
Now, how can this be done while permitting
the Grand Lodges to retain their traditional independence?
I propose that the Grand Lodges of the United States establish and fund the
National Masonic Youth Foundation. (This is my thought for a name; perhaps
someone will have a better idea). It would be a non-profit corporation with
tax-exempt status. It would have rules and safeguards for the distribution of
its funds and be governed by a board of directors consisting of the Grand Master (or his designate) of
each participating Grand Lodge. Its general
mission would be to render assistance,
guidance, care and education to young people.
Thus the Grand Lodges could be united, not
only in their mission, but now would be as one
in their efforts, at the same time standing independent from each other.
Particularly, I would suggest that foundation's initial goals would be to render assistance
to the juvenile justice system in attacking
substance abuse by young people through programs concerned with prevention, education of
potential victims, and rehabilitation of those
already caught in the tentacles of drug and
alcohol abuse.
There could be myriad off-shoots of this
mission. Individual lodges could seek ways to
render assistance to their local juvenile courts,
their judges, youth agencies and young peoples'
programs. Both the National Council of
Juvenile and Family Court Judges and its
research arm, the National Center for Juvenile
Justice, which I represent, have any number of
programs waiting to be put in place when
resources become available. Some may have
impact at the local level while others will have
national and international impact. The Council
and the Center have outstanding professional
staffs available for consultation and stand
ready to render guidance and assistance.
I respectfully suggest that you consider this
proposal as one which is entirely feasible, and
which could be funded with little effort by the
millions of our brethren who constitute the
fraternity.
Yes, brethren, we have a story to tell to the
nation, and I hope that we can start telling that
story, and performing our Masonic obligations,
through the National Masonic Youth Foundation .
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