Sabath's Day

Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God. (St. Matthew, V, 9.)

Judge not that ye be not judged. (St. Matthew, VII, I.)

By complying with the first and deliberately disobeying the second of these two injunctions for good behavior, Adolph Joseph Sabath, Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Chicago, has come to command a portion of fame and respect far larger than that delivered to the average man who is neither judge nor peacemaker. During his 20 years upon the bench it is claimed that he has tried more divorce suits than any other magistrate and effected more marital reconciliations. Last week, as usual, Judge Sabath's courtroom teemed with opportunities for making peace. On one day alone he found temporary remedies for two lamentable squabbles between men and wives.

One was the case of James Barrett Johnson, artist, against whom Mrs. Ruth Johnson had a complaint. Mrs. Johnson wished to be divorced; she charged cruelty and said that her husband had neglected, during the nine years of their wedlock, to provide her with flowers and candy. Also, she complained that since she had left his bed and board, James Johnson had pursued her onto street cars and had sent her more flowers and candy than she wanted. Mr. Johnson heard his wife's criticisms with dismay. For himself, he told the court, he loved his wife and desired her return. To this horrid conundrum, Judge Sabath had a neat answer. He gave Mrs. Johnson an injunction to prevent Mr. Johnson from annoying her; to Mr. Johnson he gave permission to send his wife all the candy and flowers he could afford to buy. Next month, if this arrangement does not result in reconciliation, Mrs. Johnson will bring her suit to court.

Again, there were the less temperamental problems of Mr. and Mrs. William C. Freeman. Mr. Freeman's lawyer said that his client, a banker, had been compelled to resign from his vice-presidency in the National Bank of the Republic and the executive vice-presidency of the National Republic Co. due to the publicity attendant upon his wife's divorce suit. "She's always spent beyond his means and now she's ruined him," said the attorney. "Absurd," said counsel for the lady. "Now that he has $30,000 a year, he wants to throw her aside." This was a tangle too naughty to untie. Judge Sabath ordered the banker to give his wife $250 right away and said he would listen to further details later.

Once, it is true, there were famous hanging judges, wigged and scowling men who ordered felons to the gallows with a ferocious gesture. Their place in fame has been taken in this age of querulous placidity by divorce judges, whose wisdom, foolishness, or wit endears them to the public. The merry magistrates of Reno, Nev., are some such; famed Judge Ben Lindsey, of Denver, Col., is, indirectly, another. The enormity of Judge Sabath's labors can be seen at a glance: since 1925, he has heard 14,500 divorce cases and of these he has reconciled more than 1,000 pairs of wives and husbands. Altogether he has heard 22,000 cases and patched 2,000 peaces.

The career of Judge Sabath began on March 2, in the small, dirty, Bohemian village of Zabori. At 15, the young Jew came to the U. S., became successively an errand boy, a salesman, a married man, a father, a real-estate agent, a lawyer. In 1909, 2,600 Chicago Bohemians presented him with a petition asking him to be a candidate for judge of the circuit court. Lawyer Sabath resigned from his firm of Churan & Sabath to comply. In 1916, he was appointed and later elected to the Superior Court; since 1926 he has been its Chief Justice.

He is naturally more proud of persuading a couple away from divorce than of effecting separations. His methods for the former are as crafty as they are various. Now he will administer advice, now reprimand, now cajole. In June 1927, he was moved by the connubial vicissitudes of Mrs. Margaret Hinderer to recite a poem, as follows:

A little more kindness,

A little less creed,

A little more giving,

A little less greed.

A little more smile,

A little less frown,

A little less kicking

A man when he's down.

A little more "we,"

A little less "I,"

A little more laugh,

A little less cry.

A little more flowers,

On the pathway of life,

And fewer on graves

At the end of the strife.

So touched by this effusion was Mrs. Margaret Hinderer that, having read it once, she desired only to return to her husband. Judge Sabath advised her to do so immediately, to go straight to her home on the Kankakee River, near the State lunatic asylum, and have dinner with her spouse, upon the 13th anniversary of her wedding. Mrs. Hinderer did as she was bidden and is now, from all reports, still domesticated upon the banks of the Kankakee.

Not all of Judge Sabath's rejoinings are so permanent, as he himself is compelled dourly to admit. Nine out of ten have trouble again; old wrongs rankle and the spirit of forgiveness drops and dries like dew. It is before marriage, he suggests, that permanence must be anticipated.

Judge Sabath does not believe in companionate marriage but he believes in marrying young. "I did it myself," he says. Last March, at a testimonial dinner attended by 2,000 persons, Joseph Sabath was given a $5,000 automobile. Last week, after arranging his numerous truces, he drove himself home in this car--to the house where May, his wife, was waiting.