Last fall, when Florence E. Allen offered herself as a candidate for this honor, the wiseacres declared that she hadn't a chance of getting it. The political parties ran their own candidates. Judge Allen stood alone. She was not on the ticket of any party. She had no political organization behind her.

It is one of her fixed beliefs that the high office of judge should not be in any sense a political one. The wiseacres admitted that this was fine in theory; but they predicted that it would not stand the practical test of a state-wide campaign.

On the night of November seventh, when the election returns came in, they revised their opinion. With two Supreme Court judges to be chosen, and with five candidates in the race - four of them being men supported by political parties - Florence Allen stood second in the number of votes received. She was elected by a majority of almost fifty thousand over the man who stood third.

This was not her first victory. In 1920 she was elected a judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Cleveland by the greatest vote ever given a candidate for that office. She led the entire judicial ticket of ten candidates, and became the first woman to sit in a court of general jurisdiction. It was in that court that I first saw her.

Probably not one person in a thousand has ever met a woman judge. I never had until I met Judge Allen. And I admit that I looked forward to the meeting with curiosity tinged with considerable doubt.

I had no prejudices against a woman acting as a judge; but I was afraid she might be somehow queer. I wondered how she would dress and how she would do her hair! She might be a fine woman and a most excellent judge, and yet might look ridiculous presiding over a court of law.

To be perfectly honest, isn't that the way you feel about it? Wouldn't you hate to see a woman sitting in a judge's chair, if she looked fantastic and out of place? You might tell yourself that inside of her head, not outside, was the important thing. But it will be a good long time before women judges become so common that we won't think about how they look.

Well, then, I drew a sigh of relief the first time I saw Judge Allen on the bench. Of course, it wasn't a bench, but a big leather-upholstered arm chair. She wore a plain dark dress, with a simple white lace collar at the neck. And some good fairy must have taken charge of her hair when she was born; for it has just enough of a natural wave to please the eye, even though she wears it as simply as she does.

Not only in her appearance and manner, but also in her thought, speech, and action, the most impressive thing about Judge Allen is this simplicity and unaffected naturalness. She is direct, without a trace of aggressiveness. She has dignity, without self-consciousness. She says what she thinks; but you always know that she has thought before she speaks.

I went about with her a good deal in Cleveland, and I was struck by the universal respect with which she was treated. It was entirely spontaneous. There was nothing in her manner which called for a show of respect.

The experience was very interesting to me as an example of how a person wins out by simplicity, sincerity, and real worth of some sort. It is perhaps the greatest lesson the rest of us can get from Judge Allen's story.

In many ways, her position, when she was made a judge, was a difficult one. She might easily have antagonized the people with whom her office brought her in contact, even the general public itself. But she just went ahead and did her work simply, quietly, efficiently - and let the prejudices take care of themselves.

Anyone who follows that course can pretty safely expect to get the same result as Judge Allen got; can count on being treated with respect and confidence.

When I asked Judge Allen where she was born, she said "In Salt Lake City." Then, so quickly that I had to smile, she added, "But I wasn't a Mormon! My father, who had been a teacher of languages in Western Reserve University, here in Cleveland, went to Salt Lake for his health, and taught in a Congregational school there."

Judge Allen's father, as I learned from a friend who has known her all her life believed in catching his pupils young, so to speak. He couldn't always do this in the school, but he had six children of his own; and as he followed out his theory with them, Florence began to study Greek and Latin when she was only seven years old.

THERE was one story about her which seemed to me particularly characteristic. When she was only nine she was in a Latin class, composed of much older children, which was taking an examination in Cicero. One of the questions was: "What was the nature of the Catilinarian conspiracy?" And the answer written down by the little nine-year-old girl was: "The nature of the Catilinarian conspiracy was bad and bloody."

That answer seems to contain the germ of the straightforward directness which is so strong a trait in Judge Allen to-day.

The childhood of a person is always intensely interesting in the light of what that person has grown up to be. For instance, the little girl who is now a woman, famous all over the country, was always doing something and always getting other children to do something. On one occasion she mobilized her playmates into a Roman Legion, equipped with swords, shields, and other paraphernalia, made in the workroom which her father had provided for his own boys and girls. She was always the leader – but it was leadership, not "bossing."

In the school she attended there was a so-called "irregular teacher," who took a charge of children who had to make up certain studies in order to enter a class. Florence would go to this irregular teacher and ask to take a study. For instance, she said she wanted to study geography. She was allowed to do this – and went clear through the geography in three weeks. Then she wanted to study grammar. It took her just another three weeks to go through the book.

A close friend of hers told me she never has seen so rapid a reader as Judge Allen. "She will finish a book in less than half the time I spend on it," this friend said. "And when she has finished it, she knows more about the essential parts of it than I do."

This ability to concentrate on what she reads or hears, to digest it quickly, and to get the essential points, is of very real value to her as a lawyer and as a judge.

I was in her court one day when a case was brought before her. She glanced at the papers, asked two or three questions, and the whole thing was over. She had found instantly – as others should have found before the case was sent to her – that the defendant was a subject for the Juvenile Court, not for the Court of Common Pleas.

After she had finished school at Salt Lake she entered Western Reserve University, at Cleveland, Ohio, and in 1904 was graduated with honors. When I spoke of this, she said:
"Yes, I won a Phi Beta Kappa. But my sisters, who has a very fine mind, did not win one. So the mere fact that I won an honor didn’t prove that I was exceptional."

That statement was very like her. Some people can think straight about everything, except what touches them personally. Judge Allen thinks straight even about herself. Anyone who can do that may pretty safely be credited with having the judicial temperament.

When she went to college she announced that she was going to support herself after she graduated; that if her father gave her an education she ought to be and she would be independent afterward. He insisted, however, on sending the family abroad, to have his daughters study music in Berlin; and much against her will she had to go along with the rest.

For two years she stayed in Germany; two years in which she kept up her girlhood habit of "always doing something." She studied music and German and wrote musical criticisms for two papers printed in English in Berlin. But she was restless all that time, impatiently wanting to get back to her own country.

When they did return, she started at once to carry out her program of self-support. Going back to Cleveland, she taught in a private school, and for three years was the musical critic on the Cleveland "Plain Dealer." During this time she also took her degree of A. M. at the Western Reserve University, in Political Science and Constitutional Law. At that time, women were not admitted to the Western Reserve University Law School; but she was allowed, as a special privilege, to attend some of the lectures.

IT IS an interesting fact that her study of Greek, begun when she was seven years old, was at least partly responsible for her choosing to be a lawyer.

"I became to intensely interested in those old Greeks," she said to me, "that I read a lot of their history. They were keen politicians, you know; very much concerned about their Government and their laws. And my own interest in law and government came as a natural result of my study of Greek history."

Being denied admission to the law school at her own university, she went out to Chicago and studied one year at the law school of the Chicago University, standing first in her class at the end of that year.

But as she was determined to be self-supporting, she had to earn money while she was studying. So when Frances Kellor, director of the New York League for the Protection of Immigrants, offered her a position with that bureau, she went to New York.

For a while she worked as a legal investigator for the bureau, and at the same time studied at the New York University Law School. But this was too strenuous for even so energetic a person as she was; so she gave up the bureau and tried another plan.

In addition to all her other work she had earned some money by giving lectures on music at the night schools conducted by the New York Board of Education. These lectures brought her the princely sum of ten dollars apiece. She now had circulars printed, and tried to obtain enough engagements to lecture before clubs and other groups to pay her living expenses while she finished the law course.

"I THINK I could have made more scrubbing floors than I made from my lectures on music," she told me. "Sometimes I was paid as little as five dollars for a lectures. And I didn’t get a chance to give enough talks, even at that price, to pay more than my bare living expenses.

"Fortunately, I could see the funny side of some of my experiences, even then. I remember one time when I was to deliver a lecture at a private house up-town and hadn’t a really decent dress to wear. I was living at that time in a small room down in Eleventh Street. A friend of mine lived in the same house. We took stock of my resources and decided that I must have a new dress; but that I must get it as cheaply as possible.

"We figured that things ought to be cheaper in Brooklyn; so we went over there to hunt for a bargain, I found a suit that was quite good-looking and that came within my price. But it had one drawback. It was literally a drawback; for those were the days of hobble skirts, and this one was so tight I could not sit down in it! However, I decided that as I would stand while delivering my lectures I could manage all right, and I bought the suit.

"My friend agreed to go with me that first evening, to give me moral support – and any other kind I needed. We were to take a street car; no taxi for us, of course! But, as I reminded my friend, the street cars were always crowded, so no one would know that I couldn’t sit down anyway.

"But can you imagine how we felt when we boarded the car and found ourselves the only passengers? With a long stretch of empty seats on either side, there we stood – for my friend literally stood by me in my dilemma – hanging onto straps, while the passengers who later got aboard stared at us in amazement.

"There were other experiences that weren’t so amusing, but it was all a part of the game. I didn’t particularly mind it. Did you ever realize that you have to spend time to spend money? That is something I often think of. Going to theatres and concerts, shopping, even eating! You have to put time, as well as money, into all these things. If you have no money to spend for them, you have just that much more time for other things.

"Most of the little I earned went for room and board, so I had most of my time for work. And I worked like a dog! In 1913, I graduated from the law school, standing second in the class."

"When you graduated, did you receive any offers of employment with law firms?" I asked.

"Why – no," replied Judge Allen.

"If a man had graduated with honors, as you did," I said, "wouldn’t he have received such offers?"

"Probably," she answered, after a little consideration.

I had given her a chance to talk about the handicap of being a woman; to comment, perhaps with bitterness, on the prejudices and even injustice a woman sometimes encounters. But she did nothing of the kind. She gave the briefest possible answer to my question and then dropped the subject.

THAT is her way. In all our conversations, she never touched on this subject of prejudice against her as a woman, except in answer to a direct question from me. She never took advantage of an opening to talk about the obstacles put in her way. I have known a few persons who are like her in that respect; but only a few. It isn’t a good thing to think very much about out handicaps. If we do, they become convenient excuses for failure, if we do fail; and they make us exaggerate our achievement, if we succeed. That isn’t Judge Allen’s way.

"After I graduated," she went on, "I came back to Cleveland, was admitted to the Ohio Bar, and opened an office. It wasn’t much of an office," she said with a smile; "I had just one small room. But, small as it was, it was too large for the furniture, which consisted of one chair – on which I sat – and another chair on which my client was to sit, when I had any! A friend who came to inspect the premises, insisted that the chairs look too lonesome, so she gave me a rebuilt typewriter and a little table to put it on. I felt quite grand then.

"My first client was a man, the husband of one of my friends. I drew up his will and charged him a fee of five dollars. I earned twenty-five dollars the first month and eight hundred and seventy-five dollars the first year. I couldn’t starve on that; but neither did it take much time for me to spend it. I had plenty of leisure for study.

"My first case was that of an Italian woman who was suing her husband for divorce, because he had deserted her and her children. I got fifteen dollars as my fee. I wouldn’t have got even that much if it hadn’t been that her brother could pay it.

"But I wanted cases and the experience they could give me, much more than I wanted fees. So I went to the Legal Aid Society and offered to work for them for nothing. This, with my own practice, which was gradually increasing, kept me pretty busy. It gave me experience and helped me to become known.

"I think it was because of my work for the Legal Aid Society that I was chosen as an arbitrator in the case of Yellon vs. the Cleveland Railway Company. There were three arbitrators: one representing the company, one representing the street railway employees, and one for the public. I was the one chosen by the employees, although of course I had no connection with their organization.

"The most important work I did during those first years was for the women, in their efforts to obtain municipal suffrage. I wrote the briefs and argued the case before the Ohio Supreme Court, which established the right of women to vote in Columbus, East Cleveland, and Lakewood."

Four years ago, Judge Allen – she was only "miss Allen" then – was appointed assistant county prosecutor; the first woman to hold such a position in Ohio. She gave up her own practice to take this position, although it paid her much less, because she still was more concerned about getting experience than about getting fees. As a county prosecutor, she had a chance to handle all kinds of cases and plenty of them.

The very next year she was elected a judge in the Court of Common Pleas. In that election, as in the recent one, she was not on the ticket of any political party. She stood alone.

As soon as she was elected, the other Common Pleas judges – there are twelve altogether – began to talk of establishing a special Court of Domestic Relations and putting the new woman judge in charge of it. Quickly but firmly she rebelled. She said she had asked for election on the ground that a woman was needed in the general courts. If she side-tracked in a special court this purpose would not be carried out.

Her protest had its effect. She took her place among the other judges, trying all kinds of cases, even those of murder in the first degree. During one of these murder cases, involving a certain Italian gang, her life was threatened, and the police insisted on guarding her home. Officers searched suspected persons before admitting them to the court-room, and took their guns away from them. But Judge Allen continued to preside with unruffled calm.

During her two years as a Common Pleas judge, she tried about six hundred cases, including eight murder cases. In only three of these six hundred cases was the verdict reversed by another court. That, as every lawyer will know, is a very unusual record.

Of course a judge of that court does not give the verdict; but he does control the admission of the evidence on which the verdict is given, as well as other conditions during the conduct of the case. Judge Allen’s record is therefore a striking proof of her fairness and of her legal ability in presiding over a court.

"IS IT common for people to perjure themselves on the witness stand?" I asked.

"Yes, only too common!" she said, shaking her head. "A person will take the oath – and we administer it with solemnity – to tell ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God!’ And that person will get up on the witness stand and deliberately tell a straight lie – or, rather, a crooked one."

"How can you tell when people are lying?" I asked.

"If I can look into their faces, I can tell pretty surely by their eyes," she said. "Someone told me recently that a judge is some Oriental country, where the common people went barefoot, declared he could tell when witnesses were lying by watching their feet. If they were not telling the truth, they wriggled their toes."

"I don’t remember ever having a barefooted witness, but I think that judge was right. A witness who knows he is not telling the truth is inwardly uneasy, and there is always some outward sign of this. They shift their feet, their hands, their whole bodies.

"As a rule, they are much more eager to get through the ordeal than the honest witness is. You can sense their anxiety to get off the stand as quickly as possible. An honest witness often seems to enjoy the experience of testifying. He is rather sorry when it’s over and he has to step out of the limelight. But the dishonest one is, as it were, poised for flight all the time.
"And the eyes are always telltale. I can’t say, of course, whether a witness is wriggling his toes or not, but you can generally see in his eyes that this thoughts are wriggling – if they are. The man may have determined in advance that he will look his interlocutor straight in the eye, knowing that this is considered the sign of truth. But there is a sort of flicker within the eyes that betrays him.

"If he were allowed to tell only the story he has prepared in advance, he might get away with it. But under questioning by the opposing lawyer, he becomes confused. He is made to supply details which he hadn’t thought of when he concocted his story. It is sometimes rather pitiful to watch him then. You can fairly see his brain working feverishly, calculating, trying to remember his story and to figure out just where an unexpected question will lead him.

"THIS willingness to perjure one’s self is a dreadful thing. Yet there are times when you cannot help feeling sorry for a witness, even though you know he is not telling the truth. Suppose you were called as a witness against a friend. You have no choice in the matter. The law takes you by the elbow, seats you in the witness chair, makes you swear an oath – all without regard to whether you are willing or not.

"You can refuse to testify – and be sent to jail for contempt of court. But even if you would not mind going to jail, you know that your refusal to testify will injure your friend. Everyone will be certain that your testimony would have helped to convict him. Can you be sure that under those circumstances you would tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

"I have seen scores of human beings caught between this upper and nether millstone; between breaking their oath, and betraying a fried. I have to say that in most cases the desire not to injure a friend is a more powerful human trait than a strict regard for the truth. From the point of view of justice, this is unfortunate; but it is true."

"How do witnesses give the most trouble?" I asked.

"That’s easy," laughed Judge Allen. "They talk too much. Theoretically, a witness should be asked questions to which he can give a direct answer: ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ or a plain statement of the fact. But very few of them are willing to let it go at that."

"What is the chief trouble a judge has with lawyers in a case?"

"The same one that we have with the witnesses," laughed Judge Allen. "The lawyers also are inclined to talk too much. But that’s not a failing peculiar to people in court, is it? It’s a pretty universal human trait. The jury has to keep still. The only time it gives any trouble is when a juryman goes to sleep. When this happened in my court, I had one of the attendants poke the slumberer and rouse him from his dreams.

"THE juries in the Common Pleas Court at Cleveland are composed pretty equally of men and of women. At first, there was considerable prejudice against having women in the jury. But the sentiment soon changed. Men who had served on juries for years before women were called to that duty have told me that the change was decidedly for the better.

"I found the jurywomen serious, attentive, and thoughtful. In the Motto murder case, the jury had a forewoman – not a foreman. Her life was threatened, as well as my own. She showed no fear and was not in the least influenced by the threat. The women, so far as I can tell, make just as good jurors as the men. Incidentally, I may add that I never saw one of them go to sleep in the jury box.

"From my point of view, it is an excellent thing for them to serve on juries. Anything would be good that would bring people into our courts to watch the cases that are tried there. I often hear a person say, almost boastfully: ‘I never have been in a court-room in my life!’ To me, that is something to be ashamed of, not to be proud of.

"Do you realize that the courts mean more to your safety and happiness than anything else in our Government? You can pass a million laws. But what are they worth unless they are administered honestly and justly? If your courts are corrupt of careless, your laws are dead letters. Where will you go for justice, if you cannot get it in your courts? If crime is not punished by the courts, what becomes of your safety?

"I tell you that the courts mean more to you – to your home, your business, your everyday life – than any other branch of the Government! Thousands of men and women sit and watch the legislatures and Congress passing laws. But they never think of going into a courthouse, which perhaps they see every day, and finding out how the laws are administered. They ought to do this. There are faults in our courts which could be corrected if the public took enough interest to have it done. There are even abuses which would not exist if the best people in the community saw them and declared against them. Only the people can get them changed."

In Judge Allen’s earnest words I caught an echo of what her friend had told me; that, as a child, she was always doing things and getting other children to do things. I tried to forget that I could count on the fingers of one hand the times I myself had been inside of a court-room. But I knew I was guilty. Inwardly I promised myself that I would drop into a court-room once in a while and, so to speak, keep an eye on the Scales of Justice. I kept my promise, too. And I certainly had a most interesting time. Why don’t you try it? Judge Allen says we ought to – and I guess she’s as good a judge of that matter as she is in court.