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Page 17
A probation officer in D---- found that he could not work through
the local police in searching for a certain deserter, because the
missing man's political affiliations made them friendly to him. The
probation officer knew in a general way that the man was likely to
be in the city of S---- in the same state, so he secured a warrant
and sent it with such slight clues as were at hand, to a probation
officer of that city who was successful in the search. Avoiding the
usual procedure, the warrant was served by the police in S----.
"Several instances of this kind have occurred lately," writes the
probation officer at D----.
The necessity of doing the detective's work raises at once the question
of how far the social worker can afford to adopt the detective's
methods. If reformation of the man is the end sought it would seem an
axiom that he must be given from the first every reason to believe that
the social worker will play fair. "We are very careful never to break a
promise we have made to a man," says an agency which deals with many
deserters. The same agency, as illustration of its own methods in
seeking deserting men, instances the case of a man who was being
shielded by his sister, but was discovered by an officer who scraped
acquaintance with her little boy and asked innocently, "Where's your
uncle Jack now?" In another case the officer learned of a man's
whereabouts through his relatives by representing himself as a lawyer's
clerk calling about a legacy which had been left the man. In still
another case, reported by a different agency, a man who had deserted his
family was known to be receiving mail through the general delivery of
another city. It was ascertained that he was writing to a woman in his
home town. A letter was sent to him in care of General Delivery asking
him to meet the writer (who was represented to be the young woman with
whom he was corresponding). The wife was sent to that city and she and
the local probation officer met the man and served the warrant.
There is, of course, something to be said in favor of the use of such
methods. The protection of the weak and helpless may justify, in certain
circumstances, any subterfuge. But the _detective_ who arrests the
criminal in ways like these is seeking his punishment and nothing else.
There is no thought in that case of establishing personal relations and
effecting the long, slow process of reformation. When social workers use
such methods it should be in the full realization that they are
foregoing any future advantage of straight dealing with the man. To
capture a man by a trick is to declare war on him; and, in his mind, the
social worker and the policeman then stand in the same place, "I'd have
him there to meet you," said a deserter's chum to a woman visitor, "if I
wasn't sure, in spite of your straight talk, you'd have a bull waiting
behind a tree."[20]
If it is a first desertion, or if there is room for doubt whether an
accident may have befallen the man, police and hospital records should
be looked up.
A woman with four children applied to a charity organization
society, saying her husband had disappeared. There was a rumor that
someone had seen him fall off the dock while intoxicated, but no
attempt had been made to confirm this and the family was treated as
a deserted family for some months, until the man's body was found in
the river and identified.
If there have been previous desertions, it is extremely important to
secure their history. The reasons that moved the man once are likely to
do so again, and he is apt to return to his former haunts and be seen by
former friends and acquaintances.
The deserting man, unless he elopes with another woman, generally goes
to some cheap lodging house or, if of foreign birth, he may seek out the
quarter where those of his nationality reside and become a lodger in a
family in which his native tongue is spoken. Hence, a canvass of the
lodging houses--armed with a photograph if possible--is a desirable
first step. All of the social worker's casual acquaintance with the
foreign quarters of his city comes into play in the search. If the man
is in the city some "landsmann," some "paesano" has seen him, and knows
where he is to be found. It may even narrow down to finding the
particular house on the particular street where the immigrants from a
particular village in Sicily or Galicia have their abode. The pool-rooms
and saloons of the district can often be made to yield information,
especially if a man visitor can canvass them. In dealing in this way
with mere acquaintances of the man, it is usually not necessary for the
social worker to tell who he himself is or to state the purpose of his
inquiry. In talking with relatives or close friends, however, it is
often best to lay all cards on the table and convince one's listener
first of all that the man sought will have fair treatment and a chance
to state his side of the case before any proceedings are begun against
him.
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