Friendly Test

In an obscure, mean house in the south-east section of Portland, Ore. lived George Hanna, Syrian-born day laborer who had been unemployed for seven months, his wife Fiena and their seven children. They were poor, had occasionally sought aid from the county public welfare bureau. Some of their neighbors complained that the children were rowdy, but Laborer Hanna was tolerably well content with his home and with the way his wife ran it. In August he saw his home about to be broken up. Upon the complaint of neighbors, Mrs. Elizabeth Neth, assistant chief probation officer of the court of domestic relations, filed a petition to have Mrs. Fiena Hanna declared an imbecile and committed to the state institution for the feeble-minded at Salem, Ore. Bewildered, lacking legal counsel (which in Oregon is permitted but not customary in such cases), Mrs. Hanna was examined by a Dr. Max Himmelfarb and one Carolyn Friendly, mathematics teacher and one-time psychology student. These two announced that Mrs. Hanna failed to pass "intelligence tests." The court ordered her committed to Salem, but because of its crowded condition she was not sent there at once.

Meanwhile, Laborer Hanna had on his mind the matter of his daughter Helen, 15. Because she was alleged to have told her little sister to steal a purse last July, she had become award of the court. Her case came up early last month. Like her mother, she was examined by Carolyn Friendly. After that, Laborer Hanna became angry, terrified, excited. And Portland (through the sedate Portland Oregonian} learned of the Hanna Case for the first time. For Teacher Friendly had written of Helen Hanna: "Recommendation: Should be sterilized. She is not at all placeable and if left in her present sordid environment she will continue to steal and undoubtedly will become a sex delinquent. Should be committed to the feeble-minded school." Laborer Hanna was asked by Assistant Chief Probation Officer Neth to give permission to sterilize Helen. If he gave it, she might not be sent to the institution. If he did not, she could be sterilized and sent away "if one wanted to be ruthless." *

Cried Laborer Hanna: "I will not let them take Helen away. I would rather die first. She should be at home helping her mother with the children. There is nothing the matter with Helen. She is a good girl. Maybe she did take something, but if she would we would give it back. There is nothing the matter with my family. Maybe the kids don't mind their mother as they should "

Revealed to Portland was the test which 15-year-old Helen Hanna took. Things Helen knew: that George L. Baker is Portland's Mayor; that George V is England's King; Herbert Hoover the U. S. President; Calvin Coolidge, ex-President; George Washington, first President; that electricity "lights, shocks"; that tea comes from Japan. She knew the meanings of: copper, dungeon, lecture, haste. Things she did not know: the life-span of a horse; the largest city in the U. S.; why the heart beats. If she were hunting a ball lost in a circular field and were, offered two ways of finding it, she would utilize the "inferior" one. An 8th grade student in school, she was found by Teacher Friendly's test (the standard Stanford-Binet test, said she) to have an Intelligence Quotient of 63--seven less than necessary to escape commitment. Teacher Friendly called Helen a moron, offered additional reasons why she should be sterilized: "The girl herself may turn out all right, but I don't think we want any of her progeny in this community . . . not the kind of stuff that makes good citizens . . . shiftless . . . little moral stamina though she knows the difference between right and wrong." She said that the family is "low-brow," and "riff-raff. . . . Neighbors complain that the children are a nuisance with their marauding habits and the family is unspeakably dirty."

Laborer Hanna had no money for counsel. But he went to Lawyer Arthur A. Tarlow who agreed to help him. Speedily Lawyer Tarlow obtained a rehearing of Mrs. Hanna's case. Three physicians questioned her. They found her illiterate, but discovered that she knew that a match touched to wood makes it burn; that a handkerchief is used to "blow the nose"; that leather comes from "goat, cow, sheep"; that her bus fare to the courthouse was 10-c-; that three bus fares would be 30-c-. Asked where she went to pray, she replied: "Church." To whom did she pray? "God." How many Gods are there? "One." She readily identified the U. S. flag but could not tell the difference between president and king. She was unable to answer the question, "What is justice?"

Assistant Chief Probation Officer Neth said that neighbors reported that the house was "untidy," the children unrestrained. Said she: "They throw rocks and destroy shrubbery."

"Lots of children are throwing rocks in town," said one of the physicians.

Mrs. Hanna was found to be "normal," was released. Teacher Friendly, declaring that her test had been misinterpreted, said that she had acted merely as a consultant to the court. She would bring no further allegations of feeblemindedness against Helen Hanna. Then Judge William Ball Gilbert of the Circuit Court said he had taken no cognizance of the tests anyway. Because of the Hanna's poverty, he took Helen from her family, installed her in the home of a Mr. & Mrs. Charles A. Townsend.

To the Portland Oregonian last fortnight wrote Father M. Shallhoob of the Great Eastern Orthodox Church: "In this time of wild conjecture and haphazard experiments in the field of education and psychology, it is encouraging to find a great modern daily willing to champion the rights of the individual against persecution appearing in the guise of 'psychiatry.' "

* In 15 U. S. states, sterilization may be ordered for habitual criminals, imbeciles or insane persons. Cases may be appealed as under any other law, even to the U. S. Supreme Court.

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