After Twenty Years on the Police Force — With Dr. Lois Higgins

A journey around the world:

Between the 21st and 24th of last February, Beirut was visited by a singular feminine personality of world renown in police work — Dr. Lois Lundell Higgins — in the course of a journey around the world to survey how far woman has gone, in the countries of the West and the East, in joining the police force!

Who is Dr. Higgins? — This lady holds the post of director of the Crime Prevention Bureau of the State of Illinois, in Chicago, in the United States. She is president of the International Association of Policewomen and a member of the international institution of police chiefs; she has written works on crime and the means of suppressing it, and she serves with special interest the cause of juveniles, particularly delinquents, through lectures and radio programs. She holds, besides, several official capacities of great importance.

A charming, elegant lady: Despite the twenty years Dr. Higgins has spent on the police force, she has remained that elegant lady, complete in her femininity. In her fifth decade, she is full of vitality and charm, and insists that she will stay young however far her years advance. She does not smoke at all and takes no spirits, even at cocktail parties. She loves dancing and singing and does both well; at the start of her life she took up singing on the radio, and she still yearns for it. Of dances she prefers the calypso! She is happy in her marriage, and has a son of 21 and a daughter of 16.

The talk of Captain Youssef Harakeh:

Captain Harakeh came to know Dr. Higgins in 1955, when he was a student at Purdue University in the State of Indiana. She was lecturing on the work of women police, the problems of juveniles and the supervision of their conduct, the suppression of the crimes they commit, and the combating of the crimes of deviant and delinquent women.

Captain Harakeh affirms that Dr. Higgins is a double personality: alongside her femininity, her gentleness, and her charm — evident to everyone who has known her and knows her in social life — there appears, while on duty, a strong personality. Her students dread her authority, for she is firm and resolute, bent on carrying out the law to the letter, and permits no fault or laxity however slight. Her country relies on her activity in police work, values her gifts, honors her and respects her.

The guest of Captain Fawzi Fawwaz:

Captain Fawwaz made Dr. Higgins's acquaintance at two international police congresses, the second of them last October in Honolulu, in the Hawaiian Islands. The two of them told us together, laughing, how the policewomen received them at the airport and buried them in garlands of flowers... and in kisses, the better to honor them both and to celebrate her!

In Honolulu, Captain Fawwaz made Dr. Higgins eager to visit Lebanon, and she accepted his invitation. He organized a program for her and introduced her to

a select company of Lebanese at a dinner given in her honor at the University Alumni Club. She also visited Baalbek and lunched at the table of Mrs. Rose Kettaneh at the model farm near Baalbek, which left in her heart the loveliest of memories.

She speaks at the League of Women's Organizations:

Those who heard her speak to the women of Lebanon about her experiences in the police took delight in listening to her for long hours without weariness. She analyzed with surpassing skill how woman by her very nature is fit to be a policewoman, especially in suppressing the traffic in narcotics and in watching over and reforming deviant and delinquent women; and she laid stress on woman's particular responsibility toward delinquent juveniles, whom misery, poverty, and disorder in the family drive into all manner of rough pitfalls, and on how woman — more than man — is able to save them and guard their steps, because of the understanding, the long patience, and the tenderness she has toward the young, and because man's roughness and harshness so often do harm in these delicate, sensitive problems; woman, for that reason, is the fitter to treat them...

At the house of the Palestinian Women's Union:

Mrs. Wadia Khartabil invited her, together with a company of men and women friends of the Palestinian Women's Union. Over a cup of tea the talk turned to the question of the Arab refugees and the misery and homelessness to which their condition has come... Dr. Higgins welcomed a visit to one of the refugee camps, and her eyes brimmed with tears as she took a moving-picture film recording that innocent childhood, despairing and deprived. She promised sincerely to help raise the question, on humane grounds, and to make the right plain to American public opinion, which still does not know the grievous truth, under the influence of misleading Zionist propaganda... And she showed her deep sympathy for the cause of the Arab refugees, on whose behalf she had so often heard the priest in her Catholic church appeal to the people, urging them to aid the refugees "with woolen clothes that are clean, and such as they themselves would not disdain to wear!"

...of policewomen comprises thirteen countries, and this figure rises day by day. The first to claim this right for woman, and to obtain it, was Alice Stebbins Wells of Los Angeles, California; that was in the year 1910. Alice Wells died last year, having passed eighty years of age, content of eye, for her dream had come true and met with brilliant success.

On more than one occasion Dr. Higgins expressed her readiness to give every explanation and assistance, within the scope of her authority, to any state wishing to join the International Association of Policewomen.

Honorary membership for President Adel Osseiran — Dr. Higgins, accompanied by Captain Fawwaz, visited the police school and the gendarmerie command; she also called on the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Adel Osseiran, and conferred on him honorary membership in the International Association of Policewomen, and she presented to the magazine "The Woman's Voice" a large picture of herself

In the Woman's Corner of Radio Lebanon:

Dr. Higgins took part in speaking to the Lebanese woman from her own special corner, which Edvick Shayboub supervises and presents; Captain Youssef Harakeh also took part with her, giving important information about what woman can accomplish in police work.

Dr. Higgins proved this by the excellent results that woman's record in the police has established. Then she said that the International Association

And shortly before boarding the plane, on the evening of the twenty-fourth of last February, "the first policewoman in the world" showed her extreme pleasure and gratitude for the great hospitality with which the Lebanese had overwhelmed her, especially Captains Fawwaz and Harakeh, and she affirmed that from this day on she is a friend of Lebanon and of the Arabs — one who can be trusted and relied upon.

...signed with a gracious greeting, to appear as a cover for the issue.