Fine Print
In 1897 19 unarmed striking miners at the Lattimer mine near Hazleton, PA were gunned down by the local sheriff department. A riot ensued. In 1898 a Republican election official in Greenwood County, South Carolina began collecting affidavits from African Americans who had been denied their right to vote. A riot ensued. In 1900 a prisoner shot and killed a police officer during an escape attempt. A riot ensued. Over the course of 1903 and 1904, mine workers in Colorado walked out on strike, prompting mine owners to request assistance from the National Guard in breaking the strike. Several riots ensued.
The turn 20th century was a tumultuous time for the lower class in America. Labor issues, racial tensions, women’s suffrage, and a host of other social issues presented a bevy of potential reasons for civil unrest. Tensions often boiled over in the form of violent demonstrations that would result in injuries, death, and jail time. Thus, it should come as no surprise that in 1906, in New York City, when a school principal offered free tonsillectomies for his students, a riot ensued.
The trouble began earlier that year when a tonsillitis outbreak in the crowded New York City tenements kept scores of young student home from school. Many families chose to end the cycle with a voluntary tonsillectomy. However, in the lower class, both parents often worked 12–16-hour days and had no time to drag their children to the doctor, let alone pay the 50-cent fee for the procedure.
The principal of P.S. 100 came up with the idea for a campus-wide charitable event. Doctors from Mt. Sinai Hospital would come to the school, and perform tonsillectomies free of charge, during school hours. All that was needed, was a signed permission slip from a student’s parents. The principal had the best of intentions and was truly trying to help the families in his school, but he forgot one key thing. Most of his students came from the Williamsburg neighborhood. Many of their parents were orthodox Jewish immigrants. And many of those immigrants spoke only Yiddish.
Those parents did what many of us would do in that situation. Not being able to read the forms, they simply signed them assuming they were important school forms. In total 83 mothers signed the forms having little to no understanding as to what they were authorizing, and they were horrified the following week when their children came home from school drooling blood, and unable to speak.
Not long after, a Jewish newspaper published a scathing article claiming that many of the parents had never signed any form of a permission slip. The response was almost instant. By mid-morning over 50,000 Jewish mothers had assembled outside elementary schools across the Lower East Side. They smashed windows and used ladders to gain entry to the schools. Several bystanders who, by virtue of their eyeglasses, were mistaken for doctors were attacked. After just two hours of riots, school was cancelled across the borough.
The community’s fears didn’t last long, as eventually the facts of the matter were made public. And largely because even though the circumstances had been somewhat surprising, their children had still received free medical care from qualified professionals.
I don’t speak Yiddish. Or any language other than English for that matter. If I was presented with a permission slip written in Yiddish, I would not have the slightest idea what to do with it. Luckily for me, I really don’t anticipate that happening. You probably won’t have to learn to decode Yiddish anytime soon either. But quite frankly, many of the contracts and forms we are all confronted with on a weekly, if not daily basis, may as well be written in Yiddish.
Just humor me for a moment. Have you ever read the terms and conditions on your Amazon account? Have you looked through every page of the warranty booklet for your car? Have you ever actually investigated what rights Facebook has over your personal data? Most of us assume that we don’t need to. Billions of people have Facebook accounts, and they seem fine. Do you really need to read the 120 pages of legal speak?
Legal contracts must be long, because they must cover everything. And if you don’t take the time to read them, I don’t blame you. I rarely do. The lawyers aren’t trying to confuse you, they are just being as thorough and detailed as their profession requires.
Now, let me ask another question. Have you ever met with a professional, say an accountant, financial advisor, insurance rep etc., and felt like you have no idea what they are talking about? It’s not an uncommon experience. Many professional service providers speak in technical terms because they have highly technical jobs. Those terms are hard to understand, unless you know the ins and outs of the profession.
If what I just described sounds like any of the professionals you work with, it’s time to find a new one. Accountants, Attorneys, Financial Advisors, Doctors, Mortgage Brokers, Realtors, and any other professional you may work with need to remember one key fact. THEY work for YOU. That means their number one job should be helping you succeed and making sure you understand what they are helping you accomplish. If they can’t explain, in terms that you can understand, what they are doing for you, you need to be highly suspicious of what they are doing for you. You hired them to do a job for you. And part of that job is explaining things to you in English, not in legal jargon, financial terminology, or Yiddish.