I tell myself each time that I am trying to do the best that can be done for this one child in front of me now. And then, starting after court, I try… - Justine W. Polier

As case after case came up, I saw the vast chasms between our rhetoric of freedom, equality and charity, and what we were doing to, or not doing for, poor people, especially children.

Freedom means many things to many people. From my earliest childhood I saw it through the eyes of my parents as both opportunity and challenge to do battle for those in bondage, to achieve freedom of the spirit and mind for one’s self and one’s fellow men. Blessed by parents whose deepest joy was through service to their fellow men, who were deeply moral without ever being self-righteous, who were profoundly religious and therefore not sanctimonious, I learned that love of mankind became meaningful only as it reflected understanding of and love of human beings.

Surely, the concern for the liberation of women need not and should not be separated from the struggle by women to protect and advance the freedom of all those still denied equal opportunities and full participation in the life of this country. (1973)