"So so," replied the prosecutor, amused at the nonchalance of a man who might reasonably expect to be in Sing Sing within three months. "How's business?"
"Oh, pretty good," returned Larry. "You know there is a sucker born every minute."
"I should think after your conviction you would have had sense enough to keep out of swindling for a while," continued the assistant.
"Swindling!" exclaimed Summerfield. "Swindling nothin'! My lawyer says I didn't commit any crime. Didn't the Supreme Court say there was a reasonable doubt in my case? Well, I'm just giving myself the benefit of it,—that's all. I'm entitled to it. How about those Ship-Building fellers?"
The "Ship-Building fellers" have never been convicted of any wrong-doing. Perhaps they committed no crime. Summerfield has three years more to serve in Sing Sing.[11]
In this connection the reader will recall the attitude of the inhabitants of Lilliput as chronicled by Gulliver.—"They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man's goods from theft, but honesty has no defence against superior cunning; ... the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage. I remember when I was once interceding with the king for a criminal who had wronged his master for a great sum of money, which he had received by order, and ran away with; and happening to tell his Majesty by way of extenuation that it was only a breach of trust, the Emperor thought it monstrous in me to offer as a defence the greatest aggravation of the crime; and truly I had little to say in return, further than the common answer, that different nations had different customs; for, I confess, I was heartily ashamed."
Any definition of the criminal class which limits it to those who "make their living" by crime is inadequate and begs the question entirely. There is no choice between the grafter and the "professional" thief, the boodler and the bank robber. They are all "real" criminals. One is as "diseased" and "degenerate" as the other. Every reversed conviction of a "grafter" lowers a peg the popular respect for law. The clerk in the corner grocery in Dakota feels the wireless influence of the boodler in St. Louis, and the "successful" failure in New York sets some fellow thinking in San Francisco.
The so-called degenerate and professional criminals constitute a very small fraction of the law-breakers and it is not from either class that we have most to fear. Our real danger lies in those classes of the population who have no regard for law, if not an actual contempt for it, and who may become criminals, or at least criminal, whenever any satisfactory reason, coupled with adequate opportunity, presents itself. From this class spring the experimental criminals of every sort, who in time become "professionals," and from it the embezzler, the stock jobber, the forger and business thief. From it as well are largely recruited those who commit the crimes of violence which, however undeservedly, give the United States such an unenviable place upon the tables of the statisticians. From it spring the "fellow who does not care" or who "will take a chance," the dynamiter, the man who is willing to "turn a trick" at a price, and all those who need the strong arm of the law to restrain them from yielding to their entirely normal evil inclinations.
The man who deliberately violates the law by doing that which he knows to be wrong is a real criminal, whether he be a house-breaker, an adulterator of drugs, the receiver of a fraudulent assignment or a trade-mark thief, an insurance "grafter," a bribe giver, or a butcher who charges the cook's commission against next Sunday's delivery. The writer fails to see the slightest valid distinction between them and believes it should be made possible to punish them all with equal severity. There is no reason why one should be a felon, another guilty of only a misdemeanor, while still another is guilty of nothing at all. The cause of crime is our general and widespread lack of respect for law, and this in turn is largely due to the unpunished, and often unpunishable, dishonesty which seems to permeate many phases of commercial activity. Diogenes's job is still vacant.