"I am talking about a class of whom I may know more than most of you — a section of those unfortunates who are broadly and indiscriminatingly called criminals.
"Ladies and gentlemen, not every lawbreaker is a brutalized desperado, fit only for swift extermination. I know that there are men of that kind, and you all know that I have been more merciless with them than any officer of the law. But there are others.
"I mean the men who steal through ignorance, through poverty, through misplaced ambition, through despair, through lack of better opportunity. I mean also men who have been punished for their crimes and who are now at the crossroads. One road takes them deeper and deeper into crime, into becoming real brutalized desperadoes. The other road takes them back to honesty, to regaining their self-respect, to becoming good and valuable citizens. All they need is the second chance which society is often so unwilling to give them.
"To give these men their second chance, has been founded the Society for the Rehabilitation of Delinquents — rather an elaborate name for a simple and straightforward thing. I am proud to be the first president of that society.
"We believe that money spent on this object is far cheaper than the money spent on keeping prisoners in jail, and at the same time is less than the damage that these men would do to the community if they were left to go on with their crimes. We ask you to believe the same thing, and to be generous.
"Everything that has been taken from you tonight can be found tomorrow at the office of the Society, which is in the Missouri Trust Building on Fifth Avenue. If you wish to leave your property there, to be sold for the benefit of the Society, we shall be grateful. If it has too great a sentimental value to you, and you wish to buy it back, we shall be glad to exchange it for a check. And if you object to us very seriously, and simply want it back, we shall of course have to give it back. But we hope that none of you will demand that.
"That is why we ventured to take the loot away tonight. Between now and tomorrow morning, we want you to have time to think. Think of how different this holdup would have been if it had been real. Think of your feelings when you saw your jewelry vanishing out of that door. Think of how little difference it would really make to your lives" — he looked straight at the countess — "if you were wearing imitation stones, while the money that has been locked up idly in the real ones was set free to do good and useful work. Think, ladies and gentlemen, and forgive us the melodramatic way in which we have tried to bring home our point."
He stepped back, and there was a moment of complete silence.
The chairman had at last found his glasses. He saw the speaker retiring with a bow from the microphone. Apparently the speech was over. It seemed to be the chairman's place to give the conventional lead. He raised his hands and clapped loudly.
It is things like that that turn tides and start revolutions. In another second the whole hall was clattering with hysterical applause.