These cases are not difficult to understand. The love of money is the controlling emotion of the age. Just as religion, war, learning, invention and discovery have been the moving passions of former ages, so now the accumulation of large fortunes is the main object that moves man. It does not follow that this phase will not pass away and give place to something more worth while, but while it lasts it will claim its victims, just as other strong emotions in turn have done. The fear of poverty, especially by those who have known something of the value of money, the desire for the power that money brings, the envy of others, the opportunities that seem easy, all these feelings are too strong for many fairly good "machines," and bring disaster when plans go wrong.
Only a small portion of those who have speculated with trust funds are ever prosecuted. Generally the speculation is successful or at least covered up. Many men prefer to take a chance of disgrace or punishment or death rather than remain poor. These are not necessarily dishonest or bad. They may be more venturesome, or more unfortunate; at any rate, it is obvious that the passion for money, the chance to get it, the dread of poverty, the love of wealth and power were too strong for their equipment, otherwise the pressure would have been resisted. The same pressure on some other man would not have brought disaster.
The restrictions placed around the accumulation of property are multiplying faster than any other portions of the criminal code. It takes a long time for new customs or habits or restraints to become a part of the life and consciousness of man so that the mere suggestion of the act causes the reaction that doing it is wrong. No matter how long some statutes are on the books, and how severe the penalties, many men never believe that doing the forbidden act is really a crime. For instance, the violations of many revenue laws, game laws, prohibition laws, and many laws against various means of getting property are often considered as not really criminal. In fact, a large and probably growing class of men disputes the justice of creating many legal rules in reference to private property.
Primitive peoples, as a rule, held property in common. Their inhibitions were few and simple. They took what they needed and wanted in the easiest way. There is a strong call in all life to hark back to primitive feelings, customs and habits. Many new laws are especially painful and difficult to a large class of weak men who form the bulk of our criminal class.
To understand the constant urge to throw off the shackles of civilization, one need but think of the number of men who use liquor or drugs. One need only look at the professional and business man, who at every opportunity leaves civilization and goes to the woods to kill wild animals or to the lakes and streams to fish.
The call to live a simple life, free from the conventions, customs and rules, to kill for the sake of killing, to get to the woods and streams and away from brick buildings and stone walls, is strong in the constitution of almost every man. Probably the underlying cause of the world war was the need of man to relax from the hard and growing strain of the civilization that is continually weaving new fetters to bind him. There must always come a breaking point, for, after all, man is an animal and can live only from and by the primitive things.
Children have no idea of the rights of property. It takes long and patient teaching, even to the most intelligent, to make them feel that there is a point at which the taking of property is wrong. Nowhere in Nature can we see an analogy to our property rights. Plants and animals alike get their sustenance where and how they can. It is not meant here to discuss the question of how many of the restrictions that control the getting of property are wise and how many are foolish; it is only meant to give the facts as they affect life and conduct.
It is certainly true that the child learns very slowly and very imperfectly to distinguish the ways by which he may and may not get property. His nature always protests against it as he goes along. Only a few can ever learn it in anything like completeness. Many men cannot learn it, and if they learned the forbidden things they would have no feeling that to disobey was wrong. Even the most intelligent ones never know or feel the whole code, and in fact, lawyers are forever debating and judges doubting as to whether many ways of getting property are inside or outside the law. No doubt many of the methods that intelligent and respected men adopt for getting property have more inherent criminality than others that are directly forbidden by the law. It must always be remembered that all laws are naturally and inevitably evolved by the strongest force in a community, and in the last analysis made for the protection of the dominant class.