Out of hundreds of cases which Wooldridge has run down, where embezzlement, forgery and theft, even of the pettiest sort, was at the bottom of the crime, the great detective declares that fully half of the cases had their origin in this silly attempt to appear something more than the real thing. Silly pride is a teacher of crime, and a sure school mistress she is.
And the absurdity, the bally foolishness of it all, is that these pitiful attempts deceive no one. Every one knows solidity when they see it, just as they know sham when they see it. A self-respecting young man cannot afford to make of himself a sham, even by taking a cab when the millionaires walk or take the street car.
Fake Pride Leads to Crime.
On the other hand, many young men have plunged into a life of crime through over-spending their salaries, in the effort to convince every one who looked at them that they were on the directorate of the Standard Oil Company. Where the millionaire walks these silly young jackasses take a cab, and pay half a day's salary in order to ride two or three blocks.
"I have seen John J. Mitchell, the president of the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank, and one of our foremost financiers, walk from the Northwestern station to the bank building, while right behind him a young donkey, who was working for $25 a week in that very bank, would pay a cabby a dollar to drive him the seven short blocks from that same station to the bank.
"It is just such young pinheads as that who afterwards turn out to be our embezzlers, forgers and financial criminals."
The man who has made a name which is known in every corner of the United States as an authority on all kinds of frauds, snorted his indignation as he thought of the silly bank clerk. Then he continued:
"Does anybody ever see Arthur Meeker take a cab to ride a few blocks? Not on your life. He walks. So does Cyrus McCormick, Harold McCormick, R. Hall McCormick, Frank Lowden, and any number of the other men whose names stand at the top of Chicago finance. I see Frank Lowden on the Indiana avenue cars, the line I take myself, time after time. He is one of the most democratic of men."