If mercy multiplied can be made to effect for the main object, that were well, since “A man convinced against his will is (usually) of the same opinion still”; yet, shall the subject persist in making use of the soft pedal as a “soft thing” through which to draw out devious, determined, long-drawn-out devilment, the sooner the State stops his bullish rush for the abyss, the sooner he will take a flashlight photo of himself.
Such, in substance, has been the contention of practical penologists. In line with that contention the pendulum of public opinion must swing back; it must, for the very good reason that self-preservation leaves no other choice to the American people or to any other people. That country limps to the dogs which essays to hold murderous rounders in check by aesthesia. The Almighty fits the punishment to the offense. Man can do no less and endure in the image of his Maker.
The first necessary step in the regeneration of a license-mad world is to put teeth into the restraint of those who seek to make permanent the present chaotic social conditions. Moreover, the movement against the international social marauder will necessarily take on international scope and solidarity. Pecking at him here and there, driving him from this to that base of operations, won’t get the world anywhere in coming up with him who does not balk over indiscriminate use of the crudest of death-dealing tools in determination to stand society on its head.
International control over and isolation of the red-handed, are the only weapons that will make a dent in them. Therefore employ those weapons before misled maulers of law and order engage the standing armies of the civilized nations of the globe. Will they not? Maybe not, but they do, right now, in appreciable measure, in several European States; also, they go right on “boring in” to the heart of things in America, for which they do not, as a rule, get so much as a slap on their murderous wrists.
Cardinal bungling in relation to present cosmic lawlessness, resided in allowing Russia to be taken by the throat by a few addle-brained social hyenas; they who use an intrinsically fine-hearted people as a foil for destructiveness the most heinous ever garnished by inhuman ghouls.
That Russia remained deaf to the pleas of statesmen of the stature of Baron Rosen, then rushed to loot and wholesale killings, alone concerned Russian autonomy. If Russia chose to wear sackcloth while ordering her bed for terrorism and bad dreams, that was distinctively Russia’s affair; but the moment she sought to underwrite propaganda aimed at the world’s social structures, that moment the international screw should have been turned on her. For her own salvation she should have been brought to an even keel, say naught of the broil to which Russian mongrels were bringing the international pot.
But why the apparent diversion from the text? Why roam for similes that seem so far removed from consideration of the psychology of American criminals? First off, nothing is distant by suggestion from America farther than the time required to cable it to America and there spread it in the public press. As the bird flies between the nearest points of opposite shores, Siberian Russia is but about thirty hours by boat from Alaska. Uncle Sam is cogitating the best means by which to quicken the life flow in Alaska’s veins. When that flow is quickened, Alaska will be a convenient, engaging, and comparatively safe base from which such as Russian radicals may strike at and sieve into America.
Secondly, the psychology of such as those directly responsible for measures that leave Russia stripped of about all but the saving grace of a long-suffering God, is substantially the psychology of habitual criminals, place them where you will. As a distinct class of humans, each is out to get something for nothing. With specious and polished phrases, the one class of educated plunderers play up to the dumb avarice of ignorant underdogs. The other class, equals of their blood-brothers in hatred of biblical government, usually manifest their crooked curves in the most direct way with the individual weapon. Anarchistic agitators seek to strike through the masses from center to periphery of the social circle; criminals usually make their forays in pairs or packs from the fringes of society; yet both are impelled to anti-social action by the ever same capital motive, which is to get something for nothing.
And so, no matter what un-American or anti-American stripe he bears; and no matter in what language he may shriek for social disintegration because he is of that stripe, America must meet him with a fist that knows no relaxation. He should not be allowed to land on American soil until he had taken unqualified oath to support American institutions. Thereafter, upon the first evidence on his part of backsliding as regards that oath, he should be given his ticket of leave and published to the police authorities of the world for what he is, viz.: a man without a country who doesn’t mean to merge with any but those of his class.
Adam and Eve were turned out of Eden for committing mere carnal sin in disobedience of divine command. America, then, has the highest authority on which to purge herself of lawless blood-spillers; indeed, so much of obligation is upon America, judged either from the spiritual or material standpoint.