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CORNELLUNIVERSITYLIBRARY

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOMEOF THE SAGE ENDOWMENTFUND GIVEN IN 1891 BYHENRY WILLIAMS SAGE

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Cornell UniversityLibrary

The original of this book is inthe Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions inthe United States on the use of the text.

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OTHER PUBLICATIONSBYCLARENCE S. DARROW

A Persian Pearl and Other'EssaysA volume of essays beautifully printed andbound. $1.50 net; postage, 10 cents.The Woodworkers' Conspiracy CaseThe argument of Mr. Darrow in the famousKidd case. 10 cents.

The Rights and Wrongs of Ireland10 cents.

Address at the Grave of John P. Altgeld5 cents.

Realism in Literature and Art5 cents.

Crime and CriminalsAn address delivered to the prisoners in theChicago County Jail. 10 cents.Resist Not Evil

A startling and vivid arraignment of thedoctrine of force and punishment. In press.75 cents.

Tales from the CourtsA volume of short stories. Illustrated. Inpress.

for sale byCHARLES H. KERR & COMPANYPUBLISHERS

56 Fifth Avenue, CHICAGO

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Resist Not Evil

BYCLARENCE S. DARROW

CHICAGOCHARLES H. KERR & COMPANYMCMHI

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Copyright, 1902ByCI^ARENCE S. DARROW

TYPOGRAPHY BYMARSH, AIKBN A CURTIS COMPAI^Y, CHICA&OPKBSS OF THOS. P. HALPIN A CO., CHICAGO

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Judge not, that ye be not judged. Matthew j:i.Ye have heard that it hath been said: An eye for

an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you,that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite theeon thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Matthew 5:38, 3g.

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PREFACEIt is not claimed that the following

pages contain any new ideas. They wereinspired by the writings of Tolstoy, whowas the first, and in fact the only, authorof my acquaintance who ever seemed tome to place the doctrine of non-resistanceupon a substantial basis. After readingTolstoy I determined to make a carefulstudy of the subject, but on a thoroughsearch of book stores and libraries couldfind next to nothing dealing with thequestion, while the shelves were crowdedwith literature extolling the glories of warand the beneficence of patriotism.The first part of this volume whichdeals with the state is very fragmentary,and in no wise so complete as can befound in many other volumes, but in theportion which deals with crime and pun-ishment, I have found a much newer field,

7

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8 Prefaceand one which has generally been dis-cussed by those who have little practicalknowledge of the machinery of courts ofjustice.

It has been my purpose to state thereasons which appeal to me in supportof the doctrine of non-resistance, ratherthan to give authorities to sustain thetheories advanced. Still, I believe thatthe student who is interested in the sub-ject of criminology, and wishes to care-fully investigate crime and punishment,will find that most of the great historians,philosophers, and thinkers will amply cor-roborate the views herein set forth, as tothe cause of crime, and the evil and un-satisfactory results of punishment.

Clarence S. Darrow.Chicago, November i, 1902.

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CONTENTSChapter Page

I. The Nature of the State . .11II. Armies and Navies . . .20

III. The Purpose of Armies . . 33IV. Civil Government . . .41V. Theory of Crime and Punishment 51VI. Remedial Effects of Punishment 59

VII. Cause of Crime . . . ^^VIII. The Proper Treatment of Crime 92IX. Impossibility of Just Judgment . 98X. The Judge of the Criminal . . 106

XI. The Measure of Punishment . 112XII. Who Deserves Punishment . , 127XIII. Natural Law and Conduct . .131XIV. Rules Governing Penal Codes

AND Their Victims . . 141XV. The Machinery of Justice . . 153XVI. The Right Treatment of Vio-lence 165

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Resist Not EvilCHAPTER I

THE NATURE OF THE STATEIn this heroic age, given to war andconquest and violence, the precepts of

peace and good will seem to have beenalmost submerged. The pulpit, the press,and the school unite in teaching patriot-ism and in proclaiming the glory andbeneficence of war; and one may searchliterature almost in vain for one note ofthat "Peace on earth, and good willtoward men" in which the world still pro-fesses to believe; and yet these benignprecepts are supposed to be the basis ofall the civilization of the western world.The doctrine of non-resistance if everreferred to is treated with derision andscorn. At its best the doctrine can only

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12 Resist Not Evilbe held by dreamers and theorists, aridcan have no place in daily life. Everygovernment on earth furnishes proof thatthere is nothing practical or vital in itsteachings. Every government on earthis the personification of violence andforce, and yet the doctrine of non-!resist-ance is as old as human thoughtevenmore than this, the instinct is as old aslife upon the earth.The doctrine of non-resistance to evildoes not rest upon the words of Christalone. Buddha, Confucius, Plato, Soc-rates, show the evil and destruction ofwar, of conquest, of violence, and ofhatred, and have taught the beneficenceof peace, of forgiveness, of non-resistanceto evil. But modern thought is not con-tent to rest the conduct of life upon thetheories of moralists. The rules of lifethat govern men and states must to-daybe in keeping with science and conformto the highest reason and judgment ofman. It is here that non-resistance seemsto have failed to make any practical prog-

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The Nature of the State 13ress in the world. That men should "turnthe other cheek," should "love their ene-mies," should "resist not evil," has everseemed fine to teach to children, to preachon Sundays, to round a period in a sense-less oratorical flight; but it has been takenfor granted that these sentiments cannotfurnish the real foundation for strongcharacters or great states.

It is idle to discuss "non-resistance" inits effect upon life and the world withoutadopting some standard of excellence bywhich to judge results. Here, as else-where in human conduct, after all is saidand done, men must come back to thefundamental principle that the conductwhich makes for life is wise and right.Nature in her tireless labor has ever beendeveloping a higher order and a completerlife. Sometimes for long periods it seemsas if the world were on the backwardcourse, but even this would prove that lifereally is the highest end to be attained.Whatever tends to happiness tends tolife,joy is life and misery is death.

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14 Resist Not EvilIn his long and toilsome pilgrimage,man has come to his present estate

through endless struggle, through brutalviolence administered and received. Andthe question of the correctness of non-resistance as a theory, like any othertheory, does not depend upon whether itcan be enforced and lived now or to-mor-row, but whether it is the highest ideal oflife that is given us to conceive. In onesense nothing is practical excepting whatis; everything must have been developedout of all the conditions of life that nowexist or have existed on the earth. Butto state this means little in the settlementof ethical questions, for man's future con-dition depends quite as much upon hismental attitude as upon any other factthat shapes his course.Everywhere it seems to have beentaken for granted that force and violence

are necessary to man's welfare upon theearth. Endless volumes have been writ-ten, and countless lives been sacrificed inan effort to prove that one form of gov-

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The Nature of the State 15ernment is better than another; but fewseem seriously to have considered theproposition that all government rests onviolence and force, is sustained by sol-diers, policemen and courts, and is con-trary to the ideal peace and order whichmake for the happiness and progress ofthe human race. Now and then it is evenadmitted that in the far distant ages yetto come men may so far develop towardthe angelic that political governments willhave no need to be. This admission, likethe common concept, presumes that gov-ernments are good; that their dutiesundertaken and performed consist inrepressing the evil and the lawless, andprotecting and caring for the helpless andthe weak.

If the history of the state, proved thatgoverning bodies were ever formed forthis purpose or filled this function, theremight be some basis for the assumptionthat government is necessary to preserveorder and to defend the weak. But theorigin and evolution of the political state

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1 Resist Not Evilshow quite another thingit shows thatthe state was born in aggression, and thatin all the various stages through which ithas passed its essential characteristicshave been preserved.The beginnings of the state can betraced back to the early history of thehuman race when the strongest savageseized the largest club and with thisweapon enforced his rule upon the othermembers of the tribe. By means ofstrengthjindhcunning hejbecame the chiefand exercised this_power, not to protectthe weak but_toJtake^ the^ood things ofthe earth lor himself andjiia,. One manby his unaided strength could not longkeep the tribe in subjection to his will, sohe chose lieutenants and aids, and thesetoo were taken for their strength andprowess, and were given a goodly portionof the fruits of power for the loyalty andhelp they lent their chief. No plans forthe general good ever formed a portionof the scheme of government evolved bythese barbarous chiefs. The great mass

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The Nature of the State 17were slaves, and their lives and libertyheld at the absolute disposal of the strong.Ages of evolution have only modified

the rigors of the first rude states. Thedivine right to rule, the absolute character

'^of official power, is practically the sameto-day in most of the nations of the worldas with the early chiefs who executedtheir mandates with a club. The ancientknight who, with battle-ax and coat ofmail, enforced his rule upon the weak, wasonly the forerunner of the tax-gathererand tax-devourer of to-day. Even in dem-ocratic countries, where the peopleare supposed to choose their rulers, thenature of government is the same. Grow-ing from the old ideas of absolute power,these democracies have assumed thatsome sort of government was indispen-sable to the mass, and no sooner had theythrown off one form of bondage than an-other yoke was placed upon their necks,only to prove in time that this new bur-den was no less galling than the old.Neither do the people govern in democ-

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1 Resist Not Evilracies more than in any other lands.They do not even choose their rulers.These rulers choose themselves and byforce and cunning and intrigue arrive atthe same results that their primitiveancestor reached with the aid of a club.And who are these rulers without whoseaid the evil and corrupt would destroyand subvert the defenceless and theweak? From the earliest time these self-appointed rulers have been conspicuousfor all those vices that they so persist-ently charge to the common people whoserapacity, cruelty and lawlessness they sobravely curb. The history of the pastand the present alike proves beyond adoubt that if there is, or ever was anylarge class, from whom society needed tobe saved, it is those same rulers who havebeen placed in absolute charge of thelives and destinies of their fellow men.From the early kings who, with blood-redhands, forbade their subjects to kill theirfellow men, to the modern legislator, who,with the bribe money in his pocket, still

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The Nature of the State 19makes bribery a crime, these rulers haveever made laws not to govern themselvesbut to enforce obedience on their serfs.The purpose of this autocratic powerhas ever been the same. In the early

tribe the chief took the land and thefruits of the earth, and parceled themamongst his retainers who helped pre-serve his strength. Every governmentsince then has used its power to dividethe earth amongst the favored few andby force and violence to keep the toiling,patient, suffering millions from any por-tion of the common bounties of the world.

In many of the nations of the earth thereal governing power has stood behindthe throne, has suffered their creaturesand their puppets to be the nominal rulersof nations and states, but in every casethe real rulers are the strong, and thestate is used by them to perpetuate theirpower and serve their avarice and greed.

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CHAPTER IIARMIES AND NAVIES

How is the authority of the state main-tained? In whatever guise, or howeverfar removed from the rudest savage tribeto the most modern democratic state, thisautocratic power rests on violence andforce alone. The first great instrumentwhich supports every government onearth is the soldier with his gun andsword. True, the army may be but rarelyused. The civil power, the courts of jus-tice, the policemen and jails generallysuffice in civilized lands to maintain exist-ing things; but back of these, to enforceeach decree, is the power of armed menwith all the modern implements of death.Thousands of church organizationsthroughout the Christian world professthe doctrine of non-resistance to evil, ofpeace on earth and good will to men, and

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Armies and Navies 21yet each of these Christian lands trainsgreat bodies of armed men to kill theirfellows for the preservation of existingthings. Europe is made up of great mili-tary camps where millions of men arekept apart from their fellows and taughtthe trade of war alone. And democraticAmerica, feeling the flush of victory andthe glow of conquest, is turning her ener-gies and strength to gathering armies andnavies that shall equal those across thesea. Not only are these trained soldiersa living denial of the doctrines that areprofessed, but in obedience to an eternallaw, deeper and more beneficent than anyever made by man, these mighty forcesare working their own ruin and death.These great armies and navies which givethe lie to our professions of faith existfor two purposes: first, to keep in subjec-tion the people of their own land; second,to make war upon and defend againstthe other nations of the earth. The his-tory of the world is little else than the storyof the carnage and destruction wrought

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22 Resist Not Evilon battlefields; carnage and destructionspringing not from any difference betweenthe common people of the earth, but duealone to the desires and passions of therulers of the; earth. This ruling class,ever eager to extend its power andstrength, ever looking for new people togovern and new lands to tax, has alwaysbeen ready to turn its face against otherpowers to satisfy the ruler's will, and with-out pity or regret, these rulers have de-populated their kingdoms, and carriedruin and destruction to every portion ofthe earth for gold and power.Not only do these European rulerskeep many millions of men whose only

trade is war, but these must be supportedin worse than useless idleness by thelabor of the poor. Still other millionsare trained to war and are ever ready toanswer to their master's call, to deserttheir homes and trades and offer up theirlives to satisfy the vain ambitions of theruler of the state. Millions more mustgive their strength and lives to build forts

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Armies and Navies 23and ships, make guns and cannon and allthe modern implements of war. Apartfrom any moral question of the right ofman to slay his fellow man, all this greatburden rests upon the poor. The vastexpense of war comes from the produc-tion of the land and must serve to weakenand impair. its industrial strength. Thisvery force must destroy itself. The besttalent of every nation is called upon toinvent new implements of destructionfaster sailing boats, stronger forts, morepowerful explosives and more deadlyguns. As one nation adds to its militarystores, so every other nation is also boundto increase its army and navy too. Thusthe added force does not augment themilitary power, but only makes larger theburden of the state; until, to-day, thesegreat armies, aside from producing themoral degradation of the world, are sap-ping and undermining and consuming thevitality and strength of all the nations ofthe earth. Cost of labor and strengthmeans cost of life. Thus in their prac-

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24 Resist Not Eviltical results these armies are destroyingmillions of lives that a policy of peaceand non-resistance would conserve andsave.

But when these armies are in actionhow stands the case? Over and overagain the world has been submerged bywar. The strongest nations of the earthhave been almost destroyed. Devas-tating wars have left consequences thatcenturies could not repair. Countless mil-lions of men have been used as food forguns. The miseries and sufferings andbrutality following in the wake of warhave never been described or imagined,and yet the world persists in teaching theglory and honor and greatness of war.To excuse the wholesale butcheries ofmen by the governing powers, learnedapologists have taught that without thehavoc and cruel devastation of war thehuman race would overrun the earth; andyet every government in the world hasused its powef and influence to promote

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Armies and Navies 25and encourage marriage and the rearingof children, to punish infanticide andabortion, and make criminal every deviceto prevent population; have used theirpower to heal the sick, to alleviate miseryand to prolong life. Every movement toovercome disease, to make cities sanitary,to produce and maintain men and womenand children has received the^ sanctionand encouragement of all governments;and still these glorious rulers have ruth-lessly slaughtered in the most barbarousand cruel way tens of millions of theirfellow men, to add to their glory and per-petuate their names. And philosophershave told us that this was necessary toprevent the over-population of the earth!No single ruler, however cruel or ambi-tious, has ever yet been able to bring thewhole world beneath his sway, and theambitions and lusts of these separatechiefs have divided the world into hostilecamps and hostile states. Endless warshave been waged to increase or protectthe territory governed by these various

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26 Resist Not Evilrulers. In these bloody conflicts the poorserfs have dumbly and patiently metdeath in a thousand sickening ways touphold the authority and prowess of theruler whose sole function has ever been topillage and rob the poor victims that fatehas placed within his power. To thesebrutal, senseless, fighting millions theboundaries of the state or the color ofthe flag that they were taught to lovecould not in the least affect their lives.Whoever their rulers, their mission hasever been to toil and fight and die for thehonor of the state and the glory of thechief.But, to-day, even national preservationdemands that the rule of peace shall giveplace to the rule of war. In the oldercountries of the earth the great drainsmade upon industry and life to supportvast armies and equip them for slaughteris depopulating states and impoverishingthe lands. And besides all this, so far asexternal power is concerned, no nationadds to its effectiveness to battle with the

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Armies and Navies 27others by increasing its army and navy.This simply serves to increase thestrength of the enemy's guns and to makenew combinations between hostile lands,until the very strength of a nation be-comes its weakness and must in turn leadto its decay and overthrow. The nationthat would to-day disarm its soldiers andturn its people to the paths of peacewould accomplish more to its building upthan by all the war taxes wrung from itshostile and unwilling serfs. A nationlike this would exhibit to the world suchan example of moral grandeur and truevitality and worth that no nation, how-ever powerful, would dare to invite theodium and hostility of the world by send-ing arms and men to conquer a peaceful,productive, non-resistant land. If theintegrity and independence of a nationdepended upon its forts and guns thesmaller countries of Europe would at oncebe wiped from the map of the world.Switzerland, Holland, Greece, Italy, andSpain are absolutely powerless to defend

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28 Resist Not Evilthemselves by force. If these nationsshould at once disarm every soldier andmelt every gun and turn the worse thanwasted labor into productive, life-savingwork, they could but greatly strengthenthemselves amongst the other nations ofthe earth. Not only this, their examplewould serve to help turn the tide of theworld from the barbarous and soul-destroying path of war toward the higher,nobler life of peace and good will towardmen.But not alone are these small nationsmade still weaker by war, but every bat-

tleship that is built by England, Russia,France, Germany , or the United Statesreally weakens those nations too. Itweakens them not alone by the loss ofproductive power but by the worse thanwasted energy which is required to sup-port these implements of death, from thetime their first beam is mined in the orig-inal ore, until scarred and worthless andracked by scenes of blood and violenceand shame, they are thrown out upon the

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Armies and Navies 29sands to rot. But every battleship weak-ens a nation by inviting the hostility ofthe other peoples of the earth, by com-pelling other rulers to weaken their king-doms, to build mighty ships and powerfulguns. Every preparation for war andviolence is really a violation of the neu-trality under which great nations professto live. They are a reflection upon theintegrity and humanity of their ownpeople and an insult to every other landon earth. The building of a man of war,the rearing of a fort, or the planting of agun can be likened only to a man whoprofesses to live in peace and quiet withhis neighbors and his friends and whogoes about armed with pistol and withdirk.

But these patent evils and outrages areafter all the smallest that flow from vio-lence and strife. The whole pursuit ofwar weakens the aspirations and idealsof the race. Rulers have ever taught andencouraged the spirit of patriotism, that

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30 Resist Not Evilthey might call upon their slaves to givetheir labor to the privileged class and tofreely offer up their lives when the kingcommands. Every people in the world istaught that their country and their gov-ernment is the best on earth, and thatthey should be ever ready to desert theirhomes, abandon their hopes, aspirations,and ambitions when their rulex calls, andthis regardless of the right or wrong forwhich they fight. The teaching of patri-otism and war permeates all society, itreaches to the youngest child and evenshapes the character of the unborn babe.It fills the soul with false ambitions, withignoble desires, and with sordid hopes.Every sentiment for the improvement

of men, for human justice, for the uplift-ing of the poor, is at once stifled by thewild, hoarse shout for blood. The loweststandard of ethics of which a right-think-ing man can possibly conceive is taught tothe common soldier whose trade is toshoot his fellow man. In youth he mayhave learned the command, "Thou shalt

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Armies and Navies 31not kill," but the ruler takes the boy just ashe enters manhood and teaches him thathis highest duty is to shoot a bulletthrough his neighbor's heart,and thisunmoved by passion or feeling or hatred,and without the least regard to right orwrong, but simply because his ruler givesthe word. It is not the privilege of thecommon soldier to ask questions, to con-sider right and wrong, to think of themisery and suffering his act entails uponothers innocent of crime. He may betold to point his gun at his neighbor andhis friend, even at his brother or father;if so he must obey commands.Theirs not to reason why.

Theirs but to do and die,represents the code of ethics that governsa soldier's life.And yet from men who believe in theseideals, men who sacrifice their right ofprivate judgment in the holiest matterthat can weigh upon the conscience andthe intellect, the taking of human life,men who place their lives, their con-

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2,2 Resist Not Evilsciences, their destinies, without questionor hesitation, into another's keeping, menwhose trade is slaughter and whose cun-ning consists in their ability to kill theirfellows,from such men it is expected tobuild great states and rear a noblehumanity!These teachings lead to destruction and

death; the destruction of the body andthe destruction of the soul. Even on theplea of physical evolution in the longsweep of time, these men must give wayto the patient, peaceful, non-resistants,who love their brothers and believe in thesacredness of life. Long ago it was writ-ten down that "He who takes the swordshall perish by the sword."

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CHAPTER IIITHE PURPOSE OF ARMIES

But the great armies and navies are notreally kept to-day for foreign conquest.Now and then, in obedience to the com-mercial spirit that rules the world, thesevessels of destruction are sent to foreignseas. But the rulers of the earth live onfairly friendly terms. Long since, themost ambitious have abandoned theirdreams of world power and are content toexploit a portion of the earth. When war-ships are sent to foreign seas they usuallyfire a salute rather than train their gunsfor death. Monarchs the world over re-spect each other. They are boundtogether by ties of common interest, ifnot of common love. When a ruler dies,even though the most tyrannical anddespotic, every other ruler promptly sendscondolences to the sorrowing court; their

33

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34 Resist Not Evilown subjects may die unwept, but a touchof common feeling moves them to mourna ruler's death. Nations are bound bymany ties to preserve peace among eachother. Scions of royal families arehanded round in marriage from court tocourt, treaties of all sorts are made andratified in most solemn form; and evenmore than this, the real owners of theworld, those who possess the stocks andbonds which rest upon the wealth that thepoor have labored to create, these realrulers who make war or peace by givingor withholding funds, these own thegreat bulk of the property of the variousnations of the world, and will not lightlysuffer their possessions to be destroyed.And yet these same real rulers, who standbehind the thrones of all the world,approve of this preparation for war, ap-prove of taking millions of men fromtheir homes and training them to kill,approve of every fort and gun and battle-ship. More than this, they contributelargely of their private funds to build bat-

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The Purpose of Armies 35teries and equip militia, especially in thegreat cities of the earth. Through thespeeches of their agents and the voice oftheir press, all this grim visage of war isfor the stranger without their gates. Butin reality the prime reason for all thearmies of the world is that soldiers andmilitia may turn their guns upon theirunfortunate countrymen when the ownersof the earth shall speak the word. Andthese unfortunate countrymen are the out-cast and despised, the meek and lowlyones of the world, the men whose cease-less toil and unpaid efforts have builtthe forts and molded the cannon and sus-tained the soldiers that are used to shootthem down.To say that these armies and frowningforts and gatling guns are needed tomaintain peace and order at home is toadmit at once that the great mass of menare held captive by the more powerfulfew. Organized soldiers and policemen,courts and sheriffs, with guns and fortsand jails, have the greatest advantage

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36 Resist Not Evilover the disorganized mass who cannotact together, and who know not whichway to turn to keep outside the meshes ofthe law. Not one in a thousand need betrained to arms and authority to keep theunorganized mass in the place reservedfor it to live. The purpose of guns andarmies is to furnish the few an easy andsure way to control the mass. Neitherare these armies made of the ruling class.The officers, it is true, are generally takenfrom the favored ones, but the regularsoldier is the man too poor and aban-doned to find his place in any other of thewalks of life. He is only fit to be an ex-ecutioner of his fellow man. No rulercan love his subjects when he takes theirmoney and their labor to buy cannonand train men to shoot them down. Thatthis is the real purpose of standing armiesand warlike equipments is plain to allwho have eyes to see. More and morethe rulers have learned to build theirbarracks and mass their troops not onthe borders of their land but convenient

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The Purpose of Armies 37to great cities, in the midst of districtsthickly populated by working men. Asnations grow older the opportunities ofthe masses grow less. More men arecalled to serve the state, and greaterpreparations are made to preserve thepossessions of the rich. These soldiersare moved from place to place, aremassed at time of need, not in accord-ance with the petition of the citizensfrom whose ranks the soldiers come, butin response to the request of the rulingclass.

Quite apart from the question of therights of capital on one hand and laboron the other, what must be the effect ofthis policy of force and violence whenreaching over long periods of time? Anation is really great and possessed ofthe lasting elements of strength in pro-portion as her people are strong, intel-ligent, and free. The rulers of a nationshould owe their subjects some duty inreturn for the homage and taxes they

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38 Resist Not Evilreceive. The ruler who deliberately gov-erns his subjects by violence and force,and through tyranny and fear, must findin time that this policy of hatred andoutrage is destroying and sapping thefoundations of the state; the morestrength and vitality that he draws fromthe poor and the more soldiers requiredto support arbitrary power, the greaterthe chasm that yawns beneath his feet.The loyalty that is kept through fear islost with opportunity. The rulers ofRome before her destruction, and ofFrance before the Revolution, had drawnall the soldiers from the people that thefields and shops could spare, and usedthese to support their tottering power.Kings can gain nothing by governing sol-diers alone. They must have farmers,artisans, all sorts of producers, or theirconquest is not worth the price. Thepolicy of hatred and violence must in theend destroy the state. It can breed onlyhatred in the hearts of the outcast andthe poor. If their subjection is incom-

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The Purpose of Armies 39plete, the throne is resting upon the shift-ing sands. If perfect and complete, theirsubjects are lifeless machines and theirempires crumbling to decay. It is reallyidle to speculate as to whether love andbrotherhood could accomplish more; itis certain they could not do less. Todisband the armies and destroy theforts, to diffuse love and brotherhood,and peace and justice in the place of warand strife, could tend only to the buildingup of character, the elevation of the soul,and the strength and well-being of thestate. True, the class lines would disap-pear. Brotherhood would have neitherruler nor ruled, would have no authorityof man over man, would treat all asbrothers and co-equals, and from it wouldgrow a stronger state and a higher man-hood than the world has known. Peace-ful industry relieved from the burdens ofsold^^ers and arms would inevitably in-creas-e, and life, rendered less burden-some by the exactions of authority, wouldlengthen and sweeten through the benefi-

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40 Resist Not Evilcent influence of love. No nation can bereally great that is held together by gat-ling guns, and no true loyalty can be in-duced and kept through fear.

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CHAPTER IVCIVIL GOVERNMENT

After the evolution of society throughbrute force and the first stages of mili-tarism, comes civil government. In itsforms and methods civil governmentdiffers from military government, but inits essence, its real purpose and effect, itis the same. Civil government, like mili-tary government, rests on violence andforce. As society reaches the industrialstage, it IS easier and costs less waste ofenergy for the ruling class to maintain itssupremacy through the intricate formsand mazes of civil government, thanthrough the direct means of soldiers andguns.

Civil governments, like military govern-ments, are instituted and controlled by theruling class. Their purpose is to keepthe earth and its resources in the hands

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42 Resist Not Evilof those who directly and indirectly havetaken it for themselves. This can only bedone by the establishment and mainte-nance of certain rules and regulationsconcerning the disposition of propertyand the fate of men. A vast army ofofficials, governors, legislators, tax-gather-ers, judges, sheriffs, policemen, and the likeare maintained by the governing class to

'

enforce these rules and regulations andkeep the exploited in their place. Thedecrees of courts and the various ordersof civil government are enforced byviolence, differing only in kind from thegeneral's commands. The decrees ofcourts, whether rightful or wrongful, mustbe obeyed, and the penalty of disobedi-ence is the forcible taking of property, thekidnapping and imprisoning of men, andif need be, the taking of human life. If itshall ever occur that the civil authoritieshave not sufficient force to compel obedi-ence, the whole power of the army andnavy may at once be made subservient tothe civil power.

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Ctvtl Government 43The vast army which is charged with

enforcing and maintaining civil law isdrawn largely from the ruling class andthose who contribute as their willing tools.This class must be supported and main-tained in greater luxury than that enjoyedby the ordinary man, and the supportentails ceaseless and burdensome exac-tions from the producing class. Theseexactions are a portion of the price thatthe worker pays for the privilege of beingruled. It is true that a portion of themoney forcibly taken through the ma-chinery of government is used for thosecooperative commercial purposes that areincident to a complex social life, but it hasnever yet been shown that an autocraticpower like a political state is needed toprovide the common resources incident tosocial life.

Practically the whole army of officials,with its wastefulness, its extravagance andits endless peculation, is supported andkept in worse than idleness for the pur-pose of ruling men through violence and

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44 Resist Not Evilforce. Even in so-called democracies thecivil law, with its ponderous and costlymachinery, serves the same purpose as inmonarchical states. It is easy to under-stand that when the decrees of a ruler areabsolute it can matter little whether thesedecrees are issued to an army and carriedout by force of the bayonet and gun, orwhether they are crystallized into law andcarried out by the orders of courts to beenforced by consigning troublesome andrebellious subjects to the prison or theblock. In either event the will of thesovereign is law, and the law is made forthe benefit of the ruler, not the ruled.

In democracies, the form is somewhatchanged, but the results are not unlike.Every democracy begins with a greatmass of regulations inherited from theautocratic powers that have gone before.These laws and customs are originally thesame decrees that have gone forth fromthe absolute rulers of the earth, and everychange in forms and institutions is basedupon the old notions of property and

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Civil Government 45rights that were made to serve the rulerand enslave the world.Then, too, authority has the same effect

on human nature whether in an absolutemonarchy or a democracy, and the tend-ency of authority is ever to enlarge itsbounds and to encroach upon the naturalrights of those who have no power to pro-tect themselves. The possession of au-thority and arbitrary power ever tends totyranny, and when autocratic orders maybe enforced by violence, liberty and lifedepend upon sufferance alone, A closecommunity of interest naturally springs upbetween those circumstanced alike. Theman who possesses one sort of power, as,for instance, political privilege, is veryfriendly to the class who possess anothersort, as, for instance, wealth, and thiscommunity of interest naturally and in-variably arrays all the privileged classesagainst the weak. The laws and regu-lations of a democracy tend no moreto equality than those of a monarchy.Under a democratic government inequal-

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46 Resist Not Evility of possession, of opportunity, ofpower, is quite as great as under absolutemonarchies. Given the right to use forceof man over man and the strongest forcewill succeed. You may forbid it in onedirection, it will but find a new methodto accomplish the same result, like thepent - up torrent that will find its outlet,in however circuitous a route it isobliged to move. The legislators whomake laws come either from the rulingclass or draw their honors, rewards, andemoluments from this class; and thestatutes of the most democratic state arenot unlike the dictates of the absolutemonarch, and the decrees of both alikemay be enforced by all the power andviolence of the state. But laws do notexecute themselves, and every officialappointed or self-chosen to enforce thelaw either comes from or naturally gravi-tates toward the ruling class. Hereagain power grows by what it feeds on.Order is more important than liberty, andat all costs order must be enforced upon.

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Civil Government 47the many. The few have Httle need forlaw. Whatever is, is theirs, and may theynot use their own to suit themselves? Thebusiness of the courts and officials is toenforce order upon the great mass whomust depend upon the few for the meansof life. To enforce order upon them meansthat they may only live in certain ways.But admitting the orthodox view of

government to be correct, then howstands the case? The great majority ofmankind still believe in the utility of thestate. They not only believe that societycould not exist without the state, butlikewise that this political institution .ex-ists and is maintained for the publicgood; that all its functions and activitiesin some mysterious way have been con-ferred upon it by the weaker class ofsociety, and that it is administered to savethis class from the ravages of the viciousand the strong. Of course, there aremany humane officials, men who use theirpower to promote the public good, as

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48 Resist Not Evilthey see and understand the public good.These, in common with the community,look upon the endless provisions of ourpenal code as being the magical powerthat keeps the state from dissolution andpreserves the lives and property of menfrom the vicious and the bad. The ideaof punishment, of violence, of force, is sointerwoven with all our concepts of jus-tice and social life that but few can con-ceive a society without force, withoutjails, without scaffolds, without the penaljudgments of men. The thought neversuggests itself to the common mind thatnature, unaided by man's laws, can evolvesocial order, or that a community mightlive in measurable peace and securitymoved only by those natural instinctswhich form the basis and render possiblecommunal life. To be sure, the world isfull of evidence that order and securitydo not depend on legal inventions. Fromthe wild horses on the plains, the flocksof birds, the swarming bees, the humansociety and association in new countries

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Civil Government 49amongst unexploited people, suggestionsof order and symmetry regulated by nat-ural instincts and common social needsare ample to show the possibility at leastof order or a considerable measure ofjustice without penal law. It is only whenthe arrogance and the avarice of rulersand chiefs make it necessary to exploitmen that these rulers must lay down lawsand regulations to control the actions oftheir fellows. And the more fixed thecaste, the better settled the community;the more complete the private appropria-tion of land, and the longer the penal code,the greater the number of victims thatare caught within its snares.Turning from the examples everywhere

present of the naturalness of order andsystem to what we observe of the dailyacts of men, the thought that right con-duct has little relation to penal laws isstill further confirmed. In the myriadacts of men it is only rarely that one isdone directly because of law. To turn tothe right when you meet your neighbor

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50 Resist Not Evilon the street; to imperil your happinessand even your Hfe to help in dire need;to protect the helpless; to defend theweak; to tell the truth; in fact, to obey allthat natural morality or right conductrequires, is the first instinct of man, andever prevails, not only regardless ofhuman law but in spite of human law, andthis, too, for the best and most abidingreason that can influence the life of man.Nature provides that certain conductmakes for life, and in the sweep of time,those who conform to this conduct liveand their offspring populate the earthwhen they are gone; those who violatethe laws of communal life will die or leaveno descendants or weak offspring to bethe last survivors of their line. The un-schooled child and the uncivilized racealike tell the truth; they obey the laws ofnature and the laws of life. It is onlyafter the exploiter appears with his rulesfor enslaving man that he must needsbuild jails in which to pen those who defyor ignore their power.

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CHAPTER VTHEORY OF CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Those who believe in the beneficenceof force have never yet agreed uponthe crimes that should be forbidden, themethod and extent of punishment, thepurpose of punishment, nor even its re-sult. They simply agree that withoutforce and violence social life cannot bemaintained. All conceivable humanactions have fallen under the disfavor ofthe law and found their place in penalcodes: Blasphemy, witchcraft, heresy,insanity, idiocy, methods of eating anddrinking, the manner of worshiping theSupreme Being, the observance of fastdays and holy days, the giving of medi-cine and the withholding of medicine, therelation of the sexes, the right to laborand not to labor, the method of acquiringand dispensing property, its purchase and

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52 Resist Not Evilsale, the forms of dress and manner ofdeportment, in fact almost every conceiv-able act of man. On the other hand,murder, robbery, pillage, rapine, haveoften been commended by the rulingpowers, not only permitted, but undercertain conditions that seemed to work tothe advantage of the ruler, this conducthas been deemed worthy of the greatestpraise. The punishment for illegal actshave been as various as the crimes.Death has always been a favorite visita-tion for the criminal, but the means ofdeath have varied with time and place:Boiling in oil, boiling in water, burning atthe stake, breaking on the wheel, strangu-lation, poison, feeding to wild beasts,beheading, and in fact every conceivableway down to the humane method of elec-trocution and hanging by the neck untildead. Death, too, has been made thepunishment for all sorts of crimes, alwaysfor the crimes of denying your Maker, orkilling your ruler. After death, has comepublic flogging, standing in the stocks,

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Theory of Crime and Punishment 53ducking, maiming, down to the humanemethod of penning in a cage. No twosets of rulers have ever agreed upon therelative enormity of the various crimes,the sort of punishment they merited, theextent and duration of punishment, orthe purpose to be accomplished by thepunishment. One age has pronouncedmartyrs and worshiped as saints thecriminals that another age has put todeath. One law-making body repeals thecrimes that another creates. Some judgeswith venerable wigs have pronouncedsolemn sentence of death upon helpless,defenceless old women for bewitching acat. Grave judges have even sentencedanimals to death after due and impartialtrial for crime. The judges who pro-nounced sentence of death on women forwitchcraft were as learned and good asthose who to-day pronounce sentence forconspiracy and other crimes. It is quiteas possible that another generation willlook with the same horror on the subjectsof our laws as we look upon those of the

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54 Resist Not Evilyears that are gone. It is but a few yearssince a hundred different crimes werepunishable with death in England, andthe wise men of that day would not havebelieved that the empire could holdtogether had these extreme statutes beenlimited to one or two.

But however drastic the laws at differentperiods of civilization, they have neverbeen so broad but what a much largernumber of blameworthy acts were outsidethan inside the code. Neither have theyever been enforced alike on all. Thepowerful could generally violate themwith impunity, but the net was there toensnare the victim whom they wished tocatch.

Neither has the method of determiningthe victim for these various laws been asaccurate and scientific as is generally pre-sumed. Sometimes it has been by tor-turing until the victim is made to confess;sometimes by wager of battle; sometimesby tying the feet and hands and throwingthem into a pond, when if they sank they

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Theory of Crime and Punishment 55were innocent, if they swam they wereguilty and promptly put to death. Themodern method of arraying a defendantin court, prosecuted by able lawyers withample resources, tried by judges whoalmost invariably believe in the prisoner'sguilt, defended as is usually the case byincompetent lawyers, and without means,is scarcely more liable to lead to correctresults than the ancient forms. From thenature of things it is seldom possible tobe sure about the commission of the act,and never possible to fix the moral re-sponsibility of the person charged withcrime.For ages men have erected scaffolds,

instruments of torture, built jails, prisonsand penal institutions without end, andthrough all the ages a long line of suffer-ing humanity, bound and fettered, has beenmarching to slaughter and condemnedto living tombs; and yet human govern-ments charged with the responsibilityof the condition and lives of these weak

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56 Resist Not Evilbrothers, have never yet been able toagree 'even upon the purpose for whichthese pens are built. All punishment andviolence is largely mixed with the feelingof revenge,from the brutal father whostrikes his helpless child, to the hangmanwho obeys the orders of the judge; withevery man who lays violent unkind handsupon his fellow the prime feeling is thatof hatred and revenge. Some humanbeing has shed his neighbor's blood; thestate must take his life. In no other waycan the crime be wiped away. In someinconceivable manner it is believed thatwhen this punishment follows, justice hasbeen done. But by no method of reason-ing can it be shown that the injustice ofkilling one man is retrieved by the execu-tion of another, or that the forcible takingof property is made right by confiningsome human being in a pen. If the lawknew some method to restore a life ormake good a loss to the real victim, itmight be urged that justice had beendone. But if taking life, or blaspheming,

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Theory of Crime and Punishment 57or destroying the property of another bean injustice, as in our short vision itseems to be, then punishing him who issupposed to be guilty of the act, in no waymakes just the act already done. Topunish a human being simply because hehas committed a wrongful act, withoutany thought of good to follow, is ven-geance pure and simple, and more detest-able and harmful than any casual isolatedcrime. Apologists who have seen thehorror in the thought of vengeance andstill believe in violence and force whenexercised by the state, contend that pun-ishment is largely for the purpose ofreforming the victim. This, of course,cannot be held in those instances wheredeath is the punishment inflicted. Thesevictims at least have no chance to be re-formed. Neither can it be seriously con-tended that a penal institution is areformatory, whatever its name. Aprisoner is an outlaw, an outcast man,placed beyond the pale of society andbranded as unfit for the association of his

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58 Resist Not Evilfellow man; his sentence is to live insilence, to toil without recompense, towear the badge of infamy, and if everpermitted to see the light to be poir\tedat and shunned by all who know his life.

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CHAPTER VIREMEDIAL EFFECTS OF PUNISHMENT

The last refuge of the apologist is thatpunishment is inflicted to prevent crime.No one can speak from experience as towhether punishment prevents what iscalled crime or not, for the experiment ofnon-resistance has never yet been fairlyor fully tried. To justify killing or pen-ning a human being upon the theory thatthis prevents crime should call for thestrictest proof on the part of those whoadvocate this course. To take the life orliberty of a fellow man is the most seriousresponsibility that can devolve upon anindividual or community. The theorythat punishment is a preventive to un-lawful acts does not seriously mean thatit is administered to prevent the indi-vidual from committing a second or athird unlawful act. If this were the case

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6o Resist Not Evilthe death penalty should never be in-flicted, as life imprisonment accomplishesthe same results. Neither would it benecessary to restrain men in the way thatis done in our penal institutions, to de-prive them of all pleasure and the incomeof their labor. All that would then beneeded would be to keep men safelylocked from the world. But most unlaw-ful acts are committed hastily in the heatof passion or upon what seems adequateprovocation, or through sore need. Suchacts as these would almost never berepeated. Genuine repentance followsmost really vicious acts, but repentance,however genuine, gives no waiver of pun-ishment.Then, too, many men who commit no act

in violation of the law are known to bemore likely to commit such acts thanothers who through some circumstancesmay have violated a criminal statute.Men of hasty temper, of strong will, ofintemperate habits, often with no meansof support, all of these are more liable to

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Remedial Effects of Punishment 6icrime than one who has once oversteppedthe bounds. But it is obvious that this isnot the real reason for punishment; if itwere it would be the duty of judge andjury to determine, not whether a manhad committed a crime, but whether hewas liable to commit one at some futuretime, an inquiry which is never made andwhich it is obvious could not be made.The safety aimed at through punish-

ment is not meant the safety for the indi-vidual, but it is contended that the factthat one person is punished for an actdeters others from the commission ofsimilar unlawful acts; it is obvious thatthere is a large class who are not de-terred by these examples, for the inmatesof prisons never grow less, in fact prisonsgrow and increase in the same proportionas other institutions grow. But here, too,the theories and acts of rulers have beenas various and contradictory as in relationto other matters concerning crime and itspunishment. If the purpose of punish-

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62 Resist Not Evilment is to terrorize the community sothat none will dare again to commit theseacts, then the more terrible the punish-ment the surer the result. This wasgenerally admitted not many years ago,but in its treatment of crime the worldever prefers to be illogical and ineffectualrather than too brutal.

If terrorism is the object aimed at,death should again be substituted for thevarious crimes, great and small, whichever justified taking human life. Death,too, should be administered in the mostcruel way. Boiling, the rack, wild beasts,and slow fires should be the methodssought. It should be steadfastly remem-bered by all squeamish judges and execu-tioners that one vigorous punishmentwould prevent a thousand crimes. Butmore than all this, death should be in themost public way. The kettle of boilingoil should be heated with its victim inside,out upon the commons, where all eyescould see and all ears could hear. Thescaffold should be erected high on a hill.

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Remedial Effects of Punishment 63and the occasion be made a public holidayfor miles around. This was once thecase even within the last half century.These public hangings in Europe andAmerica have drawn great crowds ofspectators, sometimes reaching into thetens of thousands, to witness the valuethat the state places on human life. Butfinally, even stupid legislators began torealize that these scenes of violence, bru-tality and crime bred their like uponthose who came to see. Even govern-ments discovered that many acts ofviolence followed a public hanging.The hatred of the state which calmlytook a human life engendered endlesshatred as its fruit. And in all countriesthat claim a semblance of civilization,public hangings are now looked back uponwith horror and amazement. Hangingsto-day take place inside the jail in the pres-ence of a few invited guests, a state doctorwho watches carefully to see that the vic-tim is not cut down before his heart hasceased to beat, a chaplain who calls on

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64 Resist Not Evilthe Creator of life to take back to hisbosom the divine spark which man in hiscruelty and wrath is seeking to snuff out.Even the state is not so cruel but that itwill officially ask the Almighty to lookafter the soul that it blackens and defilesand does its best to everlastingly destroy.A few friends of the jailer are present towitness the rare performance, and thenewspapers too are represented, so thatthe last detail, including the breakfastbill of fare, may be graphically set beforethe hungry mob to take the place of thereal tragedy that they had the right towitness in the good old days. Manystates to-day have provided that execu-tions shall be inside the penitentiarywalls, that the victim shall be wakened, ifperchance he is asleep, in the darknessand dead of night; that he shall be hur-ried off alone and unobserved and hastilyput to death outside the gaze of anycurious eye; that this barbarism shallbe done, this unholy, brutal deed com-mitted in silence, in darkness, that the

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Remedial Effects of Punishment 65heavens and earth alike may cover upthe shocking crime, from which a sensi-tive public conscience stands aghast. Theever-present public press in many casesis allowed to print only the barest detailsof the bloody scene, so that oblivion maythe more quickly and deeply cover thiscrowning infamy of the state.The abolition of public hangings mayspeak something for the sensitiveness,

or at least, the squeamishness of thestate. But it is evident that all of this isa terrible admission of guilt upon the partof those who uphold this crime. It ispossible that one might believe at least inthe sincerity of those who argue that pun-ishment prevents crime, if these terriblescenes of violence were carried out inopen day before the multitude, and fullyunderstood and discussed in all their har-rowing, shocking details of cruelty andblood. If the sight of punishment terror-izes men from the commission of crimethen, of course, punishment should be asopen as the day. In so far as the state is

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66 Resist Not Evilsuccessful in keeping secret the executionof its victim, in this far does it abandonevery claim of prevention and rests its casefor punishment on vengeance and crueltyalone. The rulers of this generation, whoare ashamed of their deeds, may be wiserand more sensitive than those of the last,but our ancestors, although less refined,were much more logical and infinitelymore honest than are we.The whole question of punishment isnot only proven but fully admitted by ourrulers in their dealings with the deathpenalty. It is now everywhere admittedthat the brutalizing effects of public exe-cutions are beyond dispute. It was onlyafter the completest evidence that thebelievers in the beneficence of punish-ment and violence abandoned public ex-ecutions, for to abandon these was toutterly abandon the principle on whichall punishment is based.

It would, of course, be impossible toprove the exact result of a public execu-tion. Somewhere in a quiet rural corn-

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Remedial Effects of Punishment 67munity, growing out of sudden passion orsome unexplained and temporary aberra-tion, a man takes the life of his fellowman. To the shock incident to this fatalact is added a long public trial in thecourts where every detail is distorted andmagnified and passed from tongue totongue until even the lisping babe is thor-oughly familiar with every circumstanceof the case with all its harrowing detailsiterated and reiterated again and again.There grows up in the public mind a bit-ter hatred against the unfortunate victimwhose antecedents, life and motives theycan in no way understand or judge. It isreally believed that no one has the rightto look upon this person with any feelingsave that of hatred, and the least word ofpity or sign of sympathy for the outcastis set down as sickly sentimentalism andthe mark of mental and spiritual disease.Weeks and months, sometimes evenyears, elapse in the slow and unendingprocess of the courts. The whole tragedyhas been well nigh forgot, at least it no

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68 Resist Not Evillonger has any vital effect upon the com-munity. Finally it is announced that ona certain day a public hanging will takeplace. Once more every detail of thetragedy is recalled to the public mind;once more each man conjures up a mon-ster in the place of the hunted, weak,doomed victim whose act no one eitherfathoms or seeks to understand. Asightly spot is chosen perhaps upon thevillage green. For several days men arekept busy erecting a strange and ominousmachine; the old men and women, themiddle aged, the boys and girls, the littlechildren, even the toddling babes, filledwith curiosity watch the work and discussevery detail of the weird and fatal trap.At length the day arrives for the majestyof the law to vindicate itself. Fromevery point of the compass comes a greatthrong of both sexes, all conditions andages, each to witness the most startlingevent of their lives; children are there,babes in arms, and even the unborn, Arope is tied around a beam, a noose is

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Remedial Effects of Punishment 69formed of the other end, a trembling,helpless, frantic, friendless victim is led upthe steps, placed on a trap, his hands andfeet are bound, a black cap is pulled downto hide his face, the noose is securely fast-ened around his neck below his ears. Thecrowd watches breathless with suspense,the signal is given, the trap opens, theman falls through space, he is caught inmid-air by the rope tightening about hisneck, and strangling him to death. Hisbody heaves, his legs and arms move withviolent convulsions, he swings a few min-utes in mid-air before the crowd, a ghastlyhuman pendulum moving back and forth,the mortal body of a man created in theimage of God whom the state has led outand killed to show the glory and majestyof law!The advocate of punishment is right inthe belief that such a scene will produce aprofound impression upon all who see orhear or know. The human being doesnot live who can witness such a tragedyor even know its details and not receive

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70 Resist Not Evilsome impression that the rest of life can-not efface. The impression must be toharden and brutalize the heart and con-science, to destroy the finer sensibilities, tocheapen human life, to breed cruelty andmalice that will bear fruit in endless waysand unknown forms. No parent wholoved his child and who had any of thehuman sentiments that should distinguishman from the brute creation, would everdare to trust that child to witness a scenelike this. Every intelligent loving mothercarrying an unborn babe would close hereyes and stop her ears and retire to thedarkest corner she could find lest the un-born babe marked by the baleful sceneshould one day stand upon the sametrembling trap with a rope about hisneck.The true morality of a community doesnot depend alone upon the number ofmen who slay their fellows. These atmost are very few. The true morality

depends upon every deed of kindness ormalice, of love or hatred, of charity or

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Remedial Effects of Punishment 71cruelty, and the sum of these determinethe real character and worth of a com-munity. Any evil consequences thatcould flow from a casual killing of ahuman being by an irresponsible manwould be like a drop of water in the seacompared with a public execution by thestate.

It would probably not be possible tofind a considerable number of men to-daywho would believe that a public hangingcould have any but bad results. Thismust be true because the knowledge of itsdetails tends to hai'den, embitter and ren-der cruel the hearts of men. Only in a lessdegree does the publication of all the de-tails affect the characters and lives of men,but unless they are at least published tothe world, then the example is of noeffect. The state which would take lifewithout any hope or expectation that thecommunity would in any way be betteredcould not rank even among savage tribes.Such cruelty could only be classed astotal depravity.

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72 Resist Not EvilBut the effect of other punishment is

no whit different save in degree from thatof hanging. Cultivated, sensitive peoplehave long since deplored the tendency ofnewspapers to give full and vivid accountsof crimes and their punishment, and thebetter and humaner class of citizens shunthose journals which most magnify thesedetails. All of this has a tendency tofamiliarize man with violence and force,to weaken human sensibilities, to accus-tom man to cruelty, to blood, to scenes ofsuffering and pain. What right-thinkingparent would place this literature beforehis child and familiarize his mind withviolence practiced either by the indi-vidual or the state? And yet if punish-ment is a deterrent, the widest publicityshould be given to the story of everycrime and the punishment inflicted by thestate.That men even unconsciously feel thatpunishment is wrong is shown by theirattitude toward certain classes of society.A hangman would not be tolerated in a

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Remedial Effects of Punishment 73self-respecting body of men or women,and this has been the case for manyyears, in fact since men made a trade ofbutchering their fellow man. A profes-sional hangman is really as much de-spised as any other professional murderer.A detective, jailer, policeman, constableand sherifE are not generally regarded asbeing subjects of envy by their fellows.Still none of these are as much responsible/lor their acts as the real rulers who makemd execute the law. The time will comewhen the public prosecutor and the judgewho sentences his brother to death orimprisonment will be classed with theother officers who lay violent and cruelhands upon their fellows.

If the imprisonment of men tended toawe others into obedience to law, thenthe old ideas of penal servitude are theonly ones that can be logically sustained.A prison should be the most horrible,grewsome, painful place that can becontrived. Physical torture should bea common incident of prison life. The

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74 Resist Not Evilvictim himself is beyond the pale ofsociety. His life should be used to aidthe community by the frightful example:Dark dungeons, .noxious smells, vermin,rats, the hardest, most constant toil,long terms of imprisonment, and the redmark to be branded on his brow, when heat last is turned loose to the light of day.Prisons should be open to the public, sothat the old and young can constantlywitness the terrible effects of crime.Prisons and jails should be in every com-munity and in the most conspicuous place.The young should not be left to casuallyhear of public punishments or to imaginea penal institution. The living horribleexample in all its loathsome, sickeningdetails should be ever kept before theireyes. Most men now regard these publicexhibitions of the malice of the stateexactly as they now look on public hang-ings, as tending to degrade and debauchand harden the hearts of those who be-come familiar with the sight. But if theopen sight and knowledge of a penal

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Remedial Effects of Ptmishment 75institution tends to degrade and hardenthe heart, then the secret, imperfect,covert knowledge produces the sameeffect only in less degree.All communities and states are in realityashamed of jails and penal institutions ofwhatever kind. Instinctively they seemto understand that these are a reflectionon the state. More and more the bestjudgment and best conscience of menare turned toward the improvement ofprisons, the introduction of sanitary ap-pliances, the bettering of jail conditions,the modification of punishment, the treat-ment of convicts as men. All of thisdirectly disproves the theory that the ter-rible example of punishment tends toprevent crime. All these improvementsof prison conditions show that society isunconsciously ashamed of its treatmentof so-called criminals; that the excuse ofprevention of crime is really known to behumbug and hypocrisy, and that the realmotive that causes the punishment ofcrim? is malice arjd hatred ^nd nothing

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76 Resist Not Evilelse. The tendency to abrogate capitalpunishment, to improve prisons, to modifysentences, to pardon convicts is all in onedirection. It can lead to but one inevita-ble result, the abolition of all judgment ofman by man, the complete destruction ofall prisons and the treatment of all men asif each human being was the child of theone loving Father and a part and parcelof the same infinite and mysterious life.

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CHAPTER VIICAUSE OF CRIME

If the punishment of so-called crimestended in any way to prevent violentacts, this tendency would be manifest insome conclusive way. Whether brother-hood love and non-resistance would lessencrime may be a matter of debate, but thatpunishment does not lessen it, seems to beas well established as any fact that cannotbe absolutely proved. The death penaltywas for years drastically enforced for thecrime of smuggling, but its enforcementin no way tended to prevent the practicewhich flourished in spite of executionswithout number,the common conscious-ness would not accept this punishment asjust and finally rulers were forced tomodify the punishment in self-defence.The punishment of death for larceny didnot prevent the crime. Nearly every re-

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78 Resist Not Evilligion has made its way in the face of theseverest penal statutes. Its converts haveall been criminals and they have acceptedand taught their faith at the risk of life.Every organization of working men hasgrown up in violation of human laws, andthe jails, prisons and scaffolds have beenbusily engaged in suppressing this speciesof crime; but in spite of the fact thatjudges still imprison and execute for thiscrime, these associations are now almostas firmly established as any institution ofthe world. All new political ideas,democracy, socialism, nihilism have metthe same fact and have made their wayregardless of scaffolds and jails. Evenin the common crimes, like burglaryand larceny, prisons have had no effect.From the dawn of civilization an endlessprocession of weak and helpless victims,handcuffed, despised and outlawed, havebeen marching up to prison doors andstill the procession comes and goes.Time does not stay nor punishment makejt less. In fact the plder the community

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Cause of Crime 79and the better settled and undisturbed itslife, the greater the number of these un-fortunates whom, for some mysteriousreason, the Infinite has decreed a life ofshame and a death of ignominy and dis-honor. If scaffolds and prisons andjudges and jailers have no effect to pre-vent and lessen crime, common wisdom,to say nothing of humane instincts, oughtto seek some other plan.

Intelligent men have long since ceasedto believe in miracle or chance. What-ever they may think of ancient miraclesand the original chance that brought theuniverse into being, still most people nowbelieve that the world's affairs, be theysmall or great, physical, intellectual, ormoral, come within the realm of law.

In the ordinary affairs of life, meneverywhere seek the causes that produceeffects. Men are called into being, livetheir lives and pass away in obedience tonatural laws which are as immutable asthe movement of the tides. In our halfcivilized condition we partially cOmpre-

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8o Resist Not Evilhend this fact. The defect of the borncripple, the idiot, the insane is no longercharged to the poor victim who, unham-pered by the world, still has a burden asheavy as should be given to mortal manto bear. The physician who would treatfever or measles or diphtheria withoutconsidering the cause would be consid-ered the veriest bungler and responsiblefor his patient's death. It is not so verylong ago that a world about as intelligentas our own believed that disease, de-formity, and sin came from the samecause,some sort of an evil spirit thatfound its abode in man. The way todestroy the evil spirit was generally todestroy the man. The world will perhapsgrow wise enough to not only believe thatdisease, deformity, and sin have a com-mon cause, but perhaps so wise as to findtheir common cause. No skilful physi-cian called to the bedside of a child suffer-ing with scarlet fever would upbraid thechild for the evil spirit that caused itspain; no more would he punish the con-

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Cause of Crime 8isumptive for his hacking cough; he wouldunderstand perfectly well that the phys-ical condition of each was due to somenatural cause, and that the disease couldbe cured in these patients and avoidedwith others only when the cause was de-stroyed, or so well known that no oneneed fall a victim to the malady. Evenin diseases of the most contagious sort,where the isolation of the patient isnecessary to protect the lives and healthof others, this isolation would be accom-plished not in hatred or malice but in thegreatest tenderness and love, and theisolation would last only for the purposeof a cure and a sufficient time for cure;and every pains would be taken to destroyand stamp out the cause which producedthe disease.The theory of disease is so well under-

stood to-day that our physicians clearlyrecognize mental disease as well as phys-ical. Insanity is no longer punished as acrime as in the days gone by, and evenkleptomania is now a well classified and

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82 Resist Not Evilrecognized disease. No intelligent per-son doubts the disease of kleptomania;its symptoms are too well established.When a person steals a thing he does notneed, it is an evidence of kleptomania, anungovernable will. When a poor persontakes a thing he needs and cannot livewithout, there is no evidence of an ungov-ernable will.Many facts have been classified con-cerning physical disease and our knowl-edge of its nature, cause, and cure growsyear by year. Malignant spirits andaccident are no longer considered inreference to disease; while the origin ofall bodily ailments is not yet known, somany have been ascertained as to makeit sure that with sufficient knowledge, allcould be traced to their natural cause.And while the means have not yet beenfound to cure each disease, still so muchis known as to warrant the belief thatthere is no physical ailment that willnecessarily cause death.And intelligent research is constantly

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Cause of Crime 83adding to the known and ever narrowingthe realm of the mysterious and unex-plained. In physical disease long obser-vation has shown that certain climatesand certain localities are favorable to thisdisease or that; some places naturallybreed malaria, and the mind of man isturned to discovering methods to over-come the conditions which produce thedisease. If fevers abound, the conditionsare carefully observed to find what breedsthe infectious germ. It is not difficult toimagine that if the medical professionshould ever labor purely to cure disease,instead of to make money for itself, andshould continue its research and investi-gation, that few would die until old ageshould terminate life as simply and natu-rally as birth ushers it in.But in the realm of the mental and the

moral, the law has been content for cen-turies to rest at ease. Our practical deal-ings with crime are based on the sametheories of evil and evil spirits that madewise physicians drive the devils into swine

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84 Resist Not Eviland swine into the sea. If any progresshas been made it has been in believingthat, instead of one being possessed ofa devil, he really is a devil. When thephysical condition of a man is sufficientlyfar removed from the physical conditionof the average which is supposed to rep-resent the normal man, he is treated forthe disease. When the mental conditionsufficiently varies from that of the ordi-nary man, the normal man, he is promptlyimprisoned or put to death. Judges andjuries debate and ponder over the questionof whether a man has done some act thatis not commonly done by his fellows, andif they determine that he is guilty of doingthe act, the judgment follows that he musthave wilfully and perversely chosen to dowrong. No one then inquires why hedid the act and whether there are condi-tions of disease present in the communitythat will lead others to do like acts.There is but one thing to do. The manis evil. The state must lay violent handsupon himmust meet evil with evil, vio-

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Cause of Crime 85lence with violence. There is but onecure for maUce and that is malice.

But however ignorant the law and itsadministrators, some of the rules of con-duct have been brought to light; whilejudges have been sentencing, and hang-men and jailers plying their grewsometrades, there have been thinkers and stu-dents and historians, who did not believein the old theory of witchcraft and evilspirits on which human punishment reallyrests. These students and scholars havelabeled and classified facts and have atleast learned something as to the causeand origin of what men call crime.Enough at least has been discovered toprove that punishment has absolutely noeffect to lessen crime.The ancients believed in the existenceof the body and the soul as independententities. Each had its own sphere ofaction and neither one had any relationto the other. This idea has come downto us and is present in all our dealingswith our fellow man. Particularly is this

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86 Resist Not Evilthe view of government in its tender careof those who are the subjects of its laws.The care and treatment of the body comewithin the province of the physician. Thecare and treatment of the soul belong tothe priest and the hangman. Whetherman has a soul that ever existed or canexist independent of the body may be aquestion that will remain forever open tooccupy our thoughts. But this at least istrue: that the condition of the body hasthe greatest influence over the mental andso-called moral nature of man. The bodyand mind grow together and decay to-gether. Health in one generally indicateshealth in the other. The overfeeding orthe starvation of the one means thedisease of the other. It is doubtful if anymental characteristic or abnormal condi-tion could not be traced to its physicalcause either in the individual or his ances-tors, if science were far enough advanced.Everyone who is familiar with the in-mates of jails and penal institutions haslearned to know the type of man that is

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Cause of Crime 87confined as a criminal. In nearly everycase these are inferior physically to theaverage man. In nearly every case theyare also inferior mentally to the averageman. One needs but visit our criminalcourts day after day to find that the aver-age criminal is a stunted, starved, deficientman. More than this, almost universallythey come from the poorer classmenand women reared in squalor and miseryand want, surrounded from youth bythose who have been compelled to resortto almost any means for life; peoplewho, whatever their own code of ethics,have not been able in their growth tomaintain those distinctions in conductwhich to the common mind constitutesthe difference between lawful and unlaw-ful acts. Here and there, of course, onefinds some one in j^il who has been differ-ently reared; but thege are the exceptionswhich in no way disprove the rule.These cases too can be traced to theircause like all the rest. There are certainmoral diseases like speculation, for in-

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88 . Resist Not Evilstance, that seize on men exactly as themeasles or the mumps. These diseasesgenerally flourish in great cities and arenot indigenous to country life. Not onlyare these prisoners deficient in statureand intellect, but the shape of their headsshows them different from other men. Asa class their heads are much less sym-metrical and what are known as thehigher faculties are much less developedthan with the ordinary man.

If it were established even that thecriminal type is inferior mentally andphysically and that they have all mis-shapen heads, this alone ought to be suffi-cient to raise the inquiry as to who wasresponsible for their acts. Long ago awise man said that no one could by tak-ing thought add a cubit to his stature,and yet we hang and pen because theseunfortunates have not grown as tall, aslarge, or as symmetrical as the ordinaryman. But the mental actions of manhave been shown to be as much due tolaw and environment as his physical

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Cause of Crime 89health,certain sections of the world areindigenous to men who kill their fellows;and more than this, certain portions pro-duce men who kill with guns, others whokill with a knife, others still who admin-ister poison. In certain sections, the chiefcrime is horse stealing; in others, runningillicit distilleries; again, burglary; in someplaces, poaching; sometimes, robbery;and again, smuggling. A study of condi-tions would reveal why each of thosecrimes is indigenous to the particular soilthat gives them birth, and just as drainingswamps prevents the miasma, so arational treatment of the condition causedby the various crimes would cure them,too. If our physicians were no more in-telligent than our lawyers, when called tovisit a miasmic patient, instead of drain-ing the swamp they would chloroform thepatient and expect thus to frighten allothers from taking the disease.Observation as to so-called crime has

gone much further. The number of in-mates of our jails is much larger in winter

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QO Resist Not Evilthan in summer, which ought to showthat there is something in the air thatproduces a wicked heart in the winter, orthat many persons directly or indirectlygo to jail because in winter, food andwarmth are not easily obtained and workis hard to get. For many years it hasbeen observed that jails are very muchmore crowded in hard times than in goodtimes. If work were sufficiently plenty orremunerative both jails and almshouseswould be compelled to close their doors.Long ago it was ascertained from statis-tics that the number of crimes rose andfell in exact accord with the price of bread.All new communities, where land is cheapor free and labor has ample employment,or, better still, a chance to employ itself,are very free from crime. England madeAustralia its dumping ground for crim-inals for years, but these same criminalswhen turned upon the wide plains witha chance to get their living from the soil,became peaceable, orderly citizens fullyrespecting one another's rights. Eng-

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Cause of Crime 91land, too, used certain portions of herAmerican colonies where she sent menfor her country's good. These criminalslike all the criminals of the world werethe exploited, homeless class. Whenthey reached the new country, when theyhad an opportunity to live, they became asgood citizens as the pilgrim fathers whowere likewise criminals themselves. Ascivilization has swept westward throughthe United States, jails have lagged be-hind. The jail and the penitentiary arenot the first institutions planted by colo-nists in a new country, or by pioneers ina new state. These pioneers go to workto till the soil, to cut down the forests, todig the ore; it is only when the owningclass has been established and the ex-ploiting class grows up, that the jail andthe penitentiary become fixed institu-tions, to be used for holding people intheir place.

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CHAPTER VIIITHE PROPER TREATMENT OF CRIME

Reason and judgment as well as analmost endless array of facts has proventhat crime is not without its cause. Inshowing its cause, its cure has been madeplain. If the minds and energies of menwere directed toward curing crime insteadof brutally assaulting the victims of soci-ety, some progress might be made.

It is often difficult to trace results,because their relations are not alwaysdirect and plain. Even in the realm ofphysical facts it is always easy to strayfrom the straight path between cause andeffect. When we observe the conduct ofmen and seek to find its cause the prob-lem is still more complex. Each humanbeing is an entity made up of all that isand of all that has gone before. It maynot be possible to tell from whence he

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The Proper Treatment of Crime 93obtained every quirk or peculiarity of hisbrain, but one thing is sure, he did notform his own skull and could have butlittle part in arranging the brain cellswithin the bone. This portion came fromhis father, this his mother gave, this wasbequeathed by a bloody ancestor who diedlong generations since; but all who wentbefore did their part, and gave their littlemite to make the composite brain thatdrives its possessor here and there.While the exact cause of any act may not

be ascertained, still the general causes arebeyond dispute. A stunted body meansthat either its owner or its ancestor hasalmost surely been starved and that wantand hunger have left their traces on thebrain. An inferior mind means some in-capacity, disease or disadvantage, eitherin the individual or his ancestor, that hasleft him different from his fellow men.An unsymmetrical head may reach backto the early ape, and account for any pos-sible seeming deficiency or peculiarity inthe brain, which after all must be molded

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94 Resist Not Evilin the shape that the bone allows it toassume. Starved bodies can be cured byfood. True, it may take more than onegeneration to cure them as it may havetaken several to produce them, but, afterall, they can be cured by food; and arational humane world would commenditself more to thinking men and to theposterity which will judge us, by feedingthese starved bodies rather than im-prisoning them in pens. An inferiormind or an ill-shaped head can be reachedin a generation or more by feeding thebody that supports it, by treating it withtenderness, charity and kindness, ratherthan ruling it with hatred, bitterness andviolence.

Nearly every crime could be wipedaway in one generation by giving thecriminal a chance. The life of a burglar,of a thief, of a prostitute, is not a bed ofroses. Men and women are only drivento these lives after other means havefailed. Theirs are not the simple, nat-ural lives of children, nor of the childhood

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The Proper Treatment of Crime 95of the world; but men and women canlearn these professions or be bred tothem. After other resources are ex-hausted they will be chosen for the simplereason that life is sweet. With all itspangs and bitterness, it is the nature oflife to send its poor tendrils deep into theearth and