Always bearing in mind that most criminals are men whose equipment and surroundings have made it difficult for them to make the adjustments to environment necessary for success in life, we may easily see how any increase of difficulties will lead to crime.  Most men are not well prepared for life.  Even in the daily matter of the way to spend their money, they lack the judgment necessary to get the most from what they have.  As families increase, debts increase, until many a man finds himself in a net of difficulties with no way out but crime.  Men whose necessities have led them to embezzlement and larceny turn up so regularly that they hardly attract attention.  Neither does punishment seem to deter others from following the same path although the danger of detection, disgrace and prison is perfectly clear.

Sometimes, of course, men of education and apparent lack of physical defect commit property crimes.  Bankers often take money on deposit after the bank is insolvent.  Not infrequently they forge notes to cover losses and in various ways manipulate funds to prevent the discovery of insolvency.  As a rule the condition of the bank is brought about by the use of funds for speculation, with the intention of repaying from what seems to be a safe venture.  Sometimes it comes through bad loans and unforeseen conditions.  Business men and bankers frequently shock their friends and the community by suicide, on disclosures showing they have embezzled money to use on some financial venture that came to a disastrous end.

These cases are not difficult to understand.  The love of money is the controlling emotion of the age.  Just as religion, war, learning, invention and discovery have been the moving passions of former ages, so now the accumulation of large fortunes is the main object that moves man.  It does not follow that this phase will not pass away and give place to something more worth while, but while it lasts it will claim its victims, just as other strong emotions in turn have done.  The fear of poverty, especially by those who have known something of the value of money, the desire for the power that money brings, the envy of others, the opportunities that seem easy, all these feelings are too strong for many fairly good “machines,” and bring disaster when plans go wrong.

Only a small portion of those who have speculated with trust funds are ever prosecuted.  Generally the speculation is successful or at least covered up.  Many men prefer to take a chance of disgrace or punishment or death rather than remain poor.  These are not necessarily dishonest or bad.  They may be more venturesome, or more unfortunate; at any rate, it is obvious that the passion for money, the chance to get it, the dread of poverty, the love of wealth and power were too strong for their equipment, otherwise the pressure would have been resisted.  The same pressure on some other man would not have brought disaster.