The statute forbidding the use of the “confidence game” in obtaining property sends to prison a constant stream of persons who, until a few years ago, would have been guilty of no crime.  This law, as interpreted by the courts, really means the procuring of money by dishonest means.  Under this statute the court and jury hear the evidence and say whether the means charged are dishonest or not.  This, of course, leaves the law so that the temporarily prevailing power, perhaps only the prosecuting attorney, may send men to prison who take means of getting money that are not practiced or at least advocated by the ones who procure the passage and enforcement of the law.

Numberless ways used by the strong to get money are considered dishonest by a large class of men and women:  exaggerated and lying advertisements, forestalling the markets, the acts and wiles of the professional salesman, misrepresenting goods and other methods that could never be catalogued because new ways are constantly coming to light.  The logical end of all these indefinite and uncertain laws is to pass one statute providing that whoever does wrong shall be imprisoned, et cetera, et cetera.  The law never can specify all the ways of doing wrong and many of the meanest and most annoying things have never been, and from the nature of things never can be, prohibited by the statutes.  No man is a good citizen, a good neighbor, a good friend, or a good man just because he obeys the law.  The intrinsic worth is determined mainly by the intrinsic make-up.

Civilization is all the while making it harder for men to keep out of prison.  Especially do the weak and ignorant and poor find that environment is constantly creating more inhibitions as time goes on.  While rules and customs are prohibiting more and more ways of getting property, the needs growing out of civilization are always increasing.  The simple inexpensive life of the past has given place to a more complex way of living, which calls for greater expense and harder work.  It has created rivalry and jealousy to get the things that others have, and has placed men in a mad race with each other which often leads to jail or death.

Students of biology are constantly noting the difficulty that hereditary human traits, which have been evolved for simple reactions and plain living, find in making the necessary adjustments to the extravagant demands and complicated environment of the present day.  This departure from the old normal and simple environment, due largely to machinery and commerce, is not only destroying individual lives by the thousands, but is seriously threatening the whole social fabric.

The creation of new courts, like “Boys’ Courts,” “Juvenile Courts,” “Courts of Domestic Relations,” “Moral Courts,” with their array of “Social Workers,” “Parole Agents,” “Watchers,” et cetera, shows the growth of crime and likewise the hopelessness of present methods to deal effectively with a great social question.  Numbers of people in our big cities are making their living from the abnormal lives of children.  Whether they are doing good or not, or whether their service is unselfish, as much of it doubtless is, are both quite aside from the question.  The important fact is that the present system brings no results and that the disease is growing.