“The problem of vagrancy; that of the unemployed and the unemployable; the vexing conflict between the right of agitation and free speech and the law relating to criminal conspiracy; the housing and wages of agricultural laborers; the efficiency and sense of responsibility found in a posse of country deputies; the temper of the country people faced with the confusion and rioting of a labor outbreak; all these problems have found a starting point for their new and vigorous analysis in the Wheatland riot.

In the same report, submitted a year before the “Quarterly Journal” article, and almost a year before his study of psychology began, Carl wrote:—­

“The manager and part-owner of the ranch is an example of a certain type of California employer.  The refusal of this type to meet the social responsibilities which come with the hiring of human beings for labor, not only works concrete and cruelly unnecessary misery upon a class little able to combat personal indignity and degradation, but adds fuel to the fire of resentment and unrest which is beginning to burn in the uncared-for migratory worker in California.  That ——­ could refuse his clear duty of real trusteeship of a camp on his own ranch, which contained hundreds of women and children, is a social fact of miserable import.  The excuses we have heard of unpreparedness, of alleged ignorance of conditions, are shamed by the proven human suffering and humiliation repeated each day of the week, from Wednesday to Sunday.  Even where the employer’s innate sense of moral obligation fails to point out his duty, he should have realized the insanity of stimulating unrest and bitterness in this inflammable labor force.  The riot on the ——­ ranch is a California contribution to the literature of the social unrest in America.”

As to the “Legal and Economic Aspects” of the case, again quoting from the report to the Governor:—­

“The position taken by the defense and their sympathizers in the course of the trial has not only an economic and social bearing, but many arguments made before the court are distinct efforts to introduce sociological modifications of the law which will have a far-reaching effect on the industrial relations of capital and labor.  It is asserted that the common law, on which American jurisprudence is founded, is known as an ever-developing law, which must adapt itself to changing economic and social conditions; and, in this connection, it is claimed that the established theories of legal causation must be enlarged to include economic and social factors in the chain of causes leading to a result.  Concretely, it is argued:—­

“First, That, when unsanitary conditions lead to discontent so intense that the crowd can be incited to bloodshed, those responsible for the unsanitary conditions are to be held legally responsible for the bloodshed, as well as the actual inciters of the riot.

“Second, That, if the law will not reach out so far as to hold the creator of unsanitary, unlivable conditions guilty of bloodshed, at any rate such conditions excuse the inciters from liability, because inciters are the involuntary transmitting agents of an uncontrollable force set in motion by those who created the unlivable conditions. . . .