In dealing with Heike the individual (or Morse or any other individual), it is necessary to emphasize the social aspects of his case.  The moral of the Heike case, as has been well said, is “how easy it is for a man in modern corporate organization to drift into wrongdoing.”  The moral restraints are loosened in the case of a man like Heike by the insulation of himself from the sordid details of crime, through industrially coerced intervening agents.  Professor Ross has made the penetrating observation that “distance disinfects dividends”; it also weakens individual responsibility, particularly on the part of the very managers of large business, who should feel it most acutely.  One of the officers of the Department of Justice who conducted the suit, and who inclined to the side of mercy in the matter, nevertheless writes:  “Heike is a beautiful illustration of mental and moral obscuration in the business life of an otherwise valuable member of society.  Heike had an ample share in the guidance of the affairs of the American Sugar Company, and we are apt to have a foreshortened picture of his responsibility, because he operated from the easy coign of vantage of executive remoteness.  It is difficult to say to what extent he did, directly or indirectly, profit by the sordid practices of his company.  But the social damage of an individual in his position may be just as deep, whether merely the zest of the game or hard cash be his dominant motive.”

I have coupled the cases of the big banker and the Sugar Trust official and the case of the man convicted of a criminal assault on a woman.  All of the criminals were released from penitentiary sentences on grounds of ill health.  The offenses were typical of the worst crimes committed at the two ends of the social scale.  One offense was a crime of brutal violence; the other offenses were crimes of astute corruption.  All of them were offenses which in my judgment were of such a character that clemency towards the offender worked grave injustice to the community as a whole, injustice so grave that its effects might be far-reaching in their damage.

Every time that rape or criminal assault on a woman is pardoned, and anything less than the full penalty of the law exacted, a premium is put on the practice of lynching such offenders.  Every time a big moneyed offender, who naturally excites interest and sympathy, and who has many friends, is excused from serving a sentence which a man of less prominence and fewer friends would have to serve, justice is discredited in the eyes of plain people—­and to undermine faith in justice is to strike at the foundation of the Republic.  As for ill health, it must be remembered that few people are as healthy in prison as they would be outside; and there should be no discrimination among criminals on this score; either all criminals who grow unhealthy should be let out, or none.  Pardons must sometimes be given in order that the cause of justice may be served; but in cases such as these I am considering, while I know that many amiable people differ from me, I am obliged to say that in my judgment the pardons work far-reaching harm to the cause of justice.