What a fortunate thing it is that men want to work and like to
live! Suppose for a moment that the out-of-work, hungry, unlucky
creatures, numbering one hundred thousand in New York City,
should suddenly change their character.
It is a harmless supposition, as it implies that a great body of
good, though unlucky, men should be suddenly metamorphosed. But
suppose, for instance, that one hundred thousand men should have
a meeting and say:
"The State provides food, lodging and good care for every thief.
It does not provide anything for us. Let us therefore accept the
situation like philosophers and become thieves."
Suppose the hundred thousand men thereupon, very quietly, without
any show of violence, should each proceed to steal something and
then announce the intention to accept the consequence by pleading
guilty. It would embarrass the State and the reigning powers,
would it not?
What could society do with a hundred thousand self-confessed
thieves to take care of? It could not lock them up. It could
not let them go. It could not nominally sentence them and have
the Governor pardon them, because the hundred thousand would then
proceed to steal something else.
What could be done? Nothing. There is no punishment save
imprisonment for theft, and the wholesale thieves would ask for
and demand imprisonment with the usual rations.
We think society is well balanced and that everything is
ingeniously provided for.
So it is; but everything hinges on the extraordinary fact that
the hungry, thin, common, shiftless, luckless man at the very
bottom is still a MAN. He will not be a thief, and he will die
of hunger and cold, as poor fellows do almost every winter day,
rather than take the food that society guarantees to the thief.
We attribute much to our own wisdom and the wisdom of our laws.
But we owe almost everything to the instinct of self-preservation
and to that second, very peculiar, instinct called pride.