DEGREES IN CRIME
Every profession has its social grades. Even crime is not without an
aristocracy. There are as many classes of crooks as there are things to
steal, and the more dangerous the theft, the more distinguished is the
criminal in the eyes of his professional brethren. In the thieving
fraternity the burglar and the highwayman figure as important persons,
for do they not take their lives in their hands every time they "pull
off" a trick? He who signs another man's name to a check requires fine
dexterity to be successful and endangers his liberty for a long term, so
the forger is of high consequence. Pickpockets and sneak-thieves stake
freedom on the agility of their fingers and legs, and are the small fry
of the fraternity, yet figure as legitimate practitioners. But the
confidence man, he who goes forth among rural communities disguised as a
clergyman or doctor, and wheedles money out of some unsuspecting
fellow-creature by means of the trust he has inspired, ranks low in the
estimation of his plucky brethren of the jimmy and the black-jack. Force
they respect; stealth they despise. The burglar is frankly a burglar;
the confidence man conceals his plundering purpose under the aspect of
respectability. He is doubly a knave in that he pretends to be honest.
The Utah trick performed by the "System," as described in my last
chapter, was essentially a confidence operation. The men who executed it
had the reputation and appearance of honesty, and their victims were
hypnotized into security by accepting standing in the community, great
business prestige, and enormous wealth as guarantees of individual
probity. The only capital employed in capturing three millions of "made
dollars" and the control of a great corporation was respectability. I
contend, then, that the magnitude and success of the deal do not make it
less despicable.
Some of my readers will doubtless ask me why I so insistently repeat the
details of the "System's" criminality, which for all purposes of
argument have already been sufficiently established. My answer is that
repetition alone will impress people with the real character of the
class of individuals with whom I deal. The mass of Americans look upon
these men as great leaders, and regard their millions as monuments to
their commercial genius. I am showing that this commercial genius is no
better than a high talent, for financial jugglery, and that its
successes are achieved by a calculated disregard of the laws of the
game. The "System's" fortunes have been won by means of marked cards and
cogged dice, crooked wheels and bribed umpires--in other words, by the
corruption of legislatures, the undermining of competitors, the evasion
of railway rates, the wrongful manipulation of stocks, the perversion of
justice, by intrigue, graft, and four play. Once the people realize
this, the "System" is doomed; and it is my purpose to demonstrate so
clearly and forcibly the crimes of the past that the nation may be
aroused not only to prevent their repetition, but to crush their
rascally perpetrators as they would so many reptiles. I shall so
familiarize the people with the rights to which they are properly
entitled and with the outrages committed in violation of them under the
guise of legitimate commerce, that they will know them as they do the
common facts of their daily lives. Let any "System" attempt to interfere
between a man and his Bible, his meat and bread, and his proper
allowance of sleep, and there would occur an explosion fierce enough to
wipe the conspirators and their plots off the face of the earth; yet it
is absolutely the fact that in the past our people have suffered
unwittingly much fiercer wrongs than these would be, and far more vital
invasions of their rights.