The Unpopular Review | Page 5

War. If the interest is finally
overwhelmed politically, and placed completely under the ban of the
law, it has been given ample time to develop an unscrupulousness of
personnel and an art of corruption that long enable it to exist illegally, a
lasting reproach to the constituted authorities.
V
Suppression of anti-social interests by the methods in vogue amounts to
little more than their banishment to the underworld. And we can well
imagine the joy with which the denizens of the underworld receive such
new accessions to their numbers and power. For in the nature of the
case, it is inevitable that all varieties of outcasts and outlaws should
join forces. The religious schismatic makes common cause with the
pariah; the political offender with the thief and robber. Such association
of elements vastly increases the difficulty of repressing crime. The
band of thieves and robbers in the cave of Adullam doubtless found
their powers of preying vastly increased through the acquisition of such
a leader as David. The problem of mediæval vagabondage was
rendered well-nigh incapable of solution by the fact that any beggar's
rags might conceal a holy but excommunicated friar.
Let us once more review our experience with the usurer. As an outcast

he offers his support to other outcasts, and is in turn supported by them.
The pawnbroker and the pickpocket are closely allied: without the
pawnshop, pocketpicking would offer but a precarious living; without
the picking of pockets, many pawnshops would find it impossible to
meet expenses. The salary loan shark often works hand in glove with
the professional gambler; each procures victims for the other. The
"hole-in-the-wall" or "blind tiger" provides a rendezvous for all the
outcasts of society. "Boot-legging" is a common subsidiary occupation
for the pander, the thief and the cracksman. Where it flourishes, it
serves to bridge over many a period of slack trade. Franchises whose
validity is subject to political attack, bring to the aid of the underworld
some of the most powerful interests in the community. The police are
almost helpless when confronted by a coalition of persons of wealth
and respectability with professional politicians commanding a motley
array of yeggs and thugs, pimps and card-sharpers.
Let us suppose that the developing social conscience places under the
ban receipt of private income from land and other natural resources,
and that a powerful movement aiming at the confiscation of such
resources is under way. It is superfluous to point out that the vast
interests threatened would offer a desperate resistance. The warfare
against an incomparably lesser interest, the liquor trade, has taxed all
the resources of the modern democratic state--on the whole the most
absolute political organization known. In no instance has the state come
out of the struggle completely victorious; the proscribed interest is
yielding ground, if at all, only very slowly. What, then, would be the
outcome of a struggle against the vastly greater landed interest?
Perhaps the state would be victorious in the end. But for generations
the landed interest would survive, if not by title of common law, at
least by title of common corruption. And in the course of the conflict,
we can not doubt that political disorder would flourish as never before,
and that under its shelter private vice and crime would develop almost
unchecked.
We should disabuse ourselves of the notion that the will of a mere
majority is absolute in the state. The law is a reality only when the
outlawed interests represent an insignificant minority. Arbitrarily to
increase the outlawed interests is to undermine the very foundations of
society.

VI
The trend of the foregoing discussion, it will be said, is reactionary in
the extreme. There are, as all must admit, private interests that are
prejudicial to the public interest. Are they to be left in possession of the
privilege of trading upon the public disaster--entrenching themselves,
rendering still more difficult the future task of the reformer? By no
means. The writer opposes no criticism to the extinction of anti-social
private interests; on the contrary, he would have the state proceed
against them with far greater vigor than it has hitherto displayed. It is
important, however, to be sure first that a private interest is anti-social.
Then the question is merely one of method. It is the author's contention
that the method of excommunication and outlawry is the very worst
conceivable.
We are wont to hold up to scorn the British method of compensating
liquor sellers for licenses revoked. It is an expensive method. But let us
weigh its corresponding advantages. The licensee does not find himself
in a position in which he must choose between personal destitution and
the public interest. He dares not employ methods of resistance that
would subject him to the risk of forfeiting the right to compensation.
He may