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 a