quite
short to those who feel the injustice and put their ideas in force by
taking property when and where they are able to get it.

For instance, a miner may believe that the corporation for which he
works really has no right to the gold down in the mine. As he is digging
he strikes a particularly rich pocket of high-grade ore. He feels that
he does no wrong if he appropriates the ore. Elaborate means are taken
to prevent this, even compelling the absolute stripping of the workman,
and a complete change of clothes on going in and coming out of the mine.

Many laws are put on the books which are of a purely sumptuary nature;
these attempt to control what one shall do in his own personal affairs.
Such laws are brought about by organizations with a "purpose". The
members are anxious to make everyone else conform to their ideas and
habits. Such laws as Sunday laws, liquor laws and the like are examples.
Then, too, every state or nation carries a large list of laws that men
have so long violated and ignored, that they virtually are dead. To
violate these brings no feeling of wrong, but only serves to make men
doubt the evil of violating any law.

It is never easy to get a Legislature to repeal a law. Generally some
organization or committee of people is interested in keeping it alive,
and the members of the Legislature fear losing their votes. Social ideas
are always changing. No laws or customs are eternal. The ordinary man,
and especially the man under the normal, cannot keep up with all the
shifting of a changing world. There is always a fraction of a community
agitating for something new and gradually forcing the Legislature to put
it into law, even against the will of the majority and against the
sentiment of a large class of the community. The organization that wants
something done is always aggressive. The man who wants to prevent it
from being done is seldom unduly active or even alarmed. Many
organizations are eager to get statutes on the books. One seldom hears
of a society or club that is active in getting laws repealed. The
constant change of law, the constant fixing of new values in place of
old ones, is necessary to social life. This means putting new wine into
old bottles, and wine that is much too strong for the bottles. Everybody
can see why some particular law might be violated without a sense of
guilt, but they cannot see how a law they believe in can be violated
without serious obliquity.

Apart from