pect for law and for
authority. The fact was impressed upon me that laws of themselves were
futile unless the people for whom they were made respected them, and
obeyed them in spirit more even than in the letter. I came to America
to feel, on every hand, that exactly the opposite was true. Laws were
passed, but were not enforced; the spirit to enforce them was lacking
in the people. There was little respect for the law; there was
scarcely any for those appointed to enforce it.

The nearest that a boy gets to the law is through the policeman. In
the Netherlands a boy is taught that a policeman is for the protection
of life and property; that he is the natural friend of every boy and
man who behaves himself. The Dutch boy and the policeman are,
naturally, friendly in their relations. I came to America to be told
that a policeman is a boy's natural enemy; that he is eager to arrest
him if he can find the slightest reason for doing so. A policeman, I
was informed, was a being to hold in fear, not in respect. He was to
be avoided, not to be made friends with. The result was that, as did
all boys, I came to regard the policeman on our beat as a distinct
enemy. His presence meant that we should "stiffen up"; his
disappearance was the signal for us to "let loose."

So long as one was not caught, it did not matter. I heard mothers tell
their little children that if they did not behave themselves, the
policeman would put them into a bag and carry them off, or cut their
ears off. Of course, the policeman became to them an object of terror;
the law he represented, a cruel thing that stood for punishment. Not a
note of respect did I ever hear for the law in my boyhood days. A law
was something to be broken, to be evaded, to call down upon others as a
source of punishment, but never to be regarded in the light of a
safeguard.

And as I grew into manhood, the newspapers rang on every side with
disrespect for those in authority. Under the special dispensation of
the liberty of the press, which was construed into the license of the
press, no man was too high to escape editorial vituperation if his
politics did not happen to suit the management, or if his action ran
counter to what the proprietors believed it should be. It was not
criticism of his acts, it was personal attack upon the official;
whether supervisor, mayor, governor, or president, it mattered not.

It is a very unfortunate impression that this American