The
"Subterranean Brotherhood" are our brothers--they are ourselves, unjustly
and vainly condemned to serve as scapegoats for the rest. What the
criminal instinct or propensity in a man needs is not seclusion, misery,
pain and despotic control, but free air and sunlight, free and cheerful
human companionship, free opportunity to play his part in human service,
and the stimulus, on all sides of him, of the example of such service.
Men enfeebled by crime are not cured by punishment, or by homilies and
precepts, but by taking off our coats and showing them personally how
honest and useful things are done. And let every lapse and failure on
their part to follow the example, be counted not against them, but
against ourselves who failed to convince them of the truth, and hold them
up to the doing of good. Had we been sincere and hearty enough, we would
have prevailed.
I do not underrate the difficulties; they are immeasurable; the hope seems
as forlorn as that of the Israelites against the walls of Jericho. But
they are forlorn and immeasurable only because, and so long as, we let our
selfish personal interests govern and mold our public and social action.
Altruism will not heal the inward sore, but at best only put on its
surface a plausible plaster which leaves the inward still corrupt; for
altruism is a policy and not an impulse, proceeding not from the heart but
from the intelligence--the policy of enlightened selfishness.
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