There is a difference between laws against stepping on other people’s toes and laws which forbid one to step on his own toes. But breaking the one kind of law leads to lawbreaking habits that stop at no particular boundary.
Even a boy senses the difference between breaking a law which is passed to save others from harm and a law which is passed to save a man from himself.
I refer to laws that are semi-dead, the laws which propose to legislate into being new human character, the laws which somehow get onto the printed page without the social will to enforce them.
—“Our Crime Tide” by Richard Washburn Child, August 1, 1925
This article is featured in the July/August 2025 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.
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