With regard to the increase of crime of one type and the failure of the American state to protect its citizens, I can from personal experiences date a marked change with some accuracy. I was in Wall Street in business until about 1912. From about 1900 to that date I was usually the one in my office, first as manager and then as partner, who saw daily to getting the securities from the safe deposit vault to the office in the morning and back again at night. The value of the negotiable securities and cash sometimes ran to a couple of millions. Unarmed and unguarded, with only an office boy to carry the boxes, it never once occurred to me or to anyone else in that period that there was any danger to the securities or to myself in so carrying them through the public streets. About 1908 or 1909, I think it was, New York State passed a new law taxing the securities of non-resident decedents if the securities were in a New York safe deposit at the time of death. In order to avoid this extra taxation, a member of my family, a resident of New Jersey, decided to transfer his securities to Hoboken. I did it for him by the simple method of putting about two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of coupon bonds in a suit case and carrying it, unguarded and, indeed, unaccompanied from Wall Street down to the old Hoboken Ferry, over the Ferry, through the streets of Hoboken, along the river front to the Trust Company in that city,—again without thought of risk or danger. [Pg 125] Let us note the difference today. Going abroad to stay for a considerable period, I decided last December (1928) to transfer my securities from bank vaults at practically the corner of Hanover and Wall Streets, to a bank which would keep them in custody for me, cutting coupons, and so on without trouble to me. I first thought of transferring them to an institution just over the river in Brooklyn. On asking the Vice-president how, in view of modern crime conditions, the actual physical transfer would be made, he answered as follows: “We have our own armored car, with three men in it. We are, of course, very careful in selecting them in the first place, but we always have a detective who keeps track of them. The chauffeur sits in front of the car, and behind him we have a guard who keeps his revolver in his hand so that if the chauffeur starts any tricks he has a gun in his neck at once. In the back of the car sits the third man, who keeps his foot on a valve which by pressure would shut off the supply of gas at once. If a fracas should start between the other two, he would stop the car. If you would care to do so, you could also come in the car with your securities.” I decided finally on a trust company in Wall Street, very near the vault where the securities were, and where I would have to walk only a block. There it was agreed that two armed guards would meet me when I was ready to make the transfer. One day, with my wife and sister, who also had securities, I went to the vault.