The effort of the penal codes has never been to reach any human being before violence is done, except to awe him by the brief transitory show of force; but after the act is done the state must spend its strength and substance for revenge. Most men are driven to criminal acts from the necessities of life and the hatred bred by the organized force they meet. Remove dire poverty, as could be easily done with a tithe of what is now spent on force; let organized society meet the individual, not with force, but with helpfulness and love, and the inducement to commit crime could not exist. Let society be the friend not the tyrant, the brother not the jailer, and the feeling will be returned a thousandfold. No man or no society ever induced love with clubs and guns. The emblem of the state is the soldier, the policeman, the court, the jail. It is an emblem that does not appeal to the higher sentiments of man—an emblem that so long as it exists will prevent true brotherhood and be a hindrance to the higher sentiments that will one day rule the world. Even if now and then passion and feeling should gain control of man, this passion and feeling would be brief and transitory; if it accomplished destruction, no power could make it whole. The concern of society would then be to call back this soul to saner thoughts and a truer, nobler life; not to blacken and destroy, nor to plant bitter hatred and despair in the soul of one who might be brought to a fine and high realization of human conduct and human life. Under this sort of treatment a large proportion of those who commit violent deeds would be brought to a full realization of their acts, and they themselves would seek in every way to repair the ill effects of their evil deeds. CHAPTER XVI THE RIGHT TREATMENT OF VIOLENCE