Gordon: Physicians do not give medicine to those who are well, but to the sick who need it. The criminal law should protect the criminal against himself and the influences which have overcome him. It should cure and armor him with self-respect and courage. Judge Dykeman: That would be a delightful state of affairs. Travesty: And now I suppose you are perfectly prepared to substitute some new method of procedure? An original system of jurisprudence? What better method than imprisonment have you to offer for bringing a man to his senses? (Annie does not understand the following.) Gordon: I do not know, as yet. Is it fair to expect that I have found that which has been a mystery through all the centuries? But don’t you see that the present method is inadequate? We punish crime with fine, imprisonment, and death, but is the fine given to the one injured? Does imprisonment of the criminal compensate the victim? Does death restore the dead? Travesty: It is the Law! Gordon: Yes, but the Law is wrong! Jim Poor: Listen to that! Gordon: Has not the State, so clear in defining the duties of the individual to itself, failed in its duties to the individual after his conviction? Is it not absurd and unjust for the State to wreak vengeance on the criminal and then abandon him? There must be a better way! A scientific method which is not based on suffering and inhumanity! To find it is the duty of the State. The National Government should undertake it. Jim Poor: It’s not the National Government’s business! Gordon: Yes, it is. Jim Poor: Where’s your precedent? (to Judge Dykeman). That’s right, Judge,--I beg your pardon, Your Honor,--got to have a precedent for it, hasn’t he? Judge Dykeman: Certainly, he should. Father Creedon: Perhaps he has. Jim Poor: Go ahead, let’s hear it; but the United States has nothing to do with it. Gordon: Why not? It studies questions less important. It maintains experimental stations in every State and Territory where scientists investigate preventive measures against the ravages of insects and fungus growths. Travesty (interested): You mean the Department of Agriculture? Gordon (taking book from case and turning the leaves): I do. Here is the annual report in your library. If you want to know anything about the eradication of ticks on sheep--hog cholera bacillus--the chestnut-bark disease--the control of pecan scab by spraying--worms in dried fruit, the gypsy and coddling moth eradication--the Department of Agriculture has bulletins and rules and even laws to regulate these matters. Travesty: What of it? Gordon: This! To regulate these _blights_ and _pests_ it costs the Federal Government twenty million dollars a year. Travesty: But what has this to do with crime? Gordon: Nothing! That’s the trouble! The cost of handling crime is over one billion dollars a year in the United States and there are one hundred and thirteen thousand men in prison there to-day. Father Creedon: Incredible!