This aspect of the matter has been very clearly set forth by Dr. Fuld, of Columbia University, in his able and thorough book on police administration.[202] He shows that, though the American police system as a system has defects which need to be remedied, it is not true that the individual members of the American police forces are inferior to those of other countries; on the contrary, they are, in some respects, superior; it is not a large proportion which sells the right to break the law.[203] Their most serious defects are due to the impracticable laws and regulations made by inexperienced legislators. These laws and ordinances in many cases cannot possibly be enforced, and the weak police officers accept money from the citizen for not enforcing rules which in any case they could not enforce. "The American police forces," says Fuld, "have been corrupted almost solely by the statutes.... The real blame attaches not to the policeman who accepts a bribe temptingly offered him, nor to the bribe-giver who seeks by giving a bribe to make the best possible business arrangement, but rather to the law, which by giving the police a large and uncontrolled discretion in the enforcement of the law places a premium upon bribe-giving and bribe-taking." This state of things is rendered possible by the fact that the duties of the police are not confined to matters affecting crime and public order--matters which the whole community consider essential, and in regard to which any police negligence is counted a serious charge--but are extended to unessential matters which a considerable section of the community, including many of the police themselves, view with complete indifference. It is impossible to regard seriously a conspiracy to defeat laws which a large proportion of citizens regard as unnecessary or even foolish. It thus unfortunately comes about that the charge brought against the American police that "it sells the right to break the law" has not the same grave significance which it would have in most countries, for the rights purchased in America may in most countries be obtained without purchase. "An act ought to be made criminal," as Fuld rightly lays down, "only when it is socially expedient to punish its criminality.... The American people, or at least the American legislators, do not make this clear distinction between vice and crime. There seems to be a feeling in America that unless a vice is made a crime, the State countenances the vice and becomes a party to its commission. There are unfortunately a large number of men in the community who believe that they have satisfied the demands made upon them to lead a virtuous life by incorporating into some statute the condemnation of a particular vicious act as a crime."[204] This special characteristic of American laws, with its failure to distinguish between vice and crime, is clearly a legacy of the early Puritans. The Puritans