US Presidency
1889

It demoralizes those who practice it and destroysthe faith of those who suffer by it in the efficiency of the law as a safeprotector. The man in whose breast that faith has been darkened is naturallythe subject of dangerous and uncanny suggestions. Those who use unlawfulmethods, if moved by no higher motive than the selfishness that promptedthem, may well stop and inquire what is to be the end of this. An unlawful expedient can not become a permanent condition of government. If the educated and influential classes in a community either practiceor connive at the systematic violation of laws that seem to them to crosstheir convenience, what can they expect when the lesson that convenienceor a supposed class interest is a sufficient cause for lawlessness hasbeen well learned by the ignorant classes? A community where law is therule of conduct and where courts, not mobs, execute its penalties is theonly attractive field for business investments and honest labor.