The restrictions placed around the accumulation of property are multiplying faster than any other portions of the criminal code.  It takes a long time for new customs or habits or restraints to become a part of the life and consciousness of man so that the mere suggestion of the act causes the reaction that doing it is wrong.  No matter how long some statutes are on the books, and how severe the penalties, many men never believe that doing the forbidden act is really a crime.  For instance, the violations of many revenue laws, game laws, prohibition laws, and many laws against various means of getting property are often considered as not really criminal.  In fact, a large and probably growing class of men disputes the justice of creating many legal rules in reference to private property.

Primitive peoples, as a rule, held property in common.  Their inhibitions were few and simple.  They took what they needed and wanted in the easiest way.  There is a strong call in all life to hark back to primitive feelings, customs and habits.  Many new laws are especially painful and difficult to a large class of weak men who form the bulk of our criminal class.

To understand the constant urge to throw off the shackles of civilization, one need but think of the number of men who use liquor or drugs.  One need only look at the professional and business man, who at every opportunity leaves civilization and goes to the woods to kill wild animals or to the lakes and streams to fish.

The call to live a simple life, free from the conventions, customs and rules, to kill for the sake of killing, to get to the woods and streams and away from brick buildings and stone walls, is strong in the constitution of almost every man.  Probably the underlying cause of the world war was the need of man to relax from the hard and growing strain of the civilization that is continually weaving new fetters to bind him.  There must always come a breaking point, for, after all, man is an animal and can live only from and by the primitive things.

Children have no idea of the rights of property.  It takes long and patient teaching, even to the most intelligent, to make them feel that there is a point at which the taking of property is wrong.  Nowhere in Nature can we see an analogy to our property rights.  Plants and animals alike get their sustenance where and how they can.  It is not meant here to discuss the question of how many of the restrictions that control the getting of property are wise and how many are foolish; it is only meant to give the facts as they affect life and conduct.