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So long as one was not caught, it did not matter. I heard mothers tell
their little children that if they did not behave themselves, the
policeman would put them into a bag and carry them off, or cut their
ears off. Of course, the policeman became to them an object of terror;
the law he represented, a cruel thing that stood for punishment. Not a
note of respect did I ever hear for the law in my boyhood days. A law
was something to be broken, to be evaded, to call down upon others as a
source of punishment, but never to be regarded in the light of a
safeguard.
And as I grew into manhood, the newspapers rang on every side with
disrespect for those in authority. Under the special dispensation of
the liberty of the press, which was construed into the license of the
press, no man was too high to escape editorial vituperation if his
politics did not happen to suit the management, or if his action ran
counter to what the proprietors believed it should be. It was not
criticism of his acts, it was personal attack upon the official;
whether supervisor, mayor, governor, or president, it mattered not.
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