How far am I justified in suppressing, for a
perfectly right and proper end, this evidence which would send a lot of
people to jail?"
"Mercy!" she exclaimed; "how you can bring a thunderbolt crashing down
out of a perfectly clear sky! Is it ever justifiable to shield criminals
and criminality?"
"That is just what I'm trying to find out," he persisted. "At the
present moment I am shielding a good handful of open lawbreakers. Some
of them know what I'm doing, and some of them don't. Those who know
have been told that they must be good or I'll publish the evidence, and
they've promised to be good if I won't publish it. At the time I didn't
question my right to make such a bargain, but--"
"But now you are questioning it? What would happen if you should tell
what you know?"
"Chaos," he replied briefly.
"May I ask who is implicated?"
"A good half of the corporation officials in the State, and some few
outside of it."
"Mercy!" she said again. And then: "It's too big for me, Evan. I can
only go back to first principles and ask if it is ever justifiable to do
evil that good may come."
"If you put it that way, I've made myself _particeps criminis_," he said
gravely. "I have given my word to keep still if the lawbreaking deals
are broken off at once and in good faith. Beyond that, I can't help
knowing that the exposure which I have threatened to make, and could
make, would practically turn the people of this State into a mob.
Pages:
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225