What is the social struggle in Jacques Futrelle's "The Problem of Cell 13"?

The social problem represented in Jacques Futrelle's "The
Problem of Cell 13" can be thought of as two-fold. The first social problem is the
resentment and envy individuals with ordinary mental powers feel toward individuals with
extraordinary reasoning and deductive skills: "What sympathy Dr. Ransome had was
dissipated by the tone. It nettled him, ...." This problem is illustrated in the
challenge Ransome and Fielding set for Van Dusen, that of having him confined in Cell 13
of death row in Chisholm Prison (a most unkindly challenge
indeed):

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"Well, say prison walls," he replied. "No man can
think himself out of a cell. If he could, there would be no
prisoners."

The second social
problem is the classic one that other great deductive heroes of literature, like the
unequaled Sherlock Holmes, pose to society. That problem is the one of whether logic
alone can determine the best actions to take; is it indeed logic that determines the
correct action to be taken? For instance, in "The Problem," it is Van Dusen's logical
skills that enable him to choose the right actions to take in order to effect his
escape. It all depends upon his having noticed that field rats come and go through the
pipes entering the prison cells. From there, his logical prowess isolates the correct
actions to take. In this case, those actions depended upon first requesting a shoe
shine, some money, and tooth powder (from the days before tooth
paste):

"I
should like to make three small requests. You may grant them or not, as you wish. ... I
would like to have some tooth powder ... and I should like to have one five-dollar and
two ten-dollar bills. ... I should like to have my shoes
polished."

Futrelle presents
an interesting case in support of the supremacy of the power of logic in relation to
action.