We're both staggering under money, as it
is. But power! Ah, that's different!"
"I know," admitted Waldron. "But ought we--you--to attempt this, even
for the sake of universal power? Your plan contemplates a monopoly such
that everybody who refused or was unable to buy your product would, at
best, have to get along with vitiated air, and at worst would have to
stifle. Do you really think we ought to undertake this?"
Keenly he eyed Flint, as he thus sounded the elder man's inhuman
determination. Flint, fathoming nothing of his purpose, retorted with
some heat:
"Ha! Getting punctilious, all at once, are you? Talk ethics, eh? Where
were your scruples, a year ago, when people were paying 25 cents a loaf
for bread, because of that big wheat pool you put through? How about the
oil you've just lately helped me boost by a 20 per cent. increase? And
when the papers--though mostly those infernal Socialist or Anarchist
papers, or whatever they were--shouted that old men and women were
freezing in attics, last winter, what then? Did you vote to arbitrate
the D.
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