"What evils? Young man," the President broke in, "Who's going to be scared off from something that sounds so harmless? Two things are working against us—the supply's easily replenishable and testing equipment's much too common for us to put over any white lies."
"Still hard for you to understand, isn't it?" Chisholm sighed. "Cramer, a terribly big percentage of the population has become passive and bored, just looking for some easy diversion. We have all we can do just to keep this social cancer from spreading without germ-joy. With it, matters can get out of hand. And I don't care how automated and wealthy a society is it can't get by if we develop that big a burden of non-thinking freeloaders."
"General Chisholm isn't wholeheartedly with the plan I've adopted but—"
"But I haven't a thing better to suggest, Mr. President," the General conceded.
"Who does? Well, the plan for the next few weeks is this, to keep very close surveillance of Hartley's activities without openly conceding we know what he's up to. We have to hope that some defect will show up in a user even though the first report says no one sees how it can happen."
Cramer protested. "You're going to let him get away with it!"
"For the present," President Johnson nodded. "We're not interested in punishing a particular man. We have to give him all the joy-rope he needs and hope that he, as the longest-run user, suffers the consequences."
"I could keep taking it myself if you need a guinea pig."
"The rasher section of the public will supply enough guinea pigs," said the General. "You'll stay here at HQ, looking over all the reports that come in, Mr. Cramer, maybe your experience will help somewhere along the line. If, after a few weeks, nothing shows up, we will crack down on Hartley anyway."
"Not that it will do much good," said the President. "But we, too, need our moments of purely personal satisfaction."