“Of course.”
“Now which is the fact—that most people, here in this country, eat too much or too little?”
“Too much.”
“Which is a decided detriment to health and longevity, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“Then the actual result of your business, which you steadily push for your own profit, is to lessen health and shorten life?”
I laughed now. But he was at me. “Why the laugh, Steve?”
“That’s bunk and you know it.”
“Where’s it bunk, Steve? Where’s the flaw? Where, if anywhere, did the fallacy creep in? Now let us leap to the safe-blowing business. What, my foster-brother Stephen, is the fundamental curse of this country at this time? I’m not asking you a question which seeks any strange or heathen answer. Let us take only the answer that the pulpit itself offers, let us quote not only Christ but the economists and sociologists of our own and other leading conservative universities. What has ruined more families, softened and destroyed the fiber of more individuals, especially the young—who above all should be preserved—than the accumulation of wealth? What else, Steve?”
I had no answer.