(Sparring.) I had no idea that questions of such nature were topics of conversation at affairs like this.
Starkweather
(Abruptly and imperatively.) What causes the high prices?
Knox
(Equally abrupt and just as positive as the other was imperative.) Theft!
(It is a sort of a bombshell he has exploded, but they receive it politely and smilingly, even though it has shaken them up.)
Dolores Ortega
What a romantic explanation. I suppose everybody who has anything has stolen it.
Knox
Not quite, but almost quite. Take motorcars, for example. This year five hundred million dollars has been spent for motor-cars. It required men toiling in the mines and foundries, women sewing their eyes out in sweat-shops, shop girls slaving for four and five dollars a week, little children working in the factories and cotton-mills—all these it required to produce those five hundred millions spent this year in motor-cars. And all this has been stolen from those who did the work.