"Compulsory coöperation!" the doctor laughed.
"It may be so at last," the little man said soberly. "Certainly the old idea of competition is played out. We no longer believe that business men should try to cut each other's throats."
"Oh, I see," sneered the doctor, "they should get together, corral their customers, and cut their throats. That certainly is better for business, but how about the customers?"
"Business is business," was the grim answer.
"For beasts of the field, yes—but for men?"
"Still, you must recognize the fact that the drug trade is a business enterprise, not a charity organization."
"Even so, still I happen to know that within a stone's throw of my store swarms a population of a quarter of a million human beings so poor that only three hundred of them ever have access to a bathroom. The death rate of the children is 254 in a thousand. It should be about 20 in a thousand, if normal. I don't want any higher profits out of my customers. If I've got to fight I'd rather fight the trade than fight the people. I choose the lesser evil."
"But I don't ask you to do evil."
"You ask me to enter with you into a criminal conspiracy to suppress freedom of trade, and use fraud and violence if necessary to win——"
"Fraud and violence?" Bivens interrupted, smilingly.