"
He grew pale. It almost looked as though we were coming to
blows. After a pause he said, with an effect of holding himself in
leash: "Business! Do you call that business? I call it peanuts."
"Well, the peanuts are rapidly growing in size while the oranges
and the apples are shrinking and rotting. The fittest survives." ("A
lot he knows about the theory of the survival of the fittest!" I
jeered in my heart. "He hasn't even heard the name of Herbert
Spencer.") "Peanuts are peanuts, that's all there's to it," he returned
"Then why are you excited? How can we hurt you if we are only
peanuts?"
He made no answer
"We don't steal the trade we're getting, do we? If the American
people prefer to buy our product they probably like it."
"Oh, chuck your big words, Levinsky. You fellows are killing the
trade, and you know it."
He laughed, but what I said was true. The old cloak-manufacturers,
the German Jews, were merely merchant. Our people, on the other
hand, were mostly tailors or cloak operators who had learned the
mechanical part of the industry, and they were introducing a
thousand innovations into it, perfecting, revolutionizing it.
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