"Business is business" has been said by respectable church-members.
A successful American boss, when asked if he was not in politics for
his pocketbook, said, "Of course! Aren't you?" with no sense of shame.
Probably he was very "moral" along the old lines, an excellent father,
a kind husband, an agreeable neighbor; but his conventional code,
shared by most of his contemporaries, did not include the reprobation
of the practice of politics for private gain. In the upper classes
are many people who are "good" by the old standards, but who are
unhelpful and trivial-minded, mere parasites devoted to sport or society,
with never a qualm of conscience for their selfishness. The old standards
need the constant infusion of new blood; our consciences need to be
adjusted to our new relations and deeper insight. [Footnote: Cf. Rosa,
Sin and Society, p. 14: "One might suppose that an exasperated public
would sternly castigate these modern sins. But the fact is, the very
qualities that lull the conscience of the sinner blind the eyes of
the onlookers. People are sentimental; and bastinado wrongdoing not
according to its harmfulness, but according to the infamy that has
come to attach to it. Undiscerning, they chastise with scorpions the
old authentic sins, but spare the new. They do not see that blackmail
is piracy, that embezzlement is theft, that speculation is gambling
that deleterious adulteration is murder.
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