"Businessmen are taking advantage of the national emergency in order to make
money. They break the regulations which protect the common welfare of all—for the sake of their own
personal gain. They're profiteers of the black market who grow rich by defrauding the poor of their
rightful share, at a time of desperate shortage. They pursue a ruthless, grasping, grabbing, antisocial
policy, based on nothing but plain, selfish greed."

Rearden sat looking at him, as if studying an object seen for the first time. Somewhere deep in Rearden's
mind, as a steady, gentle, inexorable beat, was a man's voice, saying: