Explore "The Break in Turpentine" by Edwin Lefevre on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In the beginning of the beginning the distillers of turpentine carried competition to the quarrelling point. Then they carried the quarrel to the point of silence, which was most to be feared, for it meant that no time was to be wasted in words. All were losing money; but each hoped that the others were losing more, proportionately, and therefore would go under all the sooner. The survivors thought they could manage to keep on surviving, for on what twelve would starve four could feast.
It is seen periodically in the United States: an industry apparently suffering from suicidal mania. It is incomprehensible, inexplicable, though mediocrities mutter: "Over-production! " and shake their heads complacently, proud of having diagnosed the trouble. Here was the turpentine business, once great and lucrative, now ruin-producing; formerly affording a comfortable livelihood to many thousands and now giving ever-diminishing wages to ever-diminishing numbers.