"--and I b'lieve it is obvious that by working gradually, as we have in the past, we should not have any of the trouble the Congressman from New York suggests. Each year, we have simply added a little more, and promised it would be the last time. Until now, even at 30 per cent we are in a position to continue almost indefinitely. One thing the people do fear, gentlemen, is war. We have been skillful, and let us not mince words about it. They have been thoroughly frightened!" Of course that was it. Gradually, with accompanying promises.... The fear had been made a direct thing, and the tangled, subtle causes beneath had become psychologically, if not actually, inaccessible. All of the causes, of course, he might never learn. But the general effects were obvious, so it was on them and with them alone that he must build his case. * * * * * It was now a matter of discerning how many of these men were genuinely concerned with bettering the situation, how many were tenaciously satisfied with the status quo, and how many were intent on using the situation to better their own interests. All were desperate men. Only their goals were different. In time of course he would be able to do away with most of them. They would in all probability fail to fit in a world organized about the psychological concept on which the games were built. The people themselves, however, if what the southern Congressman had said were true, would fit perfectly. And inwardly, he smiled. It was almost a simple thing, because it was obvious that what the man had said was at least true to a degree. Their economic set-up was proof of it. Millions and millions of pieces of green paper, in which they had implicit faith despite the facts which they knew to be true--that far less than half of their paper currency was validly backed by the standard metal on which it was based. There was not that much ore in the planet's entire crust! But they _believed_ that the system worked, and that was all that was necessary. Just as the people of his own time-phase believed that a child could actually be conditioned for life against violence, after sustaining the temporary psychological shock caused by a week's subjugation to the bloody horror of wanton slaughter. It was understood that such severe psychological shock during the early years of mental development was sufficient to condition each new generation for life against any future acts of violence as adults, and it was believed because it seemed to work. And because it seemed to work, it was believed _in_. Each surviving youth grew into adulthood as convinced as his neighbor that the conditioning of the games was life-long, that the psychological scar they left was permanent, and would therefore render impossible any form of violent conflict. The belief, scientifically questionable as it might be, was never challenged, because there was always the fact to face that there was, after all, no war.