Don Vito Corleone: [to the heads of the Five Families] How did things ever get so far? I don't know. It was so unfortunate, so unnecessary. Tattaglia lost a son and I lost a son. We're quits, and if Tattaglia agrees, then I'm willing to let things go on the way they were before. Don Emilio Barzini: We're all grateful to Don Corleone for calling this meeting. We all know him as a man of his word. A modest man who will always listen to reason. Don Phillip Tattaglia: Yes, Barzini, he is too modest. He had all the judges and politicians in his pocket, and refused to share them. Vito: When? When did I ever refuse an accommodation? All of you know me here. When did I ever refuse, except one time? And why? Because I believe this drug business is gonna destroy us in the years to come. I mean, it's not like gambling or liquor, even women, which is something that most people want nowadays and it's forbidden to them by the pezzonovantes in the church. Even the police departments have helped us in the past with gambling and other things. They're gonna refuse to help us when it comes to narcotics. And I believed that then, and I believe that now. Barzini: Times have changed. It's not like the old days when we could do anything we want. A refusal is not the act of a friend. Don Corleone had all the judges and the politicians in New York, and he must share them. He must let us draw the water from the well. Certainly, he can present a bill for such services. After all, we are not Communists! Zaluchi: I also don't believe in drugs. For years I paid my people extra so they wouldn't do that kind of business. Somebody comes to them and says, "I have powders. If you put up three, four thousand dollar investment, we can make fifty thousand distributing." So they can't resist. I want to control it as a business, to keep it respectable. I don't want it near schools! I don't want it sold to children! That's an infamia. In my city, we would keep the traffic in the dark people, the coloreds. They're animals anyway, so let them lose their souls. Vito: I hoped that we would come here and reason together. And as a reasonable man, I'm willing to do whatever is necessary to find a peaceful solution to these problems. Barzini: Then we are agreed. The traffic in drugs will be permitted, but controlled, and Don Corleone will give us protection in the east, and there will be the peace. Tattaglia: But I must have strict assurance from Corleone. As time goes by and his position becomes stronger, will he attempt any individual vendetta? Barzini: Look, we are all reasonable men here. We don't have to give assurances as if we were lawyers. Vito: You talk about vengeance. Is vengeance going to bring your son back to you or my boy to me? I forgo the vengeance on my son. But I have selfish reasons. My youngest son was forced to leave this country because of all this Solozzo business. All right. Now I have to make arrangements to bring him back here safely, but I'm a superstitious man, and if some unlucky accident should befall him — if he should get shot in the head by a police officer, or if he should hang himself in his jail cell, or if he's struck by a bolt of lightning — then I'm going to blame some of the people in this room. And that, I do not forgive. But that aside, let me say that I swear on the souls of my grandchildren that I will not be the one to break the peace that we have made here today.

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