The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents...

* "This world will see but one Ingersoll." Such was the terse, laconic, yet potent utterance that came spontaneously from a celebrated statesman whose head is now pillowed in the dust of death, as he stood in the lobby of the old Burnet House in Cincinnati after the famous Republican Convention in that city in 1876, at which Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll made that powerful speech nominating Blaine for the Presidency, one which is read and reread to- day, and will be read in the future, as an example of the highest art of the platform. That same sentiment in thought, emotion or vocal expression emanated from upward of twenty thousand citizens last night who heard the eloquent and magic Ingersoll in the great tent stretched near the corner of Sacramento avenue and Lake street as he expounded the living gospel of true Republicanism. The old warhorse, silvered by long years of faithful service to his country, aroused the same all-pervading enthusiasm as he did in the campaigns of Grant and Hayes and Garfield. He has lost not one whit, not one iota of his striking physical presence, his profound reasoning, his convincing logic, his rollicking wit, grandiloquence—in fine, all the graces of the orator of old, reenforced by increased patriotism and the ardor of the call to battle for his country, are still his in the fullest measure. Ingersoll in his powerful speech at Cincinnati, spoke in behalf of a friend; last night he plead for his country. In 1876 he eulogized a man; last night, twenty years afterward, he upheld the principles of democratic government.

Such was the difference in his theme; the logic, the eloquence of his utterances was the more profound In the same ratio. He came to the ground floor of human existence and talked as man to man. His patriotism, be it religion, sentiment, or that lofty spirit inseparable from man's soul, is his life. Last night he sought to inspire those who heard him with the same loyalty, and he succeeded. Those passionate outbursts of eloquence, the wit that fairly scintillated, the logic as Inexorable as heaven's decrees, his rich rhetoric and immutable facts driven straight to his hearers with the strength of bullets, aroused applause that came as spontaneous as sunlight. Now eliciting laughter, now silence, now cheers, the great orator, with the singular charm of presence, manner and voice, swayed his immense audience at his own volition. Packed with potency was every sentence, each word a living thing, and with them he flayed financial heresy, laid bare the dire results of free trade, and exposed the dangers of Populism. It was an immense audience that greeted him. The huge tent was packed from center-pole to circumference, and thousands went away because they could not gain entrance. The houses in the vicinity were beautifully illuminated decorated. The Chairman, Wm. P. McCabe, in a brief but forcible speech, presented Colonel Ingersoll to the vast audience. As the old veteran of rebellion days arose from his seat, one prolonged, tremendous cheer broke forth from the twenty thousand throats.

And it was fully fifteen minutes before the great orator could begin to deliver his address. In his introductory speech Mr. McCabe said: "Friends and Fellow-Citizens: I have no set speech to make to-night. My duty Is to introduce to you one whose big heart and big brain is filled with love and patriotic care for the things that concern the country he fought for and loved so well. I now have the honor of introducing to you Hon. Robert G. Ingersoll."—The Intrr-Ocean, Chicago, 111., October 9th, 1895.

The legally expressed will of the majority is the supreme law of the land. We are responsible for what our Government does. We cannot excuse ourselves because of the act of some king, or the opinions of nobles. We are the kings. We are the nobles. We are the aristocracy of America, and when our Government does right we are honored, and when our Government does wrong the brand of shame is on the American brow.

To-day there is in the United States a vast congress consisting of the people, and in that congress every man has a voice, and it is the duty of every man to inquire into all questions presented, to the end that he may vote as a man and as a patriot should.

No American should be dominated by prejudice. No man standing under our flag should follow after the fife and drum of a party. He should say to himself: "I am a free man, and I will discharge the obligations of an American citizen with all the intelligence I possess."

To-night I am not going to appeal to your prejudices, if you have any. I am going to talk to the sense that you have. I am going to address myself to your brain and to your heart. I want nothing of you except that you will preserve the institutions of the Republic; that you will maintain her honor unstained. That is all I ask.

I admit that all the parties who disagree with me are honest. Large masses of mankind are always honest, the leader not always, but the mass of people do what they believe to be right. Consequently there is no argument in abuse, nothing calculated to convince in calumny. To be kind, to be candid, is far nobler, far better, and far more American. We live in a Democracy, and we admit that every other human being has the same right to think, the same right to express his thought, the same right to vote that we have, and I want every one who hears me to vote in exact accord with his sense, to cast his vote in accordance with his conscience. I want every one to do the best he can for the great Republic, and no matter how he votes, if he is honest, I shall find no fault.

But the great thing is to understand what you are going to do; the great thing is to use the little sense that we have. In most of us the capital is small, and it ought to be turned often. We ought to pay attention, we ought to listen to what is said and then think, think for ourselves.

Several questions have been presented to the American people for their solution, and I propose to speak a little about those questions, and I do not want you to pretend to agree with me. I want no applause unless you honestly believe I am right.

Three great questions are presented: First, as to money; second, as to the tariff, and third, whether this Government has the right of self-defence. Whether this is a Government of law, or whether there shall be an appeal from the Supreme Court to a mob. These are the three questions to be answered next Tuesday by the American people.

First, let us take up this money question. Thousands and thousands of speeches have been made on the subject. Pamphlets thick as the leaves of autumn have been scattered from one end of the Republic to the other, all about money, as if it were an exceedingly metaphysical question, as though there were something magical about it.

What is money? Money is a product of nature. Money is a part of nature. Money is something that man cannot create. All the legislatures and congresses of the world cannot by any possibility create one dollar, any more than they could suspend the attraction of gravitation or hurl a new constellation into the concave sky. Money is not made. It has to be found. It is dug from the crevices of rocks, washed from the sands of streams, from the gravel of ancient valleys; but it is not made. It cannot be created. Money is something that does not have to be redeemed. Money is the redeemer. And yet we have a man running for the presidency on three platforms with two Vice-Presidents, who says that money is the creature of law. It may be that law sometimes is the creature of money, but money was never the creature of law.

A nation can no more create money by law than it can create corn and wheat and barley by law, and the promise to pay money is no nearer money than a warehouse receipt is grain, or a bill of fare is a dinner. If you can make money by law, why should any nation be poor?

The supply of law is practically unlimited. Suppose one hundred people should settle on an island, form a government, elect a legislature. They would have the power to make law, and if law can make money, if money is the creature of law, why should not these one hundred people on the island be as wealthy as Great Britain? What is to hinder? And yet we are told that money is the creature of law. In the financial world that is as absurd as perpetual motion in mechanics; it is as absurd as the fountain of eternal youth, the philosopher's stone, or the transmutation of metals.

What is a dollar? People imagine that a piece of paper with pictures on it, with signatures, is money. The greenback is not money—never was; never will be. It is a promise to pay money; not money. The note of the nation is no nearer money than the note of an individual. A bank note is not money. It is a promise to pay money; that is all.

Well, what is a dollar? In the civilized world it is twenty-three grains and twenty-two one hundredths of pure gold. That is a dollar. Well, cannot we make dollars out of silver? Yes, I admit it, but in order to make a silver dollar you have got to put a dollars worth of silver in the silver dollar, and you have to put as much silver in it as you can buy for twenty-three grains and twenty-two one-hundredths' of a grain of pure gold. It takes a dollar's worth of silver to make a dollar. It takes a dollar's worth of paper to make a paper dollar. It takes a dollar's worth of iron to make an iron dollar; and there is no way of making a dollar without the value.

And let me tell you another thing. You do not add to the value of gold by coining it any more than you add to the value of wheat by measuring it; any more than you add to the value of coal by weighing it. Why do you coin gold? Because every man cannot take a chemist's outfit with him. He cannot carry a crucible and retort, scales and acids, and so the Government coins it, simply to certify how much gold there is in the piece.

Ah, but, says this same gentleman, what gives our money—our silver—its value? It is because it is a legal tender, he says. Nonsense; nonsense. Gold was not given value by being made a legal tender, but being valuable it was made a legal tender. And gold gets no value to-day from being a legal tender. I not only say that, but I will prove it; and I will not only prove it, but I will demonstrate it. Take a twenty dollar gold piece, hammer it out of shape, mar the Goddess of Liberty, pound out the United States of America and batter the eagle, and after you get it pounded how much is it worth?

It is worth exactly twenty dollars. Is it a legal tender? No. Has its value been changed? No. Take a silver dollar. It is a legal tender; now pound it into a cube, and how much is it worth? A little less than fifty cents. What gives it the value of a dollar? The fact that it is a legal tender? No; but the promise of the Government to keep it on an equality with gold. I will not only say this, but I will demonstrate it. I do not ask you to take my word; just use the sense you have.

The Mexican silver dollar has a little more silver in it than one of our dollars, and the Mexican silver dollar is a legal tender in Mexico. If there is any magic about legal tender it ought to work as well in Mexico as in the United States. I take an American silver dollar and I go to Mexico. I buy a dinner for a dollar and I give to the Mexican the American dollar and he gives me a Mexican dollar in change. Yet both of the dollars are legal tender. Why is it that the Mexican dollar is worth only fifty cents? Because the Mexican Government has not agreed to keep it equal with gold; that is all, that is all.

We want the money of the civilized world, and I will tell you now that in the procession of nations every silver nation lags behind—every one. There is not a silver nation on the globe where decent wages are paid for human labor—not one. The American laborer gets ten times as much here in gold as a laborer gets in China in silver, twenty times as much as a laborer does in India, four times as much as a laborer gets in Russia; and yet we are told that the man who will "follow England" with the gold standard lacks patriotism and manhood. What then shall we say of the man that follows China, that follows India in the silver standard?

And yet these gentlemen say that our money is too good. They might as well say the air is too pure; they might as well say the soil is too rich. How can money be too good? Mr. Bryan says that it is so good, people hoard it; and let me tell him they always will. Mr. Bryan wants money so poor that everybody will be anxious to spend it. He wants money so poor that the rich will not have it. Then he thinks the poor can get it. We are willing to toil for good money. Good money means the comforts and luxuries of life. Real money is always good. Paper promises and silver substitutes may be poor; words and pictures may be cheap and may fade to worthlessness—but gold shines on.

In Chicago, many years ago, there was an old colored man at the Grand Pacific. I met him one morning, and he looked very sad, and I said to him, "Uncle, what is the matter?" "Well," he said, "my wife ran away last night. Pretty good looking woman; a good deal younger than I am; but she has run off." And he says: "Colonel, I want to give you my idea about marriage. If a man wants to marry a woman and have a good time, and be satisfied and secure in his mind, he wants to marry some woman that no other man on God's earth would have."

That is the kind of money these gentlemen want in the United States. Cheap money. Do you know that the words cheap money are a contradiction in terms? Cheap money is always discounted when people find out that it is cheap. We want good money, and I do not care how much we get. But we want good money. Men are willing to toil for good money; willing to work in the mines; willing to work in the heat and glare of the furnace; willing to go to the top of the mast on the wild sea; willing to work in tenements; women are willing to sew with their eyes filled with tears for the sake of good money. And if anything is to be paid in good money, labor is that thing. If any man is entitled to pure gold, it is the man who labors. Let the big fellows take cheap money. Let the men living next the soil be paid in gold. But I want the money of this country as good as that of any other country.

I want to teach the people of the world that a Democracy is honest. I want to teach the people of the world that America is not only capable of self-government, but that it has the self-denial, the courage, the honor, to pay its debts to the last farthing.

Mr. Bryan tells the farmers who are in debt that they want cheap money. What for? To pay their debts. And he thinks that is a compliment to the tillers of the soil. The statement is an insult to the farmers, and the farmers of Maine and Vermont have answered him.

And if the farmers of those States with their soil can be honest, I think a farmer in Illinois has no excuse for being a rascal. I regard the farmers as honest men, and when the sun shines and the rains fall and the frosts wait, they will pay their debts. They are good men, and I want to tell you to-night that all the stories that have been told about farmers being Populists are not true.

Suppose a man has borrowed a thousand bushels of wheat of his neighbor, of sixty pounds to the bushel, and then Congress should pass a law making thirty pounds of wheat a bushel. Would that farmer pay his debt with five hundred bushels and consider himself an honest man?

Mr. Bryan says, "Vote for cheap money to pay your debts," and thereupon the creditor says, "What is to become of me?" Mr. Bryan says, "We will make it one dollar and twenty-nine cents an ounce, and make it of the ratio of sixteen to one, make it as good as gold." And thereupon the poor debtor says, "How is that going to help me?" And in nearly all the speeches that this man has made he has taken the two positions, first, that we want cheap money to pay debts, and second, that the money would be just as good as gold for creditors.

Now, the question is: Can Congress make fifty cents' worth of silver worth one dollar? That is the question, and if Congress can, then I oppose the scheme on account of its extravagance. What is the use of wasting all that silver? Think about it. If Congress can make fifty cents' worth of silver worth a dollar by law, why can it not make one cent's worth of silver worth a dollar by law. Let us save the silver and use it for forks and spoons. The supply even of silver is limited—the supply of law is inexhaustible. Do not waste silver, use more law. You cannot fix values by law any more than you can make cooler summers by shortening thermometers.