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

There is another trouble. If Congress, by the free coinage of silver, can double its value, why should we allow an Englishman with a million dollars' worth of silver bullion at the market price, to bring it to America, have it coined free of charge, and make it exactly double the value? Why should we put a million dollars in his pocket? That is too generous. Why not buy the silver from him in the open market and let the Government make the million dollars? Nothing is more absurd; nothing is more idiotic. I admit that Mr. Bryan is honest. I admit it. If he were not honest his intellectual pride would not allow him to make these statements.

You have no idea of the credulity of some folks. I say that it has not been cornered, and I will not only prove it, I will demonstrate it. Whenever the Stock Exchange or some of the members have a corner on stocks, that stock goes up, and if it does not, that corner bursts. Whenever gentlemen in Chicago get up a corner on wheat in the Produce Exchange, wheat goes up or the corner bursts. And yet they tell me there has been a corner in gold for all these years, yet since 1873 to the present time the rate of interest has steadily gone down.

If there had been a corner the rate of interest would have steadily advanced. There is a demonstration. But let me ask, for my own information, if they corner gold what will prevent their cornering silver? Or are you going to have it so poor that it will not be worth cornering?

Then they say another thing, and that is that the demonetization of silver is responsible for all the hardships we have endured, for all the bankruptcy, for all the panics. That is not true, and I will not only prove it, but I will demonstrate it. The poison of demonetization entered the American veins, as they tell us, in 1873, and has been busy in its hellish work from that time to this; and yet, nineteen years after we were vaccinated, 1892, was the most prosperous year ever known by this Republic. All the wheels turning, all the furnaces aflame, work at good wages, everybody prosperous. How, Mr. Bryanite, how do you account for that? Just be honest a minute and think about it.

Then there is another thing. In 1816 Great Britain demonetized silver, and that wretched old government has had nothing but gold from that day to this as a standard. And to show you the frightful results of that demonetization, that government does not own now above one-third of the globe, and all the winds are busy floating her flags. There is a demonstration.

Mr. Bryan tells us that free coinage will bring silver 16 to 1. What is the use of stopping there? Why not make it 1 to 1? Why not make it equal with gold and be done with it? And why should it stop at exactly one dollar and twenty-nine cents? I do not know. I am not well acquainted with all the facts that enter into the question of value, but why should it stop at exactly one dollar and twenty-nine cents? I do not know. And I guess if he were cross-examined along toward the close of the trial he would admit that he did not know.

And yet this statesman calls this silver the money of our fathers. Well, let us see. Our fathers did some good things. In 1792 they made gold and silver the standards, and at a ratio of 15 to 1. But where you have two metals and endeavor to make a double standard it is very hard to keep them even. They vary, and, as old Dogberry says, "An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind." They made the ratio 15 to 1, and who did it? Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson, the greatest man, with one exception, that ever sat in the presidential chair. With one exception. [A voice: "Who was that?"] Abraham Lincoln. Alexander Hamilton, with more executive ability than any other man that ever stood under the flag. And how did they fix the ratio? They found the commercial value in the market; that is how they did it. And they went on and issued American dollars 15 to 1; and in 1806, when Jefferson was President, the coinage was stopped. Why? There was too much silver in the dollars, and people instead of passing them around put them aside and sold them to the silversmiths.

Then in 1834 the ratios changed; not quite sixteen to one. That was based again on the commercial value, and instead of sixteen to one they went into the thousands in decimals. It was not quite sixteen to one. They wanted to fix it absolutely on the commercial value. Then a few more dollars were coined; and our fathers coined of these sacred dollars up to 1873, eight millions, and seven millions had been melted.

What have the "enemies of silver" done since that time? Under the act of 1878 we have coined over four hundred and thirty millions of these blessed dollars. We bought four million ounces of silver in the open market every month, and in spite of the vast purchases silver continued to go down. We are coining about two millions a month now, and silver is still going down. Even the expectation of the election of Bryan cannot add the tenth of one per cent, to the value of silver bullion. It is going down day by day.

I wish every one here would read the speech of Senator Sherman, delivered at Columbus a little while ago, in which he gives the history of American coinage, and every man who will read it will find that silver was not demonetized in 1873. You will find that it was demonetized in 1853, and if he will read back he will find that the apostles of silver now were in favor of the gold standard in 1873. Senator Jones of Nevada in 1873 voted for the law of 1873. He said from his seat in the Senate, that God had made gold the standard. He said that gold was the mother of civilization. Whether he has heard from God since or not I do not know. But now he is on the other side. Senator Stewart of Nevada was there at the time; he voted for the act of 1873, and said that gold was the only standard. He has changed his mind. So they have said of me that I used to talk another way, and they have published little portions of speeches, without publishing all that was said. I want to tell you to-night that I have never changed on the money question.

On many subjects I have changed. I am very glad to feel that I have grown a little in the last forty or fifty years. And a man should allow himself to grow, to bud and blossom and bear new fruit, and not be satisfied with the rotten apples under the tree.

But on the money question I have not changed. Sixteen years ago in this city at Cooper Union, in 1880, in discussing this precise question, I said that I wanted gold and silver and paper; that I wanted the paper issued by the General Government, and back of every paper dollar I wanted a gold dollar or a silver dollar worth a dollar in gold. I said then, "I want that silver dollar worth a dollar in gold if you have to make it four feet in diameter." I said then, "I want our paper so perfectly secure that when the savage in Central Africa looks upon a Government bill of the United States his eyes will gleam as though he looked at shining gold." I said then, "I want every paper dollar of the Union to be able to hold up its hand and swear, 'I know that my Redeemer liveth.'" I said then, "The Republic cannot afford to debase money; cannot afford to be a clipper of coin; an honest nation, honest money; for nations as well as individuals, honesty is the best policy everywhere and forever." I have not changed on that subject. As I told a gentleman the other day, "I am more for silver than you are because I want twice as much of it in a dollar as you do."

Ah, but they say, "free coinage would bring prosperity." I do not believe it, and I will tell you why. Elect Bryan, come to the silver standard, and what would happen? We have in the United States about six hundred million dollars in gold. Every dollar would instantly go out of circulation. Why? No man will use the best money when he can use cheaper. Remember that. No carpenter will use mahogany when his contract allows pine. Gold will go out of circulation, and what next would happen? All the greenbacks would fall to fifty cents on the dollar. The only reason they are worth a dollar now is because the Government has agreed to pay them in gold. When you come to a silver basis they fall to fifty cents. What next? All the national bank notes would be cut square in two. Why? Because they are secured by United States bonds, and when we come to a silver basis, United States bonds would be paid in silver, fifty cents on the dollar. And what else would happen? What else? These sacred silver dollars would instantly become fifty cent pieces, because they would no longer be redeemable in gold; because the Government would no longer be under obligation to keep them on a parity with gold. And how much currency and specie would that leave for us in the United States? In value three hundred and fifty million dollars. That is five dollars per capita. We have twenty dollars per capita now, and yet they want to go to five dollars for the purpose of producing prosperous times!

What else would happen? Every human being living on an income would lose just one-half. Every soldiers' pension would be cut in two. Every human being who has a credit in the savings bank would lose just one-half. All the life insurance companies would pay just one-half. All the fire insurance companies would pay just one-half, and leave you the ashes for the balance. That is what they call prosperity.

And what else? The Republic would be dishonored. The believers in monarchy—in the divine right of kings—the aristocracies of the Old World—would say, "Democracy is a failure, freedom is a fraud, and liberty is a liar;" and we would be compelled to admit the truth. No; we want good, honest money. We want money that will be good when we are dead. We want money that will keep the wolf from the door, no matter what Congress does. We want money that no law can create; that is what we want. There was a time when Rome was mistress of the world, and there was a time when the arch of the empire fell, and the empire was buried in the dust of oblivion; and before those days the Roman people coined gold, and one of those coins is as good to-night as when Julius Cæsar rode at the head of his legions. That is the money we want. We want money that is honest.

But Mr. Bryan hates the bondholders. Who are the bondholders? Let us be honest; let us have some sense. When this Government was in the flame of civil war it was compelled to sell bonds, and everybody who bought a bond bought it because he believed the great Republic would triumph at last. Every man who bought a bond was our friend, and every bond that he purchased added to the chances of our success. They were our friends, and I respect them all. Most of them are dead, and the bonds they bought have been sold and resold maybe hundreds of times, and the men who have them now paid a hundred and twenty in gold, and why should they not be paid in gold? Can any human being think of any reason? And yet Mr. Bryan says that the debt is so great that it cannot be paid in gold. How much is the Republic worth? Let me tell you? This Republic to-day—its lands in cultivation, its houses, railways, canals, and money—is worth seventy thousand million dollars. And what do we owe? One billion five hundred million dollars, and what is the condition of the country? It is the condition of a man who has seventy dollars and owes one dollar and a half. This is the richest country on the globe. Have we any excuse for being thieves? Have we any excuse for failing to pay the debt? No, sir; no, sir. Mr. Bryan hates the bondholders of the railways. Why? I do not know. What did those wretches do? They furnished the money to build the one hundred and eighty thousand miles of railway in the United States; that is what they did.

They paid the money that threw up the road-bed, that shoveled the gravel; they paid the men that turned the ore into steel and put it in form for use; they paid the men that cut down the trees and made the ties, that manufactured the locomotives and the cars. That is what they did. No wonder that a presidential failure hates them.

So this man hates bankers. Now, what is a banker? Here is a little town of five thousand people, and some of them have a little money. They do not want to keep it in the house because some Bryan man might find it; I mean if it were silver. So one citizen buys a safe and rents a room and tells all the people, "You deposit the overplus with me to hold it subject to your order upon your orders signed as checks;" and so they do, and in a little while he finds that he has on hand continually about one hundred thousand dollars more than is called for, and thereupon he loans it to the fellow who started the livery stable and to the chap that opened the grocery and to the fellow with the store, and he makes this idle money work for the good and prosperity of that town. And that is all he does. And these bankers now, if Mr. Bryan becomes President, can pay the depositors in fifty cent dollars; and yet they are such rascally wretches that they say, "We prefer to pay back gold." You can see how mean they are.

Mr. Bryan hates the rich. Would he like to be rich? He hates the bondholders. Would he like to have a million? He hates the successful man. Does he want to be a failure? If he does, let him wait until the third day of November. We want honest money because we are honest people; and there never was any real prosperity for a nation or an individual without honesty, without integrity, and it is our duty to preserve the reputation of the great Republic.

Then there is another question—the question of the tariff. I admit that there are a great many arguments in favor of free trade, but I assert that all the facts are the other way. I want American people as far as possible to manufacture everything that Americans use.

The more industries we have the more we will develop the American brain, and the best crop you can raise in every country is a crop of good men and good women—of intelligent people. And another thing, I want to keep this market for ourselves. A nation that sells raw material will grow ignorant and poor; a nation that manufactures will grow intelligent and rich. It only takes muscle to dig ore. It takes mind to manufacture a locomotive, and only that labor is profitable that is mixed with thought. Muscle must be in partnership with brain. I am in favor of keeping this market for ourselves, and yet some people say: "Give us the market of the world." Well, why don't you take it? There is no export duty on anything. You can get things out of this country cheaper than from any other country in the world. Iron is as cheap here in the ground, so are coal and stone, as any place on earth. The timber is as cheap in the forest. Why don't you make things and sell them in Central Africa, in China and Japan? Why don't you do it? I will tell you why. It is because labor is too high; that is all. Almost the entire value is labor. You make a ton of steel rails worth twenty-five dollars; the ore in the ground is worth only a few cents, the coal in the earth only a few cents, the lime in the cliff only a few cents—altogether not one dollar and fifty cents; but the ton is worth twenty-five dollars; twenty-three dollars and fifty cents labor! That is the trouble. The steamship is worth five hundred thousand dollars, but the raw material is not worth ten thousand dollars. The rest is labor.

Why is labor higher here than in Europe? Protection. And why do these gentlemen ask for the trade of the world? Why do they ask for free trade? Because they want cheaper labor. That is all; cheaper labor. The markets of the world! We want our own markets. I would rather have the market of Illinois than all of China with her four hundred millions. I would rather have the market of one good county in New York than all of Mexico. What do they want in Mexico? A little red calico, a few sombreros and some spurs. They make their own liquor and they live on red pepper and beans. What do you want of their markets? We want to keep our own. In other words, we want to pursue the policy that has given us prosperity in the past. We tried a little bit of free trade in 1892 when we were all prosperous. I said then: "If Grover Cleveland is elected it will cost the people five hundred million dollars." I am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet, nor a profitable son, but I placed the figure too low. His election has cost a thousand million dollars. There is an old song, "You Put the Wrong Man off at Buffalo;" we took the wrong man on at Buffalo. We tried just a little of it, not much. We tried the Wilson bill—a bill, according to Mr. Cleveland, born of perfidy and dishonor—a bill that he was not quite foolish enough to sign and not brave enough to veto. We tried it and we are tired of it, and if experience is a teacher the American people know a little more than they did. We want to do our own work, and we want to mingle our thought with our labor.

We are the most inventive of all the peoples. We sustain the same relation to invention that the ancient Greeks did to sculpture. We want to develop the brain; we want to cultivate the imagination, and we want to cover our land with happy homes. A thing is worth sometimes the thought that is in it, sometimes the genius. Here is a man buys a little piece of linen for twenty-five cents, he buys a few paints for fifteen cents, and a few brushes, and he paints a picture; just a little one; a picture, maybe, of a cottage with a dear old woman, white hair, serene forehead and satisfied eyes; at the corner a few hollyhocks in bloom—may be a tree in blossom, and as you listen you seem to hear the songs of birds—the hum of bees, and your childhood all comes back to you as you look. You feel the dewy grass beneath your bare feet once again, and you go back in your mind until the dear old woman on the porch is once more young and fair. There is a soul there. Genius has done its work. And the little picture is worth five, ten, may be fifty thousand dollars. All the result of labor and genius.

And another thing we want is to produce great men and great women here in our own country; then again we want business. Talk about charity, talk about the few dollars that fall unconsciously from the hand of wealth, talk about your poorhouses and your sewing societies and your poor little efforts in the missionary line in the worst part of your town! Ah, there is no charity like business. Business gives work to labor's countless hands; business wipes the tears from the eyes of widows and orphans; business dimples with joy the cheek of sorrow; business puts a roof above the heads of the homeless; business covers the land with happy homes.

We do not want any populistic philanthropy. We want no fiat philosophy. We want no silver swindles. We want business. Wind and wave are our servants; let them work. Steam and electricity are our slaves; let them toil. Let all the wheels whirl; let all the shuttles fly. Fill the air with the echoes of hammer and saw. Fill the furnace with flame; the moulds with liquid iron. Let them glow.

Build homes and palaces of trade. Plow the fields, reap the waving grain. Create all things that man can use. Business will feed the hungry, clothe the naked, educate the ignorant, enrich the world with art—fill the air with song. Give us Protection and Prosperity. Do not cheat us with free trade dreams. Do not deceive us with debased coin. Give us good money—the life blood of business—and let it flow through the veins and arteries of commerce.

And let me tell you to-night the smoke arising from the factories' great plants forms the only cloud on which has ever been seen the glittering bow of American promise. We want work, and I tell you to-night that my sympathies are with the men who work, with the women who weep. I know that labor is the Atlas on whose shoulders rests the great superstructure of civilization and the great dome of science adorned with all there is of art. Labor is the great oak, labor is the great column, and labor, with its deft and cunning hands, has created the countless things of art and beauty. I want to see labor paid. I want to see capital civilized until it will be willing to give labor its share, and I want labor intelligent enough to settle all these questions in the high court of reason. And let me tell the workingman to-night: You will never help your self by destroying your employer. You have work to sell. Somebody has to buy it, if it is bought, and somebody has to buy it that has the money. Who is going to manufacture something that will not sell. Nobody is going into the manufacturing business through philanthropy, and unless your employer makes a profit, the mill will be shut down and you will be out of work. The interest of the employer and the employed should be one. Whenever the employers of the continent are successful, then the workingman is better paid, and you know it. I have some hope in the future for the workingman. I know what it is to work.

I do not think my natural disposition runs in that direction, but I know what it is to work, and I have worked with all my might at one dollar and a half a week. I did the work of a man for fifty cents a day, and I was not sorry for it. In the horizon of my future burned and gleamed the perpetual star of hope. I said to myself: I live in a free country, and I have a chance; I live in a free country, and I have as much liberty as any other man beneath the flag, and I have enjoyed it.

Something has been done for labor. Only a few years ago a man worked fifteen or sixteen hours a day, but the hours have been reduced to at least ten and are on the way to still further reduction. And while the hours have been decreased the wages have as certainly been increased. In forty years—in less—the wages of American workingmen have doubled. A little while ago you received an average of two hundred and eighty-five dollars a year; now you receive an average of more than four hundred and ninety dollars; there is the difference. So it seems to me that the star of hope is still in the sky for every workingman. Then there is another thing: every workingman in this country can take his little boy on his knee and say, "John, all the avenues to distinction, wealth, and glory are open to you. There is the free school; take your chances with the rest." And it seems to me that that thought ought to sweeten every drop of sweat that trickles down the honest brow of toil.

So let us have protection! How much? Enough, so that our income at least will equal our outgo. That is a good way to keep house. I am tired of depression and deficit. I do not like to see a President pawning bonds to raise money to pay his own salary. I do not like to see the great Republic at the mercy of anybody, so let us stand by protection.

There is another trouble. The gentleman now running for the presidency—a tireless talker—oh, if he had a brain equal to his vocal chords, what a man! And yet when I read his speeches it seems to me as though he stood on his head and thought with his feet. This man is endeavoring to excite class against class, to excite the poor against the rich. Let me tell you something. We have no classes in the United States. There are no permanent classes here. The millionaire may be a mendicant, the mendicant may be a millionaire. The man now working for the millionaire may employ that millionaire's sons to work for him. There is a chance for us all. Sometimes a numskull is born in the mansion, and a genius rises from the gutter. Old Mother Nature has a queer way of taking care of her children. You cannot tell. You cannot tell. Here we have a free open field of competition, and if a man passes me in the race I say: "Good luck. Get ahead of me if you can, you are welcome."

And why should I hate the rich? Why should I make my heart a den of writhing, hissing snakes of envy? Get rich. I do not care. I am glad I live in a country where somebody can get rich. It is a spur in the flank of ambition. Let them get rich. I have known good men that were quite rich, and I have known some mean men who were in straitened circumstances. So I have known as good men as ever breathed the air, who were poor. We must respect the man; what is inside, not what is outside.

That is why I like this country. That is why I do not want it dishonored. I want no class feeling. The citizens of America should be friends. Where capital is just and labor intelligent, happiness dwells. Fortunate that country where the rich are extravagant and the poor economical. Miserable that country where the rich are economical and the poor are extravagant. A rich spendthrift is a blessing. A rich miser is a curse. Extravagance is a splendid form of charity. Let the rich spend, let them build, let them give work to their fellow-men, and I will find no fault with their wealth, provided they obtained it honestly.

There was an old fellow by the name of Socrates. He happened to be civilized, living in a barbarous time, and he was tried for his life. And in his speech in which he defended himself is a paragraph that ought to remain in the memory of the human race forever.

He said to those judges, "During my life I have not sought ambition, wealth. I have not sought to adorn my body, but I have endeavored to adorn my soul with the jewels of patience and justice, and above all, with the love of liberty." Such a man rises above all wealth.

Why should we envy the rich? Why envy a man who has no earthly needs? Why envy a man that carries a hundred canes? Why envy a man who has that which he cannot use? I know a great many rich men and I have read about a great many others, and I do not envy them. They are no happier than I am. You see, after all, few rich men own their property. The property owns them. It gets them up early in the morning. It will not let them sleep; it makes them suspect their friends. Sometimes they think their children would like to attend a first-class funeral. Why should we envy the rich? They have fear; we have hope. They are on the top of the ladder; we are close to the ground. They are afraid of falling, and we hope to rise.