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

It is not true that "one of the unwritten mottoes of our business morals seem to say in the plainest phraseology possible: 'Successful wrong is right.'" Men in this country are not esteemed simply because they are rich; inquiries are made as to how they made their money, as to how they use it. The American people do not fall upon their knees before the golden calf; the worst that can be said is that they think too much of the gold of the calf—and this distinction is seen by the calves themselves.

There is one thing in the article "Brutality and Avarice Triumphant" that seems even more objectionable than the rest, and that is the statement, or, rather, the insinuation, that all the crimes and the shortcomings of the American people can be accounted for by the fact that our Government is a Republic. We are told that not long ago a French official complained to a friend that he was compelled to employ twenty clerks to do the work done by four under the empire, and on being asked the reason answered: "It is the Republic." He was told that, as he was the head of the bureau, he could prevent the abuse, to which he replied: "I know I have the power; but I have been in this position for more than thirty years, and am now too old to learn another occupation, and I must make places for the friends of the deputies." And then it is added by General Hawkins: "And so it is here."

It seems to me that it cannot be fairly urged that we have abused the Indians because we contend that all men have equal rights before the law, or because we insist that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. The probability is that a careful reading of the history of the world will show that nations under the control of kings and emperors have been guilty of some cruelty. To account for the bad we do by the good we believe, is hardly logical. Our virtues should not be made responsible for our vices.

Is it possible that free institutions tend to the demoralization of men? Is a man dishonest because he is a man and maintains the rights of men? In order to be a moral nation must we be controlled by king or emperor? Is human liberty a mistake? Is it possible that a citizen of the great Republic attacks the liberty of his fellow-citizens? Is he willing to abdicate? Is he willing to admit that his rights are not equal to the rights of others? Is he, for the sake of what he calls morality, willing to become a serf, a servant or a slave?

Is it possible that "high character is impracticable" in this Republic? Is this the experience of the author of "Brutality and Avarice Triumphant"? Is it true that "intellectual achievement pays no dividends"? Is it not a fact that America is to-day the best market in the world for books, for music, and for art?

There is in our country no real foundation for these wide and sweeping slanders. This, in my judgment, is the best Government, the best country, in the world. The citizens of this Republic are, on the average, better clothed and fed and educated than any other people. They are fuller of life, more progressive, quicker to take advantage of the forces of nature, than any other of the children of men. Here the burdens of government are lightest, the responsibilities of the individual greatest, and here, in my judgment, are to be worked out the most important problems of social science.

Here you will find democracy in the family—republicanism by the fireside. Say what you will, the family is apt to be patterned after the government. If a king is at the head of the nation, the husband imagines himself the monarch of the home. In this country we have carried into the family the idea on which the Government is based. Here husbands and wives are beginning to be equals.