The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 04 (of 12): Dresden Edition—LecturesIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 04 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Lectures
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
But the laborer does not own the machine; the machine owns him. That is
the trouble. In the olden time, when I was a boy, even, you know how it
was in the little towns. There was a shoemaker--two of them--a tailor
or two, a blacksmith, a wheelwright. I remember just how the shops used
to look. I used to go to the blacksmith shop at night, get up on the
forge, and hear them talk about turning horse-shoes. Many a night have
I seen the sparks fly and heard the stories that were told. There was a
great deal of human nature in those days! Everybody was known. If times
got hard, the poor little shoemakers made a living mending, half-soling,
straightening up the heels. The same with the blacksmith; the same with
the tailor. They could get credit--they did not have to pay till the
next January, and if they could not pay then, they took another year,
and they were happy enough. Now one man is not a shoemaker. There is a
great building--several hundred thousand dollars' worth of machinery,
three or four thousand people--not a single mechanic in the whole
building. One sews on straps, another greases the machines, cuts out
soles, waxes threads. And what is the result? When the machines stop,
three thousand men are out of employment. Credit goes. Then come want
and famine, and if they happen to have a little child die, it would
take them years to save enough of their earnings to pay the expense
of putting away that little sacred piece of flesh. And yet, by this
machinery we can produce enough to flood the world. By the inventions
in agricultural machinery the United States can feed all the mouths upon
the earth. There is not a thing that man uses that can not instantly be
over-produced to such an extent as to become almost worthless; and
yet, with all this production, with all this power to create, there are
millions and millions in abject want. Granaries bursting, and famine
looking into the doors of the poor! Millions of everything, and yet
millions wanting everything and having substantially nothing!
Now, there is something wrong there. We have got into that contest
between machines-and men, and if extravagance does not keep pace with
ingenuity, it is going to be the most terrible question that man has
ever settled. I tell you, to-night, that these things are worth thinking
about. Nothing that touches the future of our race, nothing that touches
the happiness of ourselves or our children, should be beneath our
notice. We should think of these things--must think of them--and we
should endeavor to see that justice is finally done between man and man.
My sympathies are with the poor. My sympathies are with the workingmen
of the United States. Understand me distinctly. I am not an Anarchist.
Anarchy is the reaction from tyranny. I am not a Socialist. I am not
a Communist. I am an Individualist. I do not believe in tyranny of
government, but I do believe in justice as between man and man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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