The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 09 (of 12): Dresden Edition—PoliticalIngersoll, Robert Green
History
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 09 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Political
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
LADIES and Gentlemen:--The lovers of the human race, the
philanthropists, the dreamers of grand dreams, all predicted and all
believed that when man should have the right to govern himself, when
every human being should be equal before the law, pauperism, crime, and
want would exist only in the history of the past. They accounted
for misery in their time by the rapacity of kings and the cruelty of
priests. Here, in the United States, man at last is free. Here, man
makes the laws, and all have an equal voice. The rich cannot oppress the
poor, because the poor are in a majority. The laboring men, those who
in some way work for their living, can elect every Congressman and every
judge; they can make and interpret the laws, and if labor is oppressed
in the United States by capital, labor has simply itself to blame.
The cry is now raised that capital in some mysterious way oppresses
industry; that the capitalist is the enemy of the man who labors. What
is a capitalist? Every man who has good health; every man with good
sense; every one who has had his dinner, and has enough left for supper,
is, to that extent, a capitalist. Every man with a good character, who
has the credit to borrow a dollar or to buy a meal, is a capitalist; and
nine out of ten of the great capitalists in the United States are simply
successful workingmen. There is no conflict, and can be no conflict, in
the United States between capital and labor; and the men who endeavor
to excite the envy of the unfortunate and the malice of the poor are the
enemies of law and order.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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