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
The Government cannot by law create wealth. And right here I wish to
ask one question, and I would like to have it answered some time. If
the Government can make money, if it can create money, if by putting
its sovereignty upon a piece of paper it can create absolute money, why
should the Government collect taxes? We have in every district
assessors and collectors; we have at every port customhouses, and we are
collecting taxes day and night for the support of this Government. Now,
if the Government can make money itself, why should it collect taxes
from the poor? Here is a man cultivating a farm--he is working among the
stones and roots, and digging day and night; why should the Government
go to that man and make him pay twenty or thirty or forty dollars taxes
when the Government, according to the theory of these gentlemen, could
make a thousand-dollar fiat bill quicker than that man could wink? Why
impose upon industry in that manner? Why should the sun borrow a candle?
And if the Government can create money, how much should it create, and
if it should create it who will get it? Money has a great liking for
money. A single dollar in the pocket of a poor man is lonesome; it never
is satisfied until it has found its companions. Money gravitates towards
money, and issue as much as you may, as much as you will, the time will
come when that money will be in the hands of the industrious, in the
hands of the economical, in the hands of the shrewd, in the hands of the
cunning; in other words, in the hands of the successful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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