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
New avenues must be opened. All our territory must be given to
immigration. Greater facilities must be offered. Obstacles that cannot
be overcome by individual enterprise must be conquered by the Government
for the good of all. Every man out of employment is impoverishing the
country. Labor transmutes muscle into wealth. Idleness is a rust that
devours even gold. For five years we have been wasting the labor of
millions--wasting it for lack of something to do. Prosperity has been
changed to want and discontent. On every hand the poor are asking for
work. That is a wretched government where the honest and industrious
beg, unsuccessfully, for the right to toil; where those who are willing,
anxious, and able to work, cannot get bread. If everything is to be left
to the blind and heartless working of the laws of supply and demand, why
have governments? If the nation leaves the poor to starve, and the weak
and unfortunate to perish, it is hard to see for what purpose the nation
should be preserved. If our statesmen are not wise enough to foster
great enterprises, and to adopt a policy that will give us prosperity,
it may be that the laboring classes, driven to frenzy by hunger, the
bitterness of which will be increased by seeing others in the midst of
plenty, will seek a remedy in destruction.
The transcontinental commerce of this country should not be in the
clutch and grasp of one corporation. All sections of the Union should,
as far as possible, be benefited. Cheap rates will come, and can be
maintained only by competition. We should cultivate commercial relations
with China and Japan. Six hundred millions of people are slowly awaking
from a lethargy of six thousand years. In a little while they will have
the wants of civilized men, and America will furnish a large proportion
of the articles demanded by these people. In a few years there will be
as many ships upon the Pacific as upon the Atlantic. In a few years our
trade with China will be far greater than with Europe. In a few years
we will sustain the same relation to the far East that Europe once
sustained to us. America for centuries to come will supply six hundred
millions of people with the luxuries of life. A country that expects to
control the trade of other countries must develop its own resources to
the utmost. We have pursued a small, a mean, and a penurious course.
Demagogues have ridden into office and power upon the cry of economy,
by opposing every measure looking to the improvement of the country, by
endeavoring to see how cheaply nothing could be done. A government, like
an individual, should live up to its privileges; it should husband its
resources, simply that it may use them. A nation that expects to control
the commerce of half a world must have its money equal with gold and
silver. It must have the money of the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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