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
I am next in favor of honest money. I am in favor of gold and silver,
and paper with gold and silver behind it. I believe in silver, because
it is one of the greatest of American products, and I am in favor of
anything that will add to the value of an American product. But I want
a silver dollar worth a gold dollar, even if you make it or have to make
it four feet in diameter. No government can afford to be a clipper of
coin. A great Republic cannot afford to stamp a lie upon silver or gold.
Honest money, an honest people, an honest Nation. When our money is only
worth eighty cents on the dollar, we feel twenty per cent, below par.
When our money is good we feel good. When our money is at par, that is
where we are. I am a profound believer in the doctrine that for nations
as well as men, honesty is the best policy, always, everywhere, and
forever.
What section of this country, what party, will give us honest
money--honor bright--honor bright? I have been told that during the war,
we had plenty of money. I never saw it. I lived years without seeing a
dollar. I saw promises for dollars, but not dollars. And the greenback,
unless you have the gold behind it, is no more a dollar than a bill
of fare is a dinner. You cannot make a paper dollar without taking a
dollar's worth of paper. We must have paper that represents money. I
want it issued by the Government, and I want behind every one of these
dollars either a gold or silver dollar, so that every greenback under
the flag can lift up its hand and swear, "I know that my redeemer
liveth."
When we were running into debt, thousands of people mistook that for
prosperity, and when we began paying they regarded it as adversity. Of
course we had plenty when we bought on credit. No man has ever starved
when his credit was good, if there were no famine in that country. As
long as we buy on credit we shall have enough. The trouble commences
when the pay-day arrives. And I do not wonder that after the war
thousands of people said, "Let us have another inflation." Which party
said, "No, we must pay the promise made in war"? Honor bright! The
Democratic party had once been a hard money party, but it drifted from
its metallic moorings and floated off in the ocean of inflation, and you
know it. They said, "Give us more money;" and every man that had bought
on credit and owed a little something on what he had purchased, when the
property went down commenced crying, or many of them did, for inflation.
I understand it.
A man, say, bought a piece of land for six thousand dollars; paid five
thousand dollars on it; gave a mortgage for one thousand dollars, and
suddenly, in 1873, found that the land would not pay the other thousand.
The land had resumed, and then he said, looking lugubriously at his note
and mortgage, "I want another inflation." And I never heard a man call
for it that did not also say, "If it ever comes, and I don't unload, you
may shoot me."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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