The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 09 (of 12): Dresden Edition—PoliticalIngersoll, Robert Green
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The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 09 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Political
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
If I am fortunate enough to leave a dollar when I die, I want it to be
a good one. I do not wish to have it turn to ashes in the hands of
widowhood, or become a Democratic broken promise in the pocket of the
orphan; I want it money. I want money that will outlive the Democratic
party. They told us--and they were honest about it--they said, "When
we have plenty of money, we are prosperous." And I said, "When we are
prosperous, we have plenty of money." When we are prosperous, then we
have credit, and credit inflates the currency. Whenever a man buys a
pound of sugar and says, "Charge it," he inflates the currency; whenever
he gives his note, he inflates the currency; whenever his word takes the
place of money, he inflates the currency. The consequence is that when
we are prosperous, credit takes the place of money, and we have what we
call "plenty."
But you cannot increase prosperity simply by using promises to pay.
Suppose you should come to a river that was about dry, so dry that the
turtle had to help the catfish over the shoals, and there you would see
the ferryboat, and the gentleman who kept the ferry, up on the sand,
high and dry, and the cracks all opening in the sun, filled with
loose oakum, looking like an average Democratic mouth listening to a
constitutional argument, and you should say to him, "How is business?"
And he would say, "Dull." And then you would say to him, "Now, what you
want is more boat." He would probably answer, "If I had a little more
water I could get along with this one."
Suppose I next came to a man running a railroad, complaining of hard
times. "Why," said he, "I did a million dollars' worth of business the
first year and used five hundred thousand dollars' worth of grease. The
second year I did five hundred thousand dollars' worth of business and
used four hundred thousand dollars' worth of grease." "Well," said
I, "the reason your road fell off was because you did not use enough
grease."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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