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
And I will tell you why I am for protection, too. If we were all farmers
we would be stupid. If we were all shoemakers we would be stupid. If
we all followed one business, no matter what it was, we would become
stupid. Protection to American labor diversifies American industry,
and to have it diversified touches and develops every part of the human
brain. Protection protects ingenuity; it protects intelligence; and
protection raises sense; and by protection we have greater men, better
looking women and healthier children. Free trade means that our laborer
is upon an equality with the poorest paid labor of this world. And allow
me to tell you that for an empty stomach, "Hurrah for Hancock!" is a
poor consolation. I do not think much of a Government where the people
do not have enough to eat. I am a materialist to that extent; I want
something to eat. I have been in countries where the laboring man had
meat once a year; sometimes twice--Christmas and Easter. And I have seen
women carrying upon their heads a burden that no man in this audience
could carry, and at the same time knitting busily with both hands,
and those women lived without meat; and when I thought of the American
laborer, I said to myself, "After all, my country is the best in the
world." And when I came back to the sea and saw the old flag flying, it
seemed to me as though the air from pure joy had burst into blossom.
Labor has more to eat and more to wear in the United States than in
any other land of this earth. I want America to produce everything that
Americans need. I want it so that if the whole world should declare war
against us, if we were surrounded by walls of cannon and bayonets and
swords, we could supply all our material wants in and of ourselves. I
want to live to see the American woman dressed in American silk; the
American man in everything, from hat to boots, produced in America by
the cunning hand of American toil. I want to see the workingman have
a good house, painted white, grass in the front yard, carpets on the
floor, pictures on the wall. I want to see him a man, feeling that he is
a king by the divine right of living in the Republic. And every man here
is just a little bit a king, you know. Every man here is a part of the
sovereign power. Every man wears a little of purple; every man has a
little of crown and a little of sceptre; and every man that will sell
his vote for money or be ruled by prejudice is unfit to be an American
citizen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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