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 believe in American labor, and I will tell you why. The other day a
man told me that we had produced in the United States of America one
million tons of steel rails. How much are they worth? Sixty dollars a
ton. In other words, the million tons are worth sixty million dollars.
How much is a ton of iron worth in the ground? Twenty-five cents.
American labor takes twenty-five cents worth of iron in the ground and
adds to it fifty-nine dollars and seventy-five cents. One million tons
of rails, and the raw material not worth twenty-four thousand dollars!
We build a ship in the United States worth five hundred thousand
dollars, and the value of the ore in the earth, of the trees in the
great forest, of all that enters into the composition of that ship
bringing five hundred thousand dollars in gold is only twenty thousand
dollars; four hundred and eighty thousand dollars by American labor,
American muscle, coined into gold; American brains made a legal tender
the world round.
I propose to stand by the Nation. I want the furnaces kept hot. I want
the sky to be filled with the smoke of American industry, and upon that
cloud of smoke will rest forever the bow of perpetual promise. That is
what I am for. Where did this doctrine of a tariff for revenue only come
from? From the South. The South would like to stab the prosperity of the
North. They would rather trade with Old England than with New England.
They would rather trade with the people who were willing to help them in
war than with those who conquered the Rebellion. They knew what gave us
our strength in war. They knew that all the brooks and creeks and rivers
of New England were putting down the Rebellion. They knew that every
wheel that turned, every spindle that revolved, was a soldier in the
army of human progress. It won't do! They were so lured by the greed of
office that they were willing to trade upon the misfortunes of a Nation.
It won't do! I do not wish to belong to a party that succeeds only when
my country fails. I do not wish to belong to a party whose banner went
up with the banner of rebellion. I do not wish to belong to a party that
was in partnership with defeat and disaster. I do not. And there is not
a Democrat here who does not know that a failure of the crops this year
would have helped his party. You know that an early frost would have
been a godsend to them. You know that the potato-bug could have done
them more good than all their speakers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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