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
The next reason is that whoever raises raw material and sells it will be
eternally poor. There is no State in this Union where the farmer raises
wheat and sells it, that the farmer is not poor. Why? He only makes one
profit, and, as a rule, that is a loss. The farmer that raises corn does
better, because he can sell, not corn, but pork and beef and horses. In
other words, he can make the second or third profit, and those farmers
get rich. There is a vast difference between the labor necessary to
raise raw material and the labor necessary to make the fabrics used
by civilized men. Remember that; and if you are confined simply to raw
material your labor will be unskilled; unskilled labor will be cheap,
the raw material will be cheap, and the result is that your country will
grow poorer and poorer, while the country that buys your raw material,
makes it into fabrics and sells it back to you, will grow intelligent
and rich. I want you to remember this, because it lies at the foundation
of this whole subject. Most people who talk on this point bring forward
column after column of figures, and a man to understand it would have to
be a walking table of logarithms. I do not care to discuss it that
way. I want to get at the foundation principles, so that you can give a
reason, as well as myself, why you are in favor of protection.
Let us take another step. We will take a locomotive--a wonderful
thing--that horse of progress, with its flesh of iron and steel and
breath of flame--a wonderful thing. Let us see how it is made. Did you
ever think of the deft and cunning hands, of the wonderfully accurate
brains, that can make a thing like that? Did you ever think about it?
How much do you suppose the raw material lying in the earth was worth
that was changed into that locomotive? A locomotive that is worth, we
will say, twelve thousand dollars; how much was the raw material worth
lying in the earth, deposited there millions of years ago? Not as much
as one dollar. Let us, just for the sake of argument, say five dollars.
What, then, has labor added to the twelve thousand dollar locomotive?
Eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety-five dollars. Now, why? Because,
just to the extent that thought is mingled with labor, wages increase;
just to the extent you mix mind with muscle, you give value to labor;
just to the extent that the labor is skilled, deft, apt, just to that
extent or in that proportion, is the product valuable. Think about it.
Raw material! There is a piece of canvas five feet one way, three the
other. Raw material would be to get a man to whitewash it; that is raw
material. Let a man of genius paint a picture upon it; let him put in
that picture the emotions of his heart, the landscapes that have made
poetry in his brain, the recollection of the ones he loves, the prattle
of children, a mother's tear, the sunshine of her smile, and all the
sweet and sacred memories of his life, and it is worth five thousand
dollars--ten thousand dollars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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