The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents / Dresden Edition—Twelve Volumes

by Robert Green Ingersoll

During the same four years we have arrested and have indicted seven thousand and eighty-four Southern Democrats for endeavoring to defraud the revenue of the United States. Recollect—three thousand eight hundred and seventy-four distilleries seized. Twenty-five revenue officers killed, fifty-five wounded, and seven thousand and eighty-four Democrats arrested. Can we trust them?

The State of Alabama in its last Democratic convention passed a resolution that no man should be tried in a Federal Court for a violation of the revenue laws—that he should be tried in a State Court. Think of it—he should be tried in a State Court! Let me tell you how it will come out if we trust the Southern States to collect this revenue. A couple of Methodist ministers had been holding a revival for a week, and at the end of the week one said to the other that he thought it time to take up a collection. When the hat was returned he found in it pieces of slate-pencils and nails and buttons, but not a single solitary cent—not one—and his brother minister got up and looked at the contribution, and said, "Let us thank God!" And the owner of the hat said, "What for?" And the brother replied, "Because you got your hat back." If we trust the South we shan't get our hats back.

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."

It was very much as it is sometimes in playing poker, and I make this comparison knowing that hardly a person here will understand it. I have been told that along toward morning the man that is ahead suddenly says, "I have got to go home. The fact is, my wife is not well." And the fellow who is behind says, "Let us have another deal; I have my opinion of the fellow that will jump a game." And so it was in the hard times of 1873. They said: "Give us another deal; let us get our driftwood back into the centre of the stream." And they cried out for more money. But the Republican party said: "We do want more money, but not more promises. We have got to pay this first, and if we start out again upon that wide sea of promise we may never touch the shore." A thousand theories were born of want; a thousand theories were born of the fertile brain of trouble; and these people said, "After all, what is money? Why, it is nothing but a measure of value, just the same as a half bushel or yardstick." True; and consequently it makes no difference whether your half bushel is of wood or gold or silver or paper; and it makes no difference whether your yardstick is gold or paper. But the trouble about that statement is this: A half bushel is not a measure of value; it is a measure of quantity, and it measures rubies, diamonds and pearls precisely the same as corn and wheat. The yardstick is not a measure of value; it is a measure of length, and it measures lace worth one hundred dollars a yard precisely as it does cent tape. And another reason why it makes no difference to the purchaser whether the half bushel is gold or silver, or whether the yardstick is gold or paper, you do not buy the yardstick; you do not get the half bushel in the trade. And if it were so with money—if the people that had the money at the start of the trade, kept it after the consummation of the bargain—then it would not make any difference what you made your money of. But the trouble is the money changes hands. And let me say to-night, money is a thing—it is a product of nature—and you can no more make a "fiat" dollar than you can make a fiat star. I am in favor of honest money. Free speech is the brain of the Republic; an honest ballot is the breath of its life, and honest money is the blood that courses through its veins.

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."