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

by Robert Green Ingersoll

The next thing in this platform is protection for American labor.

I am going to tell you in a very brief way why I am in favor of protection. First, I want this Republic substantially independent of the rest of the world. You must remember that while people are civilized—some of them—so that when they have a quarrel they leave it to the courts to decide, nations still occupy the position of savages toward each other. There is no national court to decide a question, consequently the question is decided by the nations themselves, and you know what selfishness and greed and power and the ideas of false glory will do and have done. So that this Nation is not safe one moment from war. I want the Republic so that it can live although at war with all the world.

We have every kind of climate that is worth having. Our country embraces the marriage of the pine and palm; we have all there is of worth; it is the finest soil in the world and the most ingenious people that ever contrived to make the forces of nature do their work. I want this Nation substantially independent, so that if every port were blockaded we would be covered with prosperity as with a mantle. Then, too, the Nation that cannot take care of itself in war is always at a disadvantage in peace. That is one reason. Let me give you the next.

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.

Noise is raw material, but the great opera of "Tristan and Isolde" is the result of skilled labor. There is the same difference between simple brute strength and skilled labor that there is between noise and the symphonies of Beethoven. I want you to get this in your minds.

Now, then, whoever sells raw material gives away the great profit. You raise cotton and sell it; and just as long as the South does it and does nothing more the South will be poor, the South will be ignorant, and it will be solidly Democratic.

Now, do not imagine that I am saying anything against the Democratic party. I believe the Democratic party is doing the best it can under the circumstances. You know my philosophy makes me very charitable. You find out all about a man, all about his ancestors, and you can account for his vote always. Why? Because there are causes and effects in nature. There are sometimes antecedents and subsequents that have no relation to each other, but at the same time, all through the web and woof of events, you find these causes and effects, and if you only look far enough, you will know why a man does as he does.

I have nothing to say against the Democratic party. I want to talk against ideas, not against people. I do not care anything about their candidates, whether they are good, bad or indifferent. What, gentlemen, are your ideas? What do you propose to do? What is your policy? That is what I want to know, and I am willing to meet them upon the field of intellectual combat. They are in possession; they are in the rifle pits of office; we are in the open field, but we will plant our standard, the flag that we love, without a stain, and under that banner, upon which so many dying men have looked in the last hour when they thought of home and country—under that flag we will carry the Democratic fortifications.

Another thing; we want to get at this business so that we will understand what we are doing. I do not believe in protecting American industry for the sake of the capitalist, or for the sake of any class, but for the sake of the whole Nation. And if I did not believe that it was for the best interests of the whole Nation I should be opposed to it.