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THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.
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Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
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THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: This is our country. The legally
expressed will of the majority is the supreme law of the land. We
are responsible for what our Government does. We cannot excuse
ourselves because of the act of some king, or the opinions of
nobles. We are the kings. We. are the nobles. We are the
aristocracy of America, and when our Government does right we are
honored, and when our Government does wrong the brand of shame is
on the American brow.
Again we are on the field of battle, where thought contends
with thought, the field of battle where facts are bullets and
arguments are swords.
To-day there is in the United States a vast congress
consisting of the people, and in that congress every man has a
voice, and it is the duty of every man to inquire into all
questions presented, to the end that he may vote as a man and as a
patriot should.
No American should be dominated by prejudice. No man standing
under our flag should follow after the fife and drum of a party. He
should say to himself: "I am a free man, and I will discharge the
obligations of an American citizen with all the intelligence I
possess."
I love this country because the people are free; and if they
are not free it is their own fault.
To-night I am not going to appeal to your prejudices, if you
have any. I am going to talk to the sense that you have. I am going
to address myself to your brain and to your heart. I want nothing
of you except that you will preserve the institutions of the
Republic; that you will maintain her honor unstained. That is all
I ask.
I admit that all the parties who disagree with me are honest.
Large masses of mankind are always honest, the leader not always,
but the mass of people do what they believe to be right.
Consequently there is no argument in abuse, nothing calculated to
convince in calumny. To be kind, to be candid, is far nobler, far
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better, and far more American. We live in a Democracy, and we admit
that every other human being has the same right to think, the same
right to express his thought, the same right to vote that we have,
and I want every one who hears me to vote in exact accord with his
sense, to cast his vote in accordance with his conscience. I want
every one to do the best he can for the great Republic, and no
matter how he votes, if he is honest, I shall find no fault.
But the great thing is to understand what you are going to do;
the great thing is to use the little sense that we have. In most of
us the capital is small, and it ought to be turned often. We ought
to pay attention, we ought to listen to what is said and then
think, think for ourselves.
Several questions have been presented to the American people
for their solution, and I propose to speak a little about those
questions, and I do not want you to pretend to agree with me. I
want no applause unless you honestly believe I am right.
Three great questions are presented: First, as to money;
second, as to the tariff, and third, whether this Government has
the right of self-defence. Whether this is a Government of law, or
whether there shall be an appeal from the Supreme Court to a mob.
These are the three questions to be answered next Tuesday by the
American people.
First, let us take up this money question. Thousands and
thousands of speeches have been made on the subject. Pamphlets
thick as the leaves of autumn have been scattered from one end of
the Republic to the other, all about money, as if it were an
exceedingly metaphysical question, as though there were something
magical about it.
What is money? Money is a product of nature. Money is a part
of nature. Money is something that man cannot create. All the
legislatures and congresses of the world cannot by any possibility
create one dollar, any more than they could suspend the attraction
of gravitation or hurl a new constellation into the concave sky.
Money is not made. It has to be found. It is dug from the crevices
of rocks, washed from the sands of streams, from the gravel of
ancient valleys; but it is not made. It cannot be created. Money is
something that does not have to be redeemed. Money is the redeemer.
And yet we have a man running for the presidency on three platforms
with two Vice-Presidents, who says that money is the creature of
law. It may be that law sometimes is the creature of money, but
money was never the creature of law.
A nation can no more create money by law than it can create
corn and wheat and barley by law, and the promise to pay money is
no nearer money than a warehouse receipt is grain, or a bill of
fare is a dinner. If you can make money by law, why should any
nation be poor?
The supply of law is practically unlimited. Suppose one
hundred people should settle on an island, form a government, elect
a legislature. They would have the power to make law, and if law
can make money, if money is the creature of law, why should not
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those hundred people on the island be as wealthy as Great Britain?
What is to hinder? And yet we are told that money is the creature
of law. In the financial world that is as absurd as perpetual
motion in mechanics; it is as absurd as the fountain of eternal
youth, the philosopher's stone, or the transmutation of metals.
What is a dollar? People imagine that a piece of paper with
pictures on it, with signatures, is money. The greenback is not
money -- never was; never will be. It is a promise to pay money;
not money. The note of the nation is no nearer money than the note
of an individual. A bank note is not money. It is a promise to pay
money; that is all.
Well, what is a dollar? In the civilized world it is twenty-
three grains and twenty-two one hundredths of pure gold. That is a
dollar. Well, cannot we make dollars out of silver? Yes, I admit
it, but in order to make a silver dollar you have got to put a
dollar's worth of silver in the silver dollar, and you have to put
as much silver in it as you can buy for twenty-three grains and
twenty-two one-hundredths of a grain of pure gold. It takes a
dollar's worth of silver to make a dollar. It takes a dollar's
worth of paper to make a paper dollar. It takes a dollar's worth of
iron to make an iron dollar: and there is no way of making a dollar
without the value.
And let me tell you another thing. You do not add to the value
of gold by coining it any more than you add to the value of wheat
by measuring it; any more than you add to the value of coal by
weighing it. Why do you coin gold ? Because every man cannot take
a chemist's outfit with him. He cannot carry a crucible and retort,
scales and acids, and so the Government coins it, simply to certify
how much gold there is in the piece.
Ah, but, says this same gentleman, what gives oar money -- our
silver -- its value? It is because it is a legal tender, he says.
Nonsense; nonsense. Gold was not given value by being made a legal
tender, but being valuable it was made a legal tender. And gold
gets no value today from being a legal-tender. I not only say that,
but I will prove it; and I will not only prove it, but I will
demonstrate it. Take a twenty dollar gold piece, hammer it out of
shape, mar the Goddess of Liberty, pound out the United States of
America and batter the eagle, and after you get it pounded how much
is it worth?
It is worth exactly twenty dollars. Is it a legal tender? No.
Has its value been changed? No. Take a silver dollar. It is a legal
tender; now pound it into a cube, and how much is it worth ? A
little less than fifty cents. What gives it the value of a dollar?
The fact that it is a legal tender? No: but the promise of the
Government to keep it on an equality with gold. I will not only say
this, but I will demonstrate it. I do not ask you to take my word;
just use the sense you have.
The Mexican silver dollar has a little more silver in it than
one of our dollars, and the Mexican silver dollar is a legal tender
in Mexico. If there is any magic about legal tender it ought to
work as well in Mexico as in the United States. I take an American
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silver dollar and I go to Mexico. I buy a dinner for a dollar and
I give to the Mexican the American dollar and he gives me a Mexican
dollar in change. Yet both of the dollars are legal tender. Why is
it that the Mexican dollar is worth only fifty cents? Because the
Mexican Government has not agreed to keep it equal with gold; that
is all, that is all.
We want the money of the civilized world, and I will tell you
now that in the procession of nations every silver nation lags
behind -- every one. There is not a silver nation on the globe
where decent wages are paid for human labor -- not one. The
American laborer gets ten times as much here in gold as a laborer
gets in China in silver, twenty times as much as a laborer does in
India, four times as much as a laborer gets in Russia; and yet we
are told that the man who will "follow England" with the gold
standard lacks patriotism and manhood. What then shall we say of
the man that follows China, that follows India in the silver
standard?
Does that require patriotism?
It certainly requires self-denial.
And yet these gentlemen say that our money is too good. They
might as well say the air is too pure; they might as well say the
soil is too rich. How can money be too good? Mr. Bryan says that it
is so good, people hoard it; and let me tell him they always will.
Mr. Bryan wants money so poor that everybody will be anxious to
spend it. He wants money so poor that the rich will not have it.
Then he thinks the poor can get it. We are willing to toil for good
money. Good money means the comforts and luxuries of life. Real
money is always good. Paper promises and silver substitutes may be
poor; words and pictures may be cheap and may fade to worthlessness
-- but gold shines on.
In Chicago, many years ago, there was an old colored man at
the Grand Pacific. I met him one morning, and he looked very sad,
and I said to him, "Uncle, what is the matter?" "Well," he said, my
wife ran away last night. Pretty good looking woman; a good deal
younger than I am; but she has run off." And he says: "Colonel, I
want to give you my idea about marriage. If a man wants to marry a
woman and have a good time, and be satisfied and secure in his
mind, he wants to marry some woman that no other man on God's earth
would have."
That is the kind of money these gentlemen want in the United
States. Cheap money. Do you know that the words cheap money are a
contradiction in terms? Cheap money is always discounted when
people find out that it is cheap. We want good money, and I do not
care how much we get. But we want good money. Men are willing to
toil for good money; willing to work in the mines; willing to work
in the heat and glare of the furnace; willing to go to the top of
the mast on the wild sea; willing to work in tenements; women are
willing to sew with their eyes filled with tears for the sake of
good money. And if anything is to be paid in good money, labor is
that thing. If any man is entitled to pure gold, it is the man who
labors. Let the big fellows take cheap money. Let the men living
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next the soil be paid in gold. But I want the money of this country
as good as that of any other country. When our money is below par
we feel below par. I want our money, no matter how it is payable,
to have the gold behind it. That is the money I want in the United
States.
I want to teach the people of the world that a Democracy is
honest. I want to teach the people of the world that America is not
only capable of self-government, but that it has the self-denial,
the courage, the honor, to pay its debts to the last farthing.
Mr. Bryan tells the farmers who are in debt that they want
cheap money. What for? To pay their debts. And he thinks that is a
compliment to the tillers of the soil. The statement is an insult
to the farmers, and the farmers of Maine and Vermont have answered
him.
And if the farmers of those States with their soil can be
honest, I think a farmer in Illinois has no excuse for being a
rascal. I regard the farmers as honest men, and when the sun shines
and the rains fall and the frosts wait, they will pay their debts.
They are good men, and I want to tell you to-night that all the
stories that have been told about farmers being Populists are not
true.
You will find the Populists in the towns, in the great cities,
in the villages. All the failures, no matter for what reason, are
on the Populist's side, They want to get rich by law. They are
tired of work.
And yet Mr. Bryan says vote for cheap money so that you can
pay your debts in fifty cent dollars. Will an honest man do it?
Suppose a man has borrowed a thousand bushels of wheat of his
neighbor, of sixty pounds to the bushel, and then Congress should
pass a law making thirty pounds of wheat a bushel. Would that
farmer pay his debt with five hundred bushels and consider himself
an honest man?
Mr. Bryan says, "Vote for cheap money to pay your debts," and
thereupon the creditor says, "What is to become of me?" Mr. Bryan
says, "We will make it one dollar and twenty-nine cents an ounce,
and make it of the ratio of sixteen to one, make it as good as
gold." And thereupon the poor debtor says, "How is that going to
help me?" And in nearly all the speeches that this man has made he
has taken the two positions, first, that we want cheap money to pay
debts, and second, that the money would be just as good as gold for
creditors.
Now, the question is: Can Congress make fifty cents' worth of
silver worth one dollar? That is the question, and if Congress can,
then I oppose the scheme on account of its extravagance. What is
the use of wasting all that silver? Think about it. If Congress can
make fifty cents' worth of silver worth a dollar by law, why can it
not make one cent's worth of silver worth a dollar by law. Let us
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save the silver and use it for forks and spoons. The supply even of
silver is limited -- the supply of law is inexhaustible. Do not
waste silver, use more law. You cannot fix values by law any more
than you can make cooler summers by shortening thermometers.
There is another trouble. If Congress, by the free coinage of
silver, can double its value, why should we allow an Englishman
with a million dollars' worth of silver bullion at the market
price, to bring it to America, have it coined free of charge, and
make it exactly double the value? Why should we put a million
dollars in his pocket? That is too generous. Why not buy the silver
from him in the open market and let the Government make the million
dollars? Nothing is more absurd; nothing is more idiotic. I admit
that Mr. Bryan is honest. I admit it. If he were not honest his
intellectual pride would not allow him to make these statements.
Well, another thing says our friend, "Gold has been cornered";
and thousands of people believe it. You have no idea of the
credulity of some folks. I say that it has not been cornered, and
I will not only prove it, I will demonstrate it. Whenever the Stock
Exchange or some of the members have a corner on stocks, that stock
goes up, and if it does not, that corner bursts. Whenever gentlemen
in Chicago get up a corner on wheat in the Produce Exchange, wheat
goes up or the corner bursts. And yet they tell me there has been
a corner in gold for all these years, yet since 1873 to the present
time the rate of interest has steadily gone down.
If there had been a corner the rate of interest would have
steadily advanced. There is a demonstration. But let me ask, for my
own information, if they corner gold what will prevent their
cornering silver? Or are you going to have it so poor that it will
not be worth cornering?
Then they say another thing, and that is that the
demonetization of silver is responsible for all the hardships we
have endured, for all the bankruptcy, for all the panics. That is
not true, and I will not only prove it, but I will demonstrate it.
The poison of demonetization entered the American veins, as they
tell us, in 1873, and has been busy in its hellish work from that
time to this; and yet, nineteen years after we were vaccinated,
1892, was the most prosperous year ever known by this Republic. All
the wheels turning, all the furnaces aflame, work at good wages,
everybody prosperous. How, Mr. Bryanite, how do you account for
that? just be honest a minute and think about it.
Then there is another thing. In 1816 Great Britain demonetized
silver, and that wretched old government has had nothing but gold
from that day to this as a standard. And to show you the frightful
results of that demonetization, that government does not own now
above one-third of the globe, and all the winds are busy floating
her flags. There is a demonstration.
Mr. Bryan tells us that free coinage will bring silver 16 to
1. What is the use of stopping there? Why not make it 1 to 1? Why
not make it equal with gold and be done with it? And why should it
stop at exactly one dollar and twenty-nine cents? I do not know. I
am not well acquainted with all the facts that enter into the
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question of value, but why should it stop at exactly one dollar and
twenty-nine cents? I do not know. And I guess if he were cross-
examined along toward the close of the trial he would admit that he
did not know.
And yet this statesman calls this silver the money of our
fathers. Well, let us see. Our fathers did some good things. In
1792 they made gold and silver the standards, and at a ratio of 15
to 1. But where you have two metals and endeavor to make a double
standard it is very hard to keep them even. They vary, and, as old
Dogberry says, "An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind."
They made the ratio 15 to 1, and who did it? Thomas Jefferson and
Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson, the greatest man, with one
exception, that ever sat in the presidential chair. With one
exception. [A voice Who was that?"] Abraham Lincoln. Alexander
Hamilton, with more executive ability than any other man that ever
stood under the flag. And how did they fix the ratio? They found
the commercial value in the market; that is how they did it. And
they went on and issued American dollars 15 to 1; and in 1806, when
Jefferson was President, the coinage was stopped. Why? There was
too much silver in the dollars, and people instead of passing them
around put them aside and sold them to the silversmiths.
Then in 1834 the ratios changed; not quite sixteen to one.
That was based again on the commercial value, and instead of
sixteen to one they went into the thousands in decimals. It was not
quite sixteen to one. They wanted to fix it absolutely on the
commercial value. Then a few more dollars were coined; and our
fathers coined of these sacred dollars up to 1873, eight millions,
and seven millions had been melted.
In 1853 the gold standard was in fact adopted, and, as I have
told you, from 1792 to 1873 only eight millions of silver had been
coined.
What have the "enemies of silver" done since that time? Under
the act of 1878 we have coined over four hundred and thirty
millions of these blessed dollars. We bought four million ounces of
silver in the open market every month, and in spite of the vast
purchases silver continued to go down. We are coining about two
millions a month now, and silver is still going down. Even the
expectation of the election of Bryan cannot add the tenth of one
per cent. to the value of silver bullion. It is going down day by
day.
But what I want to say to-night is, if you want silver money,
measure it by the gold standard.
I wish every one here would read the speech of Senator
Sherman, delivered at Columbus a little while ago, in which he
gives the history of American coinage, and every man who will read
it will find that silver was not demonetized in 1873. You will find
that it was demonetized in 1853, and if he will read back he will
find that the apostles of silver now were in favor of the gold
standard in 1873. Senator Jones of Nevada in 1873 voted for the law
of 1873. He said from his seat in the Senate, that God had made
gold the standard. He said that gold was the mother of
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civilization. Whether he has heard from God since or not I do not
know. But now he is on the other side. Senator Stewart of Nevada
was there at the time; he voted for the act of 1873, and said that
gold was the only standard. He has changed his mind. So they have
said of me that I used to talk another way, and they have published
little portions of speeches, without publishing all that was said.
I want to tell you to-night that I have never changed on the money
question.
On many subjects I have changed. I am very glad to feel that
I have grown a little in the last forty or fifty years. And a man
should allow himself to grow, to bud and blossom and bear new
fruit, and not be satisfied with the rotten apples under the tree.
But on the money question I have not changed. Sixteen years
ago in this city at Cooper Union, in 1880, in discussing this
precise question, I said that I wanted gold and silver and paper;
that I wanted the paper issued by the General Government, and back
of every paper dollar I wanted a gold dollar or a silver dollar
worth a dollar in gold. I said then, "I want that silver dollar
worth a dollar in gold if you have to make it four feet in
diameter." I said then, "I want our paper so perfectly secure that
when the savage in Central Africa looks upon a Government bill of
the United States his eyes will gleam as though he looked at
shining gold." I said then, "I want every paper dollar of the Union
to be able to hold up its hand and swear, 'I know that my Redeemer
liveth."' I said then, "The Republic cannot afford to debase money;
cannot afford to be a clipper of coin; an honest nation, honest
money; for nations as well as individuals, honesty is the best
policy everywhere and forever." I have not changed on that subject.
As I told a gentleman the other day, "I am more for silver than you
are because I want twice as much of it in a dollar as you do."
Ah, but they say, "free coinage would bring prosperity." I do
not believe it, and I will tell you why. Elect Bryan, come to the
silver standard, and what would happen? We have in the United
States about six hundred million dollars in gold. Every dollar
would instantly go out of circulation. Why? No man will use the
best money when he can use cheaper. Remember that. No carpenter
will use mahogany when his contract allows pine. Gold will go out
of circulation, and what next would happen? All the greenbacks
would fall to fifty cents on the dollar. The only reason they are
worth a dollar now is because the Government has agreed to pay them
in gold. When you come to a silver basis they fall to fifty cents.
What next? All the national bank notes would be cut square in two.
Why? Because they are secured by United States bonds, and when we
come to a silver basis, United States bonds would be paid in
silver, fifty cents on the dollar. And what else would happen? What
else? These sacred silver dollars would instantly become fifty cent
pieces, because they would no longer be redeemable in gold; because
the government would no longer be under obligation to keep them on
a parity with gold. And how much currency and specie would that
leave for its in the United States? In value three hundred and
fifty million dollars. That is five dollars per capita. We have
twenty dollars per capita now, and yet they want to go to five
dollars for the purpose of producing prosperous times!
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What else would happen? Every human being living on an income
would lose just one-half. Every soldiers' pension would be cut in
two. Every human being who has a credit in the savings bank would
lose just one-half. All the life insurance companies would pay just
one-half. All the fire insurance companies would pay just one-half,
and leave you the ashes for the balance. That is what they call
prosperity.
And what else? The Republic would be dishonored. The believers
in monarchy -- in the divine right of kings -- the aristocracies of
the Old World -- would say, "Democracy is a failure, freedom is a
fraud, and liberty is a liar;" and we would be compelled to admit
the truth. No; we want good, honest money. We want money that will
be good when we are dead. We want money that will keep the wolf
from the door, no matter what Congress does. We want money that no
law can create; that is what we want. There was a time when Rome
was mistress of the world, and there was a time when the arch of
the empire fell, and the empire was buried in the dust of oblivion;
and before those days the Roman people coined gold, and one of
those coins is as good to-night as when julius Caesar rode at the
head of his legions. That is the money we want. We want money that
is honest.
But Mr. Bryan hates the bondholders. Who are the bondholders?
Let us be honest; let us have some sense. When this Government was
in the flame of civil war it was compelled to sell bonds, and
everybody who bought a bond bought it because he believed the great
Republic would triumph at last. Every man who bought a bond was our
friend, and every bond that he purchased added to the chances of
our success. They were our friends, and I respect them all. Most of
them are dead, and the bonds they bought have been sold and resold
maybe hundreds of times, and the men who have them now paid a
hundred and twenty in gold, and why should they not be paid in
gold? Can any human being think of any reason? And yet Mr. Bryan
says that the debt is so great that it cannot be paid in gold, How
much is the Republic worth? Let me tell you? This Republic to-day
-- its lands in cultivation, its houses, railways, canals, and
money -- is worth seventy thousand million dollars. And what do we
owe? One billion five hundred million dollars, and what is the
condition of the country? It is the condition of a man who has
seventy dollars and owes one dollar and a half. This is the richest
country on the globe. Have we any excuse for being thieves? Have we
any excuse for failing to pay the debt? No, sir; no, sir. Mr. Bryan
hates the bondholders of the railways. Why? I do not know. What did
those wretches do? They furnished the money to build the one
hundred and eighty thousand miles of railway in the United States;
that is what they did,
They paid the money that threw up the road-bed, that shoveled
the gravel; they paid the men that turned the ore into steel and
put it in form for use they paid the men that cut down the trees
and made the ties, that manufactured the locomotives and the cars.
That is what they did. No wonder that a presidential failure hates
them.
So this man hates bankers. Now, what is a banker? Here is a
little town of five thousand people, and some of them have a little
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money. They do not want to keep it in the house because some Bryan
man might find it; I mean if it were silver. So one citizen buys a
safe and rents a room and tells all the people, "You deposit the
overplus with me to hold it subject to your order upon your orders
signed as checks;" and so they do, and in a little while he finds
that he has on hand continually about one hundred thousand dollars
more than is called for, and thereupon he loans it to the fellow
who started the livery stable and to the chap that opened the
grocery and to the fellow with the store, and he makes this idle
money work for the good and prosperity of that town. And that is
all he does. And these bankers now, if Mr. Bryan becomes President,
can pay the depositors in fifty cent dollars; and yet they are such
rascally wretches that they say, "We prefer to pay back gold." You
can see how mean they are.
Mr. Bryan hates the rich. Would he like to be rich? He hates
the bondholders. Would he like to have a million? He hates the
successful man. Does he want to be a failure? If he does, let him
wait until the third day of November. We want honest money because
we are honest people; and there never was any real prosperity for
a nation or an individual without honesty, without integrity, and
it is our duty to preserve the reputation of the great Republic.
Better be an honest bankrupt than a rich thief. Poverty can
hold in its hand the jewel, honor -- a jewel that outshines all
other gems. A thousand times better be poor and noble than rich and
fraudulent.
Then there is another question -- the question of the tariff.
I admit that there are a great many arguments in favor of free
trade, but I assert that all the facts are the other way. I want
American people as far as possible to manufacture everything that
Americans use.
The more industries we have the more we will develop the
American brain, and the best crop you can raise in every country is
a crop of good men and good women -- of intelligent people. And
another thing, I want to keep this market for ourselves. A nation
that sells raw material will grow ignorant and poor; a nation that
manufactures will grow intelligent and rich. It only takes muscle
to dig ore. It takes mind to manufacture a locomotive, and only
that labor is profitable that is mixed with thought. Muscle must be
in partnership with brain. I am in favor of keeping this market for
ourselves, and yet some people say: "Give us the market of the
world." Well, why don't you take it? There is no export duty on
anything. You can get things out of this country cheaper than from
any other country in the world. Iron is as cheap here in the
ground, so are coal and stone, as any place on earth. The timber is
as cheap in the forest. Why don't you make things and sell them in
Central Africa, in China and Japan? Why don't you do it? I will
tell you why. It is because labor is too high; that is all. Almost
the entire value is labor. You make a ton of steel rails worth
twenty-five dollars; the ore in the ground is worth only a few
cents, the coal in the earth only a few cents, the lime in the
cliff only a few cents -- altogether not one dollar and fifty
cents; but the ton is worth twenty-five dollars; twenty-three
dollars and fifty cents labor! That is the trouble. The steamship
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THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.
is worth five hundred thousand dollars, but the raw material is not
worth ten thousand dollars. The rest is labor. Why is labor higher
here than in Europe? Protection. And why do these gentlemen ask for
the trade of the world? Why do they ask for free trade? Because
they want cheaper labor. That is all; cheaper labor. The markets of
the world! We want our own markets. I would rather have the market
of Illinois than all of China with her four hundred millions. I
would rather have the market of one good county in New York than
all of Mexico.. What do they want in Mexico? A little red calico,
a few sombreros and some spurs. They make their own liquor and they
live on red pepper and beans. What do you want of their markets? We
want to keep our own. In other words, we want to pursue the policy
that has given us prosperity in the past. We tried a little bit of
free trade in 1892 when we were all prosperous. I said then: "If
Grover Cleveland is elected it will cost the people five hundred
million dollars." I am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet, nor a
profitable son, but I placed the figure too low. His election has
cost a thousand million dollars. There is an old song, "You Put the
Wrong Man off at Buffalo;" we took the wrong man on at Buffalo. We
tried just a little of it, not much. We tried the Wilson bill -- a
bill, according to Mr. Cleveland, born of perfidy and dishonor --
a bill that he was not quite foolish enough to sign and not brave
enough to veto. We tried it and we are tired of it, and if
experience is a teacher the American people know a little more than
they did. We want to do our own work, and we want to mingle our
thought with our labor. We are the most inventive of all the
peoples. We sustain the same relation to invention that the ancient
Greeks did to sculpture. We want to develop the brain; we want to
cultivate the imagination, and we want to cover our land with happy
homes. A thing is worth sometimes the thought that is in it,
sometimes the genius. Here is a man buys a little piece of linen
for twenty-five cents, he buys a few paints for fifteen cents, and
a few brushes, and he paints a picture; just a little one; a
picture, maybe, of a cottage with a dear old woman, white hair,
serene forehead and satisfied eyes; at the corner a few hollyhocks
in bloom -- may be a tree in blossom, and as you listen you seem to
hear the songs of birds -- the hum of bees, and your childhood all
comes back to you as you look. You feel the dewy grass beneath your
bare feet once again, and you go back in your mind until the dear
old woman on the porch is once more young and fair. There is a soul
there. Genius has done its work. And the little picture is worth
five, ten, may be fifty thousand dollars. All the result of labor
and genius.
And another thing we want is to produce great men and great
women here in our own country; then again we want business. Talk
about charity, talk about the few dollars that fall unconsciously
from the hand of wealth, talk about your poorhouses and your sewing
societies and your poor little efforts in the missionary line in
the worst part of your town! Ah, there is no charity like business.
Business gives work to labor's countless hands; business wipes the
tears from the eyes of widows and orphans; business dimples with
joy the cheek of sorrow; business puts a roof above the heads of
the homeless; business covers the land with happy homes.
We do not want any populistic philanthropy. We want no fiat
philosophy. We want no silver swindles. We want business. Wind and
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THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.
wave are our servants let them work. Steam and electricity are our
slaves; let them toil. Let all the wheels whirl; let all the
shuttles fly. Fill the air with the echoes of hammer and saw. Fill
the furnace with flame; the molds with liquid iron. Let them glow.
Build homes and palaces of trade. Plow the fields, reap the
waving grain. Create all things that man can use. Business will
feed the hungry, clothe the naked, educate the ignorant, enrich the
world with art -- fill the air with song. Give us Protection and
Prosperity. Do not cheat us with free trade dreams. Do not deceive
us with debased coin. Give us good money -- the life blood of
business -- and let it flow through the veins and arteries of
commerce.
And let me tell you to-night the smoke arising from the
factories great plants forms the only cloud on which has ever been
seen the glittering bow of American promise. We want work, and I
tell you to-night that my sympathies are with the men who work,
with the women who weep. I know that labor is the Atlas on whose
shoulders rests the great superstructure of civilization and the
great dome of science adorned with all there is of art. Labor is
the great oak, labor is the great column, and labor, with its deft
and cunning hands, has created the countless things of art and
beauty. I want to see labor paid. I want to see capital civilized
until it will be willing to give labor its share, and I want labor
intelligent enough to settle all these questions in the high court
of reason. And let me tell the workingman to-night: You will never
help your self by destroying your employer. You have work to sell.
Somebody has to buy it, if it is bought, and somebody has to buy it
that has the money. Who is going to manufacture something that will
not sell. Nobody is going into the manufacturing business through
philanthropy, and unless your employer makes a profit, the mill
will be shut down and you will be out of work. The interest of the
employer and the employed should be one. Whenever the employers of
the continent are successful, then the workingman is better paid,
and you know it. I have some hope in the future for the working-
man. I know what it is to work. I do not think my natural
disposition runs in that direction, but I know what it is to work,
and I have worked with all my might at one dollar and a half a
week. I did the work of a man for fifty cents a day, and I was not
sorry for it. In the horizon of my future burned and gleamed the
perpetual star of hope. I said to myself: I live in a free country,
and I have a chance; I live in a free country, and I have as much
liberty as any other man beneath the flag, and I have enjoyed it.
Something has been done for labor. Only a few years ago a man
worked fifteen or sixteen hours a day, but the hours have been
reduced to at least ten and are on the way to still further
reduction. And while the hours have been decreased the wages have
as certainly been increased. In forty years -- in less -- the wages
of American workingmen have doubled. A little while ago you
received an average of two hundred and eighty-five dollars a year;
now you receive an average of more than four hundred and ninety
dollars; there is the difference. So it seems to me that the star
of hope is still in the sky for every workingman. Then there is
another thing: every workingman in this country can take his little
boy on his knee and say, "John, all the avenues to distinction,
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THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.
wealth, and glory are open to you. There is the free school; take
your chances with I the rest." And it seems to me that that thought
ought to sweeten every drop of sweat that trickles down the honest
brow of toil.
So let us have protection! How much? Enough, so that our
income at least will equal our outgo. That is a good way to keep
house. I am tired of depression and deficit. I do not like to see
a President pawning bonds to raise money to pay his own salary. I
do not like to see the great Republic at the mercy of anybody, so
let us stand by protection.
There is another trouble. The gentleman now running for the
presidency -- a tireless talker -- oh, if he had a brain equal to
his vocal chords, what a man! And yet when I read his speeches it
seems to me as though he stood on his head and thought with his
feet. This man is endeavoring to excite class against class, to
excite the poor against the rich. Let me tell you something. We
have no classes in the United States. There are no permanent
classes here. The millionaire may be a mendicant, the mendicant may
be a millionaire. The man now working for the millionaire may
employ that millionaire's sons to work for him. There is a chance
for us all. Sometimes a numskull is born in the mansion, and a
genius rises from the gutter. Old Mother Nature has a queer way of
taking care of her children. You cannot tell. You cannot tell. Here
we have a free open field of competition, and if a man passes me in
the race I say: "Good luck. Get ahead of me if you can, you are
welcome.
And why should I hate the rich? Why should I make my heart a
den of writhing, hissing snakes of envy? Get rich. I do not care.
I am glad I live in a country where somebody can get rich. It is a
spur in the flank of ambition. Let them get rich. I have known good
men that were quite rich, and I have known some mean men who were
in straitened circumstances. So I have known as good men as ever
breathed the air, who were poor. We must respect the man; what is
inside, not what is outside.
That is why I like this country. That is why I do not want it
dishonored. I want no class feeling. The citizens of America should
be friends. Where capital is just and labor intelligent, happiness
dwells. Fortunate that country where the rich are extravagant and
the poor economical. Miserable that country where the rich are
economical and the poor are extravagant. A rich spendthrift is a
blessing. A rich miser is a curse. Extravagance is a splendid form
of charity. Let the rich spend, let them build, let them give work
to their fellow-men, and I will find no fault with their wealth,
provided they obtained it honestly.
There was an old fellow by the name of Socrates. He happened
to be civilized, living in a barbarous time, and he was tried for
his life. And in his speech in which he defended himself is a
paragraph that ought to remain in the memory of the human race
forever.
He said to those judges, "During my life I have not sought
ambition, wealth. I have not sought to adorn my body, but I have
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THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.
endeavored to adorn my soul with the jewels of patience and
justice, and above all, with the love of liberty." Such a man rises
above all wealth.
Why should we envy the rich? Why envy a man who has no earthly
needs? Why envy a man that carries a hundred canes? Why envy a man
who has that which he cannot use? I know a great many rich men and
I have read about a great many others, and I do not envy them. They
are no happier than I am. You see, after all, few rich men own
their property. The property owns them. It gets them up early in
the morning. It will not let them sleep; it makes them suspect
their friends. Sometimes they think their children would like to
attend a first-class funeral. Why should we envy the rich? They
have fear; we have hope. They are on the top of the ladder; we are
close to the ground. They are afraid of falling, and we hope to
rise.
Why should we envy the rich? They never drank any colder water
than I have. They never ate any lighter biscuits or any better corn
bread. They never drank any better Illinois wine, or felt better
after drinking it, than I have; than you have. They never saw any
more glorious sunsets with the great palaces of amethyst and gold,
and they never saw the heavens thicker with constellations; they
never read better poetry. They know no more about the ecstasies of
love than we do. They never got any more pleasure out of courting
than I did. Why should we envy the rich? I know as much about the
ecstasies of love of wife and child and friends as they. They never
had any better weather in June than I have, or you have. They can
buy splendid pictures. I can look at them. And who owns a great
picture or a great statue? The man who bought it? Possibly, and
possibly not. The man who really owns it, is the man who
understands it, that appreciates it, the man into whose heart its
beauty and genius come, the man who is ennobled and refined and
glorified by it.
They have never heard any better music than I have.
When the great notes, winged like eagles, soar to the great
dome of sound, I have felt just as good as though I had a hundred
million dollars.
Do not try to divide this country into classes. The rich man
that endeavors to help his fellow-man deserves the honor and
respect of the great Republic. I have nothing against the man that
got rich in the free and open geld of competition. Where they
combine to rob their fellow-men, then I want the laws enforced.
That is all. Let them play fair and they are welcome to all they
get.
And why should we hate the successful? Why? We cannot all be
first. The race is a vast procession; a great many hundred millions
are back of the center, and in front there is only one human being;
that is all. Shall we wait for the other fellows to catch up? Shall
the procession stop? I say, help the fallen, assist the weak, help
the poor, bind up the wounds, but do not stop the procession.
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THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.
Why should we envy the successful? Why should we hate them?
And why should we array class against class? It is all wrong. For
instance, here is a young man, and he is industrious. He is in love
with a girl around the corner. She is in his brain all day -- in
his heart all night, and while he is working he is thinking. He
gets a little ahead, they get married. He is an honest man, he gets
credit, and the first thing you know he has a good business of his
own and he gets rich; educates his children, and his old age is
filled with content and love. Good! His companions bask in the
sunshine of idleness. They have wasted their time, wasted their
wages in dissipation, and when the winter of life comes, when the
snow falls on the barren fields of the wasted days, then shivering
with cold, pinched with hunger, they curse the man who has
succeeded. Thereupon they all vote for Bryan.
Then there is another question, and that is whether the
Government has a right to protect it. self? And that is whether the
employees of railways shall have a right to stop the trains, a
right to prevent interstate commerce, a right to burn bridges and
shoot engineers? Has the United States the right to protect
commerce between the States? I say, yes.
It is the duty of the President to lay the mailed hand of the
Republic upon the mob. We want no mobs in this country. This is a
Government of the people and by the people, a Government of law,
and these laws should be interpreted by the courts in judicial
calm. We have a supreme tribunal. Undoubtedly it has made some bad
decisions, but it has made a vast number of good ones. The judges
do the best they can. Of course they are not like Mr. Bryan,
infallible. But they are doing the best they can, and when they
make a decision that is wrong it will be attacked by reason, it
will be attacked by argument, and in time it will be reversed, but
I do not believe in attacking it with a torch or by a mob. I hate
the mob spirit. Civilized men obey the law. Civilized men believe
in order. Civilized men believe that a man that makes property by
industry and economy has the right to keep it. Civilized men
believe that that man has the right to use it as he desires, and
they will judge of his character by the manner in which he uses it.
If he endeavors to assist his fellow-man he will have the respect
and admiration of his fellow-men. But we want a Government of law.
We do not want labor questions settled by violence and blood.
I want to civilize the capitalist so that he will be willing
to give what labor is worth. I want to educate the workingman so
that he will be willing to receive what labor is worth. I want to
civilize them both to that degree that they can settle all their
disputes in the high court of reason.
But when you tell me that they can stop the commerce of the
nation, then you preach the gospel of the bludgeon, the gospel of
torch and bomb. I do not believe in that religion. I believe in a
religion of kindness, reason and law. The law is the supreme will
of the supreme people, and we must obey it or we go back to
savagery and black night. I stand by the courts. I stand by the
President who endeavors to preserve the peace. I am against mobs;
I am against lynchings, and I believe it is the duty of the Federal
Government to protect all of its citizens at home and abroad; and
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THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.
I want a Government powerful enough to say to the Governor of any
State where they are murdering American citizens without process of
law -- I want the Federal Government to say to the Governor of that
State: "Stop; stop shedding the blood of American citizens. And if
you cannot stop it, we can." I believe in a Government that will
protect the lowest, the poorest and weakest as promptly as the
mightiest and strongest. That is my Government. This old doctrine
of State Sovereignty perished in the flame of civil war, and I tell
you to-night that that infamous lie was surrendered to Grant with
Lee's sword at Appomattox.
I believe in a strong Government, not in a Government that can
make money, but in a strong Government.
Oh, I forgot to ask the question, "If the Government can make
money why should it collect taxes?"
Let us be honest. Here is a poor man with a little yoke of
cattle, cultivating forty acres of stony ground, working like a
slave in the heat of summer. in the cold blasts of winter, and the
Government makes him pay ten dollars taxes, when, according to
these gentlemen, it could issue a one hundred thousand dollar bill
in a second. Issue the bill and give the fellow with the cattle a
rest. Is it possible for the mind to conceive anything more absurd
than that the Government can create money?
Now, the next question is, or the next thing is, you have to
choose between men. Shall Mr. Bryan be the next President or shall
McKinley occupy that chair? Who is Mr. Bryan? He is not a tried
man. If he had the capacity to reason, if he had logic, if he could
spread the wings of imagination, if there were in his heart the
divine flower called pity, he might be an orator, but lacking all
these, he is as he is.
When Major McKinley was fighting under the flag, Bryan was in
his mother's arms, and judging from his speeches he ought to be
there still. What is he? He is a Populist. He voted for General
Weaver. Only a little while ago he denied being a Democrat. His
mind is filled with vagaries. A fiat money man. His brain is an
insane asylum without a keeper.
Imagine that man President. Whom would he call about him? Upon
whom would he rely? Probably for Secretary of State he would choose
Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota; for Secretary of the Interior,
Henry George; for Secretary of War, Tillman with his pitchforks;
for Postmaster-General, Perrer of Kansas. Once somebody said: "If
you believe in fiat money, why don't you believe in fiat hay, and
you can make enough hay out of Petter's whiskers to feed all the
cattle in the country." For Secretary of the Treasury, Coin Harvey.
For Secretary of the Navy, Coxey, and then he could keep off the
grass. And then would come the millennium. The great cryptogram and
the Bacon cipher; the single tax, State saloons, fiat money, free
silver, destruction of banks and credit, bondholders and creditors
mobbed, courts closed, debts repudiated and the rest of the folks
made rich by law.
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THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.
And suppose Bryan should die, and then think, think of Thomas
Watson sitting, in the chair of Abraham Lincoln. That is enough to
give a patriot political nightmare.
If McKinley dies there is an honest capable man to take his
place. A man who believes in business, in prosperity. A man who
knows what money is. A man who would never permit the laying of a
land warrant on a cloud. A man of good sense, a man of level head.
A man that loves his country, a man that will protect its honor.
And is McKinley a tried man? Honest, candid, level-headed,
putting on no airs, saying not what he thinks somebody else thinks,
but what he thinks, and saying it in his own honest, forcible way.
He has made hundreds of speeches during this campaign, not to
people whom he ran after, but to people who came to see him. Not
from the tail end of cars, but from the doorstep of his home, and
every speech has been calculated to make votes. Every speech has
increased the respect of the. American people for him, every one.
He has never slopped over. Four years ago I read a speech made by
him at Cleveland, on the tariff. I tell you to-night that he is the
best posted man on the tariff under the flag. I tell you that he
knows the road to prosperity. I read that speech. It had
foundation, proportion, dome, and he handled his facts as
skillfully as Caesar marshaled his hosts on the fields of war, and
ever since I read it I have had profound respect for the
intelligence and statesmanship of William McKinley.
He will call about him the best, the wisest, and the most
patriotic men, and his cabinet will respect the highest and
loftiest interests and aspirations of the American people.
Then you have to make another choice. You have to choose
between parties, between the new Democratic and the old Republican.
And I want to tell you the new Democratic is worse than the old,
and that is a good deal for me to say. In 1861 hundreds and
hundreds of thousands of Democrats thought more of country than of
party. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands shouldered their muskets,
rushed to the rescue of the Republic, and sustained the
administration of Abraham Lincoln. With their help the Rebellion
was crushed, and now hundreds and hundreds of thousands of
Democrats will hold country above party and will join with the
Republicans in saving the honor, the reputation, of the United
States; and I want to say to all the National Democrats who feel
that they cannot vote for Bryan, I want to say to you, vote for
McKinley. This is no war for blank cartridges. Your gun makes as
much noise, but it does not do as much execution.
If you vote for Palmer it is not to elect him, it is simply to
defeat Bryan, and the sure way to defeat Bryan is to vote for
McKinley. You have to choose between parties. The new Democratic
party, with its allies, the Populists and Socialists and Free
Silverites, represents the follies, the mistakes, and the
absurdities of a thousand years. They are in favor of everything
that cannot be done. Whatever is, is wrong. They think creditors
are swindlers, and debtors who refuse to pay their debts are honest
men. Good money is bad and poor money is good. A promise is better
than a performance. They desire to abolish facts, punish success,
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THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.
and reward failure. They are worse than the old. And yet I want to
be honest I am like the old Dutchman who made a speech in Arkansas.
He said: "Ladies and Gentlemen, I must tell you the truth. There
are good and bad in all parties except the Democratic party, and in
the Democratic party there are bad and worse." The new Democratic
party, a party that believes in repudiation, a party that would put
the stain of dishonesty on every American brow. and that would make
this Government subject to the mob.
You have to make your choice. I have made mine. I go with the
party that is traveling my way. I do not pretend to belong to
anything or that anything belongs to me. When a party goes my way
I go with that party and I stick to it as long as it is traveling
my road. And let me tell you something. The history of the
Republican party is the glory of the United States. The Republican
party has the enthusiasm of youth and the wisdom of old age. The
Republican party has the genius of administration. The Republican
party knows the wants of the people. The Republican party kept this
country on the map of the world and kept our flag in the air. The
Republican party made our country free, and that one fact fills all
the heavens with light. The Republican party is the pioneer of
progress; the grandest organization that has ever existed among
men. The Republican party is the conscience, of the nineteenth
century. I am proud to belong to it. Vote the Republican ticket and
you will be happy here, and if there is another life you will be
happy there.
I had an old friend down in Woodford County, Charley Mulidore.
He won a coffin on Lincoln's election. He took it home and every
birthday he called in his friends. They had a little game of"sixty-
six" on the coffin lid. When the game was over they opened the
coffin and took out the things to eat and drink and had a festival,
and the minister in the little town, hearing of it, was
scandalized, and he went to Charley Mulidore and said: "Mr.
Mulidore, how can you make light of such awful things?" "What
things?" "Why," he said, "Mr. Mulidore, what did you do with the
coffin? In a little while you die, and then you come to the day of
judgement." "Well, Mr. Preacher, when I come to that day of
judgement they will say, 'What is your name?' I will tell them,
'Charley Mulidore.' And they will say, 'Mr. Mulidore, are you a
Christian?' 'No, sir, I was a Republican, and the coffin I got out
of this morning I won on Abraham Lincoln's election.' And then they
will say, 'Walk in, Mr. Mulidore, walk in, walk in; here is your
halo and there is your harp."'
If you want to live in good company vote the Republican
ticket. Vote for Black for Governor of the State of New York -- a
man in favor of protection and honest money; a man that believes in
the preservation of the honor of the Nation. Vote for members of
Congress that are true to the great principles of the Republican
party. Vote for every Republican candidate from the lowest to the
highest. This is a year when we mean business. Vote, as I tell you,
the Republican ticket if you want good company. If you want to do
some good to your fellow-men, if you want to say when you die --
when the curtain falls -- when the music of the orchestra grows dim
-- when the lights fade; if you want to live so at that time you
can say "the world is better because I lived," vote the Republican
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THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.
ticket in 1896. Vote with the party of Lincoln -- greatest of our
mighty dead; Lincoln the merciful. Vote with the party of Grant,
the greatest soldier of this century; a man worthy to have been
matched against Caesar for the mastery of the world; as great a
general as ever planted on the field of war the torn and battered
flag of victory. Vote with the party of Sherman and Sheridan and
Thomas. But the time would fail me to repeat even the names of the
philosophers, the philanthropists, the thinkers, the orators, the
statesmen, and the soldiers who made the Republican party glorious
forever.
We love our country; dear to us for its reputation throughout
the world. We love our country for her credit in all the marts of
the world. We love our country, because under her flag we are free.
It is our duty to hand down the American institutions to our
children unstained, unimpaired. It is our duty to preserve them for
ourselves, for our children, and for their fair children yet to be.
This is the last speech that I shall make in this campaign,
and to-night there comes upon me the spirit of prophecy. On
November 4th you will find that by the largest majorities in our
history, William McKinley has been elected President of the United
States.
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