The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume VIII Part 28

_Answer_. I did. The United States Const.i.tution is a very important doc.u.ment, a good, sound doc.u.ment, but it is talked about a great deal more than it is read. I'll venture that you may commence at the Battery to interview merchants and other business men about the Const.i.tution and you will talk with a hundred before you will find one who has ever read it.

--_New York Herald_, August 8, 1886.

THE LABOR QUESTION.

_Question_. What is your remedy, Colonel, for the labor troubles of the day?

_Answer_. One remedy is this: I should like to see the laboring men succeed. I should like to see them have a majority in Congress and with a President of their own. I should like to see this so that they could satisfy themselves how little, after all, can be accomplished by legislation. The moment responsibility should touch their shoulders they would become conservative. They would find that making a living in this world is an individual affair, and that each man must look out for himself. They would soon find that the Government cannot take care of the people. The people must support the Government. Everything cannot be regulated by law. The factors entering into this problem are substantially infinite and beyond the intellectual grasp of any human being.

Perhaps nothing in the world will convince the laboring man how little can be accomplished by law until there is opportunity of trying. To discuss the question will do good, so I am in favor of its discussion. To give the workingmen a trial will do good, so I am in favor of giving them a trial.

_Question_. But you have not answered my question: I asked you what could be done, and you have told me what could not be done.

Now, is there not some better organization of society that will help in this trouble?

_Answer_. Undoubtedly. Unless humanity is a failure, society will improve from year to year and from age to age. There will be, as the years go by, less want, less injustice, and the gifts of nature will be more equally divided, but there will never come a time when the weak can do as much as the strong, or when the mentally weak can accomplish as much as the intellectually strong. There will forever be inequality in society; but, in my judgment, the time will come when an honest, industrious person need not want. In my judgment, that will come, not through governmental control, not through governmental slavery, not through what is called Socialism, but through liberty and through individuality. I can conceive of no greater slavery than to have everything done by the Government.

I want free scope given to individual effort. In time some things that governments have done will be removed. The creation of a n.o.bility, the giving of vast rights to corporations, and the bestowment of privileges on the few will be done away with. In other words, governmental interference will cease and man will be left more to himself. The future will not do away with want by charity, which generally creates more want than it alleviates, but by justice and intelligence. Shakespeare says, "There is no darkness but ignorance," and it might be added that ignorance is the mother of most suffering.

--_The Enquirer_, Cincinnati, Ohio, September 30, 1886.

RAILROADS AND POLITICS.

_Question_. You are intimately acquainted with the great railroad managers and the great railroad systems, and what do you think is the great need of the railways to-day?

_Answer_. The great need of the railroads to-day is more business, more cars, better equipments, better pay for the men and less gambling in Wall Street.

_Question_. Is it your experience that public men usually ride on pa.s.ses?

_Answer_. Yes, whenever they can get them. Pa.s.ses are for the rich. Only those are expected to pay who can scarcely afford it.

Nothing shortens a journey, nothing makes the road as smooth, nothing keeps down the dust and keeps out the smoke like a pa.s.s.

_Question_. Don't you think that the pa.s.s system is an injustice --that is, that ordinary travelers are taxed for the man who rides on a pa.s.s?

_Answer_. Certainly, those who pay, pay for those who do not.

This is one of the misfortunes of the obscure. It is so with everything. The big fish live on the little ones.

_Question_. Are not parallel railroads an evil?

_Answer_. No, unless they are too near together. Compet.i.tion does some good and some harm, but it must exist. All these things must be left to take care of themselves. If the Government interferes it is at the expense of the manhood and liberty of the people.

_Question_. But wouldn't it be better for the people if the railroads were managed by the Government as is the Post-Office?

_Answer_. No, everything that individual can do should be left to them. If the Government takes charge of the people they become weak and helpless. The people should take charge of the Government.

Give the folks a chance.

_Question_. In the next presidential contest what will be the main issue?

_Answer_. The Maine issue!

_Question_. Would you again refuse to take the stump for Mr. Blaine if he should be renominated, and if so, why?

_Answer_. I do not expect to take the stump for anybody. Mr.

Blaine is probably a candidate, and if he is nominated there will be plenty of people on the stump--or fence--or up a tree or somewhere in the woods.

_Question_. What are the most glaring mistakes of Cleveland's administration?

_Answer_. First, accepting the nomination. Second, taking the oath of office. Third, not resigning.

--_Times Star_, Cincinnati, September 30, 1886.

PROHIBITION.

_Question_. How much importance do you attach to the present prohibition movement?

_Answer_. No particular importance. I am opposed to prohibition and always have been, and hope always to be. I do not want the Legislature to interfere in these matters. I do not believe that the people can be made temperate by law. Men and women are not made great and good by the law. There is no good in the world that cannot be abused. Prohibition fills the world with spies and tattlers, and, besides that, where a majority of the people are not in favor of it the law will not be enforced; and where a majority of the people are in favor of it there is not much need of the law.

Where a majority are against it, juries will violate their oath, and witnesses will get around the truth, and the result is demoralization. Take wine and malt liquors out of the world and we shall lose a vast deal of good fellows.h.i.+p; the world would lose more than it would gain. There is a certain sociability about wine that I should hate to have taken from the earth. Strong liquors the folks had better let alone. If prohibition succeeds, and wines and malt liquors go, the next thing will be to take tobacco away, and the next thing all other pleasures, until prayer meetings will be the only places of enjoyment.

_Question_. Do you care to say who your choice is for Republican nominee for President in 1888?

_Answer_. I now promise that I will answer this question either in May or June, 1888. At present my choice is not fixed, and is liable to change at any moment, and I need to leave it free, so that it can change from time to time as the circ.u.mstances change.

I will, however, tell you privately that I think it will probably be a new man, somebody on whom the Republicans can unite. I have made a good many inquiries myself to find out who this man is to be, but in every instance the answer has been determined by the location in which the gentleman lived who gave the answer. Let us wait.

_Question_. Do you think the Republican party should take a decided stand on the temperance issue?

_Answer_. I do; and that decided stand should be that temperance is an individual question, something with which the State and Nation have nothing to do. Temperance is a thing that the law cannot control. You might as well try to control music, painting, sculpture, or metaphysics, as the question of temperance. As life becomes more valuable, people will learn to take better care of it. There is something more to be desired even than temperance, and that is liberty. I do not believe in putting out the sun because weeds grow. I should rather have some weeds than go without wheat and corn. The Republican party should represent liberty and individuality; it should keep abreast of the real spirit of the age; the Republican party ought to be intelligent enough to know that progress has been marked not by the enactment of new laws, but by the repeal of old ones.

--_Evening Traveler_, Boston, October, 1886.

HENRY GEORGE AND LABOR.

_Question_. It is said, Colonel Ingersoll, that you are for Henry George?

_Answer_. Of course; I think it the duty of the Republicans to defeat the Democracy--a solemn duty--and I believe that they have a chance to elect George; that is to say, an opportunity to take New York from their old enemy. If the Republicans stand by George he will succeed. All the Democratic factions are going to unite to beat the workingmen. What a picture! Now is the time for the Republicans to show that all their sympathies are not given to bankers, corporations and millionaires. They were on the side of the slave--they gave liberty to millions. Let them take another step and extend their hands to the sons of toil.

My heart beats with those who bear the burdens of this poor world.

_Question_. Do you not think that capital is ent.i.tled to protection?

_Answer_. I am in favor of accomplis.h.i.+ng all reforms in a legal and orderly way, and I want the laboring people of this country to appeal to the ballot. All cla.s.ses and all interests must be content to abide the result.