The Chicago and New York Gold Speech
On the monetary question, 1896.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1896)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 9.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/chicago-and-new-york-gold-speech/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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• "This world will see but one Ingersoll."
    Such was the terse, laconic, yet potent utterance that came
    spontaneously from a celebrated statesman whose head is now
    pillowed in the dust of death, as he stood in the lobby of
    the old Burnet House in Cincinnati after the famous
    Republican Convention in that city in 1876, at which Colonel
    Robert G. Ingersoll made that powerful speech nominating
    Blaine for the Presidency, one which is read and reread to-
    day, and will be read in the future, as an example of the
    highest art of the platform.
    That same sentiment in thought, emotion or vocal expression
    emanated from upward of twenty thousand citizens last night
    who heard the eloquent and magic Ingersoll in the great
    tent stretched near the corner of Sacramento avenue and Lake
    street as he expounded the living gospel of true
    Republicanism.
    The old warhorse, silvered by long years of faithful service
    to his country, aroused the same all-pervading enthusiasm as
    he did in the campaigns of Grant and Hayes and Garfield.
    He has lost not one whit, not one iota of his striking
    physical presence, his profound reasoning, his convincing
    logic, his rollicking wit, grandiloquence—in fine, all the
    graces of the orator of old, reenforced by increased
    patriotism and the ardor of the call to battle for his
    country, are still his in the fullest measure.
    Ingersoll in his powerful speech at Cincinnati, spoke in
    behalf of a friend; last night he plead for his country. In
    1876 he eulogized a man; last night, twenty years afterward,
    he upheld the principles of democratic government. Such was
    the difference in his theme; the logic, the eloquence of his
    utterances was the more profound In the same ratio.
    He came to the ground floor of human existence and talked as
    man to man. His patriotism, be it religion, sentiment, or
    that lofty spirit inseparable from man's soul, is his life.
    Last night he sought to inspire those who heard him with the
    same loyalty, and he succeeded.
    Those passionate outbursts of eloquence, the wit that fairly
    scintillated, the logic as Inexorable as heaven's decrees,
    his rich rhetoric and immutable facts driven straight to his
    hearers with the strength of bullets, aroused applause that
    came as spontaneous as sunlight.
    Now eliciting laughter, now silence, now cheers, the great
    orator, with the singular charm of presence, manner and
    voice, swayed his immense audience at his own volition.
    Packed with potency was every sentence, each word a living
    thing, and with them he flayed financial heresy, laid bare
    the dire results of free trade, and exposed the dangers of
    Populism.
    It was an immense audience that greeted him. The huge tent
    was packed from center-pole to circumference, and thousands
    went away because they could not gain entrance. The houses
    in the vicinity were beautifully illuminated decorated.
    The Chairman, Wm. P. McCabe, in a brief but forcible speech,
    presented Colonel Ingersoll to the vast audience. As the old
    veteran of rebellion days arose from his seat, one
    prolonged, tremendous cheer broke forth from the twenty
    thousand throats. And it was fully fifteen minutes before
    the great orator could begin to deliver his address.
    In his introductory speech Mr. McCabe said:
    "Friends and Fellow-Citizens: I have no set speech to make
    to-night. My duty Is to introduce to you one whose big heart
    and big brain is filled with love and patriotic care for the
    things that concern the country he fought for and loved so
    well. I now have the honor of introducing to you Hon. Robert
    G. Ingersoll."—The Intrr-Ocean, Chicago, 111., October 9th,
    1895.

1896.

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 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 these one 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 dollars 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 our 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 to-day 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 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
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 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 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 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 us 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!

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 Cæsar
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 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 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 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
moulds 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 workingman. 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, wealth, and glory
are open to you. There is the free school; take your chances with 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 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 field 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.

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 itself? 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 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,
Peffer 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
Peffer'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.

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,
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 he said: "Mr. Mulidore, how can you make light of such
awful things?" "What things?" "Why," he said, "Mr. Mulidore, what did
you do with that coffin? In a little while you die, and then you come
to the day of judgment." "Well, Mr. Preacher, when I come to that day of
judgment 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 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 his century; a man worthy to have been matched against Cæsar for the
mastery of the world; as great a general as ever planted on the field
of war the torn and tattered 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.*
  • The final rally of the McKinley League for the present
    campaign, was held last night in Carnegie Music Hall, ana
    the orator chosen to present the doctrines of the
    Republican party was Robert G. Ingersoll. The meeting will
    remain notable for the high character of the audience. The
    great hall was filled to its utmost capacity. It was crowded
    from the rear of the stage to the last row of seats in the
    deep gallery.
    The boxes were occupied by brilliantly attired women, and
    hundreds of other women vied with the sterner sex In the
    applause that greeted the numerous telling points of the
    speaker. The audience was a very fashionable and exclusive
    one, for admission was only to be had by ticket, and tickets
    were hard to get.
    On the stage a great company of men and women were gathered,
    and over them waved rich masses of color, the American
    colors, of course, predominating in the display Flags hung
    from all the gallery rails, and the whole scheme of
    decoration was consistent and beautiful. At 8.80 o'clock Mr.
    John E. Milholland appeared upon the stage followed by Col.
    Ingersoll.
    Without any delay Mr. Milholland was presented as the
    chairman of the meeting. He spoke briefly of the purpose of
    the party and then said; "There is no Intelligent audience
    under the flag or in any civilized country to whom it would
    be necessary for me to introduce Robert G. Ingersoll." And
    the cheers with which the audience greeted the orator proved
    the truth of his words.
    Col. Ingersoll rose impressively and advanced to the front
    of the stage, from which the speaker's desk had been removed
    in order to allow him full opportunity to indulge in his
    habit of walking to and fro as he talked. He was greeted
    with tremendous applause; the men cheered him and the women
    waved their handkerchiefs and fans for several minutes.
    He was able to secure instant command of his audience, and
    while the applause was wildest, he waved his hand, and the
    gesture was followed by a silence that was oppressive. Still
    the speaker waited. He did not intend to waste any of his
    ammunition. Then, convinced that every eye was centred upon
    him, he spoke, declaring "This is our country." The assembly
    was his from that instant. He followed it up with a summary
    of the issues of the campaign. They were "money, the tariff,
    and whether this Government has the right of self-defence."
    As he said later on in his address, the Colonel has changed
    in a good many things, but he has not changed his politics,
    and he has not altered one whit in his masterful command of
    forceful sayings.—New York Tribune, October 80th, 1896.
    Note:—This was Col. Ingersoll's last political address.
