Some Interrogation Points
Questions for the clergy.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1885)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 11.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/some-interrogation-points/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

A NEW party is struggling for recognition—a party with leaders who are
not politicians, with followers who are not seekers after place. Some of
those who suffer and some of those who sympathize, have combined.
Those who feel that they are oppressed are organized for the purpose of
redressing their wrongs. The workers for wages, and the seekers for
work have uttered a protest. This party is an instrumentality for the
accomplishment of certain things that are very near and very dear to the
hearts of many millions.

The object to be attained is a fairer division of profits between
employers and employed. There is a feeling that in some way the workers
should not want—that the industrious should not be the indigent. There
is a hope that men and women and children are not forever to be the
victims of ignorance and want—that the tenement house is not always to
be the home of the poor, or the gutter the nursery of their babes.

As yet, the methods for the accomplishment of these aims have not been
agreed upon. Many theories have been advanced and none has been adopted.
The question is so vast, so complex, touching human interests in so many
ways, that no one has yet been great enough to furnish a solution, or,
if any one has furnished a solution, no one else has been wise enough to
understand it.

'The hope of the future is that this question will finally be
understood. It must not be discussed in anger. If a broad and
comprehensive view is to be taken, there is no place for hatred or for
prejudice. Capital is not to blame. Labor is not to blame. Both have
been caught in the net of circumstances. The rich are as generous as
the poor would be if they should change places. Men acquire through the
noblest and the tenderest instincts. They work and save not only for
themselves, but for their wives and for their children. There is but
little confidence in the charity of the world. The prudent man in his
youth makes preparation for his age. The loving father, having struggled
himself, hopes to save his children from drudgery and toil.

In every country there are classes—that is to say, the spirit of caste,
and this spirit will exist until the world is truly civilized. Persons
in most communities are judged not as individuals, but as members of a
class. Nothing is more natural, and nothing more heartless. These lines
that divide hearts on account of clothes or titles, are growing more and
more indistinct, and the philanthropists, the lovers of the human race,
believe that the time is coming when they will be obliterated. We may
do away with kings and peasants, and yet there may still be the rich
and poor, the intelligent and foolish, the beautiful and deformed,
the industrious and idle, and it may be, the honest and vicious. These
classifications are in the nature of things. They are produced for the
most part by forces that are now beyond the control of man—but the old
rule, that men are disreputable in the proportion that they are useful,
will certainly be reversed. The idle lord was always held to be the
superior of the industrious peasant, the devourer better than the
producer, and the waster superior to the worker.

While in this country we have no titles of nobility, we have the rich
and the poor—no princes, no peasants, but millionaires and mendicants.
The individuals composing these classes are continually changing. The
rich of to-day may be the poor of to-morrow, and the children of the
poor may take their places. In this country, the children of the poor
are educated substantially in the same schools with those of the rich.
All read the same papers, many of the same books, and all for many years
hear the same questions discussed. They are continually being educated,
not only at schools, but by the press, by political campaigns, by
perpetual discussions on public questions, and the result is that those
who are rich in gold are often poor in thought, and many who have
not whereon to lay their heads have within those heads a part of the
intellectual wealth of the world.

Years ago the men of wealth were forced to contribute toward the
education of the children of the poor. The support of schools by general
taxation was defended on the ground that it was a means of providing for
the public welfare, of perpetuating the institutions of a free country
by making better men and women. This policy has been pursued until at
last the schoolhouse is larger than the church, and the common people
through education have become uncommon. They now know how little is
really known by what are called the upper classes—how little after all
is understood by kings, presidents, legislators, and men of culture.
They are capable not only of understanding a few questions, but they
have acquired the art of discussing those that no one understands.
With the facility of politicians they can hide behind phrases, make
barricades of statistics, and chevaux-de-frise of inferences and
assertions. They understand the sophistries of those who have governed.

In some respects these common people are the superiors of the so-called
aristocracy. While the educated have been turning their attention to the
classics, to the dead languages, and the dead ideas and mistakes that
they contain—while they have been giving their attention to ceramics,
artistic decorations, and compulsory prayers, the common people have
been compelled to learn the practical things—to become acquainted with
facts—by doing the work of the world. The professor of a college is
no longer a match for a master mechanic. The master mechanic not only
understands principles, but their application. He knows things as they
are. He has come in contact with the actual, with realities. He knows
something of the adaptation of means to ends, and this is the highest
and most valuable form of education. The men who make locomotives, who
construct the vast engines that propel ships, necessarily know more than
those who have spent their lives in conjugating Greek verbs, looking for
Hebrew roots, and discussing the origin and destiny of the universe.

Intelligence increases wants. By education the necessities of the people
become increased. The old wages will not supply the new wants. Man longs
for a harmony between the thought within and the things without. When
the soul lives in a palace the body is not satisfied with rags and
patches. The glaring inequalities among men, the differences in
condition, the suffering and the poverty, have appealed to the good
and great of every age, and there has been in the brain of the
philanthropist a dream—a hope, a prophecy, of a better day.

It was believed that tyranny was the foundation and cause of the
differences between men—that the rich were all robbers and the poor all
victims, and that if a society or government could be founded on equal
rights and privileges, the inequalities would disappear, that all would
have food and clothes and reasonable work and reasonable leisure, and
that content would be found by every hearth.

There was a reliance on nature—an idea that men had interfered with the
harmonious action of great principles which if left to themselves would
work out universal wellbeing for the human race. Others imagined that
the inequalities between men were necessary—that they were part of a
divine plan, and that all would be adjusted in some other world—that
the poor here would be the rich there, and the rich here might be in
torture there. Heaven became the reward of the poor, of the slave, and
hell their revenge.

When our Government was established it was declared that all men are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which
were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It was then believed
that if all men had an equal opportunity, if they were allowed to make
and execute their own laws, to levy their own taxes, the frightful
inequalities seen in the despotisms and monarchies of the old world
would entirely disappear. This was the dream of 1776. The founders of
the Government knew how kings and princes and dukes and lords and barons
had lived upon the labor of the peasants. They knew the history of those
ages of want and crime, of luxury and suffering. But in spite of
our Declaration, in spite of our Constitution, in spite of universal
suffrage, the inequalities still exist. We have the kings and
princes, the lords and peasants, in fact, if not in name. Monopolists,
corporations, capitalists, workers for wages, have taken their places,
and we are forced to admit that even universal suffrage cannot clothe
and feed the world.

For thousands of years men have been talking and writing about the great
law of supply and demand—and insisting that in some way this mysterious
law has governed and will continue to govern the activities of the human
race. It is admitted that this law is merciless—that when the demand
fails, the producer, the laborer, must suffer, must perish—that the
law feels neither pity nor malice—it simply acts, regardless of
consequences. Under this law capital will employ the cheapest. The
single man can work for less than the married. Wife and children are
luxuries not to be enjoyed under this law. The ignorant have fewer wants
than the educated, and for this reason can afford to work for less.
The great law will give employment to the single and to the ignorant in
preference to the married and intelligent. The great law has nothing
to do with food or clothes, with filth or crime. It cares nothing for
homes, for penitentiaries, or asylums. It simply acts—and some men
triumph, some succeed, some fail, and some perish.

Others insist that the curse of the world is monopoly. And yet, as
long as some men are stronger than others, as long as some are more
intelligent than others, they must be, to the extent of such advantage,
monopolists. Every man of genius is a monopolist.

We are told that the great remedy against monopoly—that is to say,
against extortion, is free and unrestricted competition. But after all,
the history of this world shows that the brutalities of competition are
equaled only by those of monopoly. The successful competitor becomes a
monopolist, and if competitors fail to destroy each other, the instinct
of self-preservation suggests a combination. In other words, competition
is a struggle between two or more persons or corporations for the
purpose of determining which shall have the uninterrupted privilege of
extortion.

In this country the people have had the greatest reliance on
competition. If a railway company charged too much a rival road was
built. As a matter of fact, we are indebted for half the railroads of
the United States to the extortion of the other half, and the same may
truthfully be said of telegraph lines. As a rule, while the exactions
of monopoly constructed new roads and new lines, competition has either
destroyed the weaker, or produced the pool which is a means of keeping
both monopolies alive, or of producing a new monopoly with greater
needs, supplied by methods more heartless than the old. When a rival
road is built the people support the rival because the fares and
freights are somewhat less. Then the old and richer monopoly inaugurates
war, and the people, glorying in the benefits of competition, are absurd
enough to support the old. In a little while the new company, unable to
maintain the contest, left by the people at the mercy of the stronger,
goes to the wall, and the triumphant monopoly proceeds to make the
intelligent people pay not only the old price, but enough in addition to
make up for the expenses of the contest.

Is there any remedy for this? None, except with the people themselves.
When the people become intelligent enough to support the rival at a
reasonable price; when they know enough to allow both roads to live;
when they are intelligent enough to recognize a friend and to stand by
that friend as against a known enemy, this question will be at least on
the edge of a solution.

So far as I know, this course has never been pursued except in one
instance, and that is the present war between the Gould and Mackay
cables. The Gould system had been charging from sixty to eighty cents a
word, and the Mackay system charged forty. Then the old monopoly tried
to induce the rival to put the prices back to sixty. The rival refused,
and thereupon the Gould combination dropped to twelve and a half, for
the purpose of destroying the rival. The Mackay cable fixed the tariff
at twenty-five cents, saying to its customers, "You are intelligent
enough to understand what this war means. If our cables are defeated,
the Gould system will go back not only to the old price, but will add
enough to reimburse itself for the cost of destroying us. If you really
wish for competition, if you desire a reasonable service at a reasonable
rate, you will support us." Fortunately an exceedingly intelligent class
of people does business by the cables. They are merchants, bankers, and
brokers, dealing with large amounts, with intricate, complicated, and
international questions. Of necessity, they are used to thinking for
themselves. They are not dazzled into blindness by the glare of the
present. They see the future. They are not duped by the sunshine of a
moment or the promise of an hour. They see beyond the horizon of a
penny saved. These people had intelligence enough to say, "The rival who
stands between us and extortion is our friend, and our friend shall not
be allowed to die."

Does not this tend to show that people must depend upon themselves, and
that some questions can be settled by the intelligence of those who buy,
of those who use, and that customers are not entirely helpless?

Another thing should not be forgotten, and that is this: there is the
same war between monopolies that there is between individuals, and the
monopolies for many years have been trying to destroy each other. They
have unconsciously been working for the extinction of monopolies. These
monopolies differ as individuals do. You find among them the rich and
the poor, the lucky and the unfortunate, millionaires and tramps. The
great monopolies have been devouring the little ones.

Only a few years ago, the railways in this country were controlled by
local directors and local managers. The people along the lines were
interested in the stock. As a consequence, whenever any legislation was
threatened hostile to the interests of these railways, they had local
friends who used their influence with legislators, governors and juries.
During this time they were protected, but when the hard times came many
of these companies were unable to pay their interest. They suddenly
became Socialists. They cried out against their prosperous rivals. They
felt like joining the Knights of Labor. They began to talk about rights
and wrongs. But in spite of their cries, they have passed into the hands
of the richer roads—they were seized by the great monopolies. Now the
important railways are owned by persons living in large cities or in
foreign countries. They have no local friends, and when the time conies,
and it may come, for the General Government to say how much these
companies shall charge for passengers and freight, they will have no
local friends. It may be that the great mass of the people will then be
on the other side. So that after all, the great corporations have been
busy settling the question against themselves.

Possibly a majority of the American people believe to-day that in some
way all these questions between capital and labor can be settled by
constitutions, laws, and judicial decisions. Most people imagine that a
statute is a sovereign specific for any evil. But while the theory has
all been one way, the actual experience has been the other—just as the
free traders have all the arguments and the protectionists most of the
facts.

The truth is, as Mr. Buckle says, that for five hundred years all real
advance in legislation has been made by repealing laws. Of one thing
we must be satisfied, and that is that real monopolies have never
been controlled by law, but the fact that such monopolies exist, is
a demonstration that the law has been controlled. In our country,
legislators are for the most part controlled by those who, by their
wealth and influence, elect them. The few, in reality, cast the votes of
the many, and the few influence the ones voted for by the many. Special
interests, being active, secure special legislation, and the object of
special legislation is to create a kind of monopoly—that is to say, to
get some advantage. Chiefs, barons, priests, and kings ruled, robbed,
destroyed, and duped, and their places have been taken by corporations,
monopolists, and politicians. The large fish still live on the little
ones, and the fine theories have as yet failed to change the condition
of mankind.

Law in this country is effective only when it is the recorded will of a
majority. When the zealous few get control of the Legislature, and laws
are passed to prevent Sabbath-breaking, or wine-drinking, they succeed
only in putting their opinions and provincial prejudices in legal
phrase. There was a time when men worked from fourteen to sixteen hours
a day. These hours have not been lessened, they have not been shortened
by law. The law has followed and recorded, but the law is not a leader
and not a prophet. It appears to be impossible to fix wages—just as
impossible as to fix the values of all manufactured things, including
works of art. The field is too great, the problem too complicated, for
the human mind to grasp.

To fix the value of labor is to fix all values—labor being the
foundation of all values. The value of labor cannot be fixed unless we
understand the relations that all things bear to each other and to man.
If labor were a legal tender—if a judgment for so many dollars could be
discharged by so many days of labor,—and the law was that twelve hours
of work should be reckoned as one day, then the law could change the
hours to ten or eight, and the judgments could be paid in the shortened
days. But it is easy to see that in all contracts made after the
passage of such a law, the difference in hours would be taken into
consideration.

We must remember that law is not a creative force. It produces nothing.
It raises neither corn nor wine. The legitimate object of law is to
protect the weak, to prevent violence and fraud, and to enforce honest
contracts, to the end that each person may be free to do as he desires,
provided only that he does not interfere with the rights of others. Our
fathers tried to make people religious by law. They failed. Thousands
are now trying to make people temperate in the same manner. Such efforts
always have been and probably always will be failures. People who
believe that an infinite God gave to the Hebrews a perfect code of laws,
must admit that even this code failed to civilize the inhabitants of
Palestine.

It seems impossible to make people just or charitable or industrious
or agreeable or successful, by law, any more than you can make them
physically perfect or mentally sound. Of course we admit that good
people intend to make good laws, and that good laws faithfully and
honestly executed, tend to the preservation of human rights and to the
elevation of the race, but the enactment of a law not in accordance with
a sentiment already existing in the minds and hearts of the people—the
very people who are depended upon to enforce this law—is not a help,
but a hindrance. A real law is but the expression, in an authoritative
and accurate form, of the judgment and desire of the majority. As
we become intelligent and kind, this intelligence and kindness find
expression in law.

But how is it possible to fix the wages of every man? To fix wages is to
fix prices, and a government to do this intelligently, would necessarily
have to have the wisdom generally attributed to an infinite Being. It
would have to supervise and fix the conditions of every exchange of
commodities and the value of every conceivable thing. Many things can be
accomplished by law, employeers may be held responsible for injuries to
the employed. The mines can be ventilated. Children can be rescued
from the deformities of toil—burdens taken from the backs of wives and
mothers—houses made wholesome, food healthful—that is to say, the weak
can be protected from the strong, the honest from the vicious, honest
contracts can be enforced, and many rights protected.

The men who have simply strength, muscle, endurance, compete not only
with other men of strength, but with the inventions of genius. What
would doctors say if physicians of iron could be invented with curious
cogs and wheels, so that when a certain button was touched the proper
prescription would be written? How would lawyers feel if a lawyer could
be invented in such a way that questions of law, being put in a kind of
hopper and a crank being turned, decisions of the highest court could be
prophesied without failure? And how would the ministers feel if somebody
should invent a clergyman of wood that would to all intents and purposes
answer the purpose?

Invention has filled the world with the competitors not only of
laborers, but of mechanics—mechanics of the highest skill. To-day the
ordinary laborer is for the most part a cog in a wheel. He works with
the tireless—he feeds the insatiable. When the monster stops, the
man is out of employment, out of bread; He has not saved anything. The
machine that he fed was not feeding him, was not working for him—the
invention was not for his benefit. The other day I heard a man say
that it was almost impossible for thousands of good mechanics to get
employment, and that, in his judgment, the Government ought to furnish
work for the people. A few minutes after, I heard another say that he
was selling a patent for cutting out clothes, that one of his machines
could do the work of twenty tailors, and that only the week before he
had sold two to a great house in New York, and that over forty cutters
had been discharged.

On every side men are being discharged and machines are being invented
to take their places. When the great factory shuts down, the workers who
inhabited it and gave it life, as thoughts do the brain, go away and it
stands there like an empty skull. A few workmen, by the force of
habit, gather about the closed doors and broken windows and talk about
distress, the price of food and the coming winter. They are convinced
that they have not had their share of what their labor created. They
feel certain that the machines inside were not their friends. They look
at the mansion of the employeer and think of the places where they live.
They have saved nothing—nothing but themselves. The employeer seems to
have enough. Even when employeers fail, when they become bankrupt, they
are far better off than the laborers ever were. Their worst is better
than the toilers' best.

The capitalist comes forward with his specific. He tells the workingman
that he must be economical—and yet, under the present system, economy
would only lessen wages. Under the great law of supply and demand every
saving, frugal, self-denying workingman is unconsciously doing what
little he can to reduce the compensation of himself and his fellows. The
slaves who did not wish to run away helped fasten chains on those who
did. So the saving mechanic is a certificate that wages are high enough.
Does the great law demand that every worker live on the least possible
amount of bread? Is it his fate to work one day, that he may get enough
food to be able to work another? Is that to be his only hope—that and
death?

Capital has always claimed and still claims the right to combine.
Manufacturers meet and determine upon prices, even in spite of the great
law of supply and demand. Have the laborers the same right to consult
and combine? The rich meet in the bank, the clubhouse, or parlor.
Workingmen, when they combine, gather in the street. All the organized
forces of society are against them. Capital has the army and the navy,
the legislative, the judicial, and the executive departments. When the
rich combine, it is for the purpose of "exchanging ideas." When the poor
combine, it is a "conspiracy." If they act in concert, if they really do
something, it is a "mob." If they defend themselves, it is "treason."
How is it that the rich control the departments of government? In this
country the political power is equally divided among the men. There are
certainly more poor than there are rich. Why should the rich control?
Why should not the laborers combine for the purpose of controlling the
executive, legislative, and judicial departments? Will they ever find
how powerful they are?

In every country there is a satisfied class—too satisfied to care. They
are like the angels in heaven, who are never disturbed by the miseries
of earth. They are too happy to be generous. This satisfied class asks
no questions and answers none. They believe the world is as it should
be. All reformers are simply disturbers of the peace. When they talk
low, they should not be listened to; when they talk loud, they should be
suppressed.

The truth is to-day what it always has been—what it always will
be—those who feel are the only ones who think. A cry comes from the
oppressed, from the hungry, from the down-trodden, from the unfortunate,
from men who despair and from women who weep. There are times when
mendicants become revolutionists—when a rag becomes a banner, under
which the noblest and bravest battle for the right.

How are we to settle the unequal contest between men and machines? Will
the machine finally go into partnership with the laborer? Can these
forces of nature be controlled for the benefit of her suffering
children? Will extravagance keep pace with ingenuity? Will the workers
become intelligent enough and strong enough to be the owners of the
machines? Will these giants, these Titans, shorten or lengthen the hours
of labor? Will they give leisure to the industrious, or will they make
the rich richer, and the poor poorer?

Is man involved in the "general scheme of things"? Is there no pity, no
mercy? Can man become intelligent enough to be generous, to be just;
or does the same law or fact control him that controls the animal and
vegetable world? The great oak steals the sunlight from the smaller
trees. The strong animals devour the weak—everything eating something
else—everything at the mercy of beak and claw and hoof and tooth—of
hand and club, of brain and greed—inequality, injustice, everywhere.

The poor horse standing in the street with his dray, overworked,
over-whipped, and under-fed, when he sees other horses groomed to
mirrors, glittering with gold and silver, scorning with proud feet the
very earth, probably indulges in the usual socialistic reflections, and
this same horse, worn out and old, deserted by his master, turned into
the dusty road, leans his head on the topmost rail, looks at donkeys in
a field of clover, and feels like a Nihilist.

In the days of savagery the strong devoured the weak—actually ate
their flesh. In spite of all the laws that man has made, in spite of
all advance in science, literature and art, the strong, the cunning, the
heartless still live on the weak, the unfortunate, and foolish. True,
they do not eat their flesh, they do not drink their blood, but they
live on their labor, on their self-denial, their weariness and want.
The poor man who deforms himself by toil, who labors for wife and child
through all his anxious, barren, wasted life—who goes to the grave
without even having had one luxury—has been the food of others. He has
been devoured by his fellow-men. The poor woman living in the bare
and lonely room, cheerless and fireless, sewing night and day to keep
starvation from a child, is slowly being eaten by her fellow-men. When
I take into consideration the agony of civilized life—the number of
failures, the poverty, the anxiety, the tears, the withered hopes, the
bitter realities, the hunger, the crime, the humiliation, the shame—I
am almost forced to say that cannibalism, after all, is the most
merciful form in which man has ever lived upon his fellow-man.

Some of the best and purest of our race have advocated what is known
as Socialism. They have not only taught, but, what is much more to
the purpose, have believed that a nation should be a family; that the
government should take care of all its children; that it should provide
work and food and clothes and education for all, and that it should
divide the results of all labor equitably with all.

Seeing the inequalities among men, knowing of the destitution and crime,
these men were willing to sacrifice, not only their own liberties, but
the liberties of all.

Socialism seems to be one of the worst possible forms of slavery.
Nothing, in my judgment, would so utterly paralyze all the forces, all
the splendid ambitions and aspirations that now tend to the civilization
of man. In ordinary systems of slavery there are some masters, a few are
supposed to be free; but in a socialistic state all would be slaves.

If the government is to provide work it must decide for the worker
what he must do. It must say who shall chisel statues, who shall
paint pictures, who shall compose music, and who shall practice the
professions. Is any government, or can any government, be capable
of intelligently performing these countless duties? It must not only
control work, it must not only decide what each shall do, but it must
control expenses, because expenses bear a direct relation to products.
Therefore the government must decide what the worker shall eat and
wherewithal he shall be clothed; the kind of house in which he shall
live; the manner in which it shall be furnished, and, if this government
furnishes the work, it must decide on the days or the hours of leisure.
More than this, it must fix values; it must decide not only who shall
sell, but who shall buy, and the price that must be paid—and it must
fix this value not simply upon the labor, but on everything that can be
produced, that can be exchanged or sold.

Is it possible to conceive of a despotism beyond this?

The present condition of the world is bad enough, with its poverty and
ignorance, but it is far better than it could by any possibility be
under any government like the one described. There would be less hunger
of the body, but not of the mind. Each man would simply be a citizen of
a large penitentiary, and, as in every well regulated prison, somebody
would decide what each should do. The inmates of a prison retire
early; they rise with the sun; they have something to eat; they are not
dissipated; they have clothes; they attend divine service; they have but
little to say about their neighbors; they do not suffer from cold; their
habits are excellent, and yet, no one envies their condition. Socialism
destroys the family. The children belong to the state. Certain officers
take the places of parents. Individuality is lost.

The human race cannot afford to exchange its liberty for any possible
comfort. You remember the old fable of the fat dog that met the lean
wolf in the forest. The wolf, astonished to see so prosperous an animal,
inquired of the dog where he got his food, and the dog told him that
there was a man who took care of him, gave him his breakfast, his
dinner, and his supper with the utmost regularity, and that he had all
that he could eat and very little to do. The wolf said, "Do you think
this man would treat me as he does you?" The dog replied, "Yes, come
along with me." So they jogged on together toward the dog's home. On the
way the wolf happened to notice that some hair was worn off the dog's
neck, and he said, "How did the hair become worn?" "That is," said the
dog, "the mark of the collar—my master ties me at night." "Oh," said
the wolf, "Are you chained? Are you deprived of your liberty? I believe
I will go back. I prefer hunger."

It is impossible for any man with a good heart to be satisfied with this
world as it now is. No one can truly enjoy even what he earns—what he
knows to be his own, knowing that millions of his fellow-men are in
misery and want. When we think of the famished we feel that it is almost
heartless to eat. To meet the ragged and shivering makes one almost
ashamed to be well dressed and warm—one feels as though his heart was
as cold as their bodies.

In a world filled with millions and millions of acres of land waiting to
be tilled, where one man can raise the food for hundreds, millions are
on the edge of famine. Who can comprehend the stupidity at the bottom of
this truth?

Is there to be no change? Are "the law of supply and demand," invention
and science, monopoly and competition, capital and legislation always to
be the enemies of those who toil?

Will the workers always be ignorant enough and stupid enough to give
their earnings for the useless? Will they support millions of soldiers
to kill the sons of other workingmen? Will they always build temples
for ghosts and phantoms, and live in huts and dens themselves? Will they
forever allow parasites with crowns, and vampires with mitres, to
live upon their blood? Will they remain the slaves of the beggars they
support? How long will they be controlled by friends who seek favors,
and by reformers who want office? Will they always prefer famine in the
city to a feast in the fields? Will they ever feel and know that
they have no right to bring children into this world that they cannot
support? Will they use their intelligence for themselves, or for others?
Will they become wise enough to know that they cannot obtain their own
liberty by destroying that of others? Will they finally see that every
man has a right to choose his trade, his profession, his employment,
and has the right to work when, and for whom, and for what he will?
Will they finally say that the man who has had equal privileges with all
others has no right to complain, or will they follow the example
that has been set by their oppressors? Will they learn that force, to
succeed, must have a thought behind it, and that anything done, in order
that it may endure, must rest upon the corner-stone of justice?

Will they, at the command of priests, forever extinguish the spark that
sheds a little light in every brain? Will they ever recognize the fact
that labor, above all things, is honorable—that it is the foundation of
virtue? Will they understand that beggars cannot be generous, and that
every healthy man must earn the right to live? Will honest men stop
taking off their hats to successful fraud? Will industry, in the
presence of crowned idleness, forever fall upon its knees, and will the
lips unstained by lies forever kiss the robed impostor's hand?—North
American Review, March, 1887.
