Ingersoll and Economics.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 29, 22 September 1911, Page 4

Ingersoll and Economics.

One of the Great American Author's Impeachments.

SA.YH THE SPEAKER.

•Robert G. Ingersoll, one of the bramjest men the world ever produced, said in one of his least-known speeches: — "Invention has filled the world with competitors not only of laborers, but of mechanics, mechanics of the highest skill. To-day the ordinary laborer is for the most part "a peg 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 saved nothing. 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 later.l heard another man say that he was selling a patent for cutting out men's clothes, that one of the machines could do the work of 20 tailors, and that the week before he bad sold a great house in New York, and that over 40 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 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 mansions of the employer, and think of the places where they live. They have saved nothing, nothing but themselves. The employer seems to have enough, even when employers fail, when they become bankrupt, they are far better off than the laborers ever were. "Their worst is better than the toiler's best. The capitalist comes forward with his specific. He tells the workman that he must be economical. But under the present system economy woaild only lessen wages. Under the great law of supply and demand, every saving and frugal, self-denying working man is unconsciously doing what little he can do to reduce the compensation of himself and his fellows. The slaves who did nob wish to run away helped fasten chains on those who did, so THE SAVING MECHANIC IS A CERTIFICATE THAT WAGES AKJfi HIGH ENOUGH. Does the great law demand that every worker live on the least possible amount of bread? Is it his fate to worfe 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, determine prices, even in spite of the great law of supply and demand. Have the laborers the savne right to consult and combine ? The rich, meet in club or parlour. Working* men, when they combine, gather in te streets. All the organised forces of society are against them. Capital ha,s the army and navy, the legislature, the judicial and 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 that political power is equally divided among men. There are certainly more poor than there are rich. Why should the rich control? WHY SHOULD NOT THE j LABORERS COMBINE for the purpose of controlling the executive, the legislature, and the judicial departments? Will they ever find how powerful they are? How are we to settle the unequal contest between men and machines? Will the machines finally go into partner ship 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 workman become int.eillig'eaift enough and strong enough to be the owner 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 or vegetable world ? The great oak steals the sunlight from the smaller tree. The strong animal devours the weak. Everything eating something else—everything at the niercy of the beak and claw of hoof and tooth, of hand and club, of brain and .greed—inequality, injustice everywhei-e. The poor hoxse standing', in the streets with its dray, overworked, overwhipped, and underfed, when he sees other horses groomed to mirrors, glittering with gold and silver, scorning with proud ieet the earth, probably indulges in some of the usual Socialistic reflections, and this same horse, worn out and old, deserted by his master, turned into the dusty road, leans its head on the topmost rail of a fence, looks at donkeys in a field of clover, and feels like a Nihilist. * ■'■■;•■ "In the days of cannibalism, the strong devoured the weak, actually ate their flesh. In spite of all the laws that man has made, in spite of all advances in science, the strong, the canning, the heartless, still live off the unfortunate and foolish. True, th<_-y do not eat their flesh or drink their blood, but THEY LIVE ON THEIR LABOR, on their denial, their weariness and want. The poor man who deforms himself by toil, who labors for wife and children through all his anxious barren and wasted life, who goes to the grave without ever having had one luxury, has been' the food of others —he has been devoured by his fellow men. Tho poor woman living in the barren, lonely room, cheerless and fireless, sewing night and day to keep starvation from a child, is slowly being devoured by her fellow men. "When I take into consideration tha agonj r of civilised life, the failure, the poverty, the anxiety, the tears, the withered hopes, the bitter realities, the hunger, the crime, thx> humiliation «nd the "shame, I am almost forced to say that oaimibalism after all is the most merciful form on which man has ever lived upon his fellow men. It is impossible for a man with a. good heart to be satisfied with this world as it is now. No man ca.n truly enjoy even what ho knows to bs 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 ragged and shivering makes one almost ashamed to be well dressed and warm. One feels as those his heart was as cold as their bodies. In a country 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 THESE TO BE NO CHANGE? Is the law of supply, invention and science, monopoly and competition, cap--ital and legislation always to be enemies of those who toil? ■"Will' the workers always ba ignorant and stupid enough to give their earnings for the useless? Will they support millions'of soldiers to kill the sons of other -working men ? Will they always build temples for ghosts and phantoms, and live in. huts and dens for themselves? Will the lips, unstained'by'lies, forever kiss the robbed impostor's hands? 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 thought behind. it, and that thought must rest upon the corner stone of justice?"