St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-02-17
THE MISTAKES OF INGERsoLL

Ii sit takes a rogue to catch rogue"
then it should take maker of mistakes
to catch the mistakes of another. On
this theory, Mr.. Ingersoll is qualified to
instruct people as to the mistakes Moses
made, but on no other that now occurs
to us.
AS an all-round maker of mistakes
mistakes social, religious and economic
-Iugersoll can give Moses or any other
historical person cards and spades. and
win the game. He makes them brill
iantly. and he makes them brilliant. A
vivid Imagination, supply of language
which never diShonorS check drawn
on it, and felicitous delivery, combine
to make him the most interesting aud
striking maker of mistakes of the last
half of the nineteenth century.
A few years ago, when DR.. Mckinley
had inoculated the Republican party
with his virus of ultra proteetionism,
and it was irritable with the soreness
following the operation, lngersoll came
very near not making a mistake. He
said that it might be we'll enough to
take care of these Industries when they
were infants, but when they got to be
six feet tall, and wore number nine
boots and threatened to get up out of
the cradle and kick your head off if
you didn't keep on rocking the cradle.
ii was time to quit.
This was the closest approach to a
condition of sound sense that the col
onel ever reached, and the contiguity to
condition so foreign to his nature
alarmed him, and he scurried away as
fast as his agile mind could carry him,
and has never since ventured within
gunshot distance of common sense
again. That was one of the mistakes of
-lngersoll which he will never repeat.
There are others, however, VINO regard
it as one of the rare periods of lucidity
which even persons like Mr.. IngersolI
may enjoy.
How secure he is from liability to
make such mistake again was shown
in his talk to the editors in Minneapolis.
He ayowed himself protectionist of
protectionists. He wanted everything
made at home. The result of buying
anything abroad he put thus: ''If we
buy ton Of iron rails first mistake; we
buy no more iron Iails) in England and
pay $40, how does the account stand?
The United States, one ton of rails:
England $50. If we buy these ralle
here and pay $50, how does the account
stand? The United States, one ton of
rails and $50. toe"
This epigrammatic statement bristles
with the mistakes of lngersoll, of which
the least is his apparent ignorance of
the revolution which has driven the
iron rail out Of the market and put the
steel rail in its place. The account
stands in no such way as he puts it.
He beclouds it with his "glittering gen.
eralitieS." Ii the rails are bought in
England, the account stands: The pur-
chaser. not the United States, one ton
OF rails; consumers in England. not
England. $40 worth of the products of
the farm. the mines and the shops of
the United States. If bought here
at $50. the account stands thus: The
railway company, not the United
States, gets one ton of rails worth $40;
the maker of the rails gets $40, the
worth of his rails, and $40 worth of pro.
lection; the railway company makes
the users OF its road repay it. Result,
the Users, millions who use. or are used
by the railways, must work little
more, for which they receive nothing,
in order that a man, or a company of
men who make rails, may have $40 of
unearned wealth.
Mr.. Ingersoll makes the common mis-
take OF the dreamers, the doctripaires
OF his school, OF forgetting the Man in
their intense, worshipfuI veneration for
the Nation. They think the nation can
be made great by legislation, and forget
that nation is great just as it's lndivid-
ual men are strong, self-reIiant, indus
trlous. independent, and no more. They
ignore the fact and Mr.. Ingersolrs own
experience, the experience of Lincoln.
and Of every man who has made his
impress on the thought or action of his
time = the men who have helped
themselves. The weakling is the man
who has been helped so long that he
must always have help. The mau who
has worked and earned dollar is
better citizen than the one who has
begged it or has USED the strong arm of
the law to compel some one else to give
| it to him.
Ii Ire cares to see the illustrations of