Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1896-10-16
Robert G.. Ingersoll on the Stump.

What Money Is---FI0t Money Is No
More Money Than q Bill of Fare is a
Dinner---HOnesty the First Consider
alton.
Twenty thousand people packed the big
Republican tent in Chicago, one night last
week, to hear Col. Robert G. Ingersoll's
opening speech for Mckinley and sound
money. Here are some of the things
which the colonel said:
VI admit that all the parties who disa-
gree with me are honest. Large masses
of mankind ale always honest. The leaders
not always, but the mass of the people do
what they believe to be right. Conse-
quently there is no argument in abuse,
nothing calculated to convince in calumny.
10 be kind, to be candid, is far nober, far
better, and far more American. We live
IN 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 want every one who hears me
to vote in exact accord with his sense, to
cast his vote in accordance with his con-
science.
mo man ever made or created money.
1t is beyond the power of legislatures and
congresses. Money is not something that
man can create. Money is something that
does not have to be redeemed. Money
is the redeemer. Anything that has
to be bolstered up with the promise of
an individual or nation is not money. A
nation can no more create money by law
than it can create corn and wheat and bar
ley by law.
'And the promise to pay money is no
nearer money than bill of fare is a din
ner. Twenty-three and twenty-five one
hundredths grains of pure gold make one
dollar. That is the money today of
the civilized world. All, but they say,
Cannot you make dollars out of silver?'
l say, Yes, but when you make a dollar
out of silver you have got to put dollar
worth of silver in a dollar If you make
money out of something else you have got
to put dollars worth of something else
into the dollar
sit takes a dollars worth of paper to
make good paper dollar. 1t takes a dol
lars worth of iron to make an iron dollar,
and it takes dollars worth of silver TO
make silver dollar. You do not add to
the value of gold by coming 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. All, but
they say, what makes gold valuable is that
the law has made it legal tender.
"Again, gentlemen, you are arguing
backward Because it was valuable the
law made it legal tender. Making it a
legal tender did not give it value; but be-
ing valuable, the law made it legal ten
der, recognizing its value. And yet these
gentlemen say that it got all its value
from the law making it a legal ten
der. 1t is exactly the other way. The le-
gal tender law rests on the value of the
metal. Why is gold valuable? i don't
know. Why do most people love oysters?
l don't know. Why do so many people
get idiotic about election? l don't know.
But these are facts in human nature. For
some reason, or for money, people give a
value to gold. And that value is recog-
nized by the law-making power, and that
is all there is to the legal tender act. But,
says Mr.. Bryan, 'our money is too good.
How can money be too good? He says !:
I'VE want more money l say: Yes. We
want good money, and the more good mon
ey we have the better
"There has been added to the money of
the world 1925, 000,0 900 in gold in the last
year, dug from the misery crevices Of the
rocks. Next year there will be in all prob
ability hundred millions more than that.
We are getting more good money. But he
says we want cheap money Well, why?
Because the money is now so good that
people want to hoard it. Consequently
he wants to get money that nobody will
want to keep, money that everybody will
be crazy to spend. If we get that kind of
money, who will take it?
"That is the kind of money these gen.
tlemen want in the United States. Cheap
money. Do you know that the words
cheap money are contradiction in terms?
Cheap money is always discounted when
people find out that it is cheap. They
have said of me that used to talk anoth-
er way. Twenty years ago, at Cooper I'm
ion, in New York, l made speech on this
subject favoring honest money. l said
Il am in favor of paper with gold and sill
yer behind it. l believe in silver because it
is one of the great American products, but
l want a silver dollar worth a gold dollar,
even if you have TO make it four feet in
diameter. No government can afford to
be clipper of coin. Honest money for
an honest people issued by an honest ma
ton That was where was 20 years ago,
and that is where l am tonight. Better
be an honest bankrupt than a rich thief.
Poverty can hold in its hand the jewel
honor, jewel that outshines all other
gems. A thousand times better be poor
and noble than rich and fraudulent"