The herald., 1896-10-17
THE MISTAKES OF INGERsoLL

| McKinleyism has found another dis
| tinguished champion who is drawing
| card wherever he speaks no matter on
| what subject. Col. Robert q. Ingersoll,
| the great agnostic, is the orator we refer
to. Though a hereto in religious mat
ters Col. Bob" always prefers to be on
the orthodox side of politics. That is
| to say, he likes to be on the conservative
side; the side of the fat clients, the pow
erful corporations. the well-fllled money
bags, the protected interests and the
special privilege classes. He seems well
satisfied with things as they are; he is
averse TO disturbing existing condi-
tions, except so far as disturbance may
be necessary in order to fully reinstate
protectionism in our fiscal policy and in
sure the perpetuity of gold-b -bugisn.
A few nights ago the eloquent agnostic
addressed a Republican meeting in Chi
cago. The audience numbered nearly
$4,000 persons and several thousand more
tried to hear him but could not get into
the pavilion. His speech contained num-
erous jokes and laughable passages so
characteristic of the great humorist. One
of his most absurd jokes was presented
in these words: mo man ever made
or created money. 1t is beyond the power
of legislature and congress"
In order to make the humor of this joke
so plain that everybody could see and
enjoy it the great orator should have
supplemented the above statement with
the following quotation from the federal
constitution Congress shall have
power to coin money, regulate the value
thereof" etc.
Seriously. what could have been the
matter with Col. IngersolPs brain when
he made that startling announcement?
Something was wrong with it, surely.
Yet the statement that congress has not
the power to create money was not much
more absurd than We're many other por-
tions of Ingersoll's Chicago grafton.
For a great many years the people of
the United States have imagined that
money was created by acts of congress,
as provided for by the constitution. Our
lawmakers, from the first congress to the
present, have acted on that belief. So
also have all the presidents and cabinet
officers. Such is doubtless the opinion
today of all the people, except Col. In
gersoll. Assuming that money is not
product of government, the noted joker
proceeds to tell the people that money
is a natural product, and that gold be-
ing the most valuable of all the pre-
cious metals therefore gold is natural
money, and the only real money lin ex-
istence. Everything that the govern
ment issues and calls money is mere
substitute, or shadow. or representative
of natural money. Hence gold is the
only sure foundation for our financial
system. Silver should not be mentioned
in comparison with the yellow metal, and
as for the free coinage of silver, that
would be so calamitous as to sink the
country into financial purgatory.
1t is announced that Ingersoll will
make ''only few speeches for McKin-
ley" If his Chicago speech is correct
sample of the orations he intends deliv-
ering elsewhere, the fewer the better for
McKin1ey's interests. If Mark Hanna
is as shrewd as he is generally credited
with being he will cancel Col. "Bob's"
other appointments, pay him big money
for not filling them, present him with a
gilt-edged copy of the federal constitu-
ton. and invite him to return to New
York where he can resume the practice
of law and agnosticism. The mistake
he made at Chicago overshadows any of
the Mistakes of Moses