The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1896-10-15
BOB INGERSOLL TO THE RESCUE

The desperation of tue goldolators
has at last drawn Col. Robert G, Inger-
soil, the great pagan, into the debate
on the money question. This can only
prove that it is u forlorn hope and that
Bob and his boomerang reputation can
at least do no harm. In his speech at
Chicago the other night he outlook
raned Cochran in making wild asser-
TONS In fact, the record of the gold
bug orators has been, the bigger the
orator the bigger the assertion. 1t
seems to have gotten into the head of
Col. Ingersoll and his ilk that the COM
mon mind can not properly understand
the money question, and that all the
big guns have to do is to belch forth
declarations and get red in the face
with apparent earnestness.
If this campaign does nothing else,
it is to be hoped that it will rebuke the
feeling of Superiority that pervades
the anatomy of the gold orators.
"Sound money" says Bob, "needs
no backing" and then he goes off into
that old absurdity that Roman eagle
is just as good today as it was when
Caesar rode at the head Of his legions.
He gives to gold the immutability and
other attributes he has so eloquently
denied the Christians God, when he
and everyone outside of an asylum
knows that the value of gold as money
is fixed arbitrarily by the laws of the
land. Political economists say that if
gold was not used as money by any
nation, and the mass of it dumped into
|
the markets of the world as mere
commodity, it would be worth but 60
cents an ounce instead of 1882, as it
is now. And yet such iconoclasts of
sacred things as Bob Ingersoll will
breathe into a gold dollar, with burning
words, all that is miraculous, intrinsic
and divine.
Bob Ingersoll is q hired man. Here
is what he said when he was in one of
his humanitarian moods
"There is no man in the United States
with integrity enough to account for
the decentralization of silver in 1873
There is not one. We need altogether
more money than we have. We need
twice as much money per capita to do
the business of this country as is need
ed to do the business of any other cOun-
try, and yet there is always somebody
that is crazy for fear there will be more
currency. I want just all the money
we can get that is good, and silver is
good enough for me, All want of
money, is to pay my debts, Yes, sir ;
and want the law to compel the other
fellow to take what l take. That is
good enough for me,
81 believe that every ounce Of silver
that Is dug under the American flag
should be coined free under the Ameri-
can flag. Inmy country they are mostly
on the other side; they are with the
bankers with the rich. fellows. They
get together and say we want gold. A
man takes a contract to pay certain
moneys in five years. I want law so
that he can pay the money when the
contract comes due with the same kind
of money that was money when he
made the contract. / do not think the
few should have the right to combine
to increase the value of what people
call money as against the debtor and in
favor of the creditor. l want the free
coinage of all the gold you can dig out
of the mines and crevices of the rocks,
and l want the free coinage Of all the
silver that you can win from the mines
of America"
Thus every prominent orator on the
gold standard side is forced to eat his
red hot free silver words.