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651 lines
34 KiB
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10 page printout.
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Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
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This file, its printout, or copies of either
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are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.
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Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
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A LAY SERMON.
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1886
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LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: In the greatest tragedy that has ever
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been written by man -- in the fourth scene of the third act -- is
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the best prayer that I have ever read; and when I say "the greatest
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tragedy," everybody familiar with Shakespeare will know that I
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refer to "King Lear." After he has been on the heath, touched with
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insanity, coming suddenly to the place of shelter, he says:
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"I'll pray, and then I'll sleep."
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And this prayer is my text:
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"Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
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That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
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How shall your unhoused heads, your unfed sides,
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Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
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From seasons such as these? Oh, I have ta'en
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Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp;
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Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
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That thou may'st shake the superflux to them,
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And show the heavens more just."
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That is one of the noblest prayers that ever fell from human
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lips. If nobody has too much, everybody will have enough!
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I propose to say a few words upon subjects that are near to us
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all, and in which every human being ought to be interested -- and
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if he is not, it may be that his wife will be, it may be that his
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orphans will be; and I would like to see this world, at last, so
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that a man could die and not feel that he left his wife and
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children a prey to the greed, the avarice, or the cruelties of
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mankind. There is something wrong in a government where they who do
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the most have the least. There is something wrong, when honesty
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wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, eat
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a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets. I cannot do much, but
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I can at least sympathize with those who suffer. There is one thing
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that we should remember at the start, and if I can only teach you
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that, to-night -- unless you know it already -- I shall consider
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the few words I may have to say a wonderful success.
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I want you to remember that everybody is as he must be. I want
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you to get out of your minds the old nonsense of "free moral
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agency;" and then you will have charity for the whole human race.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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1
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A LAY SERMON.
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When you know that they are not responsible for their dispositions,
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any more than for their height; not responsible for their acts, any
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more than for their dreams; when you finally understand the
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philosophy that everything exists as the result of an efficient
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cause, and that the lightest fancy that ever fluttered its painted
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wings in the horizon of hope was as necessarily produced as the
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planet that in its orbit wheels about the sun -- when you
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understand this, I believe you will have charity for all mankind --
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including even yourself.
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Wealth is not a crime; poverty is not a virtue -- although the
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virtuous have generally been poor. There is only one good, and that
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is human happiness; and he only is a wise man who makes himself and
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others happy.
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I have heard all my life about self-denial. There never was
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anything more idiotic than that. No man who does right practices
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self-denial. To do right is the bud and blossom and fruit of
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wisdom. To do right should always be dictated by the highest
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possible selfishness and the most perfect generosity. No man
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practices self-denial unless he does wrong. To inflict an injury
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upon yourself is an act of self-denial. He who denies justice to
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another denies it to himself. To plant seeds that will forever bear
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the fruit of joy, is not an act of self-denial. So this idea of
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doing good to others only for their sake is absurd. You want to do
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it, not simply for their sake, but for your own; because a
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perfectly civilized man can never be perfectly happy while there is
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one unhappy being in this universe.
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Let us take another step. The barbaric world was to be
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rewarded in some other world for acting sensibly in this. They were
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promised rewards in another world, if they would only have self-
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denial enough to be virtuous in this. If they would forego the
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pleasures of larceny and murder; if they would forego the thrill
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and bliss of meanness here, they would be rewarded hereafter for
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that self-denial. I have exactly the opposite idea. Do right, not
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to deny yourself, but because you love yourself and because you
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love others. Be generous, because it is better for you. Be just,
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because any other course is the suicide of the soul. Whoever does
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wrong plagues himself, and when he reaps that harvest, he will find
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that he was not practicing self-denial when he did right.
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If you want to be happy yourself, if you are truly civilized,
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you want others to be happy. Every man ought, to the extent of his
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ability, to increase the happiness of mankind, for the reason that
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that will increase his own. No one can be really prosperous unless
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those with whom he lives share the sunshine and the joy.
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The first thing a man wants to know and be sure of is when he
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has got enough. Most people imagine that the rich are in heaven,
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but, as a rule, it is only a gilded hell. There is not a man in the
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city of New York with genius enough, with brains enough, to own
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five millions of dollars. Why? The money will own him. He becomes
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the key to a safe. That money will get him up at daylight; that
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money will separate him from his friends; that money will fill his
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heart with fear; that money will rob his days of sunshine and his
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nights of pleasant dreams. He cannot own it. He becomes the
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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2
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A LAY SERMON.
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property of that money. And he goes right on making more. What for?
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He does not know. It becomes a kind of insanity. No one is happier
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in a palace than in a cabin. I love to see a log house. It is
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associated in my mind always with pure, unalloyed happiness. It is
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the only house in the world that looks as though it had no mortgage
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on it. It looks as if you could spend there long, tranquil autumn
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days; the air filled with serenity; no trouble, no thoughts about
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notes, about interest -- nothing of the kind; just breathing free
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air, watching the hollyhocks, listening to the birds and to the
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music of the spring that comes like a poem from the earth.
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It is an insanity to get more than you want. Imagine a man in
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this city, an intelligent man, say with two or three millions of
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coats, eight or ten millions of hats, vast warehouses full of
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shoes, billions of neckties, and imagine that man getting up at
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four o'clock in the morning, in the rain and snow and sleet,
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working like a dog all day to get another necktie! Is not that
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exactly what the man of twenty or thirty millions, or of five
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millions, does to-day? Wearing his life out that somebody may say,
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"How rich he is!" What can he do with the surplus? Nothing. Can he
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eat it? No. Make friends? No. Purchase flattery and lies? Yes. Make
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all his poor relations hate him? Yes. And then, what worry!
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Annoyed, nervous, tormented, until his poor little brain becomes
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inflamed, and you see in the morning paper, "Died of apoplexy."
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This man finally began to worry for fear he would not have enough
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neckties to last him through.
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So we ought to teach our children that great wealth is a
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curse. Great wealth is the mother of crime. On the other hand are
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the abject poor. And let me ask, to-night: Is the world forever to
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remain as it was when Lear made his prayer? Is it ever to remain as
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it is now? I hope not. Are there always to be millions whose lips
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are white with famine? Is the withered palm to be always extended,
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imploring from the stony heart of respectable charity, alms? Must
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every man who sits down to a decent dinner always think of the
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starving? Must every one sitting by the fireside think of some poor
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mother, with a child strained to her breast, shivering in the
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storm? I hope not. Are the rich always to be divided from the poor
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-- not only in fact. but in feeling? And that division is growing
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more and more every day. The gulf between Lazarus and Dives widens
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year by year, only their positions are changed -- Lazarus is in
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hell and he thinks Dives is in the bosom of Abraham.
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And there is one thing that helps to widen this gulf. In
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nearly every city of the United States you will find the
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fashionable part, and the poor part. The poor know nothing of the
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fashionable part, except the outside splendor; and as they go by
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the palaces, that poison plant called envy, springs and grows in
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their poor hearts. The rich know nothing of the Poor. except the
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squalor and rags and wretchedness, and what they read in the police
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records, and they say, "Thank God, we are not like those people!"
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Their hearts are filled with scorn and contempt, and the hearts of
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the others with envy and hatred. There must be some way devised for
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the rich and poor to get acquainted. The poor do not know how many
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well-dressed people sympathize with them, and the rich do not know
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how many noble hearts beat beneath the rags. If we can ever get the
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loving poor acquainted with the sympathizing rich, this question
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will be nearly solved.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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3
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A LAY SERMON.
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In a hundred other ways they are divided. If anything should
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bring mankind together it ought to be a common belief. In Catholic
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countries, that does have a softening influence upon the rich and
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upon the poor. They believe the same. So in Mohammedan countries
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they can kneel in the same mosque, and pray to the same God. But
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how is it with us? The church is not free. There is no welcome in
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the velvet for the velveteen. Poverty does not feel at home there,
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and the consequence is, the rich and poor are kept apart, even by
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their religion. I am not saying anything against religion. I am not
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on that question; but I would think more of any religion, provided
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that even for one day in the week, or for one hour in the year, it
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allowed wealth to clasp the hand of poverty and to have, for one
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moment even, the thrill of genuine friendship.
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In the olden times, in barbaric life, it was a simple thing to
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get a living. A little hunting, a little fishing, pulling a little
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fruit, and digging for roots -- all simple; and they were nearly
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all on an equality, and comparatively there were fewer failures.
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Living has at last become complex. All the avenues are filled with
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men struggling for the accomplishment of the same thing;
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"For emulation hath a thousand sons
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That one by one pursue: if you give way,
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Or hedge aside from the direct forethought,
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Like to an entered tide, they rush by,
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And leave you hindmost; --
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Or, like a gallant horse, fallen in the first rank,
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Lie there for pavement to the abject rear."
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The struggle is so hard. And just exactly as we have risen in
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the scale of being, the per cent. of failures has increased. It is
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so that all men are not capable of getting a living. They have not
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cunning enough, intellect enough, muscle enough -- they are not
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strong enough. They are too generous, or they are too negligent;
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and then some people seem to have what is called "bad luck" -- that
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is to say, when anything falls, they are under it; when anything
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bad happens, it happens to them.
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And now there is another trouble. Just as life becomes complex
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and as everyone is trying to accomplish certain objects, all the
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ingenuity of the brain is at work to get there by a shorter way,
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and, in consequence, this has become an age of invention. Myriads
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of machines have been invented -- every one of them to save labor.
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If these machines helped the laborer, what a blessing they would
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be! But the laborer does not own the machine; the machine owns him.
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That is the trouble. In the olden time, when I was a boy, even, you
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know how it was in the little towns. There was a shoemaker -- two
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of them -- a tailor or two, a blacksmith, a wheelwright. I remember
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just how the shops used to look. I used to go to the blacksmith
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shop at night, get up on the forge, and hear them talk about
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turning horse-shoes. Many a night have I seen the sparks fly and
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heard the stories that were told. There was a great deal of human
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nature in those days! Everybody was known. If times got hard, the
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poor little shoemakers made a living mending, half-soling,
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straightening up the heels. The same with the blacksmith; the same
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with the tailor. They could get credit -- they did not have to pay
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till the next January, and if they could not pay then, they took
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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4
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A LAY SERMON.
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another year, and they were happy enough. Now one man is not a
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shoemaker. There is a great building -- several hundred thousand
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dollars' worth of machinery, three or four thousand people -- not
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a single mechanic in the whole building. One sews on straps,
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another greases the machines, cuts out soles, waxes threads. And
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what is the result? When the machines stop, three thousand men are
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out of employment, credit goes. Then come want and famine, and if
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they happen to have a little child die, it would take them years to
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save enough of their earnings to pay the expense of putting away
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that little sacred piece of flesh. And yet, by this machinery we
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can produce enough to flood the world. By the inventions in
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agricultural machinery the United States can feed all the mouths
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upon the earth. There is not a thing that man uses that can not
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instantly be over-produced to such an extent as to become almost
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worthless; and yet, with all this production, with all this power
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to create, there are millions and millions in abject want.
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Granaries bursting, and famine looking into the doors of the poor!
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Millions of everything, and yet millions wanting everything and
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having substantially nothing!
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Now, there is something wrong there. We have got into that
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contest between machines and men, and if extravagance does not keep
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pace with ingenuity, it is going to be the most terrible question
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that man has ever settled. I tell you, to-night, that these things
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are worth thinking about. Nothing that touches the future of our
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race, nothing that touches the happiness of ourselves or our
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children, should be beneath our notice. We should think of these
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things -- must think of them -- and we should endeavor to see that
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justice is finally done between man and man.
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My sympathies are with the poor. My sympathies are with the
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workingmen of the United States. Understand me distinctly. I am not
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an Anarchist. Anarchy is the reaction from tyranny. I am not a
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Socialist. I am not a Communist. I am an Individualist. I do not
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believe in tyranny of government, but I do believe in justice as
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between man and man.
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What is the remedy? Or, what can we think of -- for do not
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imagine that I think I know. It is an immense, an almost infinite,
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question, and all we can do is to guess. You have heard a great
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deal lately upon the land subject. Let me say a word or two upon
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that. In the first place I do not want to take, and I would not
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take, an inch of land from any human being that belonged to him. If
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we ever take it, we must pay for it -- condemn it and take it -- do
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not rob anybody. Whenever any man advocates justice, and robbery as
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the means, I suspect him.
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No man should be allowed to own any land that he does not use.
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Everybody knows that -- I do not care whether he has thousands or
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millions. I have owned a great deal of land, but I know just as
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well as I know I am living that I should not be allowed to have it
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unless I use it. And why? Don't you know that if people could
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bottle the air, they would? Don't you know that there would be an
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American Air-bottling Association? And don't you know that they
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would allow thousands and millions to die for want of breath, if
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they could not pay for air? I am not blaming anybody. I am just
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telling how it is. Now, the land belongs to the children of Nature.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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5
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A LAY SERMON.
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Nature invites into this world every babe that is born. And what
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would you think of me, for instance, to-night, if I had invited you
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here -- nobody had charged you anything, but you had been invited
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-- and when you got here you had found one man pretending to occupy
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a hundred seats, another fifty, and another seventy-five, and
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thereupon you were compelled to stand up -- what would you think of
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the invitation? It seems to me that every child of Nature is
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entitled to his share of the land, and that he should not be
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compelled to beg the privilege to work the soil, of a babe that
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happened to be born before him. And why do I say this? Because it
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is not to our interest to have a few landlords and millions of
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tenants.
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The tenement house is the enemy of modesty, the enemy of
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virtue, the enemy of patriotism. Home is where the virtues grow. I
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would like to see the law so that every home, to a small amount,
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should be free not only from sale for debts, but should be
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absolutely free from taxation, so that every man could have a home.
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Then we will have a nation of patriots.
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Now, suppose that every man were to have all the land he is
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able to buy. The Vanderbilts could buy to-day all the land that is
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in farms in the State of Ohio -- every foot of it. Would it be for
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the best interest of that State to have a few landlords and four or
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five millions of serfs? So, I am in favor of a law finally to be
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carried out -- not by robbery, but by compensation, under the
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right, as the lawyers call of it, of eminent domain -- so that no
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person would be allowed to own more land than he uses. I am not
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blaming these rich men for being rich. I pity the most of them. I
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had rather be poor, with a little sympathy in my heart, than to be
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rich as all the mines of earth and not have that little flower of
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pity in my breast. I do not see how a man can have hundreds of
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millions and pass every day people that have not enough to eat. I
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do not understand it. I might be just the same way myself. There is
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something in money that dries up the sources of affection, and the
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probability is, it is this. the moment a man gets money, so many
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men are trying to get it away from him that in a little while he
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regards the whole human race as his enemy, and he generally thinks
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that they could be rich, too, if they would only attend to business
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as he has. Understand, I am not blaming these people. There is a
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good deal of human nature in us all. You remember the story of the
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man who made a speech at a Socialist meeting, and closed it by
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saying, "Thank God, I am no monopolist," but as he sank to his seat
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said, "But I wish to the Lord I was!" We must remember that these
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rich men are naturally produced. Do not blame them. Blame the
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system!
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Certain privileges have been granted to the few by the
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Government, ostensibly for the benefit of the many; and whenever
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that grant is not for the good of the many, it should be taken from
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the few -- not by force, not by robbery, but by estimating fairly
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the value of that property, and paying to them its value; because
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everything should be done according to law and order.
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What remedy, then, is there? first, the great weapon in this
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country is the ballot. Each voter is a sovereign. There the poorest
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is the equal of the richest. His vote will count just as many as
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|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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||
6
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||
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||
A LAY SERMON.
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though the hand that cast it controlled millions. The poor are in
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the majority in this country. If there is any law that oppresses
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them, it is their fault. They have followed the fife and drum of
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some party. They have been misled by others. No man should go an
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inch with a party -- no matter if that party is half the world and
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has in it the greatest intellects of the earth -- unless that party
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is going his way. No honest man should ever turn round to join
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anything. If it overtakes him, good. If he has to hurry up a little
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to get to it, good. But do not go with anything that is not going
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your way; no matter whether they call it Republican, or Democrat,
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or Progressive Democracy -- do not go with it unless it goes your
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||
way. The ballot is the power. The law should settle many of these
|
||
questions between capital and labor. But I expect the greatest good
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||
to come from civilization, from the growth of a sense of justice;
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||
for I tell you to-night, a civilized man will never want any thing
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for less than it is worth -- a civilized man, when he sells a
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thing, will never want more than it is worth -- a really and truly
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||
civilized man, would rather be cheated than to cheat. And yet, in
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||
the United States, good as we are, nearly everybody wants to get
|
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everything for a little less than it is worth, and the man that
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sells it to him wants to get a little more than it is worth, and
|
||
this breeds rascality on both sides. That ought to be done away
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||
with. There is one step toward it that we will take; we will
|
||
finally say that human flesh, human labor, shall not depend
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||
entirely on "supply and demand." That is infinitely cruel. Every
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man should give to another according to his ability to give -- and
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enough that he may make his living and lay something by for the
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winter of old age.
|
||
|
||
Go to England. Civilized country they call it. It is not. It
|
||
never was. I am afraid it never will be. Go to London, the greatest
|
||
city of this world, where there is the most wealth -- the greatest
|
||
glittering piles of gold. And yet, one out of every six in that
|
||
city dies in a hospital, a workhouse or a prison. Is that the best
|
||
that we are ever to know? Is that the last word that civilization
|
||
has to say? Look at the women in this town sewing for a living,
|
||
making cloaks for less than forty-five cents, that sell for $45!
|
||
Right here -- here, amid all the palaces, amid the thousands of
|
||
millions of property -- here! Is that all that civilization can do?
|
||
Must a poor woman support herself, or her child, or her children,
|
||
by that kind of labor, and with such pay -- and do we call
|
||
ourselves civilized?
|
||
|
||
Did you ever read that wonderful poem about the sewing woman?
|
||
Let me tell you the last verse:
|
||
|
||
"Winds that have sainted her, tell ye the story
|
||
Of the young life by the needle that bled,
|
||
Making a bridge over death's soundless waters
|
||
Out of a swaying, and soul-cutting thread --
|
||
Over it going, all the world knowing
|
||
That thousands have trod it, foot-bleeding, before:
|
||
God protect all of us! God pity all of us,
|
||
Should she look back from the opposite shore!"
|
||
|
||
I cannot call this civilization. There must be something
|
||
nearer a fairer division in this world.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
7
|
||
|
||
A LAY SERMON.
|
||
|
||
You can never get it by strikes. Never. The first strike that
|
||
is a great success will be the last, because the people who believe
|
||
in law and order will put the strikers down. The strike is no
|
||
remedy. Boycotting is no remedy. Brute force is no remedy. These
|
||
questions have to be settled by reason, by candor, by intelligence,
|
||
by kindness; and nothing is permanently settled in this world that
|
||
has not for its corner-stone justice, and is not protected by the
|
||
profound conviction of the human mind.
|
||
|
||
This is no country for Anarchy, no country for Communism, no
|
||
country for the Socialist. Why? Because political power is equally
|
||
divided. What other reason? Speech is free. What other? The press
|
||
is untrammeled. And that is all that the right should ever ask --
|
||
a free press, free speech, and the protection of person. That is
|
||
enough. That is all I ask. In a country like Russia, where every
|
||
mouth is a bastille and every tongue a convict, there may be some
|
||
excuse. Where the noblest and the best are driven to Siberia, there
|
||
may be a reason for the Nihilist. In a country where no man is
|
||
allowed to petition for redress, there is a reason, but not here.
|
||
This -- say what you will against it -- this is the best Government
|
||
ever founded by the human race! Say what you will of parties, say
|
||
what you will of dishonesty, the holiest flag that ever kissed the
|
||
air is ours!
|
||
|
||
Only a few years ago morally we were a low people -- before we
|
||
abolished slavery -- but now, when there is no chain except that of
|
||
custom, when every man has an opportunity, this is the grandest
|
||
Government of the earth. There is hardly a man in the United States
|
||
to-day, of any importance, whose voice anybody cares to hear, who
|
||
was not nursed at the loving breast of poverty. Look at the
|
||
children of the rich. My God, what a punishment for being rich! So,
|
||
whatever happens, let every man say that this Government, and this
|
||
form of government, shall stand.
|
||
|
||
"But," say some, "these workingmen are dangerous" I deny it.
|
||
We are all in their power. They run all the cars. Our lives are in
|
||
their hands almost every day. They are working in all our homes.
|
||
They do the labor of this world. We are all at their mercy, and yet
|
||
they do not commit more crimes, according to number, than the rich.
|
||
Remember that. I am not afraid of them. Neither am I afraid of the
|
||
monopolists, because, under our institutions, when they become
|
||
hurtful to the general good, the people will stand it just to a
|
||
certain point, and then comes the end -- not in anger, not in hate,
|
||
but from a love of liberty and justice.
|
||
|
||
Now, we have in this country another class. We call them
|
||
"criminals." Let me take another step.
|
||
|
||
"'Tis not enough to help the feeble up'
|
||
But to support him after."
|
||
|
||
Recollect what I said in the first place -- that every man is
|
||
as he must be. Every crime is a necessary product. The seeds were
|
||
all sown, the land thoroughly plowed, the crop well attended to,
|
||
and carefully harvested. Every crime is born of necessity. If you
|
||
want less crime, you must change the conditions. Poverty makes
|
||
crime. Want, rags, crusts, failure, misfortune -- all these awake
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
8
|
||
|
||
A LAY SERMON.
|
||
|
||
the wild beast in man, and finally he takes, and takes contrary to
|
||
law, and becomes a criminal. And what do you do with him? You
|
||
punish him. Why not punish a man for having the consumption? The
|
||
time will come when you will see that that is just as logical. What
|
||
do you do with the criminal? You send him to the penitentiary. Is
|
||
he made better? Worse. The first thing you do is to try to trample
|
||
out his manhood, by putting an indignity upon him. You mark him.
|
||
You put him in stripes. At night you put him in darkness. His
|
||
feeling for revenge grows. you make a wild beast of him, and he
|
||
comes out of that place branded in body and soul, and then you
|
||
won't let him reform if he wants to. You put on airs above him,
|
||
because he has been in the penitentiary. The next time you look
|
||
with scorn upon a convict, let me beg of you to do one thing. Maybe
|
||
you are not as bad as I am, but do one thing. think of all the
|
||
crimes you have wanted to commit; think of all the crimes you would
|
||
have committed if you had had the opportunity; think of all the
|
||
temptations to which you would have yielded had nobody been
|
||
looking; and then put your hand on your heart and say whether you
|
||
can justly look with contempt even upon a convict.
|
||
|
||
None but the noblest should infect punishment, even on the
|
||
bassist.
|
||
|
||
Society has no right to punish any man in revenge -- no right
|
||
to punish any man except for two objects -- one, the prevention of
|
||
crime; the other, the reformation of the criminal. How can you
|
||
reform him? Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows. Let it
|
||
be understood by these men that there is no revenge; let it be
|
||
understood, too, that they can reform. Only a little while ago I
|
||
read of a case of a young man who had been in a penitentiary and
|
||
came out. He kept it a secret, and went to work for a farmer. He
|
||
got in love with the daughter, and wanted to marry her. He had
|
||
nobility enough to tell the truth -- he told the father that he had
|
||
been in the penitentiary. The father said, "You cannot have my
|
||
daughter, because it would stain her life." The young man said,
|
||
"Yes, it would stain her life, therefore I will not marry her." He
|
||
went out. In a few moments afterward they heard the report of a
|
||
pistol, and he was dead. He left just a little note saying. "I am
|
||
through. There is no need of my living longer, when I stain with my
|
||
life the one I love." And yet we call our society civilized. There
|
||
is a mistake.
|
||
|
||
I want that question thought of. I want all my fellow-citizens
|
||
to think of it. I want you to do what you can to do away with all
|
||
cruelty. There are, of course, some cases that have to be treated
|
||
with what might be called almost cruelty; but if there is the
|
||
smallest seed of good in any human heart, let kindness fall upon it
|
||
until it grows, and in that way I know, and so do you, that the
|
||
world will get better and better day by day.
|
||
|
||
Let us, above all things, get acquainted with each other. Let
|
||
every man teach his son, teach his daughter, that labor is
|
||
honorable. Let us say to our children: It is your business to see
|
||
that you never become a burden on others. Your first duty is to
|
||
take care of yourselves, and if there is a surplus, with that
|
||
surplus help your fellow-man. You owe it to yourself above all
|
||
things not to be a burden upon others. Teach your son that it is
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
9
|
||
|
||
A LAY SERMON.
|
||
|
||
his duty not only, but his highest joy, to become a home-builder,
|
||
a home-owner. Teach your children that the fireside is the happiest
|
||
place in this world. Teach them that whoever is an idler, whoever
|
||
lives upon the labor of others, whether he is a pirate or a king,
|
||
is a dishonorable person. Teach them that no civilized man wants
|
||
anything for nothing, or for less than it is worth; that he wants
|
||
to go through this world paying his way as he goes, and if he gets
|
||
a little ahead, an extra joy, it should be divided with another, if
|
||
that other is doing something for himself. Help others help
|
||
themselves.
|
||
|
||
And let us teach that great wealth is not great happiness;
|
||
that money will not purchase love; it never did and never can
|
||
purchase respect; it never did and never can purchase the highest
|
||
happiness. I believe with Robert Burns:
|
||
|
||
"If happiness have not her seat
|
||
And center in the breast,
|
||
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
|
||
But never can be blest."
|
||
|
||
We must teach this, and let our fellow-citizens know that we
|
||
give them every right that we claim for ourselves. We must discuss
|
||
these questions and have charity -- and we will have it whenever we
|
||
have the philosophy that all men are as they must be, and that
|
||
intelligence and kindness are the only levers capable of raising
|
||
mankind.
|
||
|
||
Then there is another thing. Let each one be true to himself.
|
||
No matter what his class, no matter what his circumstances, let him
|
||
tell his thought. Don't let his class bribe him. Don't let him talk
|
||
like a banker because he is a banker. Don't let him talk like the
|
||
rest of the merchants because he is a merchant. Let him be true to
|
||
the human race instead of to his little business -- be true to the
|
||
ideal in his heart and brain, instead of to his little present and
|
||
apparent selfishness -- let him have a larger and more intelligent
|
||
selfishness -- a generous philosophy, that includes not only others
|
||
but himself.
|
||
|
||
So far as I am concerned, I have made up my mind that no
|
||
organization, secular or religious, shall be my master. I have made
|
||
up my mind that no necessity of bread, or roof, or raiment shall
|
||
ever put a padlock on my lips. I have made up my mind that no hope
|
||
of preferment, no honor, no wealth. shall ever make me for one
|
||
moment swerve from what I really believe, no matter whether it is
|
||
to my immediate interest, as one would think, or not. And while I
|
||
live, I am going to do what little I can to help my fellow-men who
|
||
have not been as fortunate as I have been. I shall talk on their
|
||
side, I shall vote on their side, and do what little I can to
|
||
convince men that happiness does not lie in the direction of great
|
||
wealth, but in the direction of achievement for the good of
|
||
themselves and for the good of their fellow-men. I shall do what
|
||
little I can to hasten the day when this earth shall be covered
|
||
with homes, and when by countless firesides shall sit the happy and
|
||
the loving families of the world.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
10
|
||
|