textfiles/politics/INGERSOLL/biog-19.txt

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             INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION

                           CHAPTER 19.

                  UNIVERSAL REGRET AT HIS DEATH
                  A SUMMARY OF HIS LIFE-WORK IN
                  (1) POLITICS,     (2) THE LAW,
                  (3) THE FIELD OF RATIONALISM
               HIS INFLUENCE ON RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.

     The death of Robert G. Ingersoll, on July 21, 1899, was one of
the most widely -- noted events of that year in the civilized
world. It was also one of the most widely and profoundly regretted,
-- the most deeply deplored. Everywhere, the wisest knew (and the
noblest felt) that the cause of humanity had met its greatest loss.
To many thousands who realized the intellectual amplitude, the
moral heroism and grandeur, the boundless generosity and sympathy,
the tenderness and affection, of this incomparable man, his passing
was as an intimate and bitter bereavement.

     Ingersoll was doubtless known, personally and otherwise, to
more people than any other American who had not sat in the
presidential chair; and, notwithstanding either the number or the
wishes of his critics, his death probably brought genuine grief to
more hearts than has that of any other individual in our history.
Twice before, "a Nation bowed and wept"; this time, a people.

     No sooner was the world apprised of its loss, than wires and
cables were freighted with words that indicated, as unmistakably as
volumes could have done, the place which he who had so unexpectedly
passed the somber portals had occupied in the esteem and love of
mankind. Hundreds of messages reached "Walston," many from humble
individuals, many from distinguished personages in America and in
Europe; while from like sources came thousands of letters. Of
course, these communications differed widely in wording; bat their
common burden seemed to be: "The greatest and noblest of his kind
has fallen, and we mourn."

     The attention of the daily press was universal, the papers of
the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, and even of Africa,
publishing accounts of his death, biographical sketches, anecdotes,
and extracts from his works. These accounts, sketches, and so forth
varied in length, from a quarter of a column or so, to a full page
or more, of the principal dailies. Countless editorials appeared,
some of them several columns long. Sermons and briefer clerical
comments were quite innumerable; and there. were many magazine
reviews. Distinctively eulogistic offerings to newspapers and
periodicals were impressively numerous. It is especially notable
that very many of these tributes took the form of verse. One such
was written by a native of South India. Memorial meetings were held
in many places in the United States, north and south, east and
west, and in Canada and England. Societies were formed in his name,
days set apart to his memory. Subscriptions for the erection of
monuments were started in several places. It is particularly
significant that the citizens of Peoria opened such a subscription
only two days after his death.

     In their public invitation to subscribers, they stated, in
part, through the instrumentality of the Ingersoll Monument
Association; --

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     "The late Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll was a conspicuous figure
in the history of the present century. Of heroic character,
indomitable preservrance, and fearlessness, born of what he
believed to be the right, he was once the gentlest, most
affectionate, loveable, and the strongest character of his day."

     The monument association just mentioned was formed at the
memorial meeting which was held in the Tabernacle, on July 23,
1899, and which, in its manifestations of esteem, admiration, and
love, was impressive beyond description. Numerously attended, -- by
Freethinkers and Christians alike, -- the leading citizens of
Peoria, -- it is impossible to do more than to note, in passing,
the scores of individual tributes, -- many of which, from hearts
overfull, were uttered in broken words. But the final resolutions
(although partially quoted, in a particular connection, in Chapter
4) are presented in full: --

     "Whereas, in the order of nature -- that nature which moves
with unerring certainly in obedience to fixed laws -- Robert G.
Ingersoll has gone to that repose which we call death.

     "Resolved, That we, his old friends and fellow-citizens, who
have shared his friendship in the past, hereby manifest the respect
due his memory. At a time when everything impelled him to conceal
his opinions or to withhold their expression, when the highest
honors of the state were his if he would but avoid discussion of
the questions that relate to futurity, he avowed his belief; he did
not bow his knee to superstition nor countenance a creed which his
intellect dissented.

     "Casting aside all the things for which men most sigh --
political honor, the power to direct the futures of the state,
riches and emoluments, the association of the worldly and the well-
to-do -- he stood forth and expressed his honest doubts, and he
welcomed the ostracism that came with it, as a crown of glory, no
less than did the martyrs of old.

     "Even this self-sacrifice has been accounted shame to him,
saying that he was urged thereto by a desire for financial gain,
when at the time he made his stand there was before him only the
prospect of loss and the scorn of the public. We, therefore, who
know what a struggle it was to cut loose from his old associations,
and what it meant to him at that time, rejoice in his triumph and
in the plaudits that came to him from thus boldly avowing his
opinions, and we desire to record the fact that we feel that he was
greater than a saint, greater than a mere hero -- he was a
thoroughly honest man.

     "He was a believer, not in the narrow creed of a past
barbarous age, but a true believer in all that men ought to hold
sacred, the sanctity of the home, the purity of friendship, and the
honesty of the individual. He was not afraid to advocate the fact
that eternal truth was eternal justice; he was not afraid of the
truth, nor to avow that he owed allegiance to it first of all, and
he was willing to suffer shame and condemnation for its sake.




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     "The laws of the universe were his bible; to do good, his
religion, and he was true to his creed. We therefore commend his
life, for he was the apostle of the fireside, the evangel of
justice and love and charity and happiness.

     "We who knew him when he first began his struggle, his old
neighbors and friends, rejoice at the testimony he has left us, and
we commend his life and efforts as worthy of emulation.

     "Resolved, That we extend our heartfelt sympathy to his family
in their great loss, and that a copy of these resolutions be
forwarded to them."

     Even more significant, because coming from a source of still
more intimate knowledge, are the resolutions that were adopted at
a regimental meeting of the surviving members of the Eleventh
Illinois Cavalry Volunteers, in Peoria, on July 26th: --

     "Robert G. Ingersoll is dead. The brave soldier, the
unswerving patriot, the true friend, and the distinguished colonel
of the old regiment of which we have the honor to be a remanent,
sleeps his last sleep.

     "No word of ours, though written in flame, no chaplet that our
hands can weave, no testimony that our personal knowledge can
bring, will add anything to his fame, which the American public
will not now freely accord.

     "The world honors him as the prince of orators in his
generation, as its emancipator from manacles and dogmas;
philosophy, for his aid in beating back the ghosts of superstition;
and we, in addition to these, for our personal knowledge of him, as
a man, a soldier, and a friend.

     "We know him as the general public did not. We knew him in the
military camp, where he reigned an uncrowned king, ruling with that
bright scepter of human benevolence which death alone could wrest
from his hand.

     "We had the honor to obey, as we could, his calm but resolute
commands at Shiloh, at Corinth, and at Lexington, knowing as we
did, that he would never command a man to go where he would not
dare to lead the way.

     "Hence we recognize only a small circle around his recent
heaven and home, who could know more of his manliness and worth
than we do. And to such we say: Look up, if you can, through
natural tears; try to be as brave as he was, and try to remember --
in the midst of grief which his greatest wish for life would have
been to help you to bear -- that he had no fear of death nor of
anything beyond.

     "And we, the survivors, comrades of the Eleventh Illinois
Cavalry, extend to his widow and children our condolence in this
hour of their sad bereavement."




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     At a memorial meeting of Webb Command, Union Veterans' Union,
held in Peoria, on August 11th, it was similarly resolved, among
other things, that "this nation has lost one of its brightest
ornaments, and humanity one of its best, bravest, and truest
friends."

     More numerously attended than any of the meetings thus far
mentioned, and quite as impressive in every other respect, was the
one held in Studebaker Hall, Chicago, on August 6th, under the
joint auspices of the Eleventh Illinois Cavalry Veterans'
Association and the Ingersoll Memorial Association, then just
organized in that city. Thousands were present, many having
journeyed from distant points in the United States and Canada. The
meeting was presided over by Mr. Thomas Cratty, of Peoria; Mr.
Darrow (the eminent lawyer and author), Colonel Davidson, and
Colonel Carr, whose works were quoted in Chapters 3 and 8, being
among the speakers. Perhaps a majority of the latter not only, but
of the audience as well, were adherents to the Christian religion.
The services occupied about four hours.

     Of this remarkable demonstration, little further can be stated
than that every word with which the mortal living are wont to voice
their esteem, their admiration, their love and adoration, for the
immortal dead was utilized in its most meaning eloquence.
Earnestly, tenderly, reverently was the opinion avowed, by every
speaker, Christian and Freethought alike, that the fame of
Ingersoll was secure. Some went far beyond this, Mr. Cratty
declaring, in substance, that 'upon the likeness of Ingersoll,
future generations would gaze with more tenderness and joy than
upon that of any other man, living or dead.' Another speaker
expressed the belief that 'temples will be built to Ingersoll, and
his image be worshiped, when all gods and religions now known on
earth shall have been forgotten.' "He uttered more sublime words,"
said Mr. C. A. Wendle, of Ottawa, "than any other man who ever
lived." Mr. Darrow touched the keynote of his address in the
following: --

     "Robert G. Ingersoll was a great man. a wonderful intellect,
a great soul of matchless courage, one of the great men of the
earth -- and yet we have no right to bow down to his memory simply
because he was great. * * * Great orators, great soldiers, great
lawyers, often use their gifts for a most unholy cause. * * * We
meet to pay a tribute of love and respect to Robert G. Ingersoll *
* * because he used his matchless power for the good of man."

     The same eloquent testimony, with much other which was far
more eulogistic, but which cannot he presented here, was borne by
Colonel Carr: --

     "He was the boldest, most aggressive, courageous, virile, and
the kindest and gentlest and most considerate and loving man I ever
knew. His was a nature that yielded to no obstacles, that could not
be moved nor turned aside by the allurements of place or position,
the menaces of power, the favors of the opulent, or the enticing
influences of public opinion. Entering upon his career in an age of
obsequiousness and time-serving, when the values of political and
religious views were estimated by what they would bring from the 


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ruling party and from the church, in offices and emoluments and
benefices, he assailed the giant evils of the times with the
strength and power of Hercules and ground them to dust under his
trip-hammer blows. Throughout his whole active life, there has been
no greater and more potential influence than the personality of
this sublime character in breaking the shackles of the slave, and
in freeing men and women and children from the bonds of ignorance
and superstition."

     How truly the several speakers whom I have quoted reflected
the consensus of their auditors, may be judged by the following
extract from the resolutions that those auditors adopted: --

     "Resolved, That in the consideration of the place to be worthy
and properly accredited to him in the estimation of his countrymen
for his discharge of the duties and responsibilities of the
citizen, the soldier, and the statesman, his comrades and friends
in Illinois feel that the state which gave to the nation a Lincoln
and a Grant has contributed to enrich the records of American
citizenship in the life, person, and character of Robert G.
Ingersoll. In him broad-minded toleration was tempered with even-
handed justice and a gracious beneficence was qualified by a keen
sense of private responsibility and public duty. His companions and
friends can share with his family the substantial satisfaction of
knowing that no impure motives or unworthy aims ever sullied the
purity of his private life or marred the unblemished integrity of
his personal character.

     "Resolved, That in his career as a soldier and commanding
officer in the Union army the example of Robert G. Ingersoll is
worthy of emulation by the American citizen at any time or in any
emergency when the interests of his country may demand his
services. We recall with pride and affection his prompt and earnest
devotion to the cause of the Union in the hour of its greatest
peril."Resolved, That as a statesman and publicist Robert G.
Ingersoll achieved a high and enduring place in the estimation of
all who stand for good citizenship, social and civic morality and
a high standard of private and public life.

     "A master spirit in a masterful and prolific age, the gentle
life and mighty work of Robert G. Ingersoll have reflected luster
upon American institutions, and have won for him undying fame in
the hearts of those who are devoted to the achievements for their
countryman of the greatest good for the greatest number."

     On the same date as that of the preceding resolutions,
thousands of the citizens of Denver met, in the Broadway Theater
there, in another very notable manifestation. To pay a debt of
gratitude and love to "the champion of freedom, the most earnest
and eloquent defender of the rights of man, woman, and child, the
most fearless opponent of superstition, and the advocate of the
oppressed against the oppressor," was, in the language of the
memorial minutes, the object of the meeting. The latter was most
impressive, -- impressive in the same respects as the meetings in
Peoria and Chicago. Therefore, it would be but repetition to do
more than to indicate the substance and spirit of the principal
address.


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     In this, Governor Thomas declared that the character of
Ingersoll "was as nearly perfect as it is possible for the
character of mortal man to be"; that 'none sweeter or nobler had
ever blessed the world'; that 'the example of his life was of more
value to posterity than all the sermons that were ever written on
the doctrine of original sin.' "He had," said the speaker, "the
earnestness of a Luther, the genius for humor and wit and satire of
a Voltaire, a wide amplitude of imagination, and a greatness of
heart and brain that placed him upon an equal footing with the
greatest thinkers of antiquity. * * * He stands, at the close of
his career, the first great reformer of the age."

     Not less notable, as evidence of the widespread appreciation
of Ingersoll's love of and efforts for humanity, regardless of
creed or race, are the following resolutions, which, proposed by a
Christian clergyman, were enthusiastically adopted by the Indiana
State Afro-American conference at Indianapolis, on July 26th: --

     "Resolved, That in the recent death of Robert G. Ingersoll,
the nation has lost one of its greatest orators, statesmen, and
patriots, and to the Afro-Americans one of the greatest champions
of civil rights. Mr. Ingersoll always advocated the rights of the
oppressed. His ability and his purse were always at the service of
our people. On all questions that arose concerning the colored
people, Mr. Ingersoll was always found on our side.

     "Resolved, That this conference, in common with the colored
people of this nation, do deplore the death, and hereby tender our
greatest sympathy to his bereaved family."

     Even more significant, as will be evident from its source, is
the next manifestation of regard and sympathy to be presented here.
In the form of a letter to Mrs. Ingersoll, from Mr. Owen Miller,
president of the American Federation of Musicians, it shows how
truly appreciated by the profession concerned were the highest and
finest attributes of Ingersoll's many-sided nature: --

     "On behalf of 15,000 professional musicians, comprising the
American Federation of Musicians, permit me to extend to you our
heart-felt and most sincere sympathy in the irreparable loss of the
model husband, father, and friend. In him the musicians of not only
this country, but of all countries, have lost one whose noble
nature grasped the true beauties of our sublime art, and whose
intelligence gave those impressions expression in words of glowing
eloquence that will live as long as language exists."

     Of the numerous memorial meetings and resolutions of societies
having a distinctively rationalistic purpose, no specific mention
has been, or will be, made. Assumed as inevitable, such meetings
and resolutions are less truly indicative of Ingersoll's place in
the public esteem and affection than those of a more general
character. On the other hand, such of the resolutions as have been
quoted, representing, as they do, merely the formal consensus of
the meetings concerned, afford but an inadequate notion of the
individual feelings of thousands who were present, -- feelings
which, indeed, it was altogether impossible for any memorial
resolutions to convey. They were doubtless most truly voiced by Mr.


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John McGovern when he said, at Chicago: "This great public meeting
is not a proper testimonial to him. Only silence is adequate to
express the world's irreparable loss."

     Nor can these individual expressions be noted to any
considerable extent; and this applies alike to those of the avowed
rationalist and the religionist, -- to the extraordinarily
eulogistic tributes of hundreds of rationalists as well as to the
estimates of a score or so of Christian clergymen who have publicly
admitted that, in purity and nobility, the life of Ingersoll was
like that of Christ.

     But while these individual tributes, for the most part, must
be excluded for spacial reasons, there is in connection with them,
or nearly all of them, whether of rationalistic or Christian
authorship, a fact so peculiarly significant as to preclude the
possibility of its being ignored. It is this: The praise which
their authors bestow upon Ingersoll is directly proportional to
their own recognized artistic and intellectual standing. In other
words, they seem to bear with reference to him the same sympathetic
mental relation that he himself declares that all men bear to
Shakespeare: they get from him all that they are capable of
receiving. This may be noted in the various tributes and comments
of Garfield, Beecher, Whitman, Booth, Barrett, Joseph Jefferson,
Remenyi, Seidl, Conway, Hubbard, Mark Twain, and many others in
America. It may be noted in the action of Haeckel, "the Darwin of
Germany," -- foremost biologist of the world, -- who, in 1899, sent
his portrait, together with one of his latest works, inscribed "To
Colonel Robert Ingersoll, the valorous champion in the struggle of
truth." It may be noted in the case of Bjornson, who has translated
Ingersoll into Norwegian (and into the translator's own heart!),
and who writes: "I am very sorry, that, when I was in America, I
did not have the opportunity to grasp the hand of a man who, with
the sword, fought to free from bodily slavery three millions of
people, and who has shown the way to intellectual freedom to many
millions more"; and, "I envy the land that brings forth such
glorious fruit as an Ingersoll." It may be noted in tributes from
just across the Atlantic -- in the tribute of Huxley, of Holyoke,
and of Saladin, who declares that Ingersoll "is with Homer and
Tully and Shakespeare and Burns"; and, lastly, in that of
Swinburne, who, from the golden summit of English letters, wrote
that prior to July 21, 1899, he had one reason for desiring to
visit America.

     Not less expressive of admiration and devotion than the latter
references to the dead, had been the letters from like sources to
the living himself. Typical of these is the one quoted, in part,
below, -- from the poet, novelist, and thinker Edgar Fawcett: --

                                               Union Club,
                                               August 10th [1894].

     "My Dear Colonel:

     "I read your splendid letter in the World [on Is Suicide a
sin?], and it made me more loyally found of you than ever; more
devotedly your admirer too. That is truly a great deal for me to 


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say, as you know, since my devotion and admiration are both an old
story. How ridiculous is the state law! * * * You put the whole
thing with a superb lucidity, and with a gentle eloquence which
reminds one of an athlete's hand in a silken glove. The answer of
____ ____ was pitiably vacuous and fatuous, but not more so than
that of _____ _____.

     "I do so wish, that, in all these big questions, literary men
would take you more for a guide than they do, or seem to do. You
have, of course, an immense constituency; but your love of letters
and your deeply poetic spirit render you worthy of a far greater
reverence and respect from writers than it seems to me that you
receive. I want the brilliancy of your thought to penetrate our
literature profoundly and permanently. But of course that will
come. The younger generation of writers cannot escape you any more
than the air they breath. You will, indeed, be the air they breath,
-- and hence, in many cases, if not all, their inspiration.
Especially should the poets love you and sit at your feet. If you
die before you see the change, I believe that those who now love
you and survive you will see how much of the mere pietistic rubbish
in modern poetry has been gradually yet surely swept away by the
mighty besom of your fearless and noble intellect. * * *

                               "Ever affectionately,

                                       "Edgar Fawcett"

     An after-song, as it were, to the poem which he had recently
addressed to Ingersoll, and of which the last stanza read: --

     "And if record of genius like thine, or of eloquence fiery and
          deep,
      Shall remain to the centuries regnant from centuries lulled 
          into sleep,
     Then thy memory as music shall float amid actions and
          aims yet to be,
     And thine influence cling to life's good as the sea-vapors
          cling to the sea!"

     The Himalayan immensity of Ingersoll's labors and achievements
can best be realized by viewing him in three separate fields:
First, that of Rationalism, -- in its most radical and
comprehensive sense; second, that of the Law; third, that of
Politics. For, to be more specific, his vocation was Rationalistic
Reform; his two principal avocations were, first, the Law; second,
Politics. Beginning inversely to this order, let us therefore
finally consider his work and his influence.

                       1. -- In Politics.

     We should exceed the requirements of comprehensiveness, while
failing of our very object, if we should crowd these pages with
Ingersoll's opinions and teachings regarding the numerous questions
that concern with ever-varying interest the citizens of the nation.
Comparatively at least, many if not most of those questions are of
minor and temporary importance. Beside the great fundamentals, they
are as clouds that hang for a day on the political horizon, or flit


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rapidly across it, blown by the winds of partisan intrigue or of
selfish personal ambition. Earnestly, masterfully, unanswerably as
Ingersoll dealt, from time to time, during a long career, with such
questions as the sphere and functions of government, the tariff,
revenue, money, and so forth, he must be judged, if adequately and
justly, upon far more basic and enduring ones.

     In this connection, it seems barely necessary to remind the
reader that Ingersoll possessed, in his very physical,
intellectual, and moral constitution, In at least as full measure
as any other individual who has lived, the essentials of a
profound, broad, and lofty appreciation of the significance and
destiny of the American Republic. To paraphrase what he himself
said of Humboldt: Great men, -- great patriots, -- seem to be a
part of the infinite -- brothers of the mountains and the seas.
Ingersoll was one of these. Belonging, as he announced, "to the
great church that holds the world within its star-lit aisles," --
loving all lands that love liberty, -- he loved his own America
most dearly of all. Its geographic amplitude; the wide range of
climate, -- from the imperishable white of Alaska's "skyish" peaks,
to tropic groves of orange, pine, and palm; the magnificent lakes,
-- oceans within a continent; the mighty Mississippi, "nature's
eternal protest against disunion" -- "the Father of Waters" that
"again goes unvexed to the sea"; the vast and boundless prairies,
with golden wheat and bannered corn rustling like the murmur of the
sea; the great plateaux, -- fit stages for the dramas of
Shakespeare, the operas of Wagner; the canons, wild and grand; the
Rockies, awful and sublime; and the Sierras, -- nature's dauntless
picket-line to guard the Golden Gate -- all these tallied with
Ingersoll's conception, not only of continental America, but of the
physical, intellectual, and moral character of the ideal American.
And, believing that "we are molded and fashioned by our
surroundings," that "environment is a sculptor," he believed that
the things which I have mentioned tended to make the ideal
American: --

     "The great plains, the sublime mountains, the great rushing,
roaring rivers, shores lashed by two oceans, and the grand anthem
of Niagara, mingle and enter into the character of every American
citizen, and make him or tend to make him a great and grand
character."

     And so Ingersoll would have the citizen as grand as the
continent. He would have him "stand erect," not only beneath the
Stars and Stripes, but beneath its eternal prototype, "the flag of
nature, the blue and stars, the peer of every other man." He would
have him share the aboriginal freedom of Whitman's declaration,
"I'll sound my barbaric yap over the roofs of the world," and of
that of Harriet Martineau, "I want to be a free rover on the breezy
common of the universe." He longed for the time when every American
would declare with him, in his incomparable "Apostrophe to
Liberty": --

     "O Liberty, thou art the god of my idolatry! Thou art the only
Deity that hates the bended knee! In thy vast and unwalled temple,
beneath the roofless dome, star-gemmed and luminous with suns, thy 



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worshipers stand erect! They do not cringe, or crawl, or bend their
foreheads to the earth. The dust has never borne the impress of
their lips." * * *

     "Thou askest nought from man except the things that good men
hate. -- the whip, the chain, the dungeon key."

     And just as Ingersoll would have the citizen as grand as the
continent, so, too, would he have the nation; for his ample
appreciation of America's continental grandeur, together with his
ardent love of liberty and justice, is evident in the intellectual
breadth of his views and teachings on all fundamental political
questions.

     Strongly devoted, therefore, to the idea of national
greatness, he was naturally opposed to the doctrine of "state
rights," -- to "mud patriotism," as he termed it, -- whenever such
"rights" would detract, in the slightest degree, from the rights
and the welfare of the nation as an indivisible whole. "I am in
favor of this being a Nation. Think of a man gratifying his entire
ambition in the State of Rhode Island!" So he believed in the
absolute sovereignty of the Federal government in all disputed
questions affecting the people in common.

     He taught that the citizen's first duty was to the nation; his
second, to his state; that the nation's first duty was to the
citizen; its second, to his state. He insisted that the citizen
who, voluntarily or otherwise, placed his body between an enemy's
bullets and the nation's flag was thereby entitled to the
protection of the nation, -- not only abroad, -- but in any state
in which he chanced to be, provided, of course, that the state
itself had not afforded him protection. He declared that "any
government that will not defend its defenders, and protect its
protectors, is a disgrace to the map of the world."

     He believed in just and honest national expansion. He desired
the Great Republic to march on as long as she could keep the
highway of the right, and wear the mantle of honor and glory. He
said, for instance: "I want Cuba whenever Cuba wants us," adding,
in characteristic humor, "and I favor the idea of getting her in
the notion of wanting us." And he expressed great satisfaction over
the acquisition of Porto Rico, the Hawaiian Islands, and the
Philippines.

     This he desired for the sake of liberty and humanity. For he
regarded his country as "the chart and beacon of the human race" --
"the one success of the world" -- "the first and only republic that
ever existed." And did our fair Columbia ever hear from human lips
words of more ardent devotion than these? --

     Oh! I love the old Republic, bounded by the seas, walled by
the wide arc, domed by heavens blue, and lit with the eternal
stars. I love the Republic; I love it because it I love liberty.
Liberty is my religion, and at its altar I worship, and will
worship."




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     He was always faithful. Never did he fail to rebuke any enemy
of America who chanced to come to his notice, whether that enemy
was a native traitor or a foreign statesman or monarch. Least of
all would he brook unjust criticism by a fellow-citizen. Referring,
in one of the leading reviews, to such a criticism, he once wrote,
by way of rebuke: --

     "No American should ever write a line that can be sneeringly
quoted by an enemy of the Great Republic."

     He loved "Old Glory": --

     "Say what you will of parties, say what you will of
dishonesty, the holiest flag that ever kissed the air is ours!" "It
represents the sufferings of the past, the glories yet to be; and
like the bow of heaven, it is the child of storm and sun."

Again: --

     "I have been in other countries and have said to myself,
'After all, my country is the best.' And when I come back to the
sea and saw the old flag flying, it seemed as though the air, from
pure joy, had burst into blossom."

     These few quotations, typically Ingersollian, -- beautiful and
inspiring as they are unavoidably brief, -- would admirably express
the convictions and sentiments of many of our greatest patriots.
But how inadequate, in their brevity and fewness, to express the
convictions and sentiments of the very brain and heart, -- the
mighty personality, -- from which they blossomed! I wish that I had
the genius, -- the alembic of thought and feeling, -- to do justice
to the patriotism, the Americanism, of Robert G. Ingersoll. But I
have not. I wish that I could distil into these fleeting lines the
hatred of tyranny, slavery, and caste; the love of liberty and
equality; the worship of justice; the gratitude for the founders
and defenders of the Republic; the pride in her present, and the
confidence in her future, greatness and glory, which are manifest
in the Centennial Oration, A Vision Of War, the political speeches,
the reunion addresses, the Decoration Day orations. But I can not.
It is a task 'too subtle potent for the capacity of my ruder
powers.'

     Just here, it's well to remind the reader of what undoubtedly
seems a paradox. In rationalism, Ingersoll was a rationalist; in
law, Ingersoll was a lawyer. but in politics, Ingersoll was not a
politician. He did not even belong to a party, in the usual sense,
-- that of being a subservient mouthpiece. He said: --

     "I do not believe in being the slave or serf or servant of a
party. Go with it if it is going your road, and when the road
forks, take the one that leads to the place you wish to visit, no
matter whether the party goes that way or not. I do not believe in
belonging to a party or being the property of any organization. I
do not believe in giving a mortgage on yourself or a deed of trust
for any purpose whatever."

Again: --


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     "I go with the party that is traveling my way. I do not
pretend to belong to anything or that anything belongs to me. When
a party goes my way I go with that party and I stick to it as long
as it is traveling my road."

     In other words, Ingersoll in politics, like Ingersoll
elsewhere, was absolutely true to himself. During the long period
of his service for the party that most nearly represented his
political principles, he never for a moment lost his independence.
He kept the spiked collar off his neck, the tweezers off his
tongue, and, spurning the politicians' gold, ofttimes ill-gotten,
he preserved the perfect veracity of his soul. Although he usually
contributed to the sums out of which smaller men were paid for
speeches, not one penny ever found its way from a campaign fund to
the pocket of Robert G. Ingersoll. Moreover, he invariably paid his
own expenses. He used to say to the political managers: "All I want
from you is information as to where and when I can do the most
good; and I will be on hand at the specified hour."

     Such manifestations of individuality, -- such extraordinary
fidelity to principle and conscience, -- would alone have titled
him patriot, in the highest and noblest sense; but, as previously
indicated, it is far from being his only claim:' upon our memory as
a patriot. Indeed, (to summarize) his fearless denunciation of
slavery, the Dred Scott decision, and the Fugitive Slave Law, while
a Democratic candidate for Congress, in 1860; his masterful
rallying of the local Democracy of Peoria to the support of
Lincoln, as against the Confederacy; his support of Lincoln and the
Union with his sword, during a part of the three succeeding years;
his refusal to sell his mental manhood for the governorship of
Illinois, in 1868; his eager response to the call to battle in
subsequent years, whenever and wherever he saw in peril the
political principles upon which depended, in his opinion, the
safety and welfare of the Republic; and his clear visioned
appreciation of the latter's meaning and mission, and of the
position it occupies in relation to the other nations of the earth,
not only demonstrate that he was one of the greatest of patriots,
but afford a reasonable and logical foundation for the conviction,
that, had it not been for the prejudice of the masses, he would
have become in practice, as he already was in theory, one of the
greatest of statesmen.

     Manifesting, even in youth, the most characteristic American
traits, and placed, during that period, in an environment
constantly agitated with questions of the gravest import, --
questions which awakened, among the masses, far wider and
profounder concern than do any similar ones of the present day, --
it was inevitable that he should become interested in politics at
an early age. However, his noteworthy labors therein did not begin
until he was about twenty-seven years old, when, in 1860, as
previously stated, he was a candidate for Congress. It was in his
own local campaign of that year, as a Democrat, that he laid the
foundations of the oratorical fame which he subsequently achieved
in one of the national conventions, and which he so admirably
maintained in several national campaigns, of the Republican party.
Long before the close of the Civil War, his advice and oratorical
services were in urgent political request. Nor were they but twice 


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withheld. Even when treachery and ingratitude, in fullest measure,
were his lot, they were given with a cheerfulness that was heroic
-- given, not to men, not to a party, but given for the triumph of
principles on which depended, in his opinion, the welfare of the
Republic.

     Beginning with the second campaign of Lincoln, in 1864, and
excepting two, he participated in every Republican national
campaign that was held during a period of thirty-two years, his
services ending, as before stated, with the campaign of McKinley,
in 1896.

     And, first viewing it quantitatively, what a vast amount of
work he performed! In the Hayes campaign, for example, entering the
field unusually early, he delivered two or three addresses on at
least every third day until the election. And his addresses,
instead of the fifteen-minute conversational sort now in vogue,
were from two to three hours or so in length. Moreover, they were
supplemented by numerous private interviews; for, wherever he went,
he was beset by local politicians and members of the press, eager
for a personal word. Of the twelve volumes comprised in his works,
the single volume containing such of his political utterances as
have been permanently preserved gives but a meager idea of the
extent of his labors in the field concerned.

     And, next viewing those labors qualitatively (whether or not
we accept any or all of his political principles), how shall we
find words to do him even simple justice? We may say that he
possessed every conceivable excellence of the great popular orator;
but this conveys no adequate meaning to those who are not
personally familiar with his power and charm, and who are
imperfectly familiar with the written accounts and oral traditions
of his eloquence. We may state, on the best of authority, that,
when he was only twenty-seven years of age, or in 1860, he actually
drew to himself, at an "overflow" meeting, in Chicago, the greater
part of an audience which Stephen A. Douglas was addressing near
by, and that, thirty-six years later, or in 1896, in the same city,
he held, for over two hours, as though it were entranced, an
audience of twenty thousand people which, a few nights before, had
completely disconcerted and discomfited two veteran Republican
orators whose names are familiar on both sides of the Atlantic.'
But even this account seems inadequate to convey an impression of
his powers. Possessing, as I have stated, every conceivable
oratorical excellence, there was, in the largest and most
heterogeneous assembly, no mental or temperamental element whose
interest he could not arouse and hold. This may be best realized by
observing how widely divergent in him were the two poles of
expressional genius. He was the most florid and imaginative orator
that ever uttered English speech, and, at the same time, he was the
most practical. He had the simplicity of expression that is born of
profundity of thought. He was as deep as the sea, but as clear as
the sky. His sentences were crystallized light. He was preeminently
the teacher of the masses. Farmers, mechanics, laborers, used to
say, on hearing his explanation of a political or an economic
question, "Well, I understand that now." He simply could not be
misunderstood.



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     His influence on the electorate was believed to be exactly
commensurate with the extent of his oratorical efforts. That he was
a vote-winner was the opinion of the political managers. They used
to make some desperate appeals to him from "doubtful" sections. I
quote one of those appeals, a telegram, without its date and
signature: "For God's sake come here and pull us out. You are the
only one on earth who can do it." During the campaign of 1896, the
Chicago Inter-Ocean, in the course of a lengthy editorial
appreciation of Ingersoll's genius, remarked: "The Tribune truly
and pertinently says, that, 'If Colonel Ingersoll had the physical
strength he had at thirty, and could be turned loose in the
doubtful districts of the West, he would cut a wide swath of
conversions as far as his voice could reach. He is the inimitable
American orator of our time.'" When we consider the number and the
source of similar expressions, and how near he came, in 1876, to
making Blaine the next president, we are inclined to infer
something more than coincidence from the fact that in the only two
campaigns in which Ingersoll took no part, namely, those of Blaine
and Harrison, in 1884 and 1892, respectively, the Republican party
was defeated. And, even ignoring this as being too problematical,
we are still confident that there was not in Ingersoll's day, among
professional politicians themselves, a man whose political judgment
and services were more highly valued than his; and that, all in
all, he was (to be necessarily paradoxical) the must potent and
interesting extra-political individuality which the political
history of his country reveals.

                        2. -- IN THE LAW.

     As stated in Chapter 2, Ingersoll commenced the practice of
law in his twenty-second year, or in 1855, and continued its
practice until 1899, -- a period of forty-four years. He was
admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States
on February 2, 1865, during the term beginning in December, 1864,
and, as indicated in Chapter 4, was attorney-general of Illinois
from February 28, 1867, to January 11, 1869. Before the court just
mentioned, he appeared in numerous oral arguments, not one of
which, as far as is known, was ever reduced to print or writing.

     As a counselor and advocate, Ingersoll was among the very
first of his time, the equal of the very first of any other time --
as great and formidable a warrior as ever fought for justice
beneath the aegis of the law. It was not what he learned by rote
from text-books, decisions, reports, and so forth that made him a
great counselor. An individual can no more learn to be a truly
great legal adviser than he or she can learn to be a truly great
inventor, metaphysician, wit, musical conductor, or poet. The seeds
of genius are in the mental soil at birth; and unfavorable indeed
must be the conditions if they do not fill the air with fragrance,
the land with fruitage. As in the other departments in which he was
supreme, it is doubtful that in the law Ingersoll ever deliberately
learned more than a small fraction of what he knew. Individuals of
talent learn details; individuals of genius know principles,
universals. Ingersoll knew law from the start. He thought law. He
possessed that ethical instinct and insight, that innate sense of
equity and justice, that unerring and implacable logic, which are
its very foundations. It is said that if he ever erred in his 


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judgment of the common law, it was because the latter, in some
minor respect, failed to square with his sense of justice.

     "When I have a difficult case to consider," he once stated, "I
first make up my mind as to what the law ought to be, and then I go
in search of that law, and rarely fail to find it."

     "Every student of Colonel Ingersoll felt his extraordinary
gifts as a lawyer," writes Octave Thanet (Miss Alice French), whose
brother studied law in Ingersoll's office. "'He was a great
lawyer,' said my brother. 'He had a most remarkable power to go
straight to the principles of things. Often he would say to me:
"Now, the law used to be so and so; and the reasons for it were so
and so; but the reasons have changed, and now they are so and so;
and therefore the law should have changed also -- French, you look
up the decisions!" So I would look up the decisions -- and find
them.'"

     Ingersoll's quickness "in grasping the salient points of a
case," writes another of his intimate associates, "was equally
remarkable. For example, Colonel Ingersoll and a lawyer who was and
is one of the leaders of the New York bar, met at the office of a
New York banker to consult about a complicated and important legal
matter in which the banker was interested. The matter was new to
the Colonel. He listened for a while to the statement of the case,
asked a number of questions, and then suddenly announced that he
understood it all, and stated his opinion regarding it. This was
followed by putting on his hat and walking out. The lawyer
associated with him regarded him with surprise, and when he had
gone said he could not pass on such a complicated and important
matter in any such off-hand way. He must have time to study it. Yet
when he did arrive at a conclusion, he was obliged to agree with
the Colonel in every particular. Stories of this kind regarding him
might be multiplied indefinitely."

     And even the extraordinary qualifications thus far mentioned
did not surpass his faithfulness to clients. Once satisfied that a
client was in the right, the latter's cause, his innermost
feelings, were Ingersoll's own. Instantly he stood in his client's
position -- robed in the mantle of sympathy. Ingersoll the
counselor and advocate could put himself as absolutely in place of
the client as Ingersoll the humanitarian could put himself in place
of the outcast -- as absolutely as grand old Lear on the heath put
himself in place of the 'poor naked wretches that bide the pelting
of the pitiless storm.' Or, again, like Whitman, Ingersoll could
say: "I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs." Or:
"Judge not as the judge judges, but as the sun falling upon a
helpless thing."

     A case once rightly in his thoughts, never left them day or
night, until he saw the end, -- until his client either received
the palm of victory, or was shrouded in the rayless gloom of
defeat. There was no possible source of information from which
Ingersoll did not draw. No stone was left unturned. Did the case
require historical, genealogical, mechanical, chemical, medical, or
bacteriological research, he made the research. To apply in this
connection a saying which he applied in another, the case "was in 


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his head all day and in his heart all night." Especially is this
true of the early days of his forensic career, when many of his
cases were of the "criminal" sort. And in later years it was
perhaps the chief reason why his practice was confined to cases of
a "civil" nature, in which other considerations than human sympathy
play the leading role. The tragedy and pathos of criminal practice
weighed heavily upon him.

     In the selection of a jury, in the examination of witnesses,
in objections to the court, in short, from beginning to end in the
management of a case, he was "the soul of courtesy." What is
particularly remarkable, he would not quarrel with opposing
counsel; and as opposing counsel very quickly learned not to
quarrel with him, the trials in which he took part were generally
models of order and decorum. He was alert, tactful, resourceful,
original, unique. No one ever knew what was "coming next." It may
be safely said that there were two wise rules for the guidance of
his opponents: first, do not become his opponent; second, having
unfortunately become such, let him be unmolested, as far as
exigencies permit.

     Nor does our enumeration, even thus far, include all of his
splendid qualifications as a lawyer. Passing hastily over at least
one of the most important of them, -- mastery of the foundations
and intricacies of the law,. -- there remains to be considered
another of his qualifications which alone would have placed him
among the very first of his profession in any age. That there was
nothing within the realm of possibility which he could not
accomplish with a jury is well known. Himself the most human of
men, he understood, as clearly and fully as lawyer ever did, the
capacities, susceptibilities, weaknesses, prejudices, and
predilections of his kind. As the sculptor knows his mass of clay,
so Ingersoll knew his fellow-beings; and over those masses of
animate clay, his power was even more nearly absolute than the
sculptor's over his. Ingersoll could make his clay laugh and weep
and reason, -- reason in his own way: the sculptor can only make
his clay seem to do these things. And of the two, Ingersoll
manifested the more composite genius. With a personality
magnetically irresistible; overflowing with good nature, --
enjoying every pulse and breath; frank and candid; all but
infallible in memory; lightning itself at repartee, but never
wounding unless compelled, and then instantly ready with the balm
of humor; saying just the right thing at the right time, and
nothing at the wrong time; eloquent on even the commonplace, --
sublime on the sublime; able to clarify at once the oiliest
problem, -- to put the complex and intricate in words that even a
child not only could, but mast, understand -- with all these
attributes and powers, he was the most impressive and convincing
advocate that ever appealed to the heart and brain of an American
Jury.

     As tending to support this claim, the following account of his
conduct of a case at Metamora, Ill., during his early forensic
career, is of typical interest. Two farmers had quarreled
concerning a boundary-line, and one had killed the other with a
spade. Ingersoll was counsel for the accused. Instead of bringing
the latter's wife and children into court, as another advocate 


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probably would have done, Ingersoll chose to rely wholly upon his
own unaided influence with the jury. He presented his case from the
standpoint of the evidence and of the law, and then -- he painted
a picture with words, -- a picture of a lowly cottage, at twilight.
The wife and children were standing at the little gate, -- the
children wondering why papa was so late, -- the wife peering into
the dimming distance for him who was still the one of all the
world. And with the last touch to the pathetic scene, the lawyer-
poet suddenly said to the jury: --

     "Now, gentlemen, are you going to let this man go home?"

     "Yes, 'we are!" came the sobbing answer from the burly
foreman; and "Bob" dropped into a seat as though he himself had
been shot.

     We must not here overlook a fact which reflects still more to
his individual greatness: In the courtroom he always labored at a
disadvantage that no other eminent American lawyer experienced the
disadvantage of religious prejudice. And what other disadvantage
could have been greater? Can it be imagined that there was a
community which could have furnished, in the usual course, twelve
men of whom one or more would not be prejudiced against Ingersoll
because of religious belief? Can it be imagined that in another
lawyer precisely the same powers which Ingersoll possessed would
not have had far greater effect upon the average jury? We who have
long observed the general tendency to withhold his rightful dues
know that it can not. How much higher, then, than we otherwise
would must we, in simple justice, rate his abilities as a legal
advocate?

     May we not extend our inquiries even further? Is it not
doubtful, taking into consideration all of the requisites of the
really great counselor and advocate, that another as great as
Ingersoll ever practiced at the American bar? What other American
has combined, in as full and rounded measure, the many necessary
qualities and attributes? Let us be candid, -- reasonable. In what
type of man should we naturally look, not for a great, but for the
greatest, counselor and advocate? Should we look to one who was
profound in law, but who was not an orator? Should we look to one
who was an orator, but who was superficial in law? Should we look
to one who, in the law, trusted in the reasonable, the natural, the
probable, and who was an orator, but who, outside the law, trusted
in the unreasonable, the supernatural, the improbable? "Assuredly
not," will be your reply to all of these questions. "We should look
to him who was intellectually free; who possessed the widest
horizon; who had the most perfect sense of justice; who was the
greatest logician; who relied absolutely upon reason, observation,
and experience, -- upon the reasonable, the natural, the probable,
-- not only in law, but in every possible department of mental
effort, and who was a great orator, -- one who could set his
thoughts to verbal magic that would enrapture, enthrall, convince."
Then you would turn, were he still among us, to Robert G.
Ingersoll.

     In making this statement, I am unmindful neither of his
possible limitations nor of others' excellencies. Let us see. There
was one other American who was perhaps as versatile, -- as "many-

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sided," -- as Ingersoll, but he was neither lawyer nor orator.
There was another American who was a great orator (as great as he
could be without having been born a poet) and a great lawyer (as
great as he could be without a perfect sense of justice), but he
was not a universal logician; he believed in the supernatural; he
defended the Fugitive Slave Law. There was yet another American who
was profound in law. and profound in justice and mercy, but he was
not particularly versatile; he was not free from superstition; and
he was not a great orator. Still others were profound in law, but
they were not great orators; their mental horizon was narrow; they
were believers in superstition.

     "I once told an eminent jurist," says Haeckel, "that the tiny
spherical ovum from which every man is developed is as truly
endowed with life as the embryo of two, or seven, or even nine
months; he laughed incredulously." More than one of America's great
lawyers would have done the same. But Ingersoll? Would he have
laughed at a biological truth with which not only the scientist,
but every intelligent layman, ought to be perfectly familiar? The
answer is that Ingersoll was as conversant with this very Haeckel,
with the principal facts, phenomena, and laws of biology, "from
moner to man," as he was with the common law itself. Into the lap
of his intellect, Humboldt, Darwin, and Wallace, Huxley, Tyndall,
and Helmholtz, had emptied their glittering treasures. Indeed, this
list might properly include the name of every savant from Haeckel
back to Bacon. In philosophy, he had ranged from Socrates to
Spencer. In literature, the characters of Shakespeare, Dickens,
Balzac, Hugo, and many others were as familiar to him as the
members of his own household. There was not in English a great
poem, whether in prose or verse, that did not linger in his heart
to polish anon his native graces with its ennobling influence; and
in the gallery of his memory, the marbles of the Greeks, --
pathetic even in their original completeness, -- pointed with
double pathos their mutilated arms toward the remnants of a once
powerful and tyrannical, but now fast weakening superstition, in
the presence of which he had ever stood whole-souled, sane, and
free.

     Nor have we even yet exhausted the list of attributes and
accomplishments that Ingersoll made auxiliary to his extraordinary
qualifications as a counselor and advocate. He was familiar with
all the mental paths that man had traveled -- from midnight to dawn
-- from dawn to noon. He understood the inscriptions on all the
mile-posts along the way -- the victories and achievements.

     His scope and perception were astounding. He had been known to
puzzle mechanics, inventors, navigators, with questions in their
own specialties, and then vex them by answering his own questions,
after they had failed to do so. He could criticize a novel, a play,
a painting,' a poem, as masterfully as he could a legal brief, a
political platform, or a theological creed; and, as indicated in
Chapter 9 his knowledge and appreciation of music would have done
credit to many a professional musician.

     It may be that perfect freedom of thought and encyclopedic
knowledge are negligible factors in estimating forensic
capabilities. It may be that familiarity with the truths of 


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science; that the intellectual capacity essential to comprehension
of the great systems of philosophy; that the insight into human
nature imparted by Shakespeare and the great novelists; and that
the subtlety, profundity, and sublimity of thought and feeling
involved in understanding and appreciating the greatest poetry and
the greatest music -- it may be that all these can add nothing to
the qualifications of the counselor and advocate. But if they can,
then I unhesitatingly declare that such versatility as I have
indicated, added to the eminent forensic abilities which I have
also indicated, and which everybody admits that he possessed, must
necessarily place Ingersoll, the capacities of all alike
considered, at the head of American lawyers.

     Of the many hundreds of cases that he tried, during the forty-
four years of his legal career, none has been specifically
mentioned in the present chapter, and only five were mentioned in
previous chapters -- the Munn trial, the "Star-Route" trials, the
Reynolds blasphemy trial, the Davis will case, and the Russell will
case. To these should be added the Canmer case, and that of the
Bankers' and Merchants' Telegraph Company against the Western Union
Telegraph Company, in which Ingersoll secured a verdict of
$1,500,000. These cases were and are mentioned, obviously not
because the labor which they involved was necessarily greater than
that of many others of which the general public scarcely heard, but
because of their interest and magnitude in the eyes of that public.

     Of Ingersoll's practice before the courts of the different
states, before various United States circuit courts, and before the
United States Supreme Court, I shall attempt no details. Nor shall
I specifically note more of the generous compliments that were
extended to him by both the bench and the bar, from ocean to ocean,
from north to south. No such array of particulars is essential to
my present object -- a general indication of his abilities and
achievements in the law. For it is already apparent that in this,
the more important of his avocations, his abilities were
extraordinary, his achievements monumental; that, all relevant
things considered, he was the most conspicuous figure of his
century.

               3. -- IN THE FIELD OF RATIONALISM.

     It will have been observed, that I have thus far given no very
definite indication of the period or periods covered by Ingersoll's
anti-theological propaganda, and no sort of indication of its
geographic scope. And it will doubtless be agreed, that, in so far
as I have failed to do this, I have failed to do justice, not only
to his physicomental powers, but to the zeal, enthusiasm, and
aggressiveness with which he consecrated his life to the cause of
physical and intellectual liberty.

     In contemplating the work of Ingersoll, we must exclude the
mere thinker and the mere writer. It is something, no doubt, to sit
in the secluded luxury of the study, -- in the gracious ease of the
arm-chair, -- and think that Christendom is wrong. It is something
more, under the same conditions, to put one's thoughts into
magnificent discourses to be read in the luxury of other studies,
-- in the ease of other arm-chairs. But it is far greater still to 


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go out into a stolid and insolent world, -- into "the byways and
hedges," -- month after month, year after year, decade after
decade, and tell Christendom that it is wrong -- tell Christendom
that it is wrong, and lay, in scornful defiance, upon the altars of
Ignorance, Bigotry, and Hypocrisy, the holy offerings of honest
conviction. And this, in brief, did Robert G. Ingersoll. For more
than forty years, with all his might, he battled in every direction
and quarter for the universal liberty of mankind. Of course, not
all of this period was devoted to fighting the beleaguering hosts
of superstition. But when, in his earlier days, he was not fighting
both mental and physical slavery with his tongue, he was fighting
physical slavery with his sword -- fighting those who would
substitute for the Great Republic, -- that radiant hope and glory
of mankind, -- an autocracy of slavery. And when, after physical
slavery was dead, he was from any cause unable to fight mental
slavery with his tongue, he used his pen.

     As already stated, Ingersoll delivered his first public anti-
theological discourse when he was twenty-three years old, or in
1856. His career as a rationalistic reformer may therefore be said
to have begun in that year: it ended in 1899, -- a period of
forty-three years. From 1856 to 1860, few if any rationalistic
discourses were delivered. In the latter year, as stated in Chapter
3, he delivered Progress, the first of his anti-theological
lectures of which any authentic report has been preserved. He did
not again lecture until 1864, when Progress was repeated. His next
lecture was delivered in 1869. After that year, he lectured
continually, excepting from 1885 to 1890, when the condition of his
throat would not permit.

     "After he fairly had started on his agnostic career, fanatics
commenced to threaten his life. Many a time he mounted the platform
with a letter in his pocket stating that he would never live to
finish his address." Such letters were usually written in red ink
and signed, "A Lover of Jesus," "A Friend of the Lord," or with
some other nom de plume of like import. Typical of these
communications was one delivered by special postal delivery, in
Chicago, to the secretary of Ingersoll, just before the latter
began his lecture. It read, in substance: "If you go on the
platform to-night and speak against the Bible, you will not live to
see your wife and children again." Although this letter was not
delivered to the addressee until after the conclusion of his
lecture, and would have had no more effect in changing the course
of events had it been delivered before than had the many others of
its kind, it represented one of those threats which, one would
think, were not to be despised. "Nothing is so blind and cruel as
religious fanaticism. The spirit that lighted the fire around
Servetus, that deluged Paris with blood on St. Bartholomew's Day,
that devastated Germany in the Thirty Years' War, that caused the
unspeakable horrors of the inquisition -- something of that spirit
still lingers to-day. More than one half-crazed brain would have
imagined that it was doing God's service by striking down this
Antichrist, and that an eternity of bliss would open for it for
performing such an act." In support of this, it may be noted that
one man has voluntarily stated that he once attended a lecture
resolved and prepared to shoot Ingersoll, but that, when he came
under the influence of the latter's voice and personality, he was 


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unable to consummate his dastardly purpose. And this would seem to
confirm, in a measure at least, the assertion of one who knew
Ingersoll intimately, that mere association for any length of time
with the great humanitarian would have transformed even a criminal
into a model citizen.

     As to the number and character of the anonymous correspondents
previously mentioned, we may further judge by the following extract
from an interview published in the Chicago Times of May 29, 1881:

     "Yes: I get a great many anonymous letters -- some letters in
which God is asked to strike me dead, others of an exceedingly
insulting character, others almost idiotic, others exceedingly
malicious, and others insane, others written in an exceedingly good
spirit, winding up with the information that I must certainly be
damned. Others express wonder that God allowed me to live at all,
and that, having made the mistake, he does not instantly correct it
by killing me. Others prophecy that I will yet be a minister of the
gospel; but, as there has never been any softening of the brain in
our family, I imagine that the prophecy will never be fulfilled.
Lately, on opening a letter and seeing that it is upon this
subject, and without a signature, I throw it aside without reading.
I have so often found them to be grossly ignorant, insulting and
malicious that as a rule I read them no more."

     But, to return to the threats, Ingersoll cared precisely the
same for any fanatic violence that might spring from orthodoxy as
he did for orthodoxy itself: he treated both with that disdainful
and scornful defiance which, in his estimation, their
dispicableness deserved. His purpose and resolution were never
tempered by the thought of deviation. "As long as the smallest coal
is red in hell," he said, in 1884, "I am going to keep on." He
asked and gave no quarter; and he recognized no flag but the flag
of surrender.

     During the forty-three years of his anti-theological crusade,
he lectured in every town and city of any considerable size and
importance in every state and territory of the United States,
except North Carolina, Mississippi, Indian Territory, and Oklahoma,
and in many towns and cities in Canada. And in nearly all these
places, he lectured not once, but many times, and in some of the
larger places, not only many times during his career, but two or
three times every season. Year after year, he returned; year after
year, the size, intelligence, and enthusiasm of his audiences
increased. He had ten eager, sympathetic listeners in 1899 to one
in 1860. The entire theological subsoil of North America was
honeycombed by his eloquent aggressiveness -- converted into vast
catacombs for the orthodox dead. His repertoire was always new,
changing, inexhaustible. Of the nearly thirty different lectures
which he wrote, there was, in effect, a new one for every audience.
Thus, on a lecture-tour in one season, he would deliver at A, The
Liberty of Man, woman, and Child; at B, Some Mistakes of Moses; at
C. Why I Am An Agnostic, etc. The next season, with the same
itinerary, the order of delivery would be reversed, or all of the
lectures would be different. Verily could it have been said of him:
"Age cannot wither, nor custom stale," his "infinite variety."
Learned "pulpit orators" might be talking to air in the pews, their


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churches garish with placards of "sociables," "bazaars," and
amateur theatricals; but Ingersoll, in the viriest "city of
churches," on a brief notice (hardly noticeable), would fill the
largest theater, from the first row of the orchestra, to the last
row in "the gallery of the gods." And he could fill the same
theater, on the same subject, whenever he chose to return. Indeed,
a large majority of his audience would have had him return on the
following day. For, from opening to close, his discourse never
palled; his hearers were never cloyed. Instead, they were impatient
for a wider and deeper view of that new world of love and liberty
of which he had opened before their blinded eyes an enchanting and
inspiring vista. To oratory born -- filling the stage like "an
antique god"; graceful as a willow when zephyrs stir the languid
air; his face as perfect a mirror of his thoughts as the stream
over which the willow bends is a perfect mirror of all that is
above; with wit like lightning, humor as kindly as autumn, logic as
cold as winter; with the directness of light, the candor of day,
the pathos of twilight -- a master of verbal melody -- he lingered
in the memory of auditors like a faultless production of Die
Walkure or of Hamlet.

     How amply this general representation is warranted by the
concrete facts of Ingersoll's anti-theological career may be seen
in such accounts as follow.

     The first is from The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer of May 10,
1880: --

     "Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll lectured last night at Pike's
Opera-House on his new theme of 'What We Must Do To Be Saved?' His
vanity must have been touched by the flattering reception which met
him. Seldom has such a large and intelligent audience been crowded
into four walls of the house as were there when Colonel Ingersoll
stepped upon the stage. Parquet, dress-circle, gallery, balcony,
stalls, boxes, aisles, lobbies, and stairways were filled with
entranced listeners, while even the stage was utilized to seat some
of the hearers. The lecture, which lasted over two hours, was
listened to with charmed ears and greeted, from time to time, with
sincere applause, loud laughter, and cheers of approbation. It was
an audience en rapport with the speaker and the doctrines he
advanced. To attempt a report of such a lecture verbatim would be
to fill columns with words which, coming from other than Mr.
Ingersoll's flowery lips, accompanied by the embellishment of his
charmed presence, would be stripped of more than half their force.

     "The lecturer came upon the stage without introduction. He
needed none, for few of his hearers had never seen him before. Most
of them were there, not out of curiosity to hear and see a man they
had heard of, but to hear a man whose eloquence had charmed them on
a former occasion. There is that to be said to recommend Colonel
Ingersoll as a lecturer. If he once succeeds in securing an
audience, he is sure of it on any future occasion."

     From the Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin: --

     " * * * He is a born. Of fine physical proportions, graceful
carriage, possessing a large and finely molded head, an expressive
countenance, and genial smile, a voice of great compass, and lungs 

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and throat that seem incapable of failure under the severest
strain, his audience receives a favorable impression from the
moment that he steps to the front of the rostrum, and utters his
first sentence. This impression is deepened by the unobstructed
flow of language, his fine intonation, his graceful, yet emphatic,
gestures, his vigerous sentences -- now sparkling with humor, now
loaded with stinging sarcasm or terrible denunciation, and now
unfolding into the most splendid imagery. He seems never to lack a
word, or a smile, but the volume of his discourse flows on with
such fullness, ease, and power, that one wonders it can ever stop.
* * * "

     From the Boston Herald of Monday April 19, 1880: --

     "When the Boston Theatre is enlarged, it will be able to
contain a greater audience than that which assembled within its
walls last evening -- not before. The announcement that Colonel
Robert G. Ingersoll was to lecture caused so great a rush for seats
that all the desirable sittings were taken two or three days in
advance of the appointed time; and when the rotund figure and jolly
countenance of the orator appeared upon the stage, last evening,
and stepped forward to the reading desk at the footlights, he was
greeted by an audience that not only filled every seat in the vast
auditorium, even to the upper gallery, but overflowed into the
aisles and doorways and thronged the lobbies. There were over three
thousand people present. It was an audience, too, which any speaker
might be proud to address, for it was composed of ladies and
gentlemen whose bearing was that of intelligence and refinement,
and who, as far as outward appearance, would indicate, were fully
on a level with the church-goers of this city."

     The impression made in the midst of New England culture was
repeated in the western mining town, as this extract from
Territorial Enterprise, Virginia City, Nev., will show: --

     "An overflowing house received Col. Ingersoll, at National
Guard Hall, last evening, and hung entrenched upon his words, from
the commencement to the close of his incomparable lecture. Of that
lecture, we can speak only in general terms to-day. It is a
wonderful production. All the beauties of the language; all the
enchantment of eloquence; all the splendors of imagination, the
plays of wit, the eccentricities of a subtle genius, are handled in
it. His appeals for liberty to man; for liberty and protection to
woman; for liberty, protection, and kindness to children, are as
beautiful as anything in our language. This might be extended over
columns, but it is enough to say that the lecture is charming
throughout, and that its teachings are pure and true."

     These reportorial items, -- quoted as being only fairly
representative of the thousands that are available, -- might be
supplemented with the accounts of many men and women of national
and international fame. Thus Elizabeth Cady Stanton, after
declaring that "the future historian will rank Robert G. Ingersoll
peerless among the great and good men of the nineteenth century,"
relates, in the course of her tribute, the following: --




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     "I heard Mr. Ingersoll many years ago in Chicago. The hall
seated 5,000 people; every inch of standing-room was also occupied;
aisles and platform crowded to overflowing. He held that vast
audience for three hours so completely entranced that when he left
the platform no one moved, until suddenly, with loud cheers and
applause, they recalled him. He returned smiling and said: 'I'm
glad you called me back, as I have something more to say. Can you
stand another half-hour?' 'Yes: an hour, two hours, all night,' was
shouted from various parts of the house; and he talked on until
midnight, with unabated vigor, to the delight of his audience. This
was the greatest triumph of oratory I had ever witnessed. It was
the first time he delivered his matchless speech, 'The Liberty of
Man, Woman, and Child.'"

     And Mrs. Stanton continues: --

     "I have heard the greatest orators of this century in England
and America; O'Connell in his palmiest days, on the Home Rule
question; Gladstone and John Bright in the House of Commons;
Spurgeon, James and Stopford Brooks, in their respective pulpits;
our own Windell Phillips, Henry Ward Beecher, and Webster and Clay,
on great occasions; the stirring eloquence of our anti-slavery
orators, both in Congress and on the platform, but none of them
ever equalled Robert Ingersoll in his highest flights."

     So, too, Dr. Conway, in My Pilgrimage to the Wise Men of the
East, names Ingersoll as "the most striking figure in religious
America," and gives, among other things, the following personal
impression: --

     "In 1881, being on a visit to Boston, my wife and I found
ourselves in the Parker House with the Ingersolls, and went over to
Charleston to hear him lecture. His subject was 'Some Mistakes of
Moses,' and it was a memorable experience. Our lost leaders, --
Emerson, Thoreau, Theodore Parker, -- who had really spoken to
disciples rather than to the nation, seemed to have contributed
something to form this organ by which their voice could reach the
people. Every variety of power was in this orator, -- logic and
poetry, humor and imagination, simplicity and dramatic art, moral
and boundless sympathy. The wonderful power which Washington's
Attorney-general, Edmund Randolph, ascribed to Thomas Paine of
insinuating his ideas equally into learned and unlearned had passed
from Paine's pen to Ingersoll's tongue. The effect on the people
was indescribable. The large theatre was crowed from pit to dome.
The people were carried from plaudits of his argument to loud
laughter at his humorous sentences, and his flexible voice carried
the sympathies of the assembly with it, at times moving them to
tears by his pathos."

     "The country," observes Dr. Conway, "was full of incidents and
anecdotes relating to these marvelous lectures"; and he adds,
later: "I knew that he was leading an insurrection of human hearts
against the inhumanities of the Bible and the cruelties of dogmatic
propagandism."

     A few sentences from the tribute of Mr. Debbs, the eminent
Socialist (who is, of course, fundamentally opposed to the economic
views which Ingersoll represented), may well be included here: --

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     "The name of Robert G. Ingersoll is in the pantheon of the
world. More than any other man who ever lived he destroyed
religious superstition. * * * He was the Shakespeare of oratory --
the greatest that the world has ever known. Ingersoll lived and
died far in advance of his time. He wrought nobly for the
transformation of this world into a habitable globe; and long after
the last echo of destruction has been silenced, his name will be
loved and honored, and his fame will shine resplendent, for his
immortality is fixed and glorious."

     That no other orator or speaker of the nineteenth century
addressed as many people as Ingersoll is very probable. That none
other uniformly made such deep and lasting impressions is more than
probable -- it is historically certain. It is quite un-likely that
any notable percentage of such of his hearers as were previously
orthodox departed from him with their theological views unchanged.

     I would here revert, with emphasis, to one fact: It was not as
a rationalistic propagandist that Ingersoll first became generally
known. It was as a patriot -- as one who loved his country, not
because it was his country, but because he loved liberty. It was as
a lawyer who had gained a brilliant reputation as a defender of
those threatened with injustice. It was as a hard-headed and
trusted political adviser, and, preeminently, as an orator with
lips "breathing eloquence, that might have soothed a tiger's rage,
or thawed the cold heart of a conqueror."

     Wherever he chose to go, his reputation preceded and assured
him of respectful and interested attention. In national and social
questions, he was the guiding-star of great numbers of his
fellow-citizens; and consequently, when he decided publicly to
break the fetters and the idols of tradition, he obtained a far
more extensive and honorable hearing than he would have obtained
had he first appeared solely as an opponent of "revealed" religion.

     Still, it was charged by some that he was not profound; but I
have observed that the charge was invariably made by superficial
people. As a matter of fact, with all his wit, humor, raillery,
persiflage, he was the profoundest logician that ever appealed to
the intellect of an American audience. There was logic even in his
laughter. He passed the cup of mirth, and in its sparkling foam
were found the gems of unanswerable truth.

     Ingersoll's auditors realized, as never before, that they were
being addressed by a man! To see him was to believe that he was
sincere, to hear him was to know it, to understand him was to be
convinced that he was right.

     Nor was it due entirely to his own attributes and efforts that
he reached and swayed so many minds; opponents gave a helping hand.
Whenever he delivered lectures or published religious or
sociological opinions which were particularly objectionable to the
orthodox, the newspapers, as we have seen, were filled with
"answers." To some of them he replied. Many thousands who probably
would not otherwise have heard of the problems at issue thus
learned of their existence. Sometimes the good people of the blue-
law states refused to rent him a theater, removed his lithographs 


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from the billboards, or threatened him with arrest for "blasphemy."
Overcrowded houses and copious reports of his sayings were the
invariable result. And of course "the poor little ministers
"preached. If they only could have realized that theology is not to
be affirmed by reason, what energy they would have conserved! and
how they would have curtailed the influence of their foe!

     Another significant fact must be considered here: Ingersoll
made science his handmaid. To be sure,he was not a scientist,
experimentally, but he was wonderfully familiar with others'
discoveries, as we have previously noted; and he could describe
them better than could the discoverers. He popularized the work of
the great masters, and championed the masters themselves. Every
scientist worthy to hold aloft the sacred torch will also hold in
tender reverence the memory of Robert G. Ingersoll. Many thousands
first heard the names of Humboldt, Tyndall, Helmholtz, Darwin,
Huxley, Haeckel, and others from his ardent lips. And he reached a
far more heterogeneous class than those authors could ever reach
through their works. Their legitimate audiences are small, at best.
Ingersoll went out after the laity, bound them with the golden
chain of his eloquence, and threw science in their faces. And they
understood; for, as before stated, he was a master of
simplification -- preeminently the teacher of the masses. The
average person got more chemistry, physics, geology, biology, from
Why I Am An Agnostic than he could have derived in a month from
technical works.

     Who will say, that this dissemination of scientific and
philosophical truths did not have, on the theological mind, a
potent liberalizing influence? Who will deny, that, coupled with
the historical method which Ingersoll employed in biblical
argument, it did not sustain very important accessory, if not
causal, relations to "higher criticism"? We must bear in mind that
that term was unheard of when he began his work; whereas, at its
conclusion, we were constantly meeting with clerical utterances
which, for all the theological bias they showed, might have been
extracted from Some Mistakes of Moses Marvelous the change!
Principles and sentiments that were received with hisses by a vast
majority of the laity, and by nearly all the clergy, when voiced in
Ingersoll's first lecture, in 1860, were sanctioned and even
applauded by theologians when the Great Agnostic uttered his last
public word. Beginning his work when ignorance was a virtue, --
when pandering hypocrisy was wont to place upon the brow of
stupidity the wreath of popular sanction, -- when candid speech was
treated as a crime, -- he lived to see in decay the vast structure
of supernatural religion.

     To the most conspicuous feature of this change, I would invite
special attention. It will be recalled that, in a previous chapter
(14) I quoted from Ingersoll a description of a Free Will Baptist
sermon which he heard when a boy, and in which were vividly
detailed the eternal tortures of the damned in hell. The impression
which the sermon made upon Ingersoll will also be recalled.

     When the latter began his anti-theological propaganda, the
same fiendish belief in literal and everlasting hell-fire that was
taught in this sermon was still practically universal. To the 


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orthodox, hell was a glaring, scorching, roaring reality. Sermons
to that effect, although lacking the luridness of the one which
shocked the sensibilities of the boy Ingersoll, could be heard in
a large majority of the churches. Even youth and childhood were not
exempt. Little children could tell such of their playmates as
chanced to have unbelieving parents all about the zealous labors of
the trident-wielding, spear-tailed fiends of the underworld. In
many thousands of orthodox homes, the monotonous gloom enwrapping
the cradle was broken only by the glare of hell.

     What a change had occurred when the great warrior fell asleep!
The belief in everlasting torture, -- in leering fiends, -- no
longer filled with horror the imagination of childhood. The cradle
had been rescued; the nursery had been saved; and through the
eastern windows fell warm and golden the sunlight of intelligence
and freethought. Preachers had ceased to appeal to the argument of
infinite revenge, and were discoursing upon "future retribution" or
"conditional immortality." The text of the Free Will Baptist of
Ingersoll's boyhood remained the same; the creeds still smoldered;
but, in the minds of a vast majority, the orthodox hell was a
remembered nightmare. As wrote the great propagandist himself, to
a friend: --

     "There is but little left for me to do. Jehovah is with Jove.
The fires of hell have been extinguished. The struggle with
superstition is nearly over. 'We have passed midnight, and the
great balance weighs up morning."

     Who had wrought this glorious change? Were the Unitarians a
factor? Undoubtedly. Were the Universalists a factor? Undoubtedly.
Were the Freethinkers, in general, a factor? Undoubtedly. But who
was to be thanked for the existence of many of those Unitarians and
Universalists, as such, and, especially, for hundreds of thousands
of those Freethinkers? Who had wrought the glorious change? To this
question, there is one answer, and in that answer, one word -- a
name that arches in seven-hued radiance the horizon of the future.
It is Ingersoll. Of him it will be said: --

     "He sought, by constant appeal to truth, reason, mental and
moral integrity, physical and intellectual liberty, justice, mercy,
humanity, sympathy, tenderness, love, -- and, moreover, by personal
example in each and all of these, -- to make of earth a heaven; but
it is his memory's richest reward, that he put out 'the ignorant
and revengeful fires of hell.'"

     Two hundred and eighty-nine years after the world's grandest
martyr crumbled to sacred ashes at the bigot's stake, the pope of
Rome, with malicious eyes, his own power slowly waning, saw rise
within the shadow of the Vatican a monument to Giordano Bruno.

     As with the memory of that intrepid man in the land of sun and
blue and mirthful vine, so shall it be in every land with the
memory of Ingersoll. For, dowered with nature's noblest gifts, he
left,in turn, to all mankind, the imperishable legacy of thought
and deed. Sublime as the snow-mantled mountain, vast as the sea, --
the origin of his genius as little understood as their origin, --
he lived and wrought and passed to silence as naturally as they 
exist.

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     Rest at last, O wondrous and unconquered soul! Upon thy
tranquil brow fell full and fair the mellow gleam of humanity's
golden hope. In the eternal right beat bravely strong thy noble
heart, and to the dim heights where tremulous broods the purpling
dawn soared the winged envoys of thy tireless brain. Naught but the
dregs of truth could quench thy jeweled lips. But too soon -- thou
wast not understood; for in the unwalled and limitless temple of
thy mind dwelt Love and Liberty in perfect unreserve. Yet, trouble
not. The detraction of the present thy fame can well afford; for
thou art the hero, -- the sage, -- the saint, -- of the better
years to be. A worshiper of the ideal, thou didest live for
posterity. Posterity will live for thee.










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