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Contents of this file page
NEW YORK SPEECH. 1
THE REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON 13
THE POLICE CAPTAINS' DINNER. 15
PREFACE 19
**** ****
This file, its printout, or copies of either
are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.
Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
**** ****
NEW YORK SPEECH.
1876.
I AM just on my way home from the grand old State of Maine,
and there has followed me a telegraphic dispatch which I will read
to you. If it were not good, you may swear I would not read it:
Every Congressional district, every county in Main, Republican
by a large majority. The victory is overwhelming, and the majority
will exceed 15,000." That dispatch is signed by that knight-errant
of political chivalry, James G. Blaine.
I suppose we are all stockholders in the great corporation
known as the United States of America, and as such stockholders we
have a right to vote the way we think will best serve our own
interests. Each one has certain stock in this Government, whether
he is rich, or whether he is poor, and the poor man has the same
interest in the United States of America that the richest man in it
has. It is our duty, conscientiously and honestly to hear the
argument upon both sides of the political question, and then go and
vote conscientiously for the side that we believe will best
preserve our interest in the United States of America. Two great
parties are before you now asking your support -- the Democratic
party and the Republican party. One wishes to be kept in power, the
other wishes to, have a chance once more at the Treasury of the
United States. The Democratic party is probably the hungriest
organization that ever wandered over the desert of political
disaster in the history of the world. There never was, in all
probability, a political stomach so thoroughly empty, or an
appetite so outrageously keen as the one possessed by the
Democratic party. The Democratic party howling like a pack of
wolves looking in with hungry and staring eyes at the windows of
the National Capitol, and scratching at the doors of the White
House. They have been engaged in these elegant pursuits for sixteen
long, weary years. Occasionally they have retired to some
convenient eminence and lugubriously howled about the Constitution.
The Democratic party comes and asks for your vote, not on account
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NEW YORK SPEECH.
of anything it has done, not on account of anything it has
accomplished, but on account of what it promises to do; the
Democratic party can make just as good a promise as any other party
in the world, and it will come farther from fulfilling it than any
other party on this globe. The Republican party having held this
Government for sixteen years, proposes to hold it for four years
more. The Republican party comes to you with its record open, and
asks every man, woman and child in this broad country to read its
every word. And I say to you, that there is not a line, a
paragraph, or a page of that record that is not only an honor to
the Republican party, but to the human race. On every page of that
record is written some great and glorious action, done either for
the liberty of man, or the preservation of our common country. We
ask every body to read its every word. The Democratic party comes
before you with its record closed, recording every blot and blur,
and stain and treason, and slander and malignity, and asks you not
to read a single word, but to be kind enough to take its infamous
promises for the future.
Now, my friends, I propose to tell you, to-night, something
that has been done by the Democratic party, and then allow you to
judge for yourselves. Now, if a man came to you, you owning a
steamboat on the Hudson River, and he wished to hire out to you as
an engineer, and you inquired about him, and found he had blown up
and destroyed and wrecked every steamboat he had ever been engineer
on, and you should tell him: I can't hire you; you blew up such an
engine, you wrecked such a ship," he would say to you, "My Lord!
Mister, you must let bygones be bygones." If a man came to your
bank, or came to a solitary individual here to borrow a hundred
dollars, and you went and inquired about him and found he never
paid a note in his life, found he was a dead-beat, and you say to
him,"I can not loan you money." "Why?" Because, I have ascertained
you never pay your debts." Ah, yes, "he says, you are no gentleman
going prying into a man's record."
I tell you, my good friends, a good character rests upon a
record, and not upon a prospectus, a good record rests upon a deed
accomplished, and not upon a promise, a good character rests upon
something really done, and not upon a good resolution, and you
cannot make a good character in a day. If you could, Tilden would
have one to-morrow night.
I propose now to tell you, my friends, a little of the history
of the Republican party, also a little of the history of the
Democratic party.
And first, the Republican party. The United States of America
is a free country, it is the only free country upon this earth; it
is the only republic that was ever established among men. We have
read, we have heard, of the republics of Greece, of Egypt, of
Venice; we have heard of the free city in Europe. There never was
a republic of Venice; there never was a republic of Rome; there
never was a republic of Athens; there never was a free city in
Europe; there never was a government not cursed with caste; there
never was a government not cursed with slavery; there never was a
country not cursed with almost every infamy, until the Republican
party of the United States made this a free country. It is the
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NEW YORK SPEECH.
first party in the world that contended that the respectable man
was the useful man; it is the first party in the world that said
without regard to previous conditions, without regard to race,
every human being is entitled to life, to liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness, and it is the only party in the world that has
endeavored to carry those sublime principles into actual effect.
Every other party has been allied to some piece of rascality; every
other party has been patched up with some thieving, larcenous,
leprous compromise. The Republican party keeps its forehead in the
grand dawn of perpetual advancement; the Republican party is the
party of reason; it is the party of argument; it is the party of
education; it believes in free schools, it believes in scientific
schools, it believes that the schools are for the public and all
the public; it. believes that science never should be interfered
with by any sectarian influence whatever.
The Republican party is in favor of science; the Republican
party, as I said before, is the party of reason; it argues; it does
not mob; it reasons; it does not murder; it persuades you, not with
the shot-gun, not with tar and feathers, but with good sound
reason, and argument.
In order for you to ascertain what the Republican party has
done for us, let us refresh ourselves a little we all know it, but
it is well enough to hear it now and then. Let us then refresh our
recollection a little, in order to understand what the grand and
great Republican party has accomplished in the land.
We will consider, in the first place, the condition of the
country when the Republican party was born. When this Republican
party was born there was upon the statute books of the United
States of America a law known as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, by
which every man in the State of New York was made by law a
bloodhound, and could be set and hissed upon a negro, who was
simply attempting to obtain his birthright of freedom, just as you
would set a dog upon a wolf. That was the Fugitive Slave law of
1850. Around the neck of every man it put a collar as on a dog but
it had not the decency to put the man's name on the collar. I said
in the State of Maine, and several other States, and expect to say
it again although I hurt the religious sentiment of the Democratic
party, and shocked the piety of that organization by saying it, but
I did say then, and now say, that the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850
would have disgraced hell in its palmiest days.
I tell you, my friends, you do not know bow easy it is to
shock the religious sentiments of the Democratic party; there is a
deep and pure vein of piety running through that organization; it
has been for years spiritually inclined; there is probably no
organization in the world that really will stand by any thing of a
spiritual character, at least until it is gone, as that Democratic
party will. Everywhere I have been I have crushed their religious
hopes. You have no idea how sorry I am that I hurt their feelings
so upon the subject of religion. Why, I did not suppose that they
cared anything about Christianity, but I have been deceived. I now
find that they do, and I have done what no other man in the United
States ever did -- I have made the Democratic party come to the
defence of Christianity. I have made the Democratic party use what
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NEW YORK SPEECH.
time they could spare between drinks in quoting Scripture. But
notwithstanding the fact that I have shocked the religions
sentiment of that party, I do not want them to defend Christianity
any more; they will bring it into universal contempt if they do.
Yes, yes, they will make the words honesty and reform a stench in
the nostrils of honest men. They made the words of the Constitution
stand almost for treason, during the entire war, and every decent
word that passes the ignorant, leprous, malignant lips of the
Democratic party, becomes dishonored from that day forth.
At the same time, in 1850, when the Fugitive Slave Law was
passed, in nearly all of the Western States, there was a law by
which the virtues of pity and hospitality became indictable
offenses. There was a law by which the virtue of charity became a
crime, and the man who performed a kindness could be indicted,
imprisoned, and fined. It was the law of Illinois -- of my own
State -- that if one gave a drop of cold water, or a crust of
bread, to a fugitive from slavery, he could be indicted, fined and
imprisoned, under the infamous slave law of 1850 under the infamous
black laws of the Western States.
At the time the Republican party was born, (and I have told
this many times) if a woman ninety-nine one-hundredths white had
escaped from slavery, carrying her child on her bosom, having gone
through morass and brush and thorns and thickets, had crossed
creeks and rivers, and had finally got within one step of freedom,
with the light of the North star shining in her tear-filled eyes --
with her child upon her withered breast -- it would have been an
indictable offence to have given her a drop of water or a crust of
bread; not only that, but under the slave law of 1850, it was the
duty of every Northern citizen claiming to be a free man, to clutch
that woman and hand her back to the dominion of her master and to
the Democratic lash. The Democrats are sorry that those laws have
been repealed. The Republican party with the mailed hand of war
tore from the statue books of the United States, and from the
statue books of each State, every one of those infamous hellish
laws, and trampled them beneath her glorious feet.
Such laws are infamous beyond expression; one would suppose
they had been passed by a Legislature, the lower house of which
were hyenas, the upper house snakes, and the executive a cannibal
king. The institution of slavery had polluted, had corrupted the
church, not only in the South, but a large proportion of the
church in the North; so that ministers stood up in their pulpits
here in New York and defended the very infamy that I have
mentioned. Not only that, but the Presbyterians, South, in 1863,
met in General Synod, and passed two resolutions.
The first resolution read, "Resolved, that slavery is a divine
institution" (and as the boy said, "so is hell")
Second, "Resolved, that God raised up the Presbyterian Church,
South, to protect and perpetuate that institution."
Well, all I have to say is that, if God did this, he never
chose a more infamous instrument to carry out a more diabolical
object. What more had slavery done? At that time it had corrupted
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NEW YORK SPEECH.
the very courts so that in nearly every State in this Union if a
Democrat had gone to the hut of a poor negro, and had shot down his
wife and children before his very eyes, bad strangled the little
dimpled babe in the cradle, there was no court before which this
negro could come to give testimony. He was not allowed to go before
a magistrate and indict the murderer; he was not allowed to go
before a grand jury and swear an indictment against the wretch.
justice was not only blind but deaf; and that was the idea of
justice in the South, when the Republican party was born. When the
Republican party was born the bay of the bloodhound was the music
of the Union; when this party was born the dome of our Capitol at
Washington cast. its shadow upon slave-pens in which crouched and
shuddered women from whose breasts their babes had been torn by
wretches who are now crying for honesty and reform. When the
Republican party was born, a bloodhound was considered as one of
the instrumentalities of republicanism. When the Republican party
was born, the church had made the cross of Christ a whipping-post.
When the Republican party was born, courts of the United States had
not the slightest idea of justice, provided a black man was on the
other side. When this party came into existence, if a negro had a
plot of ground and planted corn in it, and the rain had fallen upon
it, and the dew had lain lovingly upon it, and the arrows of light
shot from the exhaustless quiver of the sun, had quickened the
blade, and the leaves waved in the perfumed air of June, and it
finally ripened into the full ear in the golden air of autumn, the
courts of the United States did not know to whom the corn belonged,
and if a Democrat had driven the negro off and shucked the corn,
and that case had been left to the Supreme Court of many of the
States in this Union, they would have read all the authorities,
they would have heard all the arguments, they would have heard all
the speeches, then pushed their spectacles back on their bald and
brainless heads and decided, all things considered, the Democrat
was entitled to that corn. We pretended at that time to be a free
country it was a lie, We pretended at that time to do justice in
our courts; it was a lie, and above all our pretence and hypocrisy
rose the curse of slavery, like Chimborazo above the clouds.
Now, my friends, what is there about this great Republican
party? It is the party of intellectual freedom. It is one thing to
bind the hands of men; it is one thing to steal the results of
physical labor of men, but it is a greater crime to forge fetters
for the souls of men. I am a free man; I will do my own thinking or
die; I give a mortgage on my soul to nobody; I give a deed of trust
on my soul to nobody; no matter whether I think well or I think
ill; whatever thought I have shall be my thought, and shall be a
free thought, and I am going to give cheerfully, gladly, the same
right to thus think to every other human being.
I despise any man who does not own himself. I despise any man
who does not possess his own spirit. I would rather die a beggar,
covered with rags, with my soul erect, fearless and free, than to
live a king in a palace of gold, clothed with the purple of power,
with my soul slimy with hypocrisy, crawling in the dust of fear. I
will do my own thinking, and when I get it thought, I will say it.
These are the splendid things, my friends, about the Republican
party; intellectual and physical liberty for all.
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NEW YORK SPEECH.
Now, my friends, I have told you a little about the Republican
party. Now, I will tell you a little more about the Republican
party. When that party came into power it elected Abraham Lincoln
President of the United States. I live in the state that holds
within its tender embrace the sacred ashes of Abraham Lincoln, the
best, the purest man that was ever President of the United States.
I except none. When he was elected President of the United States,
the Democratic party, said: we will not stand it; "the Democratic
party South said; "We will not bear it;" and the Democratic party
North said: "You ought not to bear it."
James Buchanan was then President. James Buchanan read the
Constitution of the United States, or a part of it, and read
several platforms made by the Democratic party, and gave it as his
deliberate opinion that a state had a right to go out of the Union.
He gave it as his deliberate opinion that this was a Confederacy
and not a Nation, and when he said that, there was another little,
dried up, old bachelor sitting over in the amen corner of the
political meeting and he squeaked out: "That is my opinion too,"
and the name of that man was Samuel J. Tilden.
The Democratic party then and now says that the Union is
simply a Confederacy; but I want this country to be a Nation. I
want to live in a great and splendid country. A great nation makes
a great people. Your surroundings have something to do with it.
Great Plains, magnificent rivers, great ranges of mountains, a
country washed by two oceans -- all these things make us great and
grand as the continent on which we live. The war commenced, and the
moment the war commenced the whole country was divided into two
parties. No matter what they had been before, whether Democrats,
Freesoilers, Republicans, old Whirs, or Abolitionists -- the whole
country divided into two parts -- the friends and enemies of the
country -- patriots and traitors, and they so continued until the
Rebellion was put down. I cheerfully admit that thousands of
Democrats went into the army, and that thousands of Democrats were
patriotic men. I cheerfully admit that thousands of them thought
more of their country than they did of the Democratic party, and
they came with us to fight for the country, and I honor every one
of them from the bottom of my heart, and nineteen out of twenty of
them have voted the Republican ticket from that day to this. Some
of them came back and went to the Democratic party again and are
still in that party; I have not a word to say against them, only
this: They are swapping off respectability for disgrace. They give
to the Democratic party all the respectability it has, and the
Democratic party gives to them all the disgrace they have.
Democratic soldier, come out of the Democratic party. There
was a man in my State got mad at the railroad and would not ship
his hogs on it, so he drove them to Chicago, and it took him so
long to get them there that the price had fallen; when he came
back, they laughed at him, and said to him, "You didn't make much,
did you, driving your hogs to Chicago?" "No," he said, "I didn't
make anything except the company of the hogs on the way." Soldier
of the Republic, I say, with the Democratic party all you can make
is the company of the hogs on the way down. Come out, come out and
leave them alone in their putridity -- in their rottenness. Leave
them alone. Do not try to put a new patch on an old garment. Leave
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NEW YORK SPEECH.
them alone. I tell you the Democratic party must be left alone it
must be left to enjoy the primal curse, "On thy belly shalt thou
crawl and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life," O
Democratic party.
Now, my friends, I need not tell you how we put down the
Rebellion. You all know. I need not describe to you the battles you
fought. I need not tell you of the men who sacrificed their lives.
I need not tell you of the old men who are still waiting for
footsteps that never will return. I need not tell you of the women
who are waiting for the return of their loved ones. I need not tell
you of all these things. You know we put down the rebellion; we
fought until the old flag trampled over every inch of American soil
redeemed from the clutch of treason.
Now, my friends, what was the Democratic party doing when the
Republican party was doing these splendid things? When the
Republican party said this was a nation; when the Republican party
said we shall be free; when the Republican party said slavery shall
be extirpated from American soil; when the Republican party said
the negro shall be a citizen, and the citizen shall have the
ballot, and citizen shall have the right to cast that ballot for
government of his choice peaceably -- what was Democratic party
doing?
I will tell you a few things that the Democratic party has
done within the last sixteen years. In the first place, they were
not willing that this country should be saved unless slavery could
be saved with it. There never was a Democrat, North or South -- and
by Democrat I mean the fellows who stuck to the party all during
the war, the ones that stuck to the party after it was a disgrace;
the ones that stuck to the party from simple, pure cussedness --
there never was one who did not think more of the institution of
slavery than he did of the Government of the United States; not one
that I ever saw or read of. And so they said to us for all those
years: if you can save the Union with slavery, and without any help
from us, we are willing you should do it; but we do not propose
that this shall be an abolition war." So the Democratic party from
the first said "An effort to preserve this Union is
unconstitutional," and they made a breastwork of the Constitution
for rebels to get behind and shoot down loyal men, so that the
first charge I lay at the feet of the Democratic party, the first
charge I make in the indictment, is that they thought more of
slavery than of liberty and of this Union, and in my judgment they
are in the same condition this moment. The next thing they did was
to discourage enlistments in the North. They did all in their power
to prevent any man's going into the army to assist in putting down
the Rebellion. And that grand reformer and statesman, Samuel J.
Tilden, gave it as his opinion that the South could sue, and that
every soldier who put his foot on sacred Southern soil would be a
trespasser, and could be sued before a justice of the Peace. The
Democratic party met in their conventions in every State North, and
denounced the war as an abolition war, and Abraham Lincoln as a
tyrant. What more did they do? They went into partnership with the
rebels. They said the rebels just as plainly as though they had
spoken it: "Hold on, hold out, hold hard, fight hard until we get
the political possession of the North and then you can go in
peace."
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NEW YORK SPEECH.
What more? A man by the name of Jacob Thompson -- a nice man
and a good Democrat, who thinks that of all the men to reform the
Government Samuel J. Tilden is the best man -- Jacob Thompson had
the misfortune to be a very vigorous Democrat, and I will show you
what I mean by that. A Democrat during the war who had a musket --
you understand, a musket -- he was a rebel, and during the war a
rebel that did not have a musket was a Democrat. I call Mr.
Thompson a vigorous Democrat, because he had a musket. Jacob
Thompson was the rebel agent in Canada, and when he went there he
took between six and seven hundred thousand dollars for the purpose
of cooperating with the Northern Democracy. He got himself
acquainted with and in connection with the Democratic party in
Ohio, in Indiana, and in Illinois. The vigorous Democrats, the real
Democrats, in these States had organized themselves under the heads
of "Sons of Liberty," "Knights of the Golden Circle," "Order of the
Star" and various other beautiful names, and their object was to
release rebel prisoners from Camp Chase, Camp Douglass in Chicago,
and from one camp in Indianapolis and another camp at Rock Island.
Their object was to raise a fire in the rear, as they called it --
in other words, to burn down the homes of Union soldiers while they
were in the front fighting for the honor of their country. That was
their object, and they put themselves in connection with Jacob
Thompson. They were to have an uprising on the 16th of August,
1864. It was thought best to hold a few public meetings for the
purpose of arousing the public mind. They held the first meeting in
the city of Peoria, where I live. That was August 3rd, 1864. Here
they came from every part of the State, and were addressed by the
principal Democratic politicians in Illinois.
To that meeting, Fernando Wood addressed a letter, in which he
said that although absent in body he should be present in spirit.
George Pendleton of Ohio, George Pugh of the same State, Seymour of
Connecticut, and various other Democratic gentlemen, sent
acknowledgments and expressions of regret to this Democratic
meeting that met at this time for the purpose of organizing an
uprising among the Democratic party. I saw that meeting, and heard
some of their speeches. They denounced the war as an abolition
nigger war. They denounced Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant. They
carried transparencies that said, "Is there money enough in the
land to pay this nigger debt? Arouse, brothers, and hurl the tyrant
Lincoln from the throne." And the men that promulgated that very
thing are running the most important political offices in the
country, on the ground of honesty and reform. And Thompson says
that he furnished the money to pay the expenses of that Democratic
meeting. They were all paid by rebel gold, by Jacob Thompson. He
has on file the voucher from these Democratic gentlemen in favor of
Tilden and Hendricks. The next meetings were held in Springfield,
Illinois, Indianapolis, Indiana, the expenses of which were paid in
the same way. They shipped to one town these weapons of our
destruction in boxes labeled Sunday school books!
That same rebel agent, Jacob Thompson, hired a Democrat by the
name of Churchill to burn the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, and
Thompson coolly remarked: I don't think he has had much luck, as I
have only heard of a few fires."
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NEW YORK SPEECH.
In Indianapolis a man named Dodds was arrested -- a sound
Democrat -- so sound that the Government had to take him by the
nape of the neck and put him in Fort Lafayette. The Convention of
Democrats then met in the city of Chicago, and declared the war a
failure. There never was a more infamous lie on this earth than
when the Democratic convention declared in 1864 that the war was a
failure. It was but a few days afterward that the roar of Grant's
cannon announced that a lie. Rise from your graves, Union soldiers,
one and all, that fell in support of your country -- rise from your
graves, and lift your skeleton hands on high, and swear that when
the Democratic party resolved that the war for the preservation of
your country was a failure, that the Democratic party was a vast
aggregated liar. Well, we grew magnanimous, and let Dodds out of
Fort Lafayette; and where do you suppose Dodds is now? He is in
Wisconsin. What do you suppose Dodds is doing? Making speeches.
Whom for? Tilden and Hendricks -- "Honesty and reform!" This same
Jacob Thompson, Democrat, hired men to burn New York, and they did
set fire in some twenty places, and they used Greek fire, as he
said in his letter, and ingenuously adds I shall never hereafter
advise the use of Greek fire." They knew that in the smoke and
ruins would be found the charred remains of mothers and children,
and that the flames leaping like serpents would take the child from
the mother's arms and they were ready to do it to preserve the
infamous institution of slavery; and the Democratic party has never
objected to it from that day to this. They burned steamboats, and
many men with them, and the hounds that did it are skulking in the
woods of Missouri. While these things were going on, Democrats in
the highest positions said "Not one cent to prosecute the war."
The next question we have to consider is about paying the
debt. This is the first question. The second question is the
protection of the citizen, whether he is white or black. We owe a
large debt. Two-thirds of that debt was incurred in consequence of
the action and the meanness of the Democrats. There are some people
who think that you can defer the payment of a promise so long that
the postponement of the debt will serve in lieu of its liquidation
-- that you pay your debts by putting off your creditors.
The people have to support the Government; the Government
cannot support the people. The Government has no money but what it
received from the people. It had therefore to borrow money to carry
on the war. Every greenback that it issued was a forced loan. My
notes are not a legal tender, though if I had the power I might
possibly make them so. We borrowed money and we have to pay the
debt. That debt represents the expenses of war. The horses and the
gunpowder and the rifles and the artillery are represented in that
debt -- it represents all the munitions of war. Until we pay that
debt we can never be a solvent nation. Until our net profits amount
to as much as we lost during the war we can never be a solvent
people. If a man cannot understand that, there is no use in talking
to him on the subject. The alchemists in olden times who fancied
that they could make gold out of nothing were not more absurd than
the American advocates of soft money. They resemble the early
explorers of our continent who lost years in searching for the
fountain of eternal youth, but the ear of age never caught the
gurgle of that spring. We all have heard of men who spent years of
labor in endeavoring to produce perpetual motion. They produced
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NEW YORK SPEECH.
machines of the most ingenious character with cogs and wheels, and
pulleys without number, but these ingenious machines had one fault,
they would not go. You will never find a way to make money out of
nothing. It is as great nonsense as the fountain of perpetual
youth. You cannot do it.
Gold is the best material which labor has yet found as a
measure of value. That measure of value must be as valuable as the
object it measures.
The value of gold arises from the amount of labor expanded in
producing it. A gold dollar will buy as much labor as produced that
dollar.
[Here the speaker opened a telegram from Maine, which he read
to the audience amid a perfect tempest of applause. It contained
the following words:] "We have triumphed by an immense majority,
something we have not achieved since 1868." [The speaker resumed.]
And this despatch is signed by man who clutched the throats of the
Democrats and held them until they grew black in the face, James G.
Blaine. * * *
Now, gentlemen, to pass from the financial part of this, and
I will say one word before I do it. The Republican party intends to
pay its debts in coin on the 1st of January, 1879. Paper money
means probably the payment of the Confederate debt; a metallic
currency, the discharge of honest obligations. We have touched
hard-pan prices in this country, and want to do a hard-pan business
with hard money.
We now come to the protection of our citizens. A government
that cannot protect its citizens, at home and abroad, ought to be
swept from the map of the world. The Democrats tell you that they
will protect any citizen if he is only away from home, but if he is
in Louisiana or any other State in the Union, the Government is
powerless to protect him. I say a government has a right to protect
every citizen at home as well as abroad, and the Government has the
right to take its soldiers across the State line, to take its
soldiers into any State, for the purpose of protecting even one
man. That is my doctrine with regard to the power of the
Government. But here comes a Democrat to-day and tells me, (and it
is the old doctrine of secession in disguise), that the State of
Louisiana must protect its own and that if it does not, the General
Government has nothing to do unless the Governor of that State asks
assistance, no matter whether anarchy prevails or not. That is
infamous. The United States has the right to draft you and me into
the army and compel us to serve there, if the powers are being
usurped. It is the duty of the Government to see to it that every
citizen has all his rights in every State in this Union, and to
protect him in the enjoyment of those rights, peaceably if it can,
forcibly if it must.
Democrats tell us that they treat the colored man very well.
I have frequently read stories relating how white men were passing
along the road when suddenly they were set upon by ten or twelve
negroes, who sought their lives; but in the fight which ensued, the
ten or twelve negroes were killed, not a white man hurt. I tell you
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
10
NEW YORK SPEECH.
it is infamous, and the Democratic press of the North laughs at it,
and Mr. Samuel J. Tilden does not care. He knows that many of the
Southern States are to be carried by assassination and murder, and
he knows that if he is elected it will be by assassination and
murder. It is infamous beyond the expression of language. Now, I
ask you which party will be the most likely to preserve the liberty
of the negro -- the party who fought for slavery, or the men who
gave them freedom? These are the two great questions -- the payment
of the debt, and the protection of our citizens. My friends, we
have to pay the debt, as I told you, but it is of greater
importance to make sacred American citizenship.
Now, these two parties have a couple of candidates. The
Democratic party has put forward Mr. Samuel J. Tilden. Mr. Tilden
is a Democrat who belongs to the Democratic party of the city of
New York; the worst party ever organized in any civilized country.
I wish you could see it. The pugilists, the prizefighters, the
plug-uglies, the fellows that run with the "machine;" nearly every
nose is mashed, about half the ears have been chewed off; and of
whatever complexion they are, their eyes are nearly always black.
They have fists like tea-kettles and heads like bullets. I wish you
could see them. I have been in New York every few weeks for fifteen
years; and when I am here I see the old banner of Tammany Hall.
"Tammany Hall and Reform;" "John Morrissy and Reform;" "John Kelley
and Reform;" "William M. Tweed and Reform;" and the other day I saw
the, same old flag; "Samuel J. Tilden and Reform." The Democratic
party of the city of New York never had but two objects -- grand
and petit larceny. Tammany Hall bears the same relation to the
penitentiary that the Sunday school does to church.
I have heard that the Democratic party got control of the city
when it did not owe a dollar, and have stolen and stolen until it
owes a hundred a sixty millions, and I understand that every
election they have had was a fraud, every one. I understand that
they stole everything they could lay their hands on; and what
hands! Grasped and grasped and clutched, until they stole all it
was possible for the people to pay, and now they are all yelling
"Honesty and Reform."
I understand that Samuel J. Tilder, was a pupil in that
school, and that now he is the head teacher. I understand that when
the war commenced he said he would never aid in the prosecution of
that old outrage. I understand that he said in 1860 and in 1861
that the Southern States could snap the tie of confederation as a
nation would break a treaty, and that they could repel coercion as
a nation would repel invasion. I understand that during the entire
war he was opposed to the prosecution, and that he was opposed to
the Proclamation of Emancipation, and demanded that the document be
taken back. I understand that he regretted to see the chains fall
from the limbs of the colored man. I understand that he regretted
when the Constitution of the United States was elevated and
purified, pure as the driven snow. I understand that he regretted
when the stain was wiped from our flag and we stood before the
world the only pure Republic that ever existed. This is enough for
me to say about him, and since the news from Maine you need not
waste your time in talking about him.
[A voice "How about free schools?"]
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
11
NEW YORK SPEECH.
I want every schoolhouse to be a temple of science in which
shall be taught the laws of nature, in which the children shall be
taught actual facts, and I do not want that schoolhouse touched or
that institution of science touched, by any superstition whatever.
Leave religion with the church, with the family, and more than all,
leave religion with each individual heart and mind.
Let every man be his own bishop, let every man be his own
pope, let every man do his own thinking, let, every man have a
brain of his own. Let every man have a heart and conscience of his
own.
We are growing better, and truer, and grander. And let me say,
Mr. Democrat, we are keeping the country for your children. We are
keeping education for your children. We are keeping the old flag
floating for your children; and let me say, as a prediction, there
is only air enough on this continent to float that one flag.
NOTE: This address was not revised by the author for
publication.
END
**** ****
THE REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON
A NEW RELIGION.
I HAVE read the report of the Rev. R. Heber Newton's sermon
and I am satisfied, first, that Mr. Newton simply said what he
thoroughly believes to be true, and second, that some of the
conclusions at which he arrives are certainly correct. I do not
regard Mr. Newton as a heretic or skeptic. Every man who reads the
Bible must, to a greater or less extent, think for himself. He need
not tell his thoughts; he has the right to keep them to himself.
But if he undertakes to tell them, then he should be absolutely
honest.
The Episcopal creed is a few ages behind the thought of the
world. For many years the foremost members and clergymen in that
church have been giving some new meanings to the old words and
phrases. Words are no more exempt from change than other things in
nature. A word at one time rough, jagged, harsh and cruel, is
finally worn smooth. A word known as slang, picked out of the
gutter, is cleaned, educated, becomes respectable and finally is
found in the mouths of the best and purest.
We must remember that in the world of art the picture depends
not alone on the painter, but on the one who sees it. So words must
find some part of their meaning in the man who hears or the man who
reads. In the old times the word "hell" gave to the hearer or
reader the picture of a vast pit filled with an ocean of molten
brimstone, in which innumerable souls were suffering the torments
of fire, and where millions of devils were engaged in the cheerful
occupation of increasing the torments of the damned. This was the
real old orthodox view.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
12
THE REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON
A NEW RELIGION.
As man became civilized, however, the picture grew less and
less vivid. Finally, some expressed their doubts about the
brimstone, and others. began to think that if the Devil was, and
is, really an enemy of God he would not spend his time punishing
sinners to please God. Why should the Devil be in partnership with
his enemy, and why should he inflict torments on poor souls who
were his own friends, and who shared with him the feeling of hatred
toward the Almighty?
As men became more and more civilized, the idea began to dawn
in their minds that an infinitely good and wise being would not
have created persons, knowing that they would be eternal failures,
or that they were to suffer eternal punishment, because there could
be no possible object in eternal punishment -- no reformation, no
good to be accomplished -- and certainly the sight of all this
torment would not add to the joy of heaven, neither would it tend
to the happiness of God.
So the more civilized adopted the idea that punishment is a
consequence and not an infliction. Then they took another step and
concluded that every soul, in every world, in every age, should
have at least the chance of doing right. And yet persons so
believing still used the word "hell," but the old meaning had
dropped out.
So with regard to the atonement. At one time it was regarded
as a kind of bargain in which so much blood was shed for so many
souls. This was a barbaric view. Afterward, the mind developing a
little, the idea got in the brain that the life of Christ was worth
its moral effect. And yet these people use the word "atonement,"
but the bargain idea has been lost.
Take for instance the word "justice." The meaning that is
given to that word depends upon the man who uses it -- depends for
the most part on the age in which he lives, the country in which he
was born. The same is true of the word "freedom." Millions and
millions of people boasted that they were the friends of freedom,
while at the same time they enslaved their fellow-men. So, in the
name of justice every possible crime has been perpetrated and in
the name of mercy every instrument of torture has been used.
Mr. Newton realizes the fact that everything in the world
changes; that creeds are influenced by civilization, by the
acquisition of knowledge, by the progress of the sciences and arts
-- in other words, that there is a tendency in man to harmonize his
knowledge and to bring about a reconciliation between what he knows
and what he believes. This will be fatal to superstition, provided
the man knows anything.
Mr. Newton, moreover, clearly sees that people are losing
confidence in the morality of the gospel; that its foundation lacks
common sense; that the doctrine of forgiveness is unscientific, and
that it is impossible to feel that the innocent can rightfully
suffer for the guilty, or that the suffering of innocence can in
any way justify the crimes of the wicked. I think he is mistaken,
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
13
THE REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON
A NEW RELIGION.
however, when he says that the early church softened or weakened
the barbaric passions. I think the early church was as barbarous as
any institution that ever gained a footing in this world. I do not
believe that the creed of the early church, as understood, could
soften anything. A church that preaches the eternity of punishment
has within it the seed of all barbarism and the soil to make it
grow.
So Mr. Newton is undoubtedly right when he says that the
organized Christianity of to-day is not the leader in social
progress. No one now goes to a synod to find a fact in science or
on any subject. A man in doubt does not ask the average minister;
he regards him as behind the times. He goes to the scientist, to
the library. He depends upon the untrammelled thought of fearless
men.
The church, for the most part, is in the control of the rich,
of the respectable, of the well-to-do, of the unsympathetic, of the
men who, having succeeded themselves, think that everybody ought to
succeed. The spirit of caste is as well developed in the church as
it is in the average club. There is the same exclusive feeling, and
this feeling in the next world is to be heightened and deepened to
such an extent that a large majority of our fellow-men are to be
eternally excluded.
The peasants of Europe -- the workingmen -- do not go to the
church for sympathy. If they do they come home empty, or rather
empty hearted. So, in our own country the laboring classes, the
mechanics, are not depending on the churches to right their wrongs.
They do not expect the pulpits to increase their wages. The
preachers get their money from the well-to-do -- from the employer
class -- and their sympathies are with those from whom they receive
their wages.
The ministers attack the pleasures of the world. They are not
so much scandalized by murder and forgery as by dancing and eating
meat on Friday. They regard unbelief as the greatest of all sins.
They are not touching the real, vital issues of the day, and their
hearts do not throb in unison with the hearts of the struggling,
the aspiring, the enthusiastic and the real believers in the
progress of the human race.
It is all well enough to say that we should depend on
Providence, but experience has taught us that while it may do no
harm to say it, it will do no good to do it. We have found that man
must be the Providence of man, and that one plow will do more,
properly pulled and properly held, toward feeding the world, than
all the prayers that ever agitated the air.
So, Mr. Newton is correct in saying, as I understand him to
say, that the hope of immortality has nothing to do with orthodox
religion. Neither, in my judgment, has the belief in the existence
of a God anything in fact to do with real religion. The old
doctrine that God wanted man to do something for him, and that he
kept a watchful eye upon all the children of men; that he rewarded
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
14
THE REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON
A NEW RELIGION.
the virtuous and punished the wicked, is gradually fading from the
mind. We know that some of the worst men have what the world calls
success. We know that some of the best men lie upon the straw of
failure. We know that honesty goes hungry, while larceny sits at
the banquet. We know that the vicious have every physical comfort,
while the virtuous are often clad in rags.
Man is beginning to find that he must take care of himself;
that special providence is a mistake. This being so, the old
religions must go down, and in their place man must depend upon
intelligence, industry, honesty; upon the facts that he can
ascertain, upon his own experience, upon his own efforts. Then
religion becomes a thing of this world -- a religion to put a roof
above our heads, a religion that gives to every man a home, a
religion that rewards virtue here.
If Mr. Newton's sermon is in accordance with the Episcopal
creed, I congratulate the creed. In any event, I think Mr. Newton
deserves great credit for speaking his thought. Do not understand
that I imagine that he agrees with me. The most I will say is that
in some things I agree with him, and probably there is a little too
much truth and a little too much humanity in his remarks to please
the bishop.
There is this wonderful fact, no man has ever yet been
persecuted for thinking God bad. When any one has said that he
believed God to be so good that he would, in his own time and way,
redeem the entire human race, and that the time would come when
every soul would be brought home and sit on an equality with the
others around the great fireside of the universe, that man has been
denounced as a poor, miserable, wicked wretch.
New York Herald, December 15, 1888.
END
**** ****
THE POLICE CAPTAINS' DINNER.
New York, January, 21, 1888.
TOAST.
Duties and Privileges of the Press.
ONLY a little while ago, the nations of the world were
ignorant and provincial. Between these nations there were the walls
and barriers of language, of prejudice, of custom, of race and of
religion. Each little nation had the only perfect form of
government -- the only genuine religion -- all others being
adulterations or counterfeits.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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THE POLICE CAPTAINS' DINNER.
These nations met only as enemies. They had nothing to
exchange but blows -- nothing to give and take but wounds.
Movable type was invented, and "civilization was thrust into
the brain of Europe on the point of a Moorish lance." The Moors
gave to our ancestors paper, and nearly all valuable inventions
that were made for a thousand years.
In a little while, books began to be printed -- the nations
began to exchange thoughts instead of blows. The classics were
translated. These were read, and those who read them began to
imitate them -- began to write themselves; and in this way there
was produced in each nation a local literature. There came to be an
exchange of facts, of theories, of ideas.
For many years this was accomplished by books, but after a
time the newspaper was invented, and the exchange increased.
Before this, every peasant thought his king the greatest being
in the world. He compared this king -- his splendor, his palace --
with the peasant neighbor, with his rags and with his hut. All his
thoughts were provincial, all his knowledge confined to his own
neighborhood -- the great world was to him an unknown land.
Long after papers were published, the circulation was small,
the means of intercommunication slow, painful, few and costly.
The same was true in our own country, and here, too, was in a
great degree, the provincialism of the Old World.
Finally, the means of intercommunication increased, and they
became plentiful and cheap.
Then the peasant found that he must compare his king with the
kings of other nations -- the statesmen of his country with the
statesmen of others -- and these comparisons were not always
favorable to the men of his own country.
This enlarged his knowledge and his vision, and the tendency
of this was to make him a citizen of the world.
Here in our own country, a little while ago, the citizen of
each State regarded his State as the best of all. To love that
State more than all others, was considered the highest evidence of
patriotism.
The Press finally informed him of the condition of other
States. He found that other States were superior to his in many
ways -- in climate, in production, in men, in invention, in
commerce and in influence. Slowly he transferred the love of State,
the prejudice of locality -- what I call mud patriotism -- to the
Nation, and he became an American in the best and highest sense.
This, then, is one of the greatest things to be accomplished
by the Press in America -- namely, the unification of the country
-- the destruction of provincialism, and the creation of a
patriotism broad as the territory covered by our flag.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
16
THE POLICE CAPTAINS' DINNER.
The same ideas, the same events, the same news, are carried to
millions of homes every day. The result of this is to fix the
attention of all upon the same things, the same thoughts and
theories, the same facts -- and the result is to get the best
judgment of a nation.
This is a great and splendid object, but not the greatest.
In Europe the same thing is taking place. The nations are
becoming acquainted with each other. The old prejudices are dying
out. The people of each nation are beginning to find that they are
not the enemies of any other. They are also beginning to suspect
that where they have no cause of quarrel, they should neither be
called upon to fight, nor to pay the expenses of war.
Another thing: The kings and statesmen no longer act as they
formerly did. Once they were responsible only to their poor and
wretched subjects, whose obedience they compelled at the point of
the bayonet. Now a king knows, and his minister knows, that they
must give account for what they do to the civilized world. They
know that kings and rulers must be tried before the great bar of
public opinion -- a public opinion that has been formed by the
facts given to them in the Press of the world. They do not wish to
be condemned at that great bar. They seek not only not to be
condemned -- not only to be acquitted -- but they seek to be
crowned. They seek the applause, not simply of their own nation,
but of the civilized world.
There was for uncounted centuries a conflict between
civilization and barbarism. Barbarism was almost universal,
civilization local. The torch of progress was then held by feeble
hands, and barbarism extinguished it in the blood of its founders.
But civilizations arose, and kept rising, one after another, until
now the great Republic holds and is able to hold that torch against
a hostile world.
By its Invention, by its weapons of war, by its intelligence,
civilization became capable of protecting itself, and there came a
time when in the struggle between civilization and barbarism the
world passed midnight.
Then came another struggle, -- the struggle between the people
and their rulers.
Most peoples sacrificed their liberty through gratitude to
some great soldier who rescued them from the arms of the barbarian.
But there came a time when the people said: "We have a right to
govern ourselves." And that conflict has been waged for centuries.
And I say, protected and corroborated by the flag of the
greatest of all Republics, that in that conflict the world has
passed midnight.
Despotisms were softened by parliaments, by congresses -- but
at last the world is beginning to say: "The right to govern rests
upon the consent of the governed. The power comes from the people
-- not from kings. It belongs to man, and should be exercised by
man."
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
17
THE POLICE CAPTAINS' DINNER.
In this conflict we have passed midnight. The world is
destined to be republican. Those who obey the laws will make the
laws.
Our country -- the United States -- the great Republic - owns
the fairest portion of half the world. We have now sixty millions
of free people. Look upon the map of our country. Look upon the
great valley of the Mississippi -- stretching from the Alleghenies
to the Rockies. See the great basin drained by that mighty river.
There you will see a territory large enough to feed and clothe and
educate five hundred millions of human beings.
This country is destined to remain as one. The Mississippi
River is Nature's protest against secession and against division.
We call that nation civilized when its subjects submit their
differences of opinion, in accordance with the forms of law, to
fellow-citizens who are disinterested and who accept the decision
as final.
The nations, however, sustain no such relation to each other.
Each nation concludes for itself. Each nation defines its rights
and its obligations; and nations will not be civilized in respect
of their relations to each other, until there shall have been
established a National Court to decide differences between nations,
to the judgment of which all shall bow.
It is for the Press -- the Press that photographs the human
activities of every day -- the Press that gives the news of the
world to each individual -- to bend its mighty energies to the
unification and the civilization of mankind; to the destruction of
provincialism, of prejudice -- to the extirpation of ignorance and
to the creation of a great and splendid patriotism that embraces
the human race.
The Press presents the daily thoughts of men. It marks the
progress of each hour, and renders a relapse into ignorance and
barbarism impossible. No catastrophe can be great enough, no ruin
wide-spread enough, to engulf or blot out the wisdom of the world.
Feeling that it is called to this high destiny, the Press
should appeal only to the highest and to the noblest in the human
heart.
It should not be the bat of suspicion, a raven, hoarse with
croaking disaster, a chattering jay of gossip, or a vampire
fattening on the reputations of men.
It should remain the eagle, rising and soaring high in the
cloudless blue, above all mean and sordid things, and grasping only
the bolts and arrows of justice.
Let the Press have the courage always to defend the right,
always to defend the people -- and let it always have the power to
clutch and strangle any combination of men, however intellectual or
cunning or rich, that feeds and fattens on the flesh and blood of
honest men.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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THE POLICE CAPTAINS' DINNER.
In a little while, under our flag there will be five hundred
millions of people. The great Republic will then dictate to the
world -- that is to say, it will succor the oppressed -- it will
see that justice is done -- it will say to the great nations that
wish to trample upon the weak: "You must not -- you shall not --
strike." It will be obeyed.
All I ask is -- all I hope is -- that the Press will always be
worthy of the great Republic.
END
**** ****
NOTE for the computer edition, 1988.
For some reason this Preface begins on page 256 of volume 1 of
the Dresden Edition, it should have been in the beginning of that
volume.
PREFACE
1878
These lectures have been so maimed: and mutilated by orthodox
malice; have been made to appear so halt, crotchet and decrepit by
those who mistake the pleasures of calumny for the duties of
religion, that in simple justice to myself I have concluded to
publish them.
Most of the clergy are, or seem to be, utterly incapable of
discussing anything in a fair and catholic spirit. They appeal, not
to reason, but to prejudice; not to facts, but to passages of
Scripture. They can conceive of no goodness, of no spiritual
exaltation beyond the horizon of their creed. Whoever differs with
them upon what they are pleased to call "fundamental truths," is,
in their opinion, a base and infamous man. To re-enact the
tragedies of the sixteenth century, they lack only the power.
Bigotry in all ages has been the same. Christianity simply
transferred the brutality of the Colosseum to the Inquisition. For
the murderous combat of the gladiators, the saints substituted the
auto de fe. What has been called religion is, after all, but the
organization of the wild beast in man. The perfumed blossom of
arrogance is heaven. Hell is the consummation of revenge.
The chief business of the clergy has always been to destroy
the joy of life, and multiply and magnify the terrors and tortures
of death and perdition. They have polluted the heart and paralyzed
the brain; and upon the ignorant altars of the Past and the Dead,
they have endeavored to sacrifice the Present and the Living.
Nothing can exceed the mendacity of the religious press. I
have had some little experience with political editors, and am
forced to say, that until I read the religious papers, I did not
know what malicious and slimy falsehoods could be constructed from
ordinary words. The ingenuity with which the real and apparent
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
19
PREFACE
meaning can be tortured out of language, is simply amazing. The
average religious editor is intolerant and insolent; he knows
nothing of affairs; he has the envy of failure, the malice of
impotence, and always accounts for the brave and generous actions
of unbelievers, by low, base and unworthy motives.
By this time, even the clergy should know that the intellect
of the nineteenth century needs no guardian. They should cease to
regard themselves as shepherds defending flocks of weak, silly and
fearful sheep from the claws and teeth of ravening wolves. By this
time they should know that the religion of the ignorant and brutal
past no longer satisfies the heart and brain; that the miracles
have become contemptible; that the "evidences" have ceased to
convince; that the spirit of investigation cannot be stopped nor
stayed; that the church is losing her power; that the young are
holding in a kind of tender contempt the sacred follies of the old;
that the pulpit and pews no longer represent the culture and
morality of the world, and that the brand of intellectual
inferiority is upon the orthodox brain.
Men should be liberated from the aristocracy of the air. Every
chain of superstition should be broken. The rights of men and women
should be equal and sacred -- marriage should be a perfect
partnership -- children should be governed by kindness, -- every
family should be a republic -- very fireside a democracy.
It seems almost impossible for religious people to really
grasp the idea of intellectual freedom. They seem to think that man
is responsible for his honest thoughts; that unbelief is a crime;
that investigation is sinful; that credulity is a virtue, and that
reason is a dangerous guide. They cannot divest themselves of the
idea that in the realm of thought there must be government --
authority and obedience -- laws and penalties -- rewards and
punishments, and that somewhere in the universe there is a
penitentiary for the soul.
In the republic of mind, one is a majority. There, all are
monarchs and all are equals. The tyranny of a majority even is
unknown. Each one is crowned, sceptered and throned. Upon every
brow is the tiara, and around every form is the imperial purple.
Only those are good citizens who express their honest thoughts, and
those who persecute for opinion's sake, are the only traitors.
There, nothing is considered infamous except an appeal to brute
force, and nothing sacred but love, liberty, and joy. The church
contemplates this republic with a sneer. From the teeth of hatred
she draws back the lips of scorn. She is filled with the spite and
spleen born of intellectual weakness. Once she was egotistic; now
she is envious. Once she wore upon her hollow breast false gems,
supposing them to be real. They have been shown to be false, but
she wears them still. She has the malice of the caught, the hatred
of the exposed.
We are told to investigate the Bible for ourselves, and at the
same time informed that if we come to the conclusion that it is not
the inspired word of God, we will most assuredly be damned. Under
such circumstances, if we believe this, investigation is
impossible. Whoever is held responsible for his conclusions cannot
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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PREFACE
weigh the evidence with impartial scales. Fear stands at the
balance, and gives to falsehood the weight of its trembling hand
I oppose the church because she is the enemy of liberty;
because her dogmas are infamous and cruel; because she humiliates
and degrades woman; because she teaches the doctrines of eternal
torment and the natural depravity of man; because she insists upon
the absurd, the impossible, and the senseless; because she resorts
to falsehood and slander; because she is arrogant and revengeful;
because she allows men to sin on a credit; because she discourages
self-reliance, and laughs at good works; because she believes in
vicarious virtue and vicarious vice -- vicarious punishment and
vicarious reward; because she regards repentance of more importance
than restitution, and because she sacrifices the world we have to
one we know not of.
The free and generous, the tender and affectionate, will
understand me. Those who have escaped from the grated cells of a
creed will appreciate my motives. The sad and suffering wives, the
trembling and loving children will thank me: This is enough.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
Washington, D.C.
April 13, 1878.
END
**** ****
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
The Bank of Wisdom is a collection of the most thoughtful,
scholarly and factual books. These computer books are reprints of
suppressed books and will cover American and world history; the
Biographies and writings of famous persons, and especially of our
nations Founding Fathers. They will include philosophy and
religion. all these subjects, and more, will be made available to
the public in electronic form, easily copied and distributed, so
that America can again become what its Founders intended --
The Free Market-Place of Ideas.
The Bank of Wisdom is always looking for more of these old,
hidden, suppressed and forgotten books that contain needed facts
and information for today. If you have such books please contact
us, we need to give them back to America.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
21

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