1171 lines
56 KiB
Plaintext
1171 lines
56 KiB
Plaintext
18 page printout -- 30 to 47
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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CHAPTER 4.
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FROM EIGHTEEN SIXTY-SEVEN TO
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EIGHTEEN SEVENTY-SEVEN.
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On February 28, 1867, Ingersoll became attorney-general of
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Illinois, serving as such until January 11, 1869. He was appointed
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by Governor Richard J. Oglesby, but undoubtedly would have
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succeeded himself when the office was made elective, had he not
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renounced the candidacy therefor. The reasons for the renunciation
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indicated will be noted later. Meantime, we come, in proper
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narrative sequence, to snother act, an act which, for manliness, --
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for unswerving fidelity to the dictates of conscience, -- has never
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been surpassed in the history of American politirs.
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On May 6, 1868, the Republican state convention met in Peoria
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to select a candidate for the governorship of Illinois. Although no
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special efforts had been made in Ingersoll's behalf, it was found,
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at once, that he was the first choice of three-fourths of the
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delegates. But some of the more sagacious questioned the political
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wisdom of that choice. Ingersoll, even thus early, had become, as
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far as the preachers were concerned, the best-hated individual in
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all the state; and the delegates, notwithstanding their high
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personal regard for the man, could not afford to launch the bark of
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their aspirations without some assurance that it would not be
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dashed against the jagged rock of his heterodoxy. They wanted a
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pledge from their prospective leader, who, be it marked, had yet to
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achieve national renown. Accordingly, a committee was sppointed to
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confer witk him, the convention adjourning to await the result. It
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had not long to wait: --
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"Gentlemen, I am not asking to be govenor of Illinois. * * *
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I have in my composition that which I have declared to the world as
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my views upon religion. My position I would not, under any
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circumstances, not even for my life, seem to renounce. I would
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rather refuse to be president of the United States than to do so.
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My religious belief is my own. It belongs to me, not to the state
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of Illinois. I would not smother one sentiment of my heart to be
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the emperor of the round globe."
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In these days, when the gaze can scarcely be extended without
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revealing a politician at the feet of a priest, this reply is as
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strangely refreshing as would be a fountain that should burst from
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the fevered breast of the desert.
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For the sake of narrative completeness and historic justice,
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I may add that the convention, haviug declined to nominate
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Ingersoll because he refused to stultify himself, conferred the
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honor of nomination upon a man who, by previously declaring that he
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was not a candidate, [NOTE: General John M. Palmer, who was
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afterwards nominated and elected, telegraphed to general Rowett,
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while the convention was in session: "Do not permit me to be
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nominated. I cannot accept."]
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Induced Ingersoll to become one, and who, to say the least,
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did not prevent his friends, in that very convention, from making
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political capital of tke fact that Ingersoll was an "infidel."
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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30
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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And this is not the worst: the same individuals who sought to
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stake the mental manhood of Ingersoll upon a "tower of silence," to
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be pecked by the unclean vultures of politics, now desired to
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retain him as "guide, counselor, and friend." His wisdom, his
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eloquence -- his prestige -- must not be lost to them. And so, by
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the strange alchemy of hypocrisy, his disqualifications for the
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gubernatorial candidacy suddenly became qualifications for that of
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attorney-general. Accordingly, insult followed injary; and he was
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asked to accept the nomination for the latter oIfice. But Robert G.
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Ingersoll still stood sponsor for his manhood; and his reply on
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this occasion was about as evasive and difficult of comprehension
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as had been his reply to the committee from the convention, and
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presumably, for that reason, did not afford as much pleasure to him
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who became the successful candidate for the governorship: --
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"When I say I am a candidate for a particular office, I mean
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it; and when I say I am a not a candidate for a particular office,
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I mean that too. When I became a candidate for governor, I
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renounced my candidacy for attorney-general; and other candidates
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were invited into the field. I would despise myself forever were I
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now to become a candidate against any of these men whom, by my
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action, I have invited to become candidates."
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This, as far as his own political preferment was concerned,
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sealed Ingersoll's doom, not only in Illinois, but throughout the
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United States.
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There occurred, in connection with this campaign, a little
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incident which, revealing Ingersoll's sense of justice, -- his
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tenderness and compassion, -- even more impressively than the two
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official replies to the politicians revealed his mental manhood, it
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is here impossible to omit. The treasurehouse of English is filled
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with priceless gems; and long before I heard of this incident, I
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had decided (for myself alone) as to which was the greatest, which
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the tenderest, expression in our language; that the greatest was
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Shakespeare's -- "There is no darkness but ignorance," and that the
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tenderest most compassionate, was Whitman's -- "Not till the sun
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excludes you, do I exclude you." But the incident of Ingersoll
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changed my mind. The particulars of that incident are as follows:
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Soon after the campaign, Ingersoll and a number of his
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associates were gathered in his office in Peoria. Some one
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mentioned the fact that his orthodox political opponents had
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circulated the charge that he had referred to Christ as "an
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illegitimate child."
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Now, a small man, confronted with this charge, might have
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replied: --
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"Yes: I said it; and according to your Bible, it is true."
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A great man might have added to this: --
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"But is it any fault of Christ's?"
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But Ingersoll replied: --
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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31
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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"Gentlemen, it isn't to have you think that I would call
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Christ an illegitimate child' which hurts me: it is to think that
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you should think that I would think any the less of Christ if I
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knew it was so."
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It has been stated by many whose judgment is entitled to great
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weight, that, had Ingersoll kept silent on religious questions, any
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place within the gift of the people might have been his. For
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example, the resolutions of the memorial meeting which was held in
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Peoria on July 23, 1899, and which was participated in by the most
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prominent residents of that place, -- his lifelong acquaintances
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and former fellow-citizens and neighbors, -- contain the following:
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"* * * At a time when everything impelled him to conceal his
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opinions, or to withhold their expression, when the highest honors
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of the state were his if he would but avoid the discussion of the
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questions that relate to futerity, he avowed his belief; he did not
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bow his knee to superstition, nor countenance a creed from which
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his intellect dissented.
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"Casting aside all the things for which men most sigh --
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political honor, the power to direct the fortunes of the state,
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riches and emoluments, the association of the worldly and the well-
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to-do -- he stood forth and expressed his honest doubts, and he
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welcomed the ostracism that came with it, as a crown of glory, no
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less than did the martyrs of old.
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"* * * at the time that he made his stand, there was before
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him only the prospect of loss and of the scorn of the public.
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"We therefore, who know what a struggle it was to cut loose
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from his old associations, and what it meant to him at that time,
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rejoice in his triumph and in the plaudits that came to him for
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thus boldly avowing his opinions, and we desire to record the fact
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that we feel that he was greater than a martyr, greater than a
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saint, greater than a mere mere hero -- he was a thoroughly honest
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man.' * * * "
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Hon. Clark E. Carr (ex-minister to Denmark), who is intimately
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and personally acquainted with the last fifty years of the
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political history of Illinois, said, in an eloquent address at the
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Ingersoll memorial meeting in Chicago, on August 6, 1899: --
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"We remember how, on account of his splindid services, and his
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sublime patriotism, we in Knox county and in our part of the state,
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united in seeking to place him in the chief executive office, and
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we remember that by modifying certain views he held, he could have
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been nominated by acclamation and elected to the high office of
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Governor of Illinois, which would have opened the way to even
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higher emoluments and positions; and we remember with what tenacity
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and firmness he held to his convictions, and that neither public
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sentiment, the appeal of friends, nor the allurements of position,
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could move him to accept as true what he could not believe."
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"It is my strong conviction," wrote Dr. Moncure D. Conway, in
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the South Place Magazine, London, "that but for orthodox animosity,
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Colonel Ingersoll would have been Presideut of the United States.
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Certainly no man of his ability ever occupied that office."
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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32
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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Many similar remarks might be quoted from like sources. They
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were often made to Ingersoll himself, by publicists and political
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leaders. Exact language cannot here be essayed; but the opinion
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expressed was usually couched in suhstantially the following, if,
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indeed, in much more intimate terms: 'Were it not for your attitude
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on religion, you could, with your ability and personality, have any
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honor that it is possible for the American people to bestow.'
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Strange as it may seem to some, the recipient of these
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intended compliments never appreciated them. And what an
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alternative mediocrity did put at his feet! As a matter of fact,
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there was no place in this Republic that could have honored Robert
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G. Ingersoll. And he could no more have preserved silence on
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relig;on, than Shellcy could have refrained from pouring furth the
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marrelous poetry that now glorifies the realm of fancy. Where is
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the man with imagination enough to picture that iron frame of ample
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proportions, that classic head and fine, frank face -- that
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embodiment of all the gradations of temperament, from clown to king
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-- sitting acquiescent at the feet of a Talmage!
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And suppose that Ingersoll had become president of the United
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States. Suppose that, unheeding the silent voice within, he had
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agreed to accept the nomination for the governorship of Illinois,
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-- that is to say, the governorship, -- and that, subsequently,
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with calloused conscience, using his irresistible eloqnence to
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smoothe the way, he had marched to the executive seat of the
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nation. Would it have been hetter -- better for him and for the
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world?
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Who remembers the governors of states? How many can recall the
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names of all the presidents? We remember Washington: -- he was the
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first. We remember Jefferson, who at least penned the sublimest of
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human documents; -- JeIIerson! the noble sage, whose lamp of wisdom
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shineth still. And we remember Lincoln, in whose soul were the
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sadness and sorrow, the anguish, the despair, and the consolation,
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of a people; -- Lincoln! who kept unscattered in the skies the
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constellation of the Republic; who caused the bow of equal rights
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to arch alike the white and the black; whose wit, like lightning,
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always taking the shortest course, often struck in the highest
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places; and whose humor, like sunshine, silvered and gilded "the
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clouds of war"; -- Lincoln! in his hand the broken fetters, at his
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feet the bowed slave; -- Lincoln! in the ruthless fields, his hand
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the last laurel on the dying soldier's brow.
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The truth is, that, in levying on posterity, there is no
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extrinsic substitute for intrinsic worth. In the inexorable
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necessity of things, not an atom can ultimately be otherwise than
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as it really is. No office per se can be great enough to honor an
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incumbent. Of course, a mediocrity may be masked for a while by the
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garment of greatness; but to himself all the time, and to the world
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in due time, he is as inevitable as the atom to the chemist.
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Those who regret Ingersoll's failure to reach official
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supremacy should ponder well this fact. They should also consider,
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that rarely, with peoples, has the greatest been chosen to lead or
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to rule. Nor should this excite surprise; for the individual who
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bears the unmistakable stamp of moral and intellectual grandeur
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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33
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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almost invariably differs sufficieiitly from his fellows to incur
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their disapproval, if not their contempt. Nature does not make and
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break a special die to please the multitude.
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Far from regrettable, Ingersoll's declination of the
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nomination for the governorship of Illinois was one of the richest
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blessings that ever befell the cause of intellectual freedom. It
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was an incident which, to the real friend of progress, must ever
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recall the spirit of the Declaration and of the Emancipation.
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In the first place, Ingersoll yearned for inestimably higher
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things than the governorship of any state, or the presidency of any
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country, whatever. He could not have been satisfied with being the
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mere servant of a people. He himself possessed not only ears, but
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a voice. He had a message for mankind, and he would deliver that
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message, though it be from a platform denied to him by intolerance,
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showered with the brickbats of bigotry, stormed by the infantry of
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ignorance, and raked by the cross-fire of fanaticism.
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Had he sgreed to accept the nomination previously mentioned,
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all this yearning for intellectual liberty, -- this divine fire of
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enthusiasm, -- would have been extinguished -- like sudden night
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upon a flame of morning-glories! He would have drunk a subtle
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poison which, unlike that of Socrtites, would have sought out and
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destroyed every fiber of his moral being. He would have stultified
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himself, -- would have thrust an ignominious orthodox gag into his
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own mouth; and ever after, in the glass of conscience, -- the
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mirror of memory, -- he would have seen that gag projecting on
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either side.
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And suppose, again, that he had become president of the United
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States, as he almost certainly would have done had he listened to
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the political sirens of Illinois. What, in general, wonld have been
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the result? A splendid hypocrite in The White House; a vast number
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of pardons; the Federal troops in attendance at prospective
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"lynching-bees" -- that is, the protection of American citizens at
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home; some allegations that American citizens in China and Turkey
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had not been protected in their "rights"; a few half-hearted snubs
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for the royal tyrants and puppets of Europe; a volame or so of
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really brilliant "state papers" (not to mention the four
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Thanksgiving proclamations); a lot of half-great orations,
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delivered on popular and state occasions; and a book entitled,
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Robert G. Ingersoll: Was He an Infidel?
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What have we now? The record of a life that was absolutely
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true to itself; a record that "runs like a vine around the memory
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of our dead"; the record of one who did more for the emancipation
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of the human mind than all the governors and presidents of history;
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the record of a man who pursued the straight, unswerving course
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that wins the hatred of the many and the love of the few, -- the
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execration of the present, and the oak and laurel of the future.
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2.
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On September 14, 1869, at Peoria, on the oceasion of the
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unveiling of a statue to that deathless savant, Ingersoll first
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delivered his lecture on Humboldt -- a life dedicated to the
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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34
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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demonstration of "the sublimest of truths," that "the universe is
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governed by law."
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And in the following year came the lecture on Thomas Paine;
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for "with his name left out, the history of liberty cannot be
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written."
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In 1872 was publislied The Gods, a lecture, which,
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demonstrating that "each nation has created a god" who "has always
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resembled his creators," naturally lays down, as an initial
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prpposition, this striking paraphrase of Pope: "An houest God is
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the noblest work of man."
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Next following this, in 1873, was delivered the lectare
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Individuality, a noble and earnest plea that all men become worthy
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of Wordsworth's simile on Milton: "His soul was as a star and dwelt
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apart."
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In 1874 came Heritics and Hericies, a brave and splendid plea
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for intellectaal liberty -- "Liberty, a word without which all
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other words are vain."
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3.
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In the autumn of 1875, accompanied by his wife and children
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(Eva and Maud), Ingersoll made a brief tour abroad, visiting
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England, Ireland, and France. Upon his return, he gave at Peoria,
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on November 16th, for the benefit of "The National Blues," a local
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military organization, one of the most characteristic lectures of
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his lifetime. It was entitled: What I Saw, and What I Did Not See,
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in England, Ireland, and France. In it, we have many an inspiring
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view of his attitude at the shrine of departed genius. Of his visit
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to Westminster Abbey, for example, he says: --
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"Here I came upon a statue of Shakespeare, leaning upon a
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column, and in his hand a scroll, on which was a quotation from The
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Tempest:
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"'And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
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The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgous palaces,
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The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
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Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
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And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
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Leave not a rock behind: We are such stuff
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As dreams are made of, and our little life
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Is rounded with sleep.'" And he adds: --
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"The last two lines were omitted. But I thought, while
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standing there, how much greater were those few lines than the
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cathedral itself."
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While in Paris, Ingersoll asked the superintendent of Pere
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Lachaise if he could direct him to the tomb of Auguste Comte; but
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the superintendent had never even heard of the author of the
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"Positive philosophy." Ingersoll then asked the superintendent if
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he had ever heard of Napoleon Bonaparte.
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Bank of Wisdom
|
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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35
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INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
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"Of course I have," he answered, in a half-insulted toue. "Why
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do you ask me sach a question?"
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"Simply that I might have the opportunity of saying," replied
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Ingersoll, "that when everything connected with Napolcon, except
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his crimes, shall have been forgotten, Auguste Comte will be
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lovingly remembered as a benefactor of the human race."
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Whether or not Ingersoll then found the object of his inquiry,
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he found the tumb of Napoleon; and his now world-famous "Soliloquy"
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there, first given in the lecture above mentioned, was the result.
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4.
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The year 1876 was one of the most varied and eventful, if not
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the most memorable, in the life of Ingersoll. May 22d found him in
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the heat and ardor of forensic argument, delivering, at Chicago,
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his celebrated Address to the Jury in the Munn Trial, in which his
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client, the defendant, proved to be innocent; while only two days
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later, at Peoria, "to fullill a promise made many years ago," he
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pronounced at the grave of his father-in-law, Mr. Benjamin Weld
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Parker, the first of those tributes which, for purity, simplicity,
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and charm of diction, and for pathos and truly poetic recognition
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of the nothingness of all animate nature in the presence of the
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inevitable tragedy of death, will go down to postenty unequaled in
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our tongue.
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5.
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But Ingersoll's chief accomplishment, his most dramatic act,
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his most consummate achieveiment, as a whole, during this year,
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and, in its far-reaching influence for his personsl preferment, the
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greatest oratorical triumph of his life, was the nomination of
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Blaine for the presidency, at the Republican national convention,
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||
in Cincinnati, on June 15th. From a reputation that was hardly more
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||
than local, he sprang to a reputation that was general. The
|
||
oratorical wouder of his state, he became, in a brief half-hour,
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||
the Cicero of his country and his age. As The Elegy, in a moment,
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made Gray immortal; as The Cotter's Saturday Night instantly
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||
rendered deathless the name of Burns; so Ingersoll received upon
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||
his brow the fadeless laurel of Polymnia, as he tossed from his
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||
fervent lips the "shining lance" and argent "plume" of James G.
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Blaine.
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||
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That Ingersoll's triumph was inevitable is as certain now,
|
||
when we consider the man and the time, as it was surprising then.
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The year, -- it was historic -- a year of patriotic memories; the
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issues, -- they were fraught with as muck gravity as any that could
|
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concern the citizens of the Republic; the pany, -- although in
|
||
power, it was beginning to show symptoms of internal discontent, of
|
||
dissension, of weakness, and, for the first time in twelve years,
|
||
its most hopeful wisdom beheld what it feared were the shadowy
|
||
portents of defeat; the convention, -- it was, both because of
|
||
those present, and of those whose interests were there at stake,
|
||
one of almost unexampled dignity, but withal a convention in which
|
||
the tides and currents of ambition and intrigue surged fierce and
|
||
wild; the prospective nominee, -- he was the most audacious, the
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
36
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
most impetuous, and the most inspiring of leaders -- the idol of
|
||
the hour. Such a year, such issues, such an outlook, such an
|
||
assemblage, such a leader -- these, each and all, were calculated
|
||
to stir the utmost depths of the orator -- his patriotism, his love
|
||
of liberty and justice, his pride and prejudice, his eniotions, his
|
||
electrifying enthusiasm: --
|
||
|
||
"Ingersoll moven out from the obscure corner and advanced to
|
||
the center stage. As he walked forward, the thundering cheers,
|
||
sustained and swelling, never ceased. As he reached the platform,
|
||
theytook on an increasing volume of sound; and for ten minuets the
|
||
surging fury of acclamation, the wild waving of fans, hats, and
|
||
handkerchiefs, transformed the scene from one of deliberation to
|
||
that of a bedlam of rapturous delirium. Ingersoll waited with
|
||
unimparired serenity until he should get a chance to be heard. * *
|
||
* And then began an appeal, impassioned, artful, brillant, and
|
||
persuasive. * * *
|
||
|
||
"Possessed of a fine figure, a face of winning, cordial
|
||
frankness, Ingersoll had half won his audience before he spoke a
|
||
word. It is the attestation of every man that heard him, that so
|
||
brilliant a master stroke was never uttered before a political
|
||
convention. Its effect was indescribable. The coolest-headed in the
|
||
hall were stirred to the wildest expression. The adversaries of
|
||
Blane, as well as his friends, listened with unswerving, absorbed
|
||
attention. Curtis sat spellbound, his eyes and mouth wide open, his
|
||
figure moving in unison with the tremendous periods that fell in
|
||
masured, exquisitely graduated flow from the Illinoisan's smiling
|
||
lips. The matchless method and manner of the man can never be
|
||
imagined from the report in type. To reacize the prodigious force,
|
||
the inexpressible power, the irrestrainable fervor of the audience,
|
||
requires actual sight.
|
||
|
||
"Words can do but meger justice to the wizard power of this
|
||
extrodinary man. He sways and moved and impelled and restrained and
|
||
worked, in all ways, with the mass before him, as if he possessed
|
||
some key to the innermost mechanism that moves the human heart, and
|
||
when finished, his fine frank face as calm as when he began, the
|
||
overwrought thousands sank back in an exhaustion of unspeakable
|
||
wonder and delight." (From the Chicago Times, June 16, 1876)
|
||
|
||
The speech: --
|
||
|
||
"Massachusetts may be satisfied with the loyalty of Benjamin
|
||
H. Bristow; so am I; but if any man nominated by this convention
|
||
can not carry the State of Massachusetts, I am not satisfied with
|
||
the loyalty of that State. If the nominee of this convention cannot
|
||
carry the grand old Commonwealth of Massachusetts by seventy-five
|
||
thousand majority, I would advise them to sell out Faneuil Hall as
|
||
a Democratic headquarters. I would advise them to take from Bunker
|
||
Hill that old monument of glory.
|
||
|
||
The Republicans of the United States demand as their leader in
|
||
the great contest of 1876 a man of intelligence, a man of
|
||
integrity, a man of well-known and approved political opinions.
|
||
They denabd a statesman; they demand a reformer after as well as
|
||
before the election. They demand a politician in the highest,
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
37
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
broadest and best sense -- a man of superb moral courage. They
|
||
demand a man acquainted with public affairs -- with the wants of
|
||
the people; with not only the requirements of the houre, but with
|
||
the demands of the future. They demand a man broad enough to
|
||
comprehend the relations of this Government to the other nations of
|
||
the earth. They demand a man well versed in the powers, duties and
|
||
prerogatives of each and every department of this Government. They
|
||
demand a man who will sacredly preserve the financhial honor of the
|
||
United States; one who knows enough to know that the national debt
|
||
must be paid through the prosperity of the people; one who knows
|
||
enough to know that all financhial theories in the world cannot
|
||
redeem a single dollar; one who knows enough to know that all the
|
||
money must be made, not by law, but by labor; one who knows enough
|
||
to know that the people of the United States have the industry to
|
||
make the money, and the honor to pay it over just as fast as they
|
||
make it.
|
||
|
||
"The Republicans of the United States demand a man who knows
|
||
that prosperity and resumption, when they come, must come together;
|
||
that when they come, they willcome hand in hand through the golden
|
||
harvest fields; hand in hand by the whirling spindles and turning
|
||
wheels; hand in hand past the open furnace doors; hand in hand by
|
||
the flaming forges; hand in hand by the chimneys filled with eager
|
||
fire, greeded and grasped by the countless sons of toil.
|
||
|
||
"This money has to bedug out of the earth. You cannot make it
|
||
by passing resolutions in a political convention.
|
||
|
||
"The Republicans of the United States want a man who knows
|
||
that this Government should protect every citizen, at home and
|
||
abroad; who knows that any government that will not defend its
|
||
defenders, and protect its protectors, is a disgrace to the map of
|
||
the world. They demand a man who believes in the eternal sepration
|
||
and divorcement of church and school. They demand a man whose
|
||
political reputation is spotless as a star; but they do not demand
|
||
that their candidate shall have a certificate of moral character
|
||
signed by a Confederate congress. The man who has, in full, heaped
|
||
and rounded measure, all these splindid qualifications, is the
|
||
present and gallant leader of the Republican party -- James G.
|
||
Blaine.
|
||
|
||
"Our country, crowded with the vast and marvelous achievements
|
||
of its first century, asks for a man worthy of the past, and
|
||
prophetic of her future; asks for a man who has the audacity of
|
||
genious; asks for a man who is the grandest combination of heart,
|
||
conscience and brain beneath her flag -- such a man is James G.
|
||
Blaine.
|
||
|
||
"For the Republican host, led by this intrepid man, there can
|
||
be no defeat.
|
||
|
||
"This is a grand year -- a year filled with recollections of
|
||
the Revolution; filled with the proud and tender memories of the
|
||
past; with the sacred legends of liberty -- a year in which the
|
||
people call from the fountains of enthusiasm; a year in which the
|
||
people call for a man who has preserved in Congress what our
|
||
soldiers won upon the field; a year in which they call for the man
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
38
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
who has torn from the throat of treason the tounge of slander --
|
||
for the man who has snatched the mask of Democracy from the hedeous
|
||
face of rebellion; for the man who, like an intellectual athlete,
|
||
has stood in the arena of debate and challenged all commers, and
|
||
who is still a total stranger to defeat.
|
||
|
||
"Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blane
|
||
marched down the halls of the American Congress and threw his
|
||
shinning lance full and fair against the brazen foreheads of the
|
||
defamers of his country and the malingers of his honor. For the
|
||
Republican party to desert this gallant leader now, is as though an
|
||
army should desert their general upon the field of battle.
|
||
|
||
"James G. Blane is now and has been for years the bearer of
|
||
the sacred standard of the Republican party. I call it sacred,
|
||
because no human being can stand beneath its folds without becoming
|
||
and without remaining free.
|
||
|
||
"Gentlemen of the convention, in the name of the great
|
||
Republic, the only republic that ever existed upon this earth; in
|
||
the name of all her defenders and of all her supporters; in the
|
||
name of all her soldiers living; in the name of all her soldiers
|
||
dead upon the field of battle, and in the name of those who
|
||
perished in the skeleton clutches of famine at Andersonville and
|
||
Libby, whose sufferings he so vividly remembers, Illinois --
|
||
Illinois nominates for the next President of this country, that
|
||
prince of parliamentarians -- that leader of leaders -- James G.
|
||
Blaine."
|
||
|
||
The circumstances of the origin and preparationof this speech,
|
||
which, as is so well known, awakened unprecedented enthusiasm, not
|
||
only in the United States and other English-speaking countries, but
|
||
in frnce, wkere it was translated into the native tongue, are of
|
||
the deepest interest.
|
||
|
||
Not only Blaine, but Morton also (who was a warm friend of the
|
||
orator, and whom the latter greatly admired), had requested
|
||
Ingersoll to place his name before the convention. Being favorable
|
||
to both, and the matter not being subject to his personal
|
||
preference, he informed them that, as a member of the Illinois
|
||
delegstion, he would present the name of that delegation's choice.
|
||
(It is said that Ingersoll afterwards remarked to Marton: "I could
|
||
have made a better speech for you than I made for Blaine.")
|
||
|
||
It was nearing the midnight preceding the nomination when
|
||
Ingersoll and his brother "Clark" reached their apartment at the
|
||
hotel in Cincinnati. Not a sentence of the speech that Robert must
|
||
be ready within twelve hours to deliver had been cast in final
|
||
form, nor even roughly sketched on paper. His brother, aware of
|
||
this, was filled with affectionate anxiety. He feared that Robert,
|
||
through mere negligence, might not rise as gloriously as he knew
|
||
him to be capable of doing to the golden heights of the coming
|
||
occasion. He therefore urged the orator to make immediate
|
||
preparation. But Robert G. Ingersoll would have belied one of his
|
||
most distinguishing characteristics if, especially when feeling the
|
||
need of rest, he had permitted himself to worry about the exact
|
||
wording of a speech. So the two brothers retired, and were soon
|
||
asleep.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
39
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
Suddenly Robert awoke. It was still dark; but he felt
|
||
refreshed, -- alert. Quietly dressing, he stepped into the
|
||
adjoining room, closed the door behind him, lit the gas. It was
|
||
three o'clock. He sat down, and the subject-matter and enviroment
|
||
of the prospective speech passed before his mind like a panorama --
|
||
the year, the issues, the party, the candidate, the vast assemblage
|
||
in Exposition Hall. The picture was complete. He saw it, felt it;
|
||
now he must hear it -- it must satisfy the ear of tke poet-orator.
|
||
He picked up a pen. A little attention, here and there, to rhythm,
|
||
alliteration, tone-coloring, cadence, and -- genius had done its
|
||
work! Then Robert Ingersoll, with a twinkle that "Clark" didn't
|
||
even dream of, put out the light and returned to bed as noiselessly
|
||
as he had risen.
|
||
|
||
Suddenly he woke again, or rather, was awakened -- "Clark" was
|
||
tugging at his arm in almost importunate anxiety. 'It was nine
|
||
o'clocl: -- the convention would be in session in two hours -- that
|
||
speech must be written at once!'
|
||
|
||
"Let's have some breakfast first," said Robert, calmly, as he
|
||
rose and began to dress.
|
||
|
||
"No, 'Robin,'" replied "Clark," "you shan't leave this room
|
||
until you prepare your speech."
|
||
|
||
"All right, then; how will this do?" he smilingly rejoined, as
|
||
he drew a manuscript from his pocket and began to read.
|
||
|
||
"When did you write it?" asked his amazed and delighted
|
||
brother, at the close.
|
||
|
||
"Oh, last night, while you were asleep," answered Robert.
|
||
|
||
Thus was written in solitude, and delivered first to an
|
||
audience of one, the "Plumed Knight Speech." Thus was kindled, in
|
||
the pale glimmer of the "midnight oil," the most brilliant flash of
|
||
eloquence that ever electrified a political convention.
|
||
|
||
6.
|
||
|
||
On July 4th, "one hundred years" after "our fathers retired
|
||
the gods from politics," Ingersoll delivered at Peoria the
|
||
Centennial Oration. While the latter, from opening to close,
|
||
breathes the most lofty, inspiring, and worshipful patriotisn, it
|
||
contains one passage in particular which, because of sheer
|
||
simplicity of diction, and tenderness of pathos, it is here
|
||
impossible to omit. This of the men who bore the Stars and Stripes
|
||
from the little village green, through the midnight gloom of Valley
|
||
Forge, to Yorktown's cloudless day": --
|
||
|
||
"What did the soldier leave when he went?
|
||
|
||
"He left his wife and children.
|
||
|
||
"Did he leave them in a beautiful home, surrounded by
|
||
civilization, in the repose of law, in the security of a great and
|
||
powerful republic?
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
40
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
"No. He left his wife and children on the edge, on the fringe
|
||
of the boundless forest, in which crouched and crept the red
|
||
savage, who was at that time the ally of the still more savage
|
||
British. He left hiswife to defend herself, and he left prattling
|
||
babies to be defended by their mother and by nature. The mother
|
||
made a living; she planted the corn and potatoes, and hoed them in
|
||
the sun, raised the children, and, in the darkness of night, told
|
||
them about their brave father and the 'sacred cause.' She told them
|
||
that in a little while the war would be over and father would come
|
||
back covered with honor and glory.
|
||
|
||
"Think of the women, of the sweet children who listened for
|
||
the footsteps of the dead -- who waited through the sad and
|
||
desolate years for the dear ones who never came." If the time ever
|
||
comes when the majority of Americans can read without emotion the
|
||
last two paragraphs, then will the Declaration of Independence have
|
||
been in vain.
|
||
|
||
7.
|
||
|
||
The campaign following the speech at Cincinnati was, far
|
||
Ingersoll, as far as purely political oratory was concerned, a
|
||
period of unparalleled activity and influence. Of his reasons for
|
||
this activity, he has told us very plainly. He entered the Hayes
|
||
campaign, he says, not as a politician, but as an advocate and
|
||
defender of certain principles upon which he believed rested the
|
||
welfare of the nation. He entered the Hayes campaign because he
|
||
believed, that it "was the turning-point, the midnight, in the
|
||
history of the American Republic"; because he firmly believed,
|
||
that, if the Democratic party should sweep into power, it would be
|
||
"the end of progress," and the end of what he considered "human
|
||
liberty, beneath our flag." "I went into the campaign," he says,
|
||
"simply because the rights of American citizens in at least sixteen
|
||
states of the Union were trampled under foot. * * * I felt that it
|
||
was necessary to arouse the North. I felt that it was necessary to
|
||
tell again the story of the Rebellion, from Bull Run to Appomattox.
|
||
I felt that it was necesssry to describe what the Southern people
|
||
were doing with Union men, and with colored men; and I felt it
|
||
necessary so to describe it that the people of the North could hear
|
||
the whips, and could hear the drops of blood as they fell upon the
|
||
withered leaves." That he did all this, and much more, the written
|
||
and traditional accounts of the most remarkable political campaign
|
||
in our history are ample proof. The number of speeches that he made
|
||
in New York, New Jersey, Penusylvania, and especially in Maine,
|
||
Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, is simply enormous; and,
|
||
what is far more significant, the size, character, and enthusiasm
|
||
of the assemblages that he addressed are alike unprecedented in
|
||
American oratory. Every speech, no matter how many had preceded it
|
||
on the same subject, had a peculiar newness, -- a freshness and
|
||
vigor all its own. As stated by the Chicago Tribune, "His voice was
|
||
the trumpet-call from Maine to California."
|
||
|
||
Of his address at Bangor, on August 24th, which, by the way,
|
||
was never revised for publication, The Whig and Courier of that
|
||
city said, among other things: --
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
41
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
"* * * no report cound do justice to such a masterly effort as
|
||
that of the great western orator, and we have not attempted to
|
||
convey any adequate impression of an address which is concerned on
|
||
all hands to be the most remarkable for originality, power and
|
||
eloquence ever heard in this section.
|
||
|
||
"Such a speech by such a man -- if there is another -- must be
|
||
heard; the magnetism of the speaker must be felt; the indescribable
|
||
influence must be experienced, in order to appreciate his wonderful
|
||
power. * * * During portions of his address there was moisture in
|
||
the eyes of every person in the audience, and from opening to close
|
||
he held the assemblage by a spell more potent than that of any man
|
||
we have ever heard speak. It was one of the grandest, most cogent
|
||
and thrilling appeals in behalf of the great principles of liberty,
|
||
loyalty, and justice to all men, ever delivered, and we wish it
|
||
might have been heard by every citizen of our beloved Republic."
|
||
|
||
It is stated, that, after one of Ingersoll's speeches in
|
||
Maine, the professor of Greek in a college there said: --
|
||
|
||
"If Demosthenes was ever as eloquent as Ingersoll, he was
|
||
never properly reported."
|
||
|
||
The speech at Cooper Union, New York, on September 10th, was,
|
||
according to The Cincinnati Daily Times:
|
||
|
||
"* * * irristable -- magnificent. It swept along with it an
|
||
assemblage of greated numbers and finer character than has gathered
|
||
in our national metropolis to hear any political speaker since the
|
||
early days of the war. It is pleasant to remember that we shall
|
||
have an opportunity of listening to a like effort on Monday night
|
||
the 18th; but it is unfortunate that we have no hall large enough
|
||
to accommodate the crowd that will gather."
|
||
|
||
The New York Tribune more than justified the first of this
|
||
quotation, and added, among other things: --
|
||
|
||
"* * * the presiding officer wisely decided to submit no other
|
||
speaker to the too severe test of speaking on the same occasion
|
||
with Mr. Ingersoll."
|
||
|
||
The New York Speach, like the Bangor Speach, was published
|
||
without revision by the orator.
|
||
|
||
Eleven days later, at Indianapolis, in the course of an
|
||
address "to the veteran soldiers of the Rebellion," -- almost
|
||
before the enthusiastic echoes of the "Plumed Knight Speech" had
|
||
died away, -- he gave voice to that imaginative flight which has
|
||
since become universally known as A Vision of War, which, beyond
|
||
the uttermost reach of dispute, is the most inspiring, the
|
||
sublimest, the most truly pathetic, the most perfect, of war-
|
||
paintings. The reader who does not fully realize the latter world
|
||
do well to turn from Hugo on Waterloo, or from Lincoln at
|
||
Gettysburg, to Ingersoll at Indianspolis.
|
||
|
||
It is not uninteresting, as a test of eloquence, that, during
|
||
the address last indicated, (the audience being in the open air)
|
||
two heavy showers occurred without causing any one to seek shelter,
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
42
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
many indeed remaining rapt and motionless while the water actually
|
||
"trickled down their backs" from neighboring umbrellas. Women were
|
||
hysterical; men were weeping; among the latter being Garfield, who,
|
||
seated on the platform, ruse, at the couclusion of the address, and
|
||
greeted the speaker with a tearful embrace. If Robert G. Ingersoll
|
||
had spoken no word before nor since, it would still be the verdict
|
||
that he was, with consummate ease, the most eloquent orator of the
|
||
English tongue.
|
||
|
||
On October 5th, twenty thousand people, -- said to be the
|
||
largest political audience that had ever gathered in northern
|
||
Indiana, -- greeted him at Elkhart, special trains being run on all
|
||
railway branches centering there. He was welcomed with the most
|
||
eager enthusiasm; for the occasion, far from an ordinary incident
|
||
of the campaign, was rather an ovation to Ingersoll individually,
|
||
after his triumphant tour of the eastern states.
|
||
|
||
Passing over the details of the day, it is no less "curious"
|
||
now than then "to watch the immense crowd, moved with the thought
|
||
of the orator"; to witness its "tremendous outbursts" and, anon,
|
||
its breathless suspense, 'as eye seeks eye in silent wonder.' Even
|
||
more absorbing is the view afforded by the account of a member of
|
||
the party that journeyed from Chicago to participate in the
|
||
welcome: --
|
||
|
||
"Ingersoll begain in his characteristic way, lifting his
|
||
audence to climax after climax, until men and women who had been
|
||
seated stood on their feet * * * Looking down on the great crowd,
|
||
throbbing to his every utterence, Ingersoll's eyes fell on a group
|
||
of twenty or thirty women in Quaker garb. There was on every one of
|
||
those sweet young or older faces a look of absolute wonder. They
|
||
followed Ingersoll in his soaring eloquenceunbelieving as to his
|
||
power to release them from the whirlwind-sweep upward and let them
|
||
safely down. He seemed to catch the meaning of their faces, and,
|
||
with a manner as caressing and gentle as that of a mother with a
|
||
babe, he spoke, as if to them, of the glorious traditions of
|
||
freedom, of the preciousness of the privilege every one enjoyed;
|
||
and he came down from his lofty flight with an easy grace, and
|
||
seemed to settle like a bird on wing over the group of women in
|
||
drab."
|
||
|
||
His final political speech of this year was delivered in
|
||
Chicago, on October 20tk. No full stenographic report was made.
|
||
Extracts, however, were authoritatively preserved and published.
|
||
|
||
Intent on choosing the most trustworthy medium for conveying,
|
||
at this late date, something akin to an adequate impression of the
|
||
appreciation of the orator on the occasiou indicated, the
|
||
temptation to quote from the Chicago Tribune of October 21, 1876,
|
||
the words of one who was present, is too strong to resist: --
|
||
|
||
"Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll spoke last night at the
|
||
Exposition Building to the largest audience ever drawn by one man
|
||
in Chicago. From 6:30 o'clock the sidewalk fronting along the
|
||
building were jammed. At every entrance there were hundreds, and
|
||
half-an-hour later thousands were clamoring for admittance. So
|
||
great was the pressure the doors were finally closed, and the
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
43
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
entrances at either end cautiously opened to admit the select who
|
||
knew enough to apply in those directions. Occasionally a rush was
|
||
made for the main door, and as the crowd came up against the huge
|
||
barricade they were swept back only for another effort. Wabash
|
||
Avenue, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, and Van Buren Streets were jammed
|
||
with ladies and gentlemen, who swept into Michigan Avenue and
|
||
swelled the sea that surged around the building.
|
||
|
||
"At 7:30 the doors were flung open and the people rushed in.
|
||
Seating accomodations supposed to be adequate to all demands, had
|
||
been provided, but in an instant they were filled, the aisles were
|
||
jammed and around the sides of the building poured a steady streem
|
||
of humanity, intent only on some coign of vantage, some place,
|
||
where they could see and where they could hear. From the
|
||
foundation, beyond which the building lay in shadow to the north
|
||
end, was a swaying surging mass of people.
|
||
|
||
"Such another attendance of ladies has never been known at
|
||
apolitical meeting in Chicago. They came by the hundreds, and the
|
||
speaker looked down from his perch upon thousands of fair upturned
|
||
faces, stamped with the most intense interest in his remarks.
|
||
|
||
"The galleries were packed. The frame of the huge elevator
|
||
creaked, groaned, and swayed with the crowd roosting upon it. The
|
||
trusses bore their living weight. The gallery railings bent and
|
||
cracked. The roof was crowded, and the sky-lights teemed with
|
||
heads.Here and there an adventurous youth crept out on the girders
|
||
and braces. Toward the northern end of the building, on the west
|
||
side, is a smaller gallery, dark, and not particularly strong-
|
||
looking. It was fairly packed -- packed like a sordine-box -- with
|
||
men and boys. Up in the organ-loft around the sides of the organ,
|
||
everywhere that a human being could sit, stand, or hang, was pre-
|
||
empted and filled.
|
||
|
||
"It was a magnificent outpouring, at least 50,000 in number,
|
||
a compliment alike to the principle it represented, and the
|
||
orator."
|
||
|
||
Another writer (Prof. John Syphers) who was present (not as a
|
||
reporter) stated, in a subsequent description of the meeting, that
|
||
he "never saw anything that began with the wild excitement and
|
||
enthusiasm manifested by the people "when it was announced that
|
||
Ingersoll was approaching. 'If,' continues the description, 'the
|
||
queen of England or the czar of Russia had been coming into the
|
||
building at one end, and Ingersoll at the other, every face, I
|
||
believe, would have been turned toward Ingersoll's door of
|
||
entrance. The royal dignitaries from abroad would have been treated
|
||
as but common spectators.' This, in conjunction with all that
|
||
prccedes it, renders quite conservative the Chicago Journal's
|
||
tribute: "Ingersoll was the supreme hero in the Hayes campaign."
|
||
|
||
8.
|
||
|
||
In the following year (1877), natioual questions not
|
||
distractiug his attention, Ingersoll continued, with renewed vigor,
|
||
his anti-theological crusade. In his first lecture, The Liberty of
|
||
Man, Woman, and Child, he made, not for himself alone, but in
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
44
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
behalf of his fellows, clerical and lay, what he afterwards advised
|
||
every other man and every woman to make, -- "an individual
|
||
declaration of independence." He said: --
|
||
|
||
"I have made up my mind to say my say. I shall do it kindly,
|
||
distinctly; but I am going to do it. I know there are thousands of
|
||
men who substantially agree with me, but who are not in a condition
|
||
to express their thoughts. They are poor; they are in business; and
|
||
they know that should they tell their honest thought, persons will
|
||
refuse to patronize them -- to trade with them, they wish to get
|
||
bread for their little cjildren; they wish to take care of wives;
|
||
they wish to have homes and the comforts of life. Every such person
|
||
is a certificate of the meanness of the community in which he
|
||
resides. And yet I do not blame these people for not expressing
|
||
their thought. I say to them: 'Keep your ideas to yourselves; feed
|
||
and clothe the ones you love; I will do your talking for you. The
|
||
church cannot touch, cannot crush, cannot starve, cannot stop or
|
||
stay me; I will express your thoughts.'"
|
||
|
||
This lecture was repeated at the Grand Opera House, San
|
||
Francisco, Monday evening July 9th, the proceeds, a large sum,
|
||
being equally divided amog the Ladies' Protection snd Relief
|
||
Socicty, the Pacific Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Home Society, and the
|
||
Orphan Asylum Society.
|
||
|
||
Then came The Ghosts. "Let them cover theireyeless sockets
|
||
witk their fleshless hands and fade forever from the imaginstion of
|
||
men," he declared.
|
||
|
||
Ingersoll having delivered this (as well as the preceding)
|
||
lecture in San Francisco, the clergy of that city, eager to
|
||
discover a vulnerable point at which to attack him from the pulpit,
|
||
telegraphed forthwith to the late Mr. William Reynolds, a very
|
||
prominent religious worker, (Organizer of Calvary Mission Sunday
|
||
School, 1861; founder of national Sunday School Organization, 1887-
|
||
'97) at the lecturer's home (Peoria), asking to be furnished with
|
||
any available information reflecting upon the latter's personal
|
||
character. Mr. Reynolds replied that, aside from Ingersoll's anti-
|
||
theological views, there was no such iuformation. But the clcrgy
|
||
made their attack just the same! Ingersoll retorted, on June 27th,
|
||
with My Reviewers Reviewed, one of his ablest and lengthiest
|
||
lectures.
|
||
|
||
His address About Farming in Illinois, made during this
|
||
season, contains the following striking epigram: "To plow is to
|
||
pray, to plant is to prophesy, and the harvest answers and
|
||
fulfills."
|
||
|
||
The Eight to Seven Address, so called because eight of the
|
||
congressional electoral commission of fifteen declared for the
|
||
election of Hayes, and seven thereof for that of Tilden, was
|
||
delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston, in October, before one of the
|
||
largest, most enthusiastic, and yet most select and critical
|
||
audiences, even for tkat lectureloving city; William Lloyd
|
||
Garrison, James T. Fields, and the governor of Massachusetts being
|
||
among those present. "The lecture," as Bostonians insisted upon
|
||
calling it, opened witk a concise statement of Ingersoll's reasons
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
45
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
for participating in the campaign of Hayes, and "contained a witty,
|
||
philosophical, and intensely patriotic view of the political
|
||
contest preceding and following the recent election, with wise and
|
||
timely suggestions for preventing similar perils in the future." A
|
||
Boston paper stated that Ingersoll's reputation as the greatest
|
||
living orator was conceded to be firmly and justly established.
|
||
|
||
Ingersoll also published during this year a Vindication of
|
||
Thomas Paine, it being a reply to the New York Observer's attack
|
||
upon the "Author-Hero of the Revolution."
|
||
|
||
9.
|
||
|
||
Not long after the inanguration of Hayes, Ingersoll's friends,
|
||
including the entire congressional delegation from Illinois,
|
||
requested the president to appoint Ingersoll ambassador to Germany;
|
||
but, pending the executive's decision in the matter, Ingersoll
|
||
called upou Mr. Evarts, the secretary of state, and asked that his
|
||
name be not considered in connection with the Berlin mission, under
|
||
any circumstances whatever, stating, at the same time, that there
|
||
was no place in the gift of the administration "which he would
|
||
accept.
|
||
|
||
That the matter afforded him no little amusement is shown by
|
||
the following extract from a letter to Dr. Moucure D. Conway, then
|
||
resident in London: --
|
||
|
||
"You have probably seen by the despatches that I have declined
|
||
the mission. The religious press raised a most lugubrious howl of
|
||
pious anguish. Hypocrites of the secular papers joined with the
|
||
true believers in denouncing the appointment. It was laughable to
|
||
see the panic occasioned by so small a matter. I was anxious to see
|
||
what would be said. Upon the whole, the comments of the leading
|
||
papers were very gratifying indeed. Not so much because they were
|
||
full of kindness to me, but for the reason that they took the
|
||
ground that religion was purely a personal matter with which the
|
||
public had no right to meddle, one way or the other."
|
||
|
||
His name was also mentioned with reference to the Paris
|
||
mission and the position of attorneygeneral, and, in Illinois, with
|
||
reference to a United States senatorship.
|
||
|
||
10.
|
||
|
||
In Novemher of this year, he removed to Washington. Twenty
|
||
years before, he left the provincial and slumberous confines of
|
||
Shawneetown, that his intellectual and artistic faculties, his
|
||
forensic and oratorical genius, might attain, in the far more
|
||
opportune fields of Peoria, their full development. They had done
|
||
this. A student from boyhood, -- an insatiable reader and
|
||
investigator from his later youth, -- it was in Pcoria that he had
|
||
become wholly alive to the great truths, -- to the beauty and
|
||
sublimity of the mental world, -- and that all his powers and
|
||
attributes had become a unified and coherent force. There, he had
|
||
made the greatest intellects of the world, -- the philosophers,
|
||
statesmen, inventors, poets, dramatists, novelists, and scientists
|
||
of all ages, -- his constant companions. There, his political,
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
46
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION
|
||
|
||
religious, and philosophical opinions had taken definite form.
|
||
There, he had laid the foundation broad and deep. Not only this:
|
||
upou that foundation, he had stood the uncompromising champion of
|
||
both physical and intellectual liberty, had won the honors of the
|
||
soldier, had stood in the polirical arena unsullied and
|
||
incorruptible, had stood peerless at the bar, and, as an orator,
|
||
had been crowned with fame. In Peoria, he had written not only his
|
||
first lecture, but one of his very greatest, The Liberty of Man,
|
||
Woman, and Child. There, he had first practised and expounded that
|
||
social and domestic philosophy which was to make him the universal
|
||
champion of the fireside, and the friend of the unfornate -- the
|
||
poor, the imprisoned, the wretched, the despised. To his fellow-
|
||
citizens, he was nature's nobleman -- the pride and idol of the
|
||
community. He was respected by strangers, liked by acquaintances,
|
||
loved by friends. Naturally, therefore, upou his departure for the
|
||
still wider fields of the national capital, regret in Peoria not
|
||
only, but in the Prairie State, was general and profound.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
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
|
||
47
|
||
|