1366 lines
68 KiB
Plaintext
1366 lines
68 KiB
Plaintext
21 page printout.
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Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
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INTERVIEWS
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Contents of this file page
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FUNERAL OF JOHN G. MILLS AND IMMORTALITY. 1
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STAR ROUTE AND POLITICS. 6
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THE INTERVIEWER. 11
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POLITICS AND PROHIBITION. 13
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THE REPUBLICAN DEFEAT IN OHIO. 15
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THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 16
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THE GRANT BANQUET. 18
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ROBSON AND CRANE DINNER. 20
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**** ****
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This file, its printout, or copies of either
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are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.
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Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
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**** ****
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Robert G. Ingersoll rarely takes the trouble to answer
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critics. His recent address over the dead body of his friend John
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G. Mills has called forth a storm of denunciation from nearly every
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pulpit in the country. The writer called at the Colonel's office in
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New York Avenue yesterday and ask him to reply to some of the
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points made against him. Reluctantly he assented.
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FUNERAL OF JOHN G. MILLS AND IMMORTALITY.
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Question. Have yon seen the recent clerical strictures upon
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your doctrines?
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Answer. There are always people kind enough to send me
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anything they have the slightest reason to think I do not care to
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read. They seem to be animated by a missionary spirit, and
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apparently want to be in a position when they see me in hell to
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exclaim: "You can't blame me. I sent you all the impudent articles
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I saw, and if you died unconverted it was no fault of mine."
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Question. Did you notice that a Washington clergyman said that
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the very fact that you were allowed to speak at the funeral was in
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itself a sacrilege, and that you ought to have been stopped.
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Answer. Yes, I saw some such story. Of course, the clergy
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regard marriages and funerals as the perquisites of the pulpit, and
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they resent any interference on the part of the pews. They look at
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these matters from a business point of view. They made the same cry
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against civil marriages. They denied that marriage was a contract,
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and insisted that it was a sacrament, and that it was hardly
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binding unless a priest had blessed it. They used to bury in
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consecrated ground, and had marks upon the graves, so that Gabriel
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might know the ones to waken. The clergy wish to make themselves
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essential. They must christen the babe. this gives them possession
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of the cradle. They must perform the ceremony of marriage -- this
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gives them possession of the family. They must pronounce the
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funeral discourse -- this gives them possession of the dead.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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1
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INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
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Formerly they denied baptism to the children of the unbeliever,
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marriage to him who denied the dogmas of the church, and burial to
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honest men. The church wishes to control the world, and wishes to
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sacrifice this world for the next. Of course I am in favor of the
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utmost liberty upon all these questions. When a Presbyterian dies,
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let a follower of John Calvin console the living by setting forth
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the "Five Points." When a Catholic becomes clay, let a priest
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perform such ceremonies as his creed demands, and let him picture
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the delights of purgatory for the gratification of the living. And
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when one dies who does not believe in any religion, having
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expressed a wish that somebody say a few words above his remains,
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I see no reason why such a proceeding should be stopped, and, for
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my part, I see no sacrilege in it. Why should the reputations of
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the dead, and the feelings of those who live, be placed at the
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mercy of the ministers? A man dies not having been a Christian, and
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who, according to the Christian doctrine, is doomed to eternal
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fire. How would an honest Christian minister console the widow and
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the fatherless children? How would he dare to tell what he claims
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to be truth in the presence of the living? The truth is, the
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Christian minister in the presence of death abandons his
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Christianity. He dare not say above the coffin, "the soul that once
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inhabited this body is now in hell." He would be denounced as a
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brutal savage. Now and then a minister at a funeral has been brave
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enough and unmannerly enough to express his doctrine in all its
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hideousness of hate. I was told that in Chicago, many years ago, a
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young man, member of a volunteer fire company, was killed by the
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falling of a wall, and at the very moment the wall struck him he
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was uttering a curse. He was a brave and splendid man. An orthodox
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minister said above his coffin, in the presence of his mother and
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mourning friends, that he saw no hope for the soul of that young
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man. The mother, who was also orthodox refused to have her boy
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buried with such a sermon -- stopped the funeral took the corpse
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home, engaged a Universalist preacher, and, on the next day having
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heard this man say that there was no place in the wide universe of
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God without hope, and that her son would finally stand among the
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redeemed, this mother laid her son away, put flowers upon his
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grave, and was satisfied.
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Question. What have you to say to the charge that you are
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preaching the doctrine of despair and hopelessness, when they have
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the comforting assurances of the Christian religion to offer?
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Answer. All I have to say is this: If the Christian religion
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is true, as commonly preached -- and when I speak of Christianity,
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I speak of the orthodox Christianity of the day -- if that be true,
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those whom I have loved the best are now in torment. Those to whom
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I am most deeply indebted are now suffering the vengeance of God.
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If this religion be true, the future is of no value to me. I care
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nothing about heaven, unless the ones I love and have loved are
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there. I know nothing about the angels. I might not like them, and
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they might not like me. I would rather meet there the ones who have
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loved me here -- the ones who would have died for me, and for whom
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I would have died; and if we are to be eternally divided -- not
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because we differed in our views of justice, not because we
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differed about friendship or love or candor, or the nobility of
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human action, but because we differed in belief about the atonement
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or baptism or the inspiration of the Scriptures -- and if some of
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us are to be in heaven, and some in hell, then, for my part, I
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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2
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INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
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prefer eternal sleep. To me the doctrine of annihilation is
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infinitely more consoling, than the probable separation preached by
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the orthodox clergy of our time. Of course, even if there be a God,
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I like persons that I know, better than I can like him -- we have
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more in common -- I know more about them; and how is it possible
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for me to love the infinite and unknown better than the ones I
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know? Why not have the courage to say that if there be a God, all
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I know about him I know by knowing myself and my friends -- by
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knowing others? And, after all, is not a noble man, is not a pure
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woman, the finest revelation we have of God -- if there be one? Of
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what use is it to be false to ourselves? What moral quality is
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||
there in theological pretence? Why should a man say that he loves
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God better than he does his wife or his children or his brother or
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his sister or his warm, true friend? Several ministers have
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objected to what I said about my friend Mr. Mills, on the ground
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that it was not calculated to console the living. Mr. Mills was not
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a Christian. He denied the inspiration of the Scriptures. He
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believed that restitution was the best repentance, and that, after
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all, sin is a mistake. He was not a believer in total depravity, or
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in the atonement. He denied these things. He was an unbeliever.
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Now, let me ask, what consolation could a Christian minister have
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given to his family? He could have said to the widow and the
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orphans, to the brother and sister: "Your husband, your father,
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your brother, is now in hell; dry your tears; weep not for him, but
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try and save yourselves. He has been damned as a warning to you;
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care no more for him, why should yon weep over the grave of a man
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whom God thinks fit only to be eternally tormented? Why should you
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love the memory of one whom God hates?" The minister could have
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said: "He had an opportunity -- he did not take it. The life-boat
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was lowered -- he would not get in it -- he has been drowned, and
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the waves of God's wrath will sweep over him forever." This is the
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consolation of Christianity and the only honest consolation that
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Christianity can have for the widow and orphans of an unbeliever.
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Suppose, however, that the Christian minister has too tender a
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heart to tell what he believes to be the truth -- then he can say
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to the sorrowing friends: "Perhaps the man repented before he died;
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perhaps he is not in hell, perhaps you may meet him in heaven;" and
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this "perhaps" is a consolation not growing "out of Christianity,
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but out of the politeness of the preacher -- out of paganism.
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Question. Do you not think that the Bible has consolation for
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those who have lost their friends?
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Answer. There is about the Old Testament this strange fact --
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I find in it no burial service. There is in it, I believe, from the
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first mistake in Genesis to the last curse in Malachi, not one word
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said over the dead as to their place and state. When Abraham died,
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nobody said: "He is still alive -- he is in another world." When
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the prophets passed away, not one word was said as to the heaven to
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which they had gone. In the Old Testament, Saul inquired of the
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witch, and Samuel rose. Samuel did not pretend that he had been
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living, or that he was alive, but asked: "Why hast thou disquieted
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me?" He did not pretend to have come from some other world. And
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when David speaks of his son, saying that he could not come back to
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him, but that he, David, could go to his son, that is but saying
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that he, too, must die. There is not in the Old Testament one hope
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of immortality. It is expressly asserted that there is no
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|
||
Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
3
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INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
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difference between the man and beast -- that as the one dieth so
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dieth the other. There is one little passage in Job which
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commentators have endeavored to twist into a hope of immortality.
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Here is a book of hundreds and hundreds of pages, and hundreds and
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hundreds of chapters -- a revelation from God -- and in it one
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little passage, which, by a mistranslation, is tortured into saying
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something about another life. And this is the Old Testament. I have
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sometimes thought that the Jews, when slaves in Egypt, were mostly
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||
occupied in building tombs for mummies, and that they became so
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||
utterly disgusted with that kind of work, that the moment they
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founded a nation for themselves they went out of the tomb business.
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The Egyptians were believers in immorality, and spent almost their
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entire substance upon the dead. The living were impoverished to
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enrich the dead. The grave absorbed the wealth of Egypt. The
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industry of a nation was buried. Certainly the Old Testament, has
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nothing clearly in favor of immortality. In the New Testament we
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are told about the "kingdom of heaven." -- that it is at hand --
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and about who shall be worthy, but it is hard to tell what is meant
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||
by the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven was apparently to
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||
be in this world, and it was about to commence. The Devil was to be
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chained for a thousand years, the wicked were to be burned up, and
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Christ and his followers were to enjoy the earth. This certainly
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was the doctrine of Paul when he says: "Behold, I show you a
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||
mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a
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moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the
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trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible,
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and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on
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incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." According
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to this doctrine, those who were alive were to be changed, and
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those who had died were to he raised from the dead. Paul certainly
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did not refer to any other world beyond this. All these things were
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to happen here. The New Testament is made up of the fragments of
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many religions. It is utterly inconsistent with itself; and there
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||
is not a particle of evidence of the resurrection and ascension of
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Christ -- neither in the nature of things could there be. It is a
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thousand times more probable that people were mistaken than that
|
||
such things occurred. If Christ really rose from the dead, he
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should have shown himself, not simply to his disciples, but to the
|
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very men who crucified him -- to Herod, to the high priest, to
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Pilate. He should have made a triumphal entry into Jerusalem after
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his resurrection, instead of before. He should have shown himself
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to the Sadducees, -- to those who denied the existence of spirit.
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Take from the New Testament its doctrine of eternal pain -- the
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idea that we can please God by acts of self-denial that can do no
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good to others -- take away all its miracles, and I have no
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objection to all the good things in it -- no objection to the hope
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of a future life, if such a hope is expressed -- not the slightest.
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And I would not for the world say anything to take from any mind a
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hope in which dwells the least comfort; but a doctrine that dooms
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a large majority of mankind to eternal flames ought not to be
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called a consolation. What I say is, that the writers of the New
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Testament knew no more about the future state than I do, and no
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less. The horizon of life has never been Pierced, The veil between
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time and what is called eternity, has never been raised, so far as
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I know; and I say of the dead what all others must say if they say
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only what they know. There is no particular consolation in a guess.
|
||
Not knowing what the future has in store for the human race, it is
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
4
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||
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||
INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
|
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far better to prophesy good than evil. lt is better to hope that
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the night has a dawn, that the sky has a star, than to build a
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heaven for the few, and a hell for the many. It is better to leave
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your dead in doubt than in fire -- better that they should sleep in
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shadow than in the lurid flames of perdition. And so I say, and
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always have said, let us hope for the best. The minister asks:
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"What right have you to hope? It is sacrilegious in you. "But,
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whether the clergy like it or not, I shall always express my real
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opinion, and shall always be glad to say to those who mourn: "There
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is in death, as I believe, nothing worse than sleep. Hope for as
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much better as you can. Under the seven-hued arch let the dead
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rest. "Throw away the Bible, and you throw away the fear of hell,
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but the hope of another life remains, because the hope does not
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depend upon a book -- it depends upon the heart -- upon human
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affection. The fear, so far as this generation is concerned, is
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born of the book, and that part of the book was born of savagery.
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Whatever of hope is in the book is born, as I said before, of human
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affection, and the higher our civilization the greater the
|
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affection. I had rather rest my hope of something beyond the grave
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upon the human heart, than upon what they call the Scriptures,
|
||
because there I find mingled with the hope of something good the
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threat of infinite evil. Among the thistles, thorns and briers of
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the Bible is one pale and sickly flower of hope. Among all its wild
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beasts and fowls, only one bird flies heavenward. I prefer the hope
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without the thorns, without the briers, thistles, hyenas, and
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serpents.
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Question. Do you not know that it is claimed that immortality
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was brought to light in the New Testament, that that, in fact, was
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the principal mission of Christ?
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||
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Answer. I know that Christians claim that the doctrine of
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immortality was first taught in the New Testament. They also claim
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||
that the highest morality was found there. Both these claims are
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||
utterly without foundation. Thousands of years before Christ was
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born -- thousands of years before Moses saw the light -- the
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||
doctrine of immortality was preached by the priests of Osiris and
|
||
Isis. Funeral discourses were pronounced over the dead, ages before
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Abraham existed. When a man died in Egypt, before he was taken
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||
across the sacred lake, he had a trial. Witnesses appeared, and if
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he had done anything wrong, for which he had not made restitution,
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he was not taken across the lake. The living friends, in disgrace,
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carried the body back, and it was buried outside of what might be
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called consecrated ground, while the ghost was supposed to wander
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||
for a hundred years. Often the children of the dead would endeavor
|
||
to redeem the poor ghost by acts of love and kindness. When he came
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to the spirit world there was the god Anubis, who weighed his heart
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||
in the scales of eternal justice, and if the good deeds
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||
preponderated he entered the gates of Paradise; if the evil, he had
|
||
to go back to the world and be born in the bodies of animals for
|
||
the purpose of final purification. At last, the good deeds would
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||
out weigh the evil, and, according to the religion of Egypt, the
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||
latch-string of heaven would never be drawn in until the last
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||
wanderer got home. Immorality was also taught in India, and, in
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||
fact, in all the countries of antiquity. Wherever men have loved,
|
||
wherever they have dreamed, wherever hope has spread its wings, the
|
||
idea of immorality has existed. But nothing could be worse than the
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
5
|
||
|
||
INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
|
||
|
||
immortality promised in the New Testament -- admitting that it is
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||
so promised -- eternal joy side by side with eternal pain. Think of
|
||
living forever, knowing that countless millions are suffering
|
||
infinite pain! How much better it would be for God to commit
|
||
suicide and let all life and motion cease! Christianity has no
|
||
consolation except for the Christian, and if a Christian minister
|
||
endeavors to console the widow of an unbeliever he must resort, not
|
||
to his religion, but to his sympathy -- to the natural promptings
|
||
of the heart. He is compelled to say: "After all, may-be God is not
|
||
so bad as we think," or, "May-be your husband was better than he
|
||
appeared; Perhaps somehow, in some way, the dear man has squeezed
|
||
in; he was a good husband, he was a kind father, and even if he is
|
||
in hell, may-be he is in the temperate zone, where they have
|
||
occasional showers, and, where, if the days are hot, the nights are
|
||
reasonably cool." All I ask of Christian ministers is to tell what
|
||
they believe to be the truth -- not to borrow ideas from the pagans
|
||
-- not to preach the mercy born of unregenerate sympathy. Let them
|
||
tell their real doctrines. If they will do that, they will not have
|
||
much influence. If orthodox Christianity is true, a large majority
|
||
of the men who have made this world fit to live in are now in
|
||
perdition. A majority of the Revolutionary soldiers have been
|
||
damned. A majority of the men who fought for the integrity of this
|
||
Union -- a majority who were starved at Libby and Andersonville --
|
||
are now in hell.
|
||
|
||
Question. Do you deny the immortality of the soul?
|
||
|
||
Answer. I never have denied the immortality of the soul, I
|
||
have simply been honest. I have said: "I do not know." Long ago, in
|
||
my lecture on "The Ghosts," I used the following language: "The
|
||
idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the
|
||
human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating
|
||
against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any
|
||
book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human
|
||
affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists
|
||
and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of
|
||
death. It is the rainbow Hope, shining upon the tears of grief. --
|
||
|
||
The Post, Washington, D.C., April 30, 1883.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
STAR ROUTE AND POLITICS.
|
||
|
||
Col. Ingersoll entertains very pronounced ideas concerning
|
||
President Arthur, Attorney-General Brewster and divers other
|
||
people. With his family, the eloquent advocate has a cottage here,
|
||
and finds brain and body rest and refreshment in the tumbling
|
||
waves. This noon, in the height of a tremendous thunder storm, I
|
||
bumped against his burly figure in the roaring crest, and, after
|
||
the first shock had passed, determined to utilize the providential
|
||
coincidence. The water was warm, our clothes were in the bathing
|
||
houses, and comfort was more certain where we were than anywhere
|
||
else. The Colonel is an expert swimmer and as a floater cannot be
|
||
beaten. He was floating when we bumped. Spouting a pint of salt
|
||
water from his mouth, he nearly choked with laughter as, in answer
|
||
to my question he said:
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
6
|
||
|
||
INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
|
||
|
||
No, I do not believe there will be any more Star Route trials.
|
||
There is so much talk about the last one, there will not be time
|
||
for another.
|
||
|
||
Question. Did you anticipate a verdict?
|
||
|
||
Answer. I did anticipate a verdict, and one of acquittal. I
|
||
knew that the defendants were entitled to such a verdict. I knew
|
||
that the Government had signally failed to prove a case. There was
|
||
nothing but suspicion, from which malice was inferred. The direct
|
||
proof was utterly unworthy of belief. The direct witness was caught
|
||
with letters he had forged. This one fact was enough to cover the
|
||
prosecution with confusion. The fact that Rardell sat with the
|
||
other defendants and reported to the Government from day to day
|
||
satisfied the jury as to the value of his testimony, and the animus
|
||
of the Department of Justice. Besides, Rerdell had offered to
|
||
challenge such jurors as the Government might select. He handed
|
||
counsel for defendants a list of four names that he wanted
|
||
challenged. At that time it was supposed that each defendant would
|
||
be allowed to challenge four jurors. Afterward the Court decided
|
||
that all the defendants must be considered as one party and had the
|
||
right to challenge four and no more. Of the four names on Rendell's
|
||
list the Government challenged three and Rerdell tried to challenge
|
||
the other. This was what is called a coincidence. Another thing had
|
||
great influence with the jury -- the evidence of the defendants was
|
||
upon all material points so candid and so natural, so devoid of all
|
||
coloring, that the jury could not help believing. If the people
|
||
knew the evidence they would agree with the jury. When we remember
|
||
that there were over ten thousand star routes, it is not to be
|
||
wondered at that some mistakes were made -- that in some instances
|
||
too much was paid and in others too little.
|
||
|
||
Question. What has been the attitude of President Arthur?
|
||
|
||
Answer. We asked nothing from the President. We wanted no help
|
||
from him. We expected that he would take no part -- that he would
|
||
simply allow the matter to be settled by the court in the usual
|
||
way. I think that he made one very serious mistake. He removed
|
||
officers on false charges without giving them a hearing. He deposed
|
||
Marshal Henry because somebody said that he was the friend of the
|
||
defendants. Henry was a good officer and an honest man. The
|
||
President removed Ainger for the same reason. This was a mistake.
|
||
Ainger should have been heard. There is always time to do justice.
|
||
No day is too short for justice, and eternity is not long enough to
|
||
commit a wrong. it was thought that the community could be
|
||
terrorized: --
|
||
|
||
First. The President dismissed Henry and Ainger.
|
||
|
||
second. The Attorney-General wrote a letter denouncing the
|
||
defendants as thieves and robbers.
|
||
|
||
Third. Other letters from Bliss and MacVeagh were published.
|
||
|
||
Fourth. Dixon, the foreman of the first jury, was indicted.
|
||
|
||
fifth. Members of the first jury voting "guilty" were in
|
||
various ways rewarded.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
7
|
||
|
||
INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
|
||
|
||
Sixth. Bargains were made with Boone and Randell. The cases
|
||
against Boone were to be dismissed and Randell was promised
|
||
immunity. Under these circumstances the second trial commenced. But
|
||
of all people in this country the citizens of Washington care least
|
||
for Presidents and members of the Cabinets. They know what these
|
||
officers are made of. They know that they are simply folk -- that
|
||
they do not hold office forever -- that the Jupiter of to-day are
|
||
often the pygmies of to-morrow. They have seen too many people come
|
||
in with trumpets and flags and go out with hisses and rags to be
|
||
overawed by the deities of a day. They have seen Lincoln and they
|
||
are not to be frightened by his successors. Arthur took part to the
|
||
extent of turning out men suspected of being friendly to the
|
||
defence. Arthur was in a difficult place. He was understood to be
|
||
the friend of Dorsey and, of course, had to do something. Nothing
|
||
is more dangerous than a friend in power. He is obliged to show
|
||
that he is impartial, and it always takes a good deal of injustice
|
||
to establish a reputation for fairness.
|
||
|
||
Question. Was there any ground to expect aid or any different
|
||
action on Arthur's part?
|
||
|
||
Answer. All we expected was that Arthur would do as the
|
||
soldier wanted the Lord to do at New Orleans -- "Just take neither
|
||
side."
|
||
|
||
Question. Why did not Brewster speak?
|
||
|
||
Answer. The Court would not allow two closings. The Attorney-
|
||
General did not care to speak in the "middle." He wished to close,
|
||
and as he could not do that without Putting Mr. Merrick out, he
|
||
concluded to remain silent. The defendants had no objection to his
|
||
speaking, but they objected to two closing arguments for the
|
||
Government, and the Court decided that they were right. Of course,
|
||
I understand nothing about the way in which the attorneys for the
|
||
prosecution arranged their difficulties. That was nothing to me;
|
||
neither do I care what money they received -- all that is for the
|
||
next Congress. It is not for me to speak of those questions.
|
||
|
||
Question. Will there be other trials?
|
||
|
||
Answer. I think not. It does not seem likely that other
|
||
attorneys will want to try, and the old ones have. My opinion is
|
||
that we have had the last of the Star Route trials. It was claimed
|
||
that the one tried was the strongest, If this is so the rest had
|
||
better be dismissed. I think the people are tired of the whole
|
||
business. It now seems probable that all the time for the next few
|
||
years will be taken up in telling about MacVeagh and James and
|
||
Brewster and Bliss; Walsh is giving his opinion of Kellogg and
|
||
Foster; Bliss is saying a few words about Cook and Gibson; Brewster
|
||
is telling what Bliss told him; Gibson will have his say about
|
||
Garfield and MacVeagh, and it now seems probable that we shall get
|
||
the bottom facts about the other jury -- the actions of Messrs.
|
||
Hoover, Bowen, Brewster Cameron and others. Personally I have no
|
||
interest in the business.
|
||
|
||
Question. How does the next campaign look?
|
||
|
||
Answer. The Republicans are making all the mistakes they can,
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
8
|
||
|
||
INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
|
||
|
||
and the only question now is, Can the Democrats make more? The
|
||
tariff will be one of the great questions, and may be the only one
|
||
except success. The Democrats are on both sides of this question.
|
||
They hate to give up the word "only." Only for that word they might
|
||
have succeeded in 1880. If they can only let "only" alone, and say
|
||
they want "a tariff for revenue" they will do better. The fact is
|
||
the people are not in favor of free trade, neither do they want a
|
||
tariff high enough to crush a class, but they do want a tariff to
|
||
raise a revenue and to protect our industries, I am for protection
|
||
because it diversifies industries and develops brain -- allows us
|
||
to utilize all the muscle and brain we have. A party attacking the
|
||
manufacturing interests of this country will fail. There are too
|
||
many millions of dollars invested and to many millions of people
|
||
interested. The country is becoming alike interested on this
|
||
question. We are no longer divided, as in slavery times, into
|
||
manufacturing and agricultural districts or sections. Georgia,
|
||
Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana and Texas have manufacturing
|
||
interests. And the Western States believe in the protection of
|
||
their industries. The American people have a genius for
|
||
manufacturing, a genius for invention. We are not the greatest
|
||
painters or sculptors or scientists, but we are without doubt the
|
||
greatest inventors. If we were all engaged in one business we would
|
||
become stupid. Agricultural countries produce great wealth, but are
|
||
never rich. To get rich it is necessary to mix thought with labor.
|
||
To raise the raw material is a question of strength; to
|
||
manufacture, to put it in useful and beautiful forms, is a question
|
||
of mind, There is a vast difference between the value of, say, a
|
||
milestone and a statue, and yet the labor expended in getting the
|
||
raw material is about the same. The point, after all, is this:
|
||
first, we must have revenue; second, shall we get this by direct
|
||
taxation or shall we tax imports and at the same time protect
|
||
American labor? The party that advocates reasonable protection will
|
||
succeed.
|
||
|
||
(At this point, with far away peals of thunder, the storm
|
||
ceased, the sun reappeared and a vault of heavenly blue swung
|
||
overhead. "Let us get out" said Colonel Ingersoll. Suiting the
|
||
action to the word, the Colonel struck out lustily for the beach,
|
||
on which, hard as a rock and firm as flint, he soon planted his
|
||
sturdy form. And as he lumbered across the sand to the side door of
|
||
his comfortable cottage, some three hundred feet from the serf, the
|
||
necessity suggested contrast between Ingersoll in court and
|
||
Ingersoll in soaked flannels was illustrated with forcible
|
||
comicality. Half an hour later he was found in the cozy library
|
||
puffing a high flavored Havana, and listening to home-made music of
|
||
delicious quality. Ingersoll at home is pleasant to contemplate.
|
||
His sense of personal freedom is there aptly pictured. Loving wife
|
||
and affectionate daughters form, with happy-faced and genial-
|
||
hearted father, a model circle into which friends deem it a
|
||
privilege to enter and a pleasure to remain.
|
||
|
||
Continues the conversation:
|
||
|
||
Question. In view of all this, where, do you think the
|
||
presidential candidate will come from?
|
||
|
||
Answer. From the West.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
9
|
||
|
||
INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
|
||
|
||
Question. Why so?
|
||
|
||
Answer. The South and East must compromise. Both can trust the
|
||
West. The West represents the whole country. There is no
|
||
provincialism in the West. The West is not old enough to have the
|
||
prejudice of section; it is too prosperous to have hatred, too
|
||
great to feel envy.
|
||
|
||
Question. You do not seem to think that Arthur has a chance?
|
||
|
||
Answer. No Vice-President was ever made President by the
|
||
people. It is natural to resent the accident that gave the Vice-
|
||
President the place. They regard the Vice-President as children do
|
||
a stepmother. He is looked upon as temporary -- a device to save
|
||
the election -- a something to stop a gap -- a lighter -- a
|
||
political raft. He holds the horse until another rider is found.
|
||
People do not wish death to suggest nominees for the presidency. I
|
||
do not believe it will be possible for Mr. Arthur, no matter how
|
||
well he acts, to overcome this feeling. The people like a new man.
|
||
There is some excitement in the campaign, and besides they can have
|
||
the luxury of believing that the new man is a great man.
|
||
|
||
Question. Do you not think Arthur has grown and is a greater
|
||
man than when he was elected?
|
||
|
||
Answer. Arthur was placed in very trying circumstances, and,
|
||
I think, behaved with great discretion. But he was Vice-President,
|
||
and that is a vice that people will not pardon.
|
||
|
||
Question. How do you regard the situation in Ohio?
|
||
|
||
Answer. I hear that the Republicans are attacking Hoadly,
|
||
saying that he is an Infidel. I know nothing about Mr. Hoadly's
|
||
theological sentiments, but he certainly has the right to have and
|
||
express his own views. If the Republicans of Ohio have made up
|
||
their minds to disfranchise, the Liberals, the sooner they are
|
||
beaten the better. Why should the Republican party be so particular
|
||
about religious belief? Was Lincoln an orthodox Christian? Were the
|
||
founders of the party -- the men who gave it heart and brain --
|
||
conspicuous for piety? Were the abolitionists all believers in the
|
||
inspiration of the Bible? Is Judge Hoadly to be attacked because he
|
||
exercises the liberty that he gives to others. Has not the
|
||
Republican party trouble enough with the spirituous to let the
|
||
spiritual alone? If the religious issue is made, I hope that the
|
||
party making it will be defeated. I know nothing about the effect
|
||
of the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio. It is a very
|
||
curious decision and seems to avoid the Constitution with neatness
|
||
and despatch. The decision seems to rest on the difference between
|
||
the words tax and license -- i.e., between allowing a man to sell
|
||
whiskey for a tax of one hundred dollars or giving him a license to
|
||
sell whiskey and charging him one hundred dollars. In this, the
|
||
difference is in the law instead of the money. So far all the
|
||
prohibitory legislation on the liquor question has been a failure.
|
||
Beer is victorious, and Gambrinus now has Olympus all to himself.
|
||
On his side is the "bail" --
|
||
|
||
Question. But who will win?
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
10
|
||
|
||
INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
|
||
|
||
Answer. The present indications are favorable to Judge Hoadly.
|
||
It is an off year. The Ohio leaders on one side are not in perfect
|
||
harmony. The Germans are afraid, and they generally vote the
|
||
Democratic ticket when in doubt. The effort to enforce the Sunday
|
||
law, to close the gardens, to make one day in the week desolate and
|
||
doleful, will give the Republicans a great deal of hard work.
|
||
|
||
Question. How about Illinois?
|
||
|
||
Answer. Republican always. The Supreme Court of Illinois has
|
||
just made a good decision. That Court decided a contract made on
|
||
Sunday can be enforced, In other words, that Sunday is not holy
|
||
enough to sanctify fraud. You can rely on a State with a Court like
|
||
that. There is very little rivalry in Illinois. I think that
|
||
General Oglesby will he the next Governor. He is one of the best
|
||
men in that State or any other.
|
||
|
||
Question. What about Indiana?
|
||
|
||
Answer. In that State I think General Gresham is the coming
|
||
man. He was a brave soldier, an able, honest judge, and he will
|
||
fill with honor any position he may be placed in, He is an
|
||
excellent lawyer, and has as much will as was ever put in one man.
|
||
McDonald is the most available man for the Democrats, He is safe,
|
||
and in every respect reliable. He is without doubt the most popular
|
||
man in his party.
|
||
|
||
Question. Well, Colonel, what are you up to?
|
||
|
||
Answer. Nothing. I am surrounded by sand, sea and sky. I
|
||
listen to music, bathe in the surf and enjoy myself. I am wondering
|
||
why people take interest in politics; why anybody cares about
|
||
anything; why everybody is not contented; why people want to climb
|
||
the greased pole of office and then dodge the brickbats of enemies
|
||
and rivals; why any man wishes to be President, or a member of
|
||
Congress, or in the Cabinet, or do anything except to live with the
|
||
ones he loves. and enjoy twenty-four hours every day. I wonder why
|
||
all New York does not come to Long Beach and hear Schreiner's Band
|
||
play the music of Wagner, the greatest of all composers. Finally,
|
||
in the language of Walt Whitman, "I loaf and invite my soul." --
|
||
|
||
The Harold, New York, July 1, 1883.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE INTERVIEWER.
|
||
|
||
Question. What do you think of newspaper interviewing?
|
||
|
||
Answer. I believe that James Redpath claims to have invented
|
||
the "interview," This system opens all doors, does away with
|
||
political pretence, batters down the fortifications of dignity and
|
||
official importance, pulls masks from solemn faces, compels
|
||
everybody to show his hand. The interviewer seems to be
|
||
omnipresent. He is the next man after the accident. If a man should
|
||
be blown up he would likely fall on an interviewer. He is the
|
||
universal interrogation point. He asks questions for a living. If
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
11
|
||
|
||
INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
|
||
|
||
the interviewer is fair and honest he is useful, if the other way,
|
||
he is still interesting. On the whole, I regard the interviewer as
|
||
an exceedingly important person. But whether he is good or bad, he
|
||
has come to stay. He will interview us until we die, and then ask
|
||
the "friends" a few questions just to round the subject off.
|
||
|
||
Question. What do you think the tendency of newspapers is at
|
||
present?
|
||
|
||
Answer. The papers of the future, I think, will be "news"
|
||
papers. The editorial is getting shorter and shorter. The
|
||
paragraphist is taking the place of the heavy man. People rather
|
||
form their own opinions from the facts. Of course good articles
|
||
will always find readers, but the dreary, doleful, philosophical
|
||
dissertation has had its day. The magazines will fall heir to such
|
||
articles; then religious weeklies will take them up, and then they
|
||
will cease altogether.
|
||
|
||
Question. Do you think the people lead the newspapers, or do
|
||
the newspapers lead them?
|
||
|
||
Answer. The papers lead and are led. Most papers have for sale
|
||
what people want to buy. As a rule the people who buy determine the
|
||
character of the thing sold. The reading public grows more
|
||
discriminating every year, and, as a result, are less and less
|
||
"led." Violent papers -- those that most freely attack private
|
||
character -- are becoming less hurtful, because they are losing
|
||
their own reputations. Evil tends to correct itself. People do not
|
||
believe all they read, and there is a growing tendency to wait and
|
||
hear from the other side.
|
||
|
||
Question. Do newspapers to-day exercise as much influence as
|
||
they did twenty-five years ago?
|
||
|
||
Answer. More, by the facts published, and less, by editorials.
|
||
As we become civilized we are governed less by persons and more by
|
||
principles -- less by faith and more by fact. The best of all
|
||
leaders is the man who teaches people to lead themselves.
|
||
|
||
Question. What would you define public opinion to be?
|
||
|
||
Answer. First, in the widest sense, the opinion of the
|
||
majority, including all kinds of people. Second, in a narrower
|
||
sense, the opinion of the majority of the intellectual. Third, in
|
||
actual practice, the opinion of those who make the most noise.
|
||
Fourth, public opinion is generally a mistake, which history
|
||
records and posterity repeats.
|
||
|
||
Question. What do you regard as the result of your lectures?
|
||
|
||
Answer. In the last fifteen years I have delivered several
|
||
hundred lectures. The world is growing more and more liberal every
|
||
day. The man who is now considered orthodox, a few years ago would
|
||
have been denounced as an Infidel. People are thinking more and
|
||
believing less. The pulpit is losing influence. In the light of
|
||
modern discovery the creeds are growing laughable. A theologian is
|
||
an intellectual mummy, and excites attention only as a curiosity.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
12
|
||
|
||
INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
|
||
|
||
Supernatural religion has outlived its usefulness. The miracles and
|
||
wonders of the ancients will soon occupy the same tent. Jonah and
|
||
Jack the Giant Killer, Joshua and Red Riding Hood, Noah and
|
||
Neptune, will all go into the collection of the famous Mother
|
||
Hubbard. --
|
||
|
||
The Morning Journal, New York, July 3, 1883.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
POLITICS AND PROHIBITION.
|
||
|
||
Question. What do you think of the result in Ohio?
|
||
|
||
Answer. In Ohio prohibition did more harm to Republican
|
||
chances than anything else. The Germans hold the Republican
|
||
responsible. The German people believe in personal liberty. They
|
||
came to America to get it, and they regard any interference in the
|
||
manner or quantity of their food and drink as an invasion of
|
||
personal rights. They claim they are not questions to be regulated
|
||
by law, and I agree with them. I believe that people will finally
|
||
learn to use spirits temperately and without abuse, but teetotalism
|
||
is intemperance in itself, which breeds resistance, and without
|
||
destroying the rivulet of the appetite only dams it and makes it
|
||
liable to break out at any moment, You can prevent a man from
|
||
stealing by tying his hands behind him, but you cannot make him
|
||
honest. Prohibition breeds too many spies and informers, and makes
|
||
neighbors afraid of each other. It kills hospitality. Again, the
|
||
Republican party in Ohio is endeavoring to have Sunday sanctified
|
||
by the Legislature. The working people want freedom on Sunday. They
|
||
wish to enjoy themselves, and all laws now making to prevent
|
||
innocent amusement, beget a spirit of resentment among the common
|
||
people. I feel like resenting all such laws, and unless the
|
||
Republican party reforms in that particular, it ought to be
|
||
defeated I regard those two things as the principal causes of the
|
||
Republican party's defeat in Ohio.
|
||
|
||
Question. Do you believe that the Democratic success was due
|
||
to the, possession of reverse principles?
|
||
|
||
Answer. I do not think that the Democratic party is in favor
|
||
of liberty of thought and action in these two regards, from
|
||
principle. but rather from policy. Finding the course pursued by
|
||
the Republicans unpopular, they adopted the opposite mode, and
|
||
their success is a proof of that truth of what I contend. One great
|
||
trouble in the Republican party is bigotry. The pulpit is always
|
||
trying to take charge. The same thing exists in the Democratic
|
||
party to a less degree. The great trouble here is that its worst
|
||
elements Catholicism -- is endeavoring to get control.
|
||
|
||
Question. What causes operated for the Republican success in
|
||
Iowa?
|
||
|
||
Answer. Iowa is a prohibition State and almost any law on
|
||
earth as against anything to drink, can be carried there. There are
|
||
no large cities in the State and it is much easier to govern, but
|
||
even there the prohibition law is bound to be a failure. It will
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
13
|
||
|
||
INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
|
||
|
||
breed deceit and hypocrisy, and in the long run the influence will
|
||
be bad.
|
||
|
||
Question. Will these two considerations cut any figure in the
|
||
presidential campaign of 1884?
|
||
|
||
Answer. The party, as a party, will have nothing to do with
|
||
these questions. These matters are local. Whether the Republicans
|
||
are successful will depend more upon the country's prosperity. If
|
||
things should be generally in pretty good shape in 1884, the people
|
||
will allow the party to remain in power. Changes of administration
|
||
depend a great deal on the feeling of the country. If crops are bad
|
||
and money is tight, the people blame the administration, whether it
|
||
is responsible or not. If a ship going down the river strikes a
|
||
snag, or encounters a storm, a cry goes up against the captain. It
|
||
may not have been his fault, but he is blamed, all the same, and
|
||
the passengers at once clamor for another captain. So it is in
|
||
politics.
|
||
|
||
If nothing interferes between this and 1884 the Republican
|
||
party will continue. Otherwise it will be otherwise. But the
|
||
principle of prosperity as applied to administrative change is
|
||
strong. If the panic of 1873 had occurred in 1876 there would have
|
||
been no occasion for a commission to sit on Tilden. If it had
|
||
struck us in 1880, Hancock would have been elected. Neither result
|
||
would have its occasion in the superiority of the Democratic party,
|
||
but in the belief that the Republican party was in some vague way
|
||
blamable for the condition of things, and there should be a change.
|
||
The Republican party is not as strong as it used to be. The old
|
||
leaders have dropped out and no persons have yet taken their
|
||
places. Blaine has dropped out, and is now writing a book. Conkling
|
||
dropped out and is now practicing law, and so I might go on
|
||
enumerating leaders who have severed their connection with the
|
||
party and are no longer identified with it.
|
||
|
||
Question. What is your opinion regarding the Republican
|
||
nomination for President?
|
||
|
||
Answer. My belief is that the Republicans will have to
|
||
nominate some man who has not been conspicuous in any faction, and
|
||
upon whom all can unite. As a consequence he must be a new man. The
|
||
Democrats must do the same. They must nominate a new man. The old
|
||
ones have been defeated so often that they start handicapped with
|
||
their own histories, and failure in the past is very poor raw
|
||
material out of which to manufacture faith for the future. My own
|
||
judgment is that for the Democrats, McDonald is as strong a man as
|
||
they can get. He is a man of most excellent sense and would be
|
||
regarded as a safe man. Tilden? He is dead, and he occupies no
|
||
stronger place in the general heart than a graven image. With no
|
||
magnetism, he has nothing save his smartness to recommend him.
|
||
|
||
Question. What are your views, generally expressed, on the
|
||
tariff?
|
||
|
||
Answer. There are a great many Democrats for protection and a
|
||
great many for so-called free trade. I think the large majority of
|
||
American people favor a reasonable tariff for raising our revenue
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
14
|
||
|
||
INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
|
||
|
||
and protecting our manufacturers. I do not believe in tariff for
|
||
revenue only, but for revenue and protection. The Democrats would
|
||
have carried the country had they combined revenue and incidental
|
||
protection.
|
||
|
||
Question. Are they rectifying the error now?
|
||
|
||
Answer. I believe they are, already. They will do it next
|
||
fall. If they do not put it in their platform they will embody it
|
||
in their speeches. I do not regard the tariff as a local, but a
|
||
national issue, notwithstanding Hancock inclined to the belief that
|
||
it was the former. --
|
||
|
||
The Times, Chicago, Illinois, October 13, 1883.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE REPUBLICAN DEFEAT IN OHIO.
|
||
|
||
Question. What is your explanation of the Republican disaster
|
||
last Tuesday?
|
||
|
||
Answer. Too much praying and not enough paying, is my
|
||
explanation of the Republican defeat.
|
||
|
||
First. I think the attempt to pass the Prohibition Amendment
|
||
lost thousands of votes. The people of this country, no matter how
|
||
much they may deplore the evils of intemperance, are not yet
|
||
willing to set on foot a system of spying into each other's
|
||
affairs. They know that prohibition would need thousands of
|
||
officers -- that it would breed informers and spies and peekers and
|
||
skulkers by the hundred in every county. They know that laws do not
|
||
of themselves make good people. Good people make good laws.
|
||
Americans do not wish to be temperate upon compulsion. The spirit
|
||
that resents interference in these matters is the same spirit that
|
||
made and keeps this a free country. All this crusade and
|
||
prayer-meeting business will not do in politics. We must depend
|
||
upon the countless influences of civilization, upon science, art,
|
||
music -- upon the softening influences of kindness and argument. As
|
||
life becomes valuable people will take care of it. Temperance upon
|
||
compulsion destroys something more valuable than itself -- liberty.
|
||
I am for the largest liberty in all things.
|
||
|
||
Second. The Prohibitionists, in my opinion, traded with
|
||
Democrats. The Democrats were smart enough to know that prohibition
|
||
could not carry, and that they could safely trade. The
|
||
prohibitionists were insane enough to vote for their worst enemies,
|
||
just for the sake of polling a large vote for prohibition, and were
|
||
fooled as usual.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Thirdly. Certain personal hatreds of certain Republican
|
||
politicians. These were the causes which led to Republican defeat
|
||
in Ohio.
|
||
|
||
Question. Will it necessitate the nomination of an Ohio,
|
||
Republican next year?
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
15
|
||
|
||
INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
|
||
|
||
Answer. I do not think so. Defeat is apt to breed dissension,
|
||
and on account of that dissension the party will have to take a man
|
||
from some other State. One politician will say to another, "You did
|
||
it," and another will reply, "You are the man who ruined the
|
||
party." I think we have given Ohio her share; certainly she has
|
||
given us ours.
|
||
|
||
Question. Will this reverse seriously affect Republican
|
||
chances next year?
|
||
|
||
Answer. If the country is prosperous next year, if the crops
|
||
are good, if prices are fair, if Pittsburgh is covered with smoke,
|
||
if the song of the spindle is heard in Lowell, if stocks are
|
||
healthy, the Republicans will again succeed. If the reverse as to
|
||
crops and forges and spindles, then the Democrats will win. It is
|
||
a question of "chinch-bugs," and floods and droughts.
|
||
|
||
Question. Who, in your judgment, would be the strongest man
|
||
the Republicans could put up?
|
||
|
||
Answer. Last year I thought General Sherman, but he has gone
|
||
to Missouri, and now I am looking around. The first day I find one
|
||
I will telegraph you. --
|
||
|
||
The Democrat, Dayton, Ohio, October 15, 1883.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.
|
||
|
||
Question. What do you think of the recent opinion of the
|
||
Supreme Court touching the rights of the colored man?
|
||
|
||
Answer. I think it is all wrong. The intention of the framers
|
||
of the amendment, by virtue of which the law was passed, was that
|
||
no distinction should be made in inns, in hotels, cars, or in
|
||
theaters; in short, in public places, on account of color, race, or
|
||
previous condition. The object of the men who framed that amendment
|
||
to the Constitution was perfectly clear, perfectly well known,
|
||
perfectly understood. They intended to secure, by an amendment to
|
||
the fundamental law, what had been fought for by hundreds of
|
||
thousands of men. They knew that the institution of slavery had
|
||
cost rebellion; they also knew that the spirit of caste was only
|
||
slavery in another form. They intended to kill that spirit. Their
|
||
object was that the law, like the sun, should shine
|
||
upon all, and that no man keeping a hotel, no corporation running
|
||
cars, no person managing a theater should make any distinction on
|
||
account of race or color. This amendment is above all praise. It
|
||
was the result of a moral exaltation, such as the world never
|
||
before had seen. There were years during the war, and after, when
|
||
the American people were simply sublime; when their generosity was
|
||
boundless; when they were willing to endure any hardship to make
|
||
this an absolutely free country.
|
||
|
||
This decision of the Supreme Court puts the best people of the
|
||
colored race at the mercy of the meanest portion of the white race.
|
||
It allows a contemptible white man to trample upon a good colored
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
16
|
||
|
||
INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
|
||
|
||
man. I believe in drawing a line between good and bad, between
|
||
clean and unclean, but I do not believe in drawing a color line
|
||
which is as cruel as the lash of slavery.
|
||
|
||
I am willing to be on an equality in all hotels, in all cars,
|
||
in all theaters, with colored people. I make no distinction of
|
||
race. Those make the distinction who cannot afford not to. If
|
||
nature has made no distinction between me and some others, I do not
|
||
ask the aid of the Legislature. I am willing to associate with all
|
||
good, clean persons, irrespective of complexion.
|
||
|
||
This decision virtually gives away one of the great principles
|
||
for which the war was fought. It carries the doctrine of "State
|
||
Rights" to the Democratic extreme, and renders necessary either
|
||
another amendment or a new court.
|
||
|
||
I agree with Justice Harlan. He has taken a noble and a
|
||
patriotic stand. Kentucky rebukes Massachusetts! I am waiting with
|
||
some impatience -- impatient because I anticipate a pleasure -- for
|
||
his dissenting opinion. Only a little while ago, Justice Harlan
|
||
took a very noble stand on the Virginia Coupon cases, in which was
|
||
involved the right of a State to repudiate its debts. Now he has
|
||
taken a stand in favor of the civil rights of the colored man; and
|
||
in both instances I think he is right.
|
||
|
||
This decision may, after all, help the Republican party. A
|
||
decision of the Supreme Court aroused the indignation of the entire
|
||
North, and I hope the present decision will have a like effect. The
|
||
good people of this country will not be satisfied until every man
|
||
beneath the flag, without the slightest respect to his complexion,
|
||
stands on a perfect equality before the law with every other. Any
|
||
government that makes a distinction on account of color, is a
|
||
disgrace to the age in which we live. The idea that a man like
|
||
Frederick Douglass can be denied entrance to a car, that the doors
|
||
of a hotel can be shut in his face; that he may be prevented from
|
||
entering a theater -- the idea that there shall be some ignominious
|
||
corner into which such a man can be thrown by a decision of the
|
||
Supreme Court! This idea is simply absurd.
|
||
|
||
Question. What remains to be done now, and who is going to do
|
||
it?
|
||
|
||
Answer. For a good while people have been saying that the
|
||
Republican party has outlived its usefulness; that there is very
|
||
little difference now between the parties; that there is hardly
|
||
enough left to talk about. This decision opens the whole question.
|
||
This decision says to the Republican party, "Your mission is not
|
||
yet ended. This is not a free country. Our flag does not protect
|
||
the rights of a human being. "This decision is the tap of a drum.
|
||
The old veterans will fall into line. This decision gives the issue
|
||
for the next campaign, and it may be that the Supreme Court has
|
||
builded wiser than it knew. This is a greater question than the
|
||
tariff or free trade, It is a question of freedom, of human rights,
|
||
of the sacredness of humanity.
|
||
|
||
The real Americans, the real believers in Liberty, will give
|
||
three cheers for Judge Harlan.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
17
|
||
|
||
INTERVIEWS - FOURTH SERIES
|
||
|
||
One word more. The Government is bound to protect its
|
||
citizens, not only when they are away from home, but when they are
|
||
under the flag. In time of war the Government has a right to draft
|
||
any citizen; to put that citizen in the line of battle, and compel
|
||
him to fight for the nation. If the Government when imperiled has
|
||
the right to compel a citizen, whether white or black, to defend
|
||
with his blood the flag, that citizen, when imperiled, has the
|
||
right to demand protection from the Nation. The Nation cannot then
|
||
say, "You must appeal to your State." If the citizen must appeal to
|
||
the State for redress, then the citizen should defend the State and
|
||
not the General Government, and the doctrine of State Rights then
|
||
becomes complete. --
|
||
|
||
The National Republican, Washington, D.C. October 17, 1883.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE GRANT BANQUET.
|
||
|
||
Chicago, November 13, 1879.
|
||
|
||
TWELFTH TOAST.
|
||
|
||
The Volunteer Soldiers of the Union Army, whose Valor and
|
||
patriotism saved to the world "a Government of the People, by the
|
||
People, and for the People."
|
||
|
||
WHEN the savagery of the lash, the barbarism of the chain, and
|
||
the insanity of secession confronted the civilization of our
|
||
country, the question "Will the great Republic defend itself?"
|
||
trembled on the lips of every lover of mankind.
|
||
|
||
The North, filled with intelligence and wealth -- children of
|
||
liberty -- marshaled her hosts and asked only for a leader. From
|
||
civil life a man, silent, thoughtful, poised and calm, stepped
|
||
forth, and with the lips of victory voiced the Nation's first and
|
||
last demand: "Unconditional and immediate surrender." From that
|
||
moment the end was known. That utterance was the first real
|
||
declaration of real war, and, in accordance with the dramatic
|
||
unities of mighty events, the great soldier who made it, received
|
||
the final sword of the Rebellion.
|
||
|
||
The soldiers of the Republic were not seekers after vulgar
|
||
glory. They were not animated by the hope of plunder or the love of
|
||
conquest. They fought to preserve the homestead of liberty and that
|
||
their children might have peace. They were the defenders of
|
||
humanity, the destroyers of prejudice, the breakers of chains, and
|
||
in the name of the future they slew the monster of their time. They
|
||
finished what the soldiers of the Revolution commenced. They re-
|
||
lighted the torch that fell from their august hands and filled the
|
||
world again with light. They blotted from the statute-book laws
|
||
that had been passed by hypocrites at the instigation of robbers,
|
||
and tore with indignant hands from the Constitution that infamous
|
||
clause that made men the catchers of their fellow-men. They made it
|
||
possible for judges to be just, for statesmen to be humane, and for
|
||
politicians to be honest. They broke the shackles from the limbs of
|
||
slaves, from the souls of masters, and from the Northern brain.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
18
|
||
|
||
THE GRANT BANQUET.
|
||
|
||
They kept our country on the map of the world, and our flag in
|
||
heaven. They rolled the stone from the sepulchre of progress, and
|
||
found therein two angels clad in shining garments -- Nationality
|
||
and Liberty.
|
||
|
||
The soldiers were the saviors of the Nation; they were the
|
||
liberators of men. In writing the Proclamation of Emancipation,
|
||
Lincoln, greatest of our mighty dead, whose memory is as gentle as
|
||
the summer air when reapers sing amid the gathered sheaves, copied
|
||
with the pen what Grant and his brave comrades wrote with swords.
|
||
|
||
Grander than the Greek, nobler than the Roman, the soldiers of
|
||
the Republic, with patriotism as shoreless as the air, battled for
|
||
the rights of others, for the nobility of labor; fought that
|
||
mothers might own their babes, that arrogant idleness should not
|
||
sear the back of patient toil, and that our country should not be
|
||
a many-headed monster made of warring States, but a Nation,
|
||
sovereign, great, and free.
|
||
|
||
Blood was water, money was leaves, and life was only common
|
||
air until one flag floated over a Republic without a master and
|
||
without a slave.
|
||
|
||
And then was asked the question: "Will a free people tax
|
||
themselves to pay a Nation's debt?"
|
||
|
||
The soldiers went home to their waiting wives, to their glad
|
||
children, and to the girls they loved -- they went back to the
|
||
fields, the shops, and mines. They had not been demoralized. They
|
||
had been ennobled. They were as honest in peace as they had been
|
||
brave in war. Mocking at poverty, laughing at reverses, they made
|
||
a friend of toil. They said: "We saved the Nation's life, and what
|
||
is life without honor?" They worked and wrought with all of labor's
|
||
royal sons that every pledge the Nation gave might be redeemed. And
|
||
their great leader, having put a shining band of friendship -- a
|
||
girdle of clasped and happy hands -- around the globe, comes home
|
||
and finds that every promise made in war has now the ring and gleam
|
||
of gold.
|
||
|
||
There is another question still: -- Will all the wounds of war
|
||
be healed? I answer, Yes. The Southern people must submit, -- not
|
||
to the dictation of the North, but to the Nation's will and to the
|
||
verdict of mankind. They were wrong, and the time will come when
|
||
they will say that they are victors who have been vanquished by the
|
||
right. Freedom conquered them, and freedom will cultivate their
|
||
fields, educate their children, weave for them the robes of wealth,
|
||
execute their laws, and fill their land with happy homes.
|
||
|
||
The soldiers of the Union saved the South as well as the
|
||
North. They made us a Nation. Their victory made us free and
|
||
rendered tyranny in every other land as insecure as snow upon
|
||
volcanoes' lips.
|
||
|
||
And now let us drink to the volunteers -- to those who sleep
|
||
in unknown, sunken graves, whose names are only in the hearts of
|
||
those they loved and left -- of those who only hear in happy dreams
|
||
the footsteps of return. Let us drink to those who died where
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
19
|
||
|
||
THE GRANT BANQUET.
|
||
|
||
lipless famine mocked at want; to all the maimed whose scars give
|
||
modesty a tongue; to all who dared and gave to chance the care and
|
||
keeping of their lives; to all the living and to all the dead, --
|
||
to Sherman, to Sheridan, and to Grant, the laureled soldier of the
|
||
world, and last, to Lincoln, whose loving life, like a bow of
|
||
peace, spans and arches all the clouds of war.
|
||
|
||
END
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
ROBSON AND CRANE DINNER.
|
||
|
||
New York, November 21, 1807.
|
||
|
||
TOAST.
|
||
|
||
Comedy and Tragedy.
|
||
|
||
I BELIEVE in the medicine of mirth, and in what I might call
|
||
the longevity of laughter. Every man who has caused real, true,
|
||
honest mirth, has been a benefactor of the human race. In a world
|
||
like this, where there is so much trouble -- a world gotten up on
|
||
such a poor plan -- where sometimes one is almost inclined to think
|
||
that the Deity, if there be one, played a practical joke -- to
|
||
find, I say, in such a world, something that for the moment allows
|
||
laughter to triumph over sorrow, is a great piece of good fortune.
|
||
I like the stage, not only because General Sherman likes it -- and
|
||
I do not think I was ever at the theater in my life but I saw him
|
||
-- I not only like it because General Washington liked it, but
|
||
because the greatest man that ever touched this grain of sand and
|
||
tear we call the world, wrote for the stage, and poured out a very
|
||
Mississippi of philosophy and pathos and humor, and everything
|
||
calculated to raise and ennoble mankind.
|
||
|
||
I like to see the stage honored, because actors are the
|
||
ministers, the apostles, of the greatest man who ever lived, and
|
||
because they put flesh upon and blood and passion within the
|
||
greatest characters that the greatest man drew. This is the reason
|
||
I like the stage. It makes us human. A rascal never gained applause
|
||
on the stage. A hypocrite never commanded admiration, not even when
|
||
he was acting a clergyman -- except for the naturalness of the
|
||
acting. No one has ever yet seen any play in which, in his heart,
|
||
he did not applaud honesty, heroism, sincerity, fidelity, courage,
|
||
and self-denial. Never. No man ever heard a great play who did not
|
||
get up a better, wiser, and more humane man; and no man ever went
|
||
to the theater and heard Robson and Crane, who did not go home
|
||
better-natured, and treat his family that night a little better
|
||
than on a night when he had not heard these actors.
|
||
|
||
I enjoy the stage; I always did enjoy it. I love the humanity
|
||
of it. I hate solemnity; it is the brother of stupidity -- always.
|
||
You never knew a solemn man who was not stupid, and you never will.
|
||
There never was a man of true genius who had not the simplicity of
|
||
a child, and over whose lips had not rippled the river of laughter
|
||
-- never, and there never will be. I like, I say, the stage for its
|
||
wit and for its humor. I do not like sarcasm; I do not like mean
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
20
|
||
|
||
ROBSON AND CRANE DINNER.
|
||
|
||
humor. There is as much difference between humor and malicious wit
|
||
as there is between a bee's honey and a bee's sting, and the reason
|
||
I like Robson and Crane is that they have the honey without the
|
||
sting.
|
||
|
||
Another thing that makes me glad is, that I live in an age and
|
||
generation and day that has sense enough to appreciate the stage;
|
||
sense enough to appreciate music; sense enough to appreciate
|
||
everything that lightens the burdens of this life. Only a few years
|
||
ago our dear ancestors looked upon the theater as the vestibule of
|
||
hell; and every actor was going "the primrose way to the
|
||
everlasting bonfire." In those good old days, our fathers, for the
|
||
sake of relaxation, talked about death and graves and epitaphs and
|
||
worms and shrouds and dust and hell. In those days, too, they
|
||
despised music, cared nothing for art; and yet I have lived long
|
||
enough to hear the world -- that is, the civilized world -- say
|
||
that Shakespeare wrote the greatest book that man has ever read. I
|
||
have lived long enough to see men like Beethoven and Wagner put
|
||
side by side with the world's greatest men -- great in imagination
|
||
-- and we must remember that imagination makes the great difference
|
||
between men. I have lived long enough to see actors placed with the
|
||
grandest and noblest, side by side with the greatest benefactors of
|
||
the human race.
|
||
|
||
There is one thing in which I cannot quite agree with what has
|
||
been said. I like tragedy, because tragedy is only the other side
|
||
of the shield and I like both sides. I love to spend an evening on
|
||
the twilight boundary line between tears and smiles. There is
|
||
nothing that pleases me better than some scene, some act, where the
|
||
smile catches the tears in the eyes; where the eyes are almost
|
||
surprised by the smile, and the smile touched and softened by the
|
||
tears. I like that. And the greatest comedians and the greatest
|
||
tragedians have that power; and, in conclusion, let me say, that it
|
||
gives me more than pleasure to acknowledge the debt of gratitude I
|
||
owe, not only to the stage, but to the actors whose health we drink
|
||
to-night.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
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
|
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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||
21
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