CON'T...
"Here is an illustration of how Ingersoll was discriminated against.
I remember once visiting the Ingersolls' daughters at their home in Irving Place. When I entered the house Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Probasco -- that is, Eva and Maud, were sitting in the living room listening to the radio. What surprised me was that they were both wiping tears from their eyes. An historic event was taking place in New York City. The old Academy of Music, on Fourteenth Street, was being demolished. The narrator on the radio was describing the great events which had taken place in that once famous theatre. But not once did they mention Ingersoll's famous speech. It was his Declaration Day oration [actually, Decoration Day -- Cliff Walker] which he had delivered on May 30th, 1882. The President of the United States was there. Governors were there. Generals of the Army, and Admirals of the Navy were there. The most distinguished men and women of the day composed the audience. Ingersoll's speech shook the rafters of that memorable theatre. The reports of the event state that never before had there been such enthusiasm, applause, admiration and appreciation for a single individual who ever stood upon that stage. Never before had words from human lips swayed the audience to such a pitch of unrestrained, uncontrollable and spontaneous response as the orator did on this occasion.
Singers and dancers, acrobats and clowns were events to be remembered, but Ingersoll's great speech is passed over in silence.
No wonder Eva and Maud cried!
And yet, although Robert G. Ingersoll was not president, he exercised a power far beyond that of any Chief Executive. He was the Voice of Freedom; he was the voice of the oppressed; he was the voice of the weak; he was the voice of the down-trodden -- he fought to liberate the slaves of fear and superstition; he was the Champion of Mental Emancipation -- the Flag Bearer of Intellectual progress.
And now I am going to tell you a little secret about myself. When I was a young man, it was suggested to me, that I enter politics. I became a member of a political club, and shortly thereafter, a member proposed that I would make a good candidate for the New York State Assembly. It was intimated that this was the first step in a political career. Frankly, I was flattered by the idea. However, I told the leader of my district that I was of an independent mind, and that I would take no orders, and that I would vote for what I believed to be the best interest of the people, regardless of party, and that I was a devoted follower of Robert G. Ingersoll.
That answer strangled my political career in embryo. I did not get the nomination.
Now I am going to tell you another secret.
I had rather ten thousand times over have the honor and privilege of dedicating the house in which Robert G. Ingersoll was born, as a public memorial, than to hold high political office.
Robert G. Ingersoll defied the ignorant, bigoted, fanatical world of religion.
He asked no favors and gave no quarter.
He spoke the truth -- the plain, unvarnished truth.
He was unafraid.
He stood four-square.
He never hesitated -- he never retreated.
He cared not about the feelings of ignorance when the truth was necessary.
He struck with all the power at his command, and never once restrained his indictment, or failed to denounce the liars and hypocrites of his day, regardless of their so-called respectability.
He threw "his shining lance full and fair into the forehead" of his defamers, and minced not a word, or held back not a single thought when in combat.
Only one with the magnificent courage of a truly and supremely great man could have carried on such a crusade for intellectual emancipation against such overwhelming odds. He had wholeheartedly dedicated his life to this great cause and nothing on this earth could deter him.
Here was his motto, here was his guiding light, here was his star, here was his hope and inspiration. He said:
"Nothing is greater than to break the chains from the bodies of men -- nothing nobler than to destroy the phantom of the soul."
and to this he devotes his life, with a determination that made all other considerations, insignificant and valueless.
He was "as free from prejudice as the mariner's compass," -- desiring only to find amid the mists and clouds of ignorance the star of truth.
That is what made Robert G. Ingersoll so magnificent.
When the religious world realized the danger of Ingersoll, they marshaled their heaviest artillery against him.
From the ranks of religion there was recruited the Top Brass. Religious differences were forgotten -- Protestants and Catholics became "brothers-in-arms" against a common enemy. Under the banner of Jesus Christ there was only one battle cry -- "Ingersoll must be destroyed, or we are lost."
The generals buckled their armor and went forth to battle.
At this point, pages are missing our copy of the Freethought Press edition; this is a bindery error. We pick up using the speech as it appeared in Joseph Lewis' ''Age of Reason Magazine,'' Volume 18, Number 10, October, 1954, comparing notes with the American Atheist Press reprint. The magazine version has, thus far, differed only slightly from the original edition of the book. Henceforth, where wording and punctuation differs, we go with the one which has the most wording or the one which is most grammatically correct; however, where the capitalization differs (a most notable problem with all American Atheist material), we go strictly with the article. We pick up with the original book on page 57, the beginning of the first chapter of Ingersoll quotes. Should we acquire another copy of the book, we will correct this essay to conform to it. -- Cliff Walker, editor of the HTML version.
The Big Guns were leveled against him.
First came the "policeman," in the person of Jeremiah S. Black, an Attorney General of the United States government. Then came the Wolf in sheep's clothing, the gentle and soft spoken clergyman -- Henry M. Field. His soft answers were poisoned with religious wrath. Next, was the Honorable William E. Gladstone -- England's Prime Minister -- the Civil Representative of the state-church of Protestantism. When the tyranny of the state is combined with the hypocrisy of the church, you have a modern example of the twin vultures that have devoured man, and his rights, throughout the ages. Last, but not least, was Cardinal Manning. Never before had the Catholic Church suffered such a mortal blow. This highest English speaking Catholic Prelate was humiliated and disgraced.
Ingersoll demolished them all.
They were decimated as the blade of the grass is cut by the steel blade of the mower.
With an outpouring of the knowledge of the universe and the laws which operate with undeviating accuracy, with unanswerable logic, with more understanding of the Bible than his clerical opponents, and with an eloquence without parallel, Ingersoll's adversaries were left upon the field of battle -- mortally wounded -- the only audible sounds were their dying sighs.
They never sought battle again. They had enough. They wanted no more of Ingersoll. The volcanic eruption of wisdom, and the avalanche of knowledge that rolled so irresistibly against his opponents, simply demolished and devastated all who made a stand against him.
Such words, arguments and logic had never before flowed from the lips of man in such torrents of matchless language and with a courage that knew no fear. His shining lance, studded with an hitherto unknown brilliance, pierced and penetrated and overwhelmed the defenses of orthodoxy.
Rabbis knew better than to do battle with Ingersoll. I remember once hearing the late Rabbi Stephen S. Wise make the statement that when Ingersoll was going up and down the country telling of the "Mistakes of Moses" that those people who thought Ingersoll was entirely mistaken were more mistaken than Ingersoll.
Ingersoll was invincible. He stood alone. The dazzling beacon of an emancipated world.
Every Protestant minister, when he gets down upon his knees, should pray, not to God, but to Robert G. Ingersoll for having taken from Christianity the horrible doctrine of hell and eternal damnation.
Every Protestant minister owes Robert G. Ingersoll a vote of thanks for having made his God a little more humane -- a deity of compassion, instead of hatred, jealousy and revenge.
Every Protestant minister should offer supplication to Robert G. Ingersoll for having freed him from the stigma of the demoralizing dogma of original sin.
In Ingersoll's time it was believed, and shouted from every pulpit, that only the threat of hell could make people good. And yet they got worse. They followed the example of the God they were told to worship. If it was profitable to God, they saw no reason why they could not use it to advantage to themselves. And what was the result? By imitating the example of God, the meanest, lowest and most detestable conduct ever reached by human beings prevailed among the sons and daughters of men that made living a terrifying nightmare. They killed, robbed and raped as God had done. The home was an eternal dungeon. A paralyzing fear gripped every member of the family.
Robert G. Ingersoll destroyed the frightful delusion of this horrible doctrine.
The world of religion is indebted to an atheist for having liberated them from a sadistic God.
I remember, as a young man, when reading "Some Mistakes of Moses," I came across this statement: "For my part I would not kill my wife, even if commanded to do so by the real God of this universe."
From that moment on my mind was free.
A mental emancipation took place.
My mind had been purged of the horrible belief in a tyrant God.
Fear no longer permeated my brain.
The only words that I know of that can adequately express my feeling of freedom are those of Ingersoll himself. He said:
"When I became convinced that the Universe is natural -- that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom ... For the first time, I was free ... I stood erect and joyously faced all worlds. And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain ... And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still."
I became a disciple of The Great Agnostic.
Now you can understand why I prefer the mantle of Robert G. Ingersoll to the garb of religion.
Robert G. Ingersoll was the philosopher of the Here and Now.
He preferred the joy of this world to the promised bliss of the other.
He said: "Human love is better than any religion. It is better to love your wife than to love God. It is better to make a happy home than to sunder hearts with creeds...."
Ingersoll civilized the home.
He took from the roof of the house the shingles of a jealous and revengeful God. He opened the windows which had been covered with the black dogma of fear, and permitted the sunlight of truth to enter. He flooded each and every room with love and tenderness. He believed "in the Republicanism of the home, and the Democracy of the fireside."
He drove from the hearts of parents the savagery of the Biblical edict that to spare the rod was to spoil the child, and for the first time children became members of a household of equality.
Corporal punishment in Ingersoll's time was considered as necessary as the kitchen stove. How could you live without it?
How could you make children "good"? How could you make them obey? The strap in the closet, the paddle upon the back-side with the hardest brush, the smack with the back of your hand upon the tender cheek of the child, were all necessary acts in the religious home where the brutality of the Bible God was considered the infallible code of family life.
Ingersoll said, "I should feel ashamed to die surrounded by children I had whipped. Think of feeling upon your dying lips the kiss of a child you had struck."
He said it was just as easy to awaken a child with a kiss, as with a blow.
And where in all the world will you find such a sentiment as this:
"...Call me infidel, call me atheist, call me what you will, I intend so to treat my children, that they can come to my grave and truthfully say: 'He who sleeps here never gave us a moment of pain. From his lips, now dust, never came to us an unkind word.'"
Let me give you an illustration of the influence of Ingersoll in the matter of family relationship.
A United States Senator heard Ingersoll deliver his lecture on "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child." When the great orator had finished, the Senator, who had disinherited his daughter, because she had married against his will, and to whom he had not spoken in over twenty years, wrote to her and asked for her forgiveness. He said that he had been "an old fool."
However, he did not wait for a reply. Ingersoll's words had such an effect upon him that he decided to go immediately to his daughter, and effected a reunion with a loving embrace.
Ingersoll's motto was this: "When you go home, you ought to go like a ray of light so that it will, even in the night, burst out of doors and windows and illuminate the darkness."
To Ingersoll, "The home where virtue dwells with love, is like a lily with a heart of fire -- the fairest flower in all the world."
As husband and father he was magnificent!
Robert G. Ingersoll never received an honorary degree from any institution of learning. And let me tell you that no recipient -- man or woman -- who received such recognition, deserved it more than he did.
He deserved this recognition for his intellectual eminence, and for his contribution to the mental emancipation of man.
He deserved it for his rare and unsurpassed oratorical powers.
He deserved it for his humanitarian ideas
He deserved it as one of the great leaders of his time.
He stood majestically above the heads of nearly all his contemporaries.
He was the most sought after man of his generation -- where intellectual giants were the rule, and not the exception.
From no matter what category you care to evaluate his worth, from no matter what standard you wish to compare him to others, none equaled the beneficial influence he exercised upon the social, political and intellectual life of his time.
Walt Whitman said, "America doesn't know today how proud she ought to be of her Ingersoll."
The great poet Swinburne said that the one man he wanted to meet above all others, if he visited America, was Robert G. Ingersoll.
The great Norwegian Bjornstjerne Bjornson said, "I envy the land that brings forth such glorious fruit as Ingersoll."
A volume could be written containing the praise and appreciation, of the genius of Ingersoll, by the great men and women of his time.
When I visited George Bernard Shaw, in 1948, at his home in Aylot, a suburb of London, he was extremely anxious for me to tell him all that I knew about Ingersoll. During the course of the conversation, he told me that Ingersoll had made a tremendous impression upon him, and had exercised an influence upon him probably greater than that of any other man. He seemed particularly anxious to impress me with the importance of Ingersoll's influence upon his intellectual endeavors and accomplishments.
In view of this admission, what percentage of the greatness of Shaw belongs to Ingersoll? If Ingersoll's influence upon so great an intellect as George Bernard Shaw was that extensive, what must have been his influence upon others?
What seed of wisdom did he plant into the minds of others, and what accomplishments of theirs should be attributed to him? The world will never know.
What about the countless thousands from whom he lifted the clouds of darkness and fear, and who were emancipated from the demoralizing dogmas and creeds of ignorance and superstition?
What will be Ingersoll's influence upon the minds of future generations, who will come under the spell of his magic words, and who will be guided into the channels of human betterment by the unparalleled example of his courageous life?
The debt the world owes Robert G. Ingersoll can never be paid.
I remember on one of my many visits with Thomas A. Edison, I brought up the question of Ingersoll. I asked this great genius what he thought of him, and he replied, "He was grand." I told Mr. Edison that I had been invited to deliver a radio address on Ingersoll, and would he be kind enough to write me a short appreciation of him. This he did, and a photostat of that letter is now a part of this house. In it you will read what Mr. Edison wrote. He said: "I think that Ingersoll had all the attributes of a perfect man, and, in my opinion, no finer personality ever existed...."
I mention this as an indication of the tremendous influence Ingersoll had upon the intellectual life of his time. To what extent did Ingersoll influence Edison?
It was Thomas A. Edison's freedom from the narrow boundaries of theological dogma, and his thorough emancipation from the degrading and stultifying creed of Christianity, that made it possible for him to wrest from nature her most cherished secrets, and bequeath to the human race the richest of legacies.
Mr. Edison told me that when Ingersoll visited his laboratories, he made a record of his voice, but stated that the reproductive devices of that time were not as good as those later developed, and, therefore, his magnificent voice was lost to posterity.
And yet, no institution of learning of Ingersoll's day had courage enough to confer upon him an honorary degree; not only for his own intellectual accomplishments, but also for his influence upon the minds of the learned men and women of his time and generation.
Robert G. Ingersoll never received a prize for literature. The same prejudice and bigotry which prevented his getting an honorary college degree, militated against his being recognized as "the greatest writer of the English language on the face of the earth," as Henry Ward Beecher characterized him. Aye, in all the history of literature, Robert G. Ingersoll has never been excelled -- except by only one man, and that man was -- William Shakespeare. And yet there are times when Ingersoll even surpassed the immortal Bard. Yes, there are times when Ingersoll excelled even Shakespeare, in expressing human emotions, and in the use of language to express a thought, or to paint a picture. I say this fully conscious of my own admiration for that "intellectual ocean, whose waves touched all the shores of thought."
Ingersoll was perfection himself. Every word was properly used. Every sentence was perfectly formed. Every noun, every verb and every object was in its proper place. Every punctuation mark, every comma, every semicolon, and every period was expertly placed to separate and balance each sentence.
To read Ingersoll, it seems that every idea came properly clothed from his brain. Something rare indeed in the history of man's use of language in the expression of his thoughts. Every thought came from his brain with all the beauty and perfection of the full blown rose, with the velvety petals delicately touching each other.
Thoughts of diamonds and pearls, rubies and sapphires rolled off his tongue as if from an inexhaustible mine of precious stones.
Just as the cut of the diamond reveals the splendor of its brilliance, so the words and construction of the sentences gave a charm and beauty and eloquence to Ingersoll's thoughts.
Ingersoll had everything: The song of the skylark; the tenderness of the dove; the hiss of the snake; the bite of the tiger; the strength of the lion; and perhaps more significant was the fact that he used each of these qualities and attributes, in their proper place, and at their proper time. He knew when to embrace with the tenderness of affection, and to resist and denounce wickedness and tyranny with that power of denunciation which he, and he alone, knew how to express.
If Ingersoll said that he approached the subject of Shakespeare with trepidation, what shall I say as I try to do justice to Ingersoll?
I humbly apologize for my inability to pay him a proper tribute, and yet I want to "lay this little wreath upon great man's tomb."
When I first visited the home of Robert G. Ingersoll opposite Gramercy Park, when his widow and his two daughters were still living, I would almost feel a gentle touch of a benediction as I would wander about his wonderful library.
He had a complete set of the individual volumes of Shakespeare's plays, and in every book, he had signed his name, as if to say that these volumes were a part of himself.
He also had on the table in the library, two enormous volumes. They were always opposite each other. One was the poems of Robert Burns, and this Ingersoll called "The Book of the Heart"; the other contained the complete works of Shakespeare, and this he called "The Book of the Brain."
I can well understand Ingersoll's great admiration for Shakespeare. In man respects they were alike -- they were both geniuses. They were both masters of the English language. Both expressed their thoughts with equal facility. As a delineator of human emotions, the Bard of Avon is without a peer, and The Great Agnostic is still the Master of Eloquence.
As long as the works of Ingersoll and Shakespeare were at my finger tips, I was never lonesome. I had, as it were, a cellar of the finest wines that were ever made, and when I wanted that stimulation of intellectual exhilaration, I would open a volume and "drink" to my heart's content.
Ingersoll said that Shakespeare reached the highest literary expression ever attained by man, and thought that there would never be his equal. In this Ingersoll was wrong, for Ingersoll himself attained a literary excellence that equaled the genius of the man from Stratford on Avon.
Ingersoll's Prose Poem, "Life" compares favorably with Shakespeare's Seven Stages of Man. And only in Shakespeare will you find anything comparable with Ingersoll's "The Laugh of A Child," "Love," "A Creed of Science" and others too numerous to mention here.
Ingersoll would delight in quoting an expression of Shakespeare's to show to what heights he had attained in the use of language to express a thought. He considered these the very epitome of Shakespeare's rare genius.
Let us make a few comparisons.
This is Shakespeare:
"Love is not love that alters
When it alteration finds."
This is Ingersoll:
"I would rather live and love where death is king, than have eternal life where love is not."
This is Shakespeare:
"There is no darkness but ignorance."
This is Ingersoll:
"Give me the storm and stress of thought and action rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith. Banish me from Eden when you will but first let me eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge."
This is Shakespeare:
"When valor preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with."
This is Ingersoll:
"He loads the dice against himself who scores a point against the right."
This is Shakespeare:
"He jests at scars who never felt a wound."
This is Ingersoll:
"A lie bursts into blossom and has the perfume of truth."
This is Shakespeare:
"Let me not live
After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
Of younger spirits."
This is Ingersoll:
"I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night, -- blown and flared by passion's storm, -- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains."
This is Shakespeare:
"I would have thee live;
For in my sense it is happiness to die."
This is Ingersoll:
im"Why pierce the brow of death with the thorns of hatred"?
I could give comparisons and illustrations without limit, but I am not here to quote the words of Ingersoll.
I am here to tell you how I do feel about him, and give you some idea of his greatness.
It is for you to seek his wisdom, and his humanity. Just as I have done. His knowledge, sentiments and inspiration are here for all to possess.
Could I but acquaint the world with Robert G. Ingersoll's humanity, with his ideas and his sentiments of love, patience and understanding, a renascence would automatically take place that would give life and living on this little earth of ours some semblance of what we call paradise.
And this great and wonderful man had to die!
I do not know the purpose of life, nor do I understand why death should come to all that is; but this I do know -- that when Robert G. Ingersoll died, on July 21, 1899, then you and I, and the whole world, suffered a mortal blow.
When the mighty heart, of his mighty body, that supplied the blood to his mighty brain, burst, never again was there to fall from his eloquent lips the pearls of thought that had been so wondrously formed in his brain.
The mightiest voice in all the world was silenced, forever. No wonder the people wept when they heard that Ingersoll was dead.
He was the greatest of the Great -- the Mightiest of the Mighty. He was "as constant as the Northern Star whose true fixed and resting quality there is no fellow in the firmament." He was the indistinguishable star whose brilliance never dimmed.
When Robert G. Ingersoll died, his death was "the ruins of the noblest man that ever lived in the tide of time ... When shall we ever see another?"
When Robert G. Ingersoll died, the sky should have been rent asunder, and Nature should have gone into mourning.
When this man died, Nature's masterpiece was destroyed, and hot tears of grief should have fallen from the heavens.
Robert G. Ingersoll no longer belongs to his family;
He no longer belongs to his friends;
He no longer belongs to his country;
Robert G. Ingersoll now belongs to all the world -- the whole universe --
He is immortal and eternal.
Among the galaxies of Nature's masterpieces, none shine with a greater brilliance than the babe who was born in this house 121 years ago today, and named Robert Green Ingersoll."
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