The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume VIII Part 49

Men like a magnetic man even without knowing him, perhaps simply having seen him. There are other men, whom the moment you shake hands with them, you feel you want no more; you have had enough.

A sudden chill runs up the arm the moment your hand touches theirs, and finally reaches the heart; you feel, if you had held that hand a moment longer, an icicle would have formed in the brain. Such people lack personal magnetism. These people now and then thaw out when you get thoroughly acquainted with them, and you find that the ice is all on the outside, and then you come to like them very well, but as a rule first impressions are lasting. Magnetism is what you might call the climate of a man. Some men, and some women, look like a perfect June day, and there are others who, while the look quite smiling, yet you feel that the sky is becoming overcast, and the signs all point to an early storm. There are people who are autumnal--that is to say, generous. They have had their harvest, and have plenty to spare. Others look like the end of an exceedingly hard winter--between the hay and gra.s.s, the hay mostly gone and the gra.s.s not yet come up. So you will see that I think a great deal of this thing that is called magnetism. As I said, there are good people who are not magnetic, but I do not care to make an Arctic expedition for the purpose of discovering the north pole of their character. I would rather stay with those who make me feel comfortable at the first.

[From personal magnetism to the lynching Sat.u.r.day morning down at Nashville, Tennessee, was a far cry, but when Colonel Ingersoll was asked what he thought of mob law, whether there was any extenuation, any propriety and moral effect resultant from it, he quickly answered: ]

I do not believe in mob law at any time, among any people. I believe in justice being meted out in accordance with the forms of law. If a community violates that law, why should not the individual?

The example is bad. Besides all that, no punishment inflicted by a mob tends to prevent the commission of crime. Horrible punishment hardens the community, and that in itself produces more crime.

There seems to be a sort of fascination in frightful punishments, but, to say the least of it, all these things demoralize the community. In some countries, you know, they whip people for petty offences. The whipping, however, does no good, and on the other hand it does harm; it hardens those who administer the punishment and those who witness it, and it degrades those who receive it.

There will be but little charity in the world, and but little progress until men see clearly that there is no chance in the world of conduct any more than in the physical world.

Back of every act and dream and thought and desire and virtue and crime is the efficient cause. If you wish to change mankind, you must change the conditions. There should be no such thing as punishment. We should endeavor to reform men, and those who cannot be reformed should be placed where they cannot injure their fellows.

The State should never take revenge any more than the community should form itself into a mob and take revenge. This does harm, not good. The time will come when the world will no more think of sending men to the penitentiary for stealing, as a punishment, that it will for sending a man to the penitentiary because he has consumption. When that time comes, the object will be to reform men; to prevent crime instead of punishing it, and the object then will be to make the conditions such that honest people will be the result, but as long as hundreds of thousands of human beings live in tenements, as long as babes are raised in gutters, as long as compet.i.tion is so sharp that hundreds of thousands must of necessity be failures, just so long as society gets down on its knees before the great and successful thieves, before the millionaire thieves, just so long will it have to fill the jails and prisons with the little thieves. When the "good time" comes, men will not be judged by the money they have acc.u.mulated, but by the uses they make of it. So men will be judged, not according to their intelligence, but by what they are endeavoring to accomplish with their intelligence.

In other words, the time will come when character will rise above all. There is a great line in Shakespeare that I have often quoted, and that cannot be quoted too often: "There is no darkness but ignorance." Let the world set itself to work to dissipate this darkness; let us flood the world with intellectual light. This cannot be accomplished by mobs or lynchers. It must be done by the n.o.blest, by the greatest, and by the best.

[The conversation shifting around to the Sunday question; the opening of the World's Fair on Sunday, the attacks of the pulpit upon the Sunday newspapers, the opening of parks and museums and libraries on Sunday, Colonel Ingersoll waxed eloquent, and in answer to many questions uttered these paragraphs: ]

Of course, people will think that I have some prejudice against the parsons, but really I think the newspaper press is of far more importance in the world than the pulpit. If I should admit in a kind of burst of generosity, and simply for the sake of making a point, that the pulpit can do some good, how much can it do without the aid of the press? Here is a parson preaching to a few ladies and enough men, it may be, to pa.s.s the contribution box, and all he says dies within the four walls of that church. How many ministers would it take to reform the world, provided I again admit in a burst of generosity, that there is any reforming power in what they preach, working along that line?

The Sunday newspaper, I think, is the best of any day in the week.

That paper keeps hundreds and thousands at home. You can find in it information about almost everything in the world. One of the great Sunday papers will keep a family busy reading almost all day.

Now, I do not wonder that the ministers are so opposed to the Sunday newspaper, and so they are opposed to anything calculated to decrease the attendance at church. Why, they want all the parks, all the museums, all the libraries closed on Sunday, and they want the World's Fair closed on Sunday.

Now, I am in favor of Sunday; in fact, I am perfectly willing to have two of them a week, but I want Sunday as a day of recreation and pleasure. The fact is we ought not to work hard enough during the week to require a day of rest. Every day ought to be so arranged that there would be time for rest from the labor of that day.

Sunday is a good day to get business out of your mind, to forget the ledger and the docket and the ticker, to forget profits and losses, and enjoy yourself. It is a good day to go to the art museums, to look at pictures and statues and beautiful things, so that you may feel that there is something in this world besides money and mud. It is a good day, is Sunday, to go to the libraries and spend a little time with the great and splendid dead, and to go to the cemetery and think of those who are sleeping there, and to give a little thought to the time when you, too, like them, will fall asleep. I think it is a good day for almost anything except going to church. There is no need of that; everybody knows the story, and if a man has worked hard all the week, you can hardly call it recreation if he goes to church Sunday and hears that his chances are ninety-nine in a hundred in favor of being eternally d.a.m.ned.

So it is I am in favor of having the World's Fair open on Sunday.

It will be a good day to look at the best the world has produced; a good day to leave the saloons and commune for a little while with the mighty spirits that have glorified this world. Sunday is a good day to leave the churches, where they teach that man has become totally depraved, and look at the glorious things that have been wrought by these depraved beings. Besides all this, it is the day of days for the working man and working woman, for those who have to work all the week. In New York an attempt was made to open the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Sunday, and the pious people opposed it. They thought it would interfere with the joy of heaven if people were seen in the park enjoying themselves on Sunday, and they also held that n.o.body would visit the Museum if it were opened on Sunday; that the "common people" had no love for pictures and statues and cared nothing about art. The doors were opened, and it was demonstrated that the poor people, the toilers and workers, did want to see such things on Sunday, and now more people visit the Museum on Sunday than on all the other days of the week put together. The same is true of the public libraries. There is something to me infinitely pharisaical, hypocritical and farcical in this Sunday nonsense. The rich people who favor keeping Sunday "holy," have their coachman drive them to church and wait outside until the services end. What do they care about the coachman's soul? While they are at church their cooks are busy at home getting dinner ready. What do they care for the souls of cooks? The whole thing is pretence, and nothing but pretence. It is the instinct of business. It is the compet.i.tion of the gospel shop with other shops and places of resort.

The ministers, of course, are opposed to all shows except their own, for they know that very few will come to see or hear them and the choice must be the church or nothing.

I do not believe that one day can be more holy than another unless more joyous than another. The holiest day is the happiest day-- the day on which wives and children and men are happiest. In that sense a day can be holy.

Our idea of the Sabbath is from the Puritans, and they imagined that a man has to be miserable in order to excite the love of G.o.d.

We have outgrown the old New England Sabbath--the old Scotch horror.

The Germans have helped us and have set a splendid example. I do not see how a poor workingman can go to church for recreation--I mean an orthodox church. A man who has h.e.l.l here cannot be benefitted by being a.s.sured that he is likely to have h.e.l.l hereafter. The whole business I hold in perfect abhorrence.

They tell us that G.o.d will not prosper us unless we observe the Sabbath. The Jews kept the Sabbath and yet Jehovah deserted them, and they are a people without a nation. The Scotch kept Sunday; they are not independent. The French never kept Sunday, and yet they are the most prosperous nation in Europe.

--_Commercial Gazette_, Cincinnati, Ohio, May 2, 1892.

AUTHORS.

_Question_. Who, in your opinion, is the greatest novelist who has written in the English language?

_Answer_. The greatest novelist, in my opinion, who has ever written in the English language, was Charles d.i.c.kens. He was the greatest observer since Shakespeare. He had the eyes that see, the ears that really hear. I place him above Thackeray. d.i.c.kens wrote for the home, for the great public. Thackeray wrote for the clubs. The greatest novel in our language--and it may be in any other--is, according to my ideas, "A Tale of Two Cities." In that, are philosophy, pathos, self-sacrifice, wit, humor, the grotesque and the tragic. I think it is the most artistic novel that I have read. The creations of d.i.c.kens' brain have become the citizens of the world.

_Question_. What is your opinion of American writers?

_Answer_. I think Emerson was a fine writer, and he did this world a great deal of good, but I do not cla.s.s him with the first. Some of his poetry is wonderfully good and in it are some of the deepest and most beautiful lines. I think he was a poet rather than a philosopher. His doctrine of compensation would be delightful if it had the facts to support it.

Of course, Hawthorne was a great writer. His style is a little monotonous, but the matter is good. "The Marble Faun" is by far his best effort. I shall always regret that Hawthorne wrote the life of Franklin Pierce.

Walt Whitman will hold a high place among American writers. His poem on the death of Lincoln, ent.i.tled "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," is the greatest ever written on this continent.

He was a natural poet and wrote lines worthy of America. He was the poet of democracy and individuality, and of liberty. He was worthy of the great Republic.

_Question_. What about Henry George's books?

_Answer_. Henry George wrote a wonderful book and one that arrested the attention of the world--one of the greatest books of the century.

While I do not believe in his destructive theories, I gladly pay a tribute to his sincerity and his genius.

_Question_. What do you think of Bellamy?

_Answer_. I do not think what is called nationalism of the Bellamy kind is making any particular progress in this country. We are believers in individual independence, and will be, I hope, forever.

Boston was at one time the literary center of the country, but the best writers are not living here now. The best novelists of our country are not far from Boston. Edgar Fawcett lives in New York.

Howells was born, I believe, in Ohio, and Julian Hawthorne lives in New Jersey or in Long Island. Among the poets, James Whitcomb Riley is a native of Indiana, and he has written some of the daintiest and sweetest things in American literature. Edgar Fawcett is a great poet. His "Magic Flower" is as beautiful as anything Tennyson has ever written. Eugene Field of Chicago, has written some charming things, natural and touching.

Westward the star of literature takes its course.

--_The Star_, Kansas City, Mo., May 26, 1892.

INEBRIETY.*

[* Published from notes found among Colonel Ingersoll's papers, evidently written soon after the discovery of the "Keeley Cure."]

_Question_. Do you consider inebriety a disease, or the result of diseased conditions?

_Answer_. I believe that by a long and continuous use of stimulants, the system gets in such a condition that it imperatively demands not only the usual, but an increased stimulant. After a time, every nerve becomes hungry, and there is in the body of the man a cry, coming from every nerve, for nourishment. There is a kind of famine, and unless the want is supplied, insanity is the result.

This hunger of the nerves drowns the voice of reason--cares nothing for argument--nothing for experience--nothing for the sufferings of others--nothing for anything, except for the food it requires.

Words are wasted, advice is of no possible use, argument is like reasoning with the dead. The man has lost the control of his will --it has been won over to the side of the nerves. He imagines that if the nerves are once satisfied he can then resume the control of himself. Of course, this is a mistake, and the more the nerves are satisfied, the more imperative is their demand. Arguments are not of the slightest force. The knowledge--the conviction--that the course pursued is wrong, has no effect. The man is in the grasp of appet.i.te. He is like a ship at the mercy of wind and wave and tide. The fact that the needle of the compa.s.s points to the north has no effect--the compa.s.s is not a force--it cannot battle with the wind and tide--and so, in spite of the fact that the needle points to the north, the ship is stranded on the rocks.

So the fact that the man knows that he should not drink has not the slightest effect upon him. The sophistry of pa.s.sion outweighs all that reason can urge. In other words, the man is the victim of disease, and until the disease is arrested, his will is not his own. He may wish to reform, but wish is not will. He knows all of the arguments in favor of temperance--he knows all about the distress of wife and child--all about the loss of reputation and character--all about the chasm toward which he is drifting--and yet, not being the master of himself, he goes with the tide.

For thousands of years society has sought to do away with inebriety by argument, by example, by law; and yet millions and millions have been carried away and countless thousands have become victims of alcohol. In this contest words have always been worthless, for the reason that no argument can benefit a man who has lost control of himself.

_Question_. As a lawyer, will you express an opinion as to the moral and legal responsibility of a victim of alcoholism?

_Answer_. Personally, I regard the moral and legal responsibility of all persons as being exactly the same. All persons do as they must. If you wish to change the conduct of an individual you must change his conditions--otherwise his actions will remain the same.

We are beginning to find that there is no effect without a cause, and that the conduct of individuals is not an exception to this law. Every hope, every fear, every dream, every virtue, every crime, has behind it an efficient cause. Men do neither right nor wrong by chance. In the world of fact and in the world of conduct, as well as in the world of imagination, there is no room, no place, for chance.

_Question_. In the case of an inebriate who has committed a crime, what do you think of the common judicial opinion that such a criminal is as deserving of punishment as a person not inebriated?