The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume XII Part 6

Ingersoll rose after the speech of General Pope, to respond to the toast, "The Volunteer Soldiers," a large part of the audience rose with him, and the cheering was long and loud.

Colonel Ingersoll may fairly be regarded as the foremost orator of America, and there was the keenest interest to hear him after all the brilliant speeches that had preceded; and this interest was not unnmixed with a fear that he would not be able to successfully strive against both his own great reputation and the fresh compet.i.tors who had leaped suddenly into the oratorical arena like mighty gladiators and astonished the audience by their unexpected eloquence.

But Ingersoll had not proceeded far when the old fire broke out, and flashing metaphor, bold denunciation, and all the rich imagery and poetical beauty which mark his great efforts stood revealed before the delighted listeners: Long before the last word was uttered, all doubt as to the ability of the great orator to sustain himself had departed, and rising to their feet, the audience cheered till the hall rang with shouts. Like Henry, "The forest-born Demosthenes, whose thunder shook the Philip of the seas," Ingersoll still held the crown within his grasp.

Editorial from The Inter-Ocean, Chicago, November 15, 1879.

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 pa.s.sed by hypocrites at the instigation of robbers, and tore with indignant hands from the Const.i.tution 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. 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 Emanc.i.p.ation, 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, n.o.bler than the Roman, the soldiers of the Republic, with patriotism as sh.o.r.eless as the air, battled for the rights of others, for the n.o.bility of labor; fought that mothers might own their babes, that arrogant idleness should not scar 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 enn.o.bled.

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 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.

THIRTEEN CLUB DINNER.

* Response of Col. R. G. Ingersoll to the sentiment "The Superst.i.tions of Public Men," at the regular monthly dinner of the Thirteen Club. Monday evening, December 18, 1886.

New York, December 13, 1886,

THE SUPERSt.i.tIONS OF PUBLIC MEN,

MR. CHIEF RULER-AND GENTLEMEN: I suppose that the superst.i.tion most prevalent with public men, is the idea that they are of great importance to the public. As a matter of fact, public men,--that is to say, men in office,--reflect the average intelligence of the people, and no more.

A public man, to be successful, must not a.s.sert anything unless it is exceedingly popular. And he need not deny anything unless everybody is against it. Usually he has to be like the center of the earth,--draw all things his way, without weighing anything himself.

One of the difficulties, or rather, one of the objections, to a government republican in form, is this: Everybody imagines that he is everybody's: master. And the result has been to make most of our public men exceedingly conservative in the expression of their real opinions.

A man, wishing to be elected to an office, generally agrees with 'most everybody he meets. If he meets a Prohibitionist, he says: "Of course I am a temperance man. I am opposed to all excesses; my dear friend, and no one knows better than myself the evils that have been caused by intemperance." The next man happens to keep a saloon, and happens to be quite influential in that part of the district, and the candidate immediately says to him:--"The idea that these Prohibitionists can take away the personal liberty of the citizen is simply monstrous!" In a moment after, he is greeted by a Methodist, and he hastens to say, that while he does not belong to that church himself, his wife does; that he would gladly be a member, but does not feel that he is good enough. He tells a Presbyterian that his grandfather was of that faith, and that he was a most excellent man, and laments from the bottom of his heart that he himself is not within that fold. A few moments after, on meeting a skeptic, he declares, with the greatest fervor, that reason is the only guide, and that he looks forward to the time when superst.i.tion will be dethroned. In other words, the greatest superst.i.tion now entertained by public men is, that hypocrisy is the royal road to success.

Of course, there are many other superst.i.tions, and one is, that the Democratic party has not outlived its usefulness. Another is, that the Republican party should have power for what it has done, instead of what it proposes to do.

In my judgment, these statesmen are mistaken. The people of the United States, after all, admire intellectual honesty and have respect for moral courage. The time has come for the old ideas and superst.i.tions in politics to be thrown away--not in phrase, not in pretence, but in fact; and the time has come when a man can safely rely on the intelligence and courage of the American people.

The most significant fact in this world to-day, is, that in nearly every village under the American flag the school-house is larger than the church. People are beginning to have a little confidence in intelligence and in facts. Every public man and every private man, who is actuated in his life by a belief in something that no one can prove,--that no one can demonstrate,--is, to that extent, a superst.i.tious man.

It may be that I go further than most of you, because if I have any superst.i.tion, it is a superst.i.tion against superst.i.tion. It seems to me that the first things for every man, whether in or out of office, to believe in,--the first things to rely on, are demonstrated facts.

These are the corner stones,--these are the columns that nothing can move,--these are the stars that no darkness can hide,--these are the true and only foundations of belief.

Beyond the truths that have been demonstrated is the horizon of the Probable, and in the world of the Probable every man has the right to guess for himself. Beyond the region of the Probable is the Possible, and beyond the Possible is the Impossible, and beyond the Impossible are the religions of this world. My idea is this: Any man who acts in view of the Improbable or of the Impossible--that is to say of the Supernatural--is a superst.i.tious man. Any man who believes that he can add to the happiness of the Infinite, by depriving himself of innocent pleasure, is superst.i.tious. Any man who imagines that he can make some G.o.d happy, by making himself miserable, is superst.i.tious. Any one who thinks he can gain happiness in another world, by raising h.e.l.l with his fellow-men in this, is simply superst.i.tious. Any man who believes in a Being of infinite wisdom and goodness, and yet belives that that Being has peopled a world with failures, is superst.i.tious. Any man who believes that an infinitely wise and good G.o.d would take pains to make a man, intending at the time that the man should be eternally d.a.m.ned, is absurdly superst.i.tious. In other words, he who believes that there is, or that there can be, any other religious duty than to increase the happiness of mankind, in this world, now and here, is superst.i.tious.

I have known a great many private men who were not men of genius. I have known some men of genius about whom it was kept private, and I have known many public men, and my wonder increased the better I knew them, that they occupied positions of trust and honor.

But, after all, it is the people's fault. They who demand hypocrisy must be satisfied with mediocrity... Our public men will be better and greater, and less superst.i.tious, when the people become greater and better and less superst.i.tious. There is an old story, that we have all heard, about Senator Nesmith. He was elected a Senator from Oregon. When he had been in Washington a little while, one of the other Senators said to him: "How did you feel when you found yourself sitting here in the United States Senate?" He replied: "For the first two months, I just sat and wondered how a d.a.m.ned fool like me ever, broke into the Senate.

Since that, I have done nothing but wonder how the other fools got here."

To-day the need of our civilization is public men who have the courage to speak as they think. We need a man for President who will not publicly thank G.o.d for earthquakes. We need somebody with the courage to say that all that happens in nature happens without design, and without reference to man; somebody who will say that the men and women killed are not murdered by supernatural beings, and that everything that happens in nature, happens without malice and without mercy. We want somebody who will have courage enough not to charge, an infinitely good and wise Being with all the cruelties and agonies and sufferings of this world. We want such men in public places,--men who will appeal to the reason of their fellows, to the highest intelligence of the people; men who will have courage enough, in this the nineteenth century, to agree with the conclusions of science. We want some man who will not pretend to believe, and who does not in fact believe, the stories that Superst.i.tion has told to Credulity.

The most important thing in this world is the destruction of superst.i.tion. Superst.i.tion interferes with the happiness of mankind.

Superst.i.tion is a terrible serpent, reaching in frightful coils from heaven to earth and thrusting its poisoned fangs into the hearts of men.

While I live, I am going to do what little I can for the destruction of this monster. Whatever may happen in another world--and I will take my chances there,--I am opposed to superst.i.tion in this. And if, when I reach that other world, it needs reforming, I shall do what little I can there for the destruction of the false.

Let me tell you one thing more, and I am done. The only way to have brave, honest, intelligent, conscientious public men, men without superst.i.tion, is to do what we can to make the average citizen brave, conscientious and intelligent. If you wish to see courage in the presidential chair, conscience upon the bench, intelligence of the highest order in Congress; if you expect public men to be great enough to reflect honor upon the Republic, private citizens must have the courage and the intelligence to elect, and to sustain, such men. I have said, and I say it again, that never while I live will I vote for any man to be President of the United States, no matter if he does belong to my party, who has not won his spurs on some field of intellectual conflict. We have had enough mediocrity, enough policy, enough superst.i.tion, enough prejudice, enough provincialism, and the time has come for the American citizen to say: "Hereafter I will be represented by men who are worthy, not only of the great Republic, but of the Nineteenth Century."

ROBSON AND CRANE DINNER.

New York, November 21, 1887.

* The theatre party and supper given by Charles P. Palmer, brother of Courtlandt Palmer, on Monday evening were unusually attractive in many ways. Mr Palmer has recently returned from Europe, and took this opportunity to gather around him his old club a.s.sociates and friends, and to show his admiration of the acting of Messrs. Robson and Crane.

The appearance of Mr. Palmer's fifty guests in the theatre excited much interest in all parts of the house. It is not often that theatre-goers have the opportunity of seeing in a single row, Channcey M. Depew, Gen. William T. Sherman, Gen.

Horace Porter and Robert G. Ingersoll, with Leonard Jerome and his brother Lawrence, Murat Halstead and other well- known men in close proximity

The supper table at Delmonico's was decorated with a lavish profusion of flowers rarely approached even at that famous restaurant.

Mr. Palmer was a charming host, full of humor, jollity and attention to every guest. He opened the speaking with a few apt words. Then Stuart Rodson made some witty remarks, and called upon William H. Crane, whose well-rounded speech was heartily applauded General Sherman, Chauncey M. Depew, General Porter, Lawrence Jerome and Colonel Ingersoll were all in their best moods, and the sallies of wit and the abundance of genuine humor in their informal addresses kept their hearers in almost continuous laughter. Lawrence Jerome was in especially fine form. He sang songs, told stories and said: "Depew and Ingersoll know so much that intelligence has become a drag in the market, and it's no use to tell you what a good speech I would have made." J. Seaver Page made an uncommonly witty and effective speech. Murat Halstead related some reminiscences of his last European tour and of his experiences in London with Lawrence and Leonard Jerome, which were received with shouts of laughter. Altogether the supper was one to be long remembered by all present.--The Tribune, New York, November 23, 1887;

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 theatre 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 enn.o.ble 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 pa.s.sion 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 theatre 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 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 theatre as the vestibule of h.e.l.l; 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 h.e.l.l.