The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume VIII Part 11

I am glad that he believes the Bible, glad that he has delivered lectures against what he calls Infidelity, and glad that he has been working for years with the missionaries and evangelists of the United States. He is a man of small brain, badly balanced.

He believes the Bible to be the word of G.o.d. He believes in the reality of heaven and h.e.l.l. He believes in the miraculous. He is surrounded by the supernatural, and when a man throws away his reason, of course no one can tell what he will do. He is liable to become a devotee or an a.s.sa.s.sin, a saint or a murderer; he may die in a monastery or in a penitentiary.

_Question_. According to your view, then, the species of fanaticism taught in sectarian Christianity, by which Guiteau was led to a.s.sert that Garfield dead would be better off then living--being in Paradise --is more responsible than office seeking or political factionalism for his deed?

_Answer_. Guiteau seemed to think that the killing of the President would only open the gates of Paradise to him, and that, after all, under such circ.u.mstances, murder was hardly a crime. This same kind of reasoning is resorted to in the pulpit to account for death.

If Guiteau had succeeded in killing the President, hundreds of ministers would have said, "After all, it may be that the President has lost nothing; it may be that our loss is his eternal gain; and although it seems cruel that Providence should allow a man like him to be murdered, still, it may have been the very kindest thing that could have been done for him." Guiteau reasoned in this way, and probably convinced himself, judging from his own life, that this world was, after all, of very little worth. We are apt to measure others by ourselves. Of course, I do not think Christianity is responsible for this crime. Superst.i.tion may have been, in part --probably was. But no man believes in Christianity because he thinks it sanctions murder. At the same time, an absolute belief in the Bible sometimes produces the worst form of murder. Take that of Mr. Freeman, of Poea.s.set, who stabbed his little daughter to the heart in accordance with what he believed to be the command of G.o.d. This poor man imitated Abraham; and, for that matter, Jehovah himself. There have been in the history of Christianity thousands and thousands of such instances, and there will probably be many thousands more that have been and will be produced by throwing away our own reason and taking the word of some one else --often a word that we do not understand.

_Question_. What is your opinion as to the effect of praying for the recovery of the President, and have you any confidence that prayers are answered?

_Answer_. My opinion as to the value of prayer is well known. I take it that every one who prays for the President shows at least his sympathy and good will. Personally, I have no objection to anybody's praying. Those who think their prayers are answered should pray. For all who honestly believe this, and who honestly implore their Deity to watch over, protect, and save the life of the President, I have only the kindliest feelings.

It may be that a few will pray to be seen of men; but I suppose that most people on a subject like this are honest. Personally, I have not the slightest idea of the existence of the supernatural.

Prayer may affect the person who prays. It may put him in such a frame of mind that he can better bear disappointment than if he had not prayed; but I cannot believe that there is any being who hears and answers prayer.

When we remember the earthquakes that have devoured, the pestilences that have covered the earth with corpses, and all the crimes and agonies that have been inflicted upon the good and weak by the bad and strong, it does not seem possible that anything can be accomplished by prayer. I do not wish to hurt the feelings of anyone, but I imagine that I have a right to my own opinion. If the President gets well it will be because the bullet did not strike an absolutely vital part; it will be because he has been well cared for; because he has had about him intelligent and skillful physicians, men who understood their profession. No doubt he has received great support from the universal expression of sympathy and kindness. The knowledge that fifty millions of people are his friends has given him nerve and hope. Some of the ministers, I see, think that G.o.d was actually present and deflected the ball. Another minister tells us that the President would have been a.s.sa.s.sinated in a church, but that G.o.d determined not to allow so frightful a crime to be committed in so sacred an edifice. All this sounds to me like perfect absurdity--simple noise. Yet, I presume that those who talk in this way are good people and believe what they say.

Of course, they can give no reason why G.o.d did not deflect the ball when Lincoln was a.s.sa.s.sinated. The truth is, the pulpit first endeavors to find out the facts, and then to make a theory to fit them. Whoever believes in a special providence must, of necessity, by illogical and absurd; because it is impossible to make any theological theory that some facts will not contradict.

_Question_. Won't you give us, then, Colonel, your a.n.a.lysis of this act, and the motives leading to it?

_Answer_. I think Guiteau wanted an office and was refused. He became importunate. He was, substantially, put out of the White House. He became malicious. He made up his mind to be revenged.

This, in my judgment, is the diagnosis of his case. Since he has been in jail he has never said one word about having been put out of the White House; he is lawyer enough to know he must not furnish any ground for malice. He is a miserable, malicious and worthless wretch, infinitely egotistical, imagines that he did a great deal toward the election of Garfield, and upon being refused the house a serpent of malice coiled in his heart, and he determined to be revenged. That is all!

_Question_. Do you, in any way, see any reason or foundation for the severe and bitter criticisms made against the Stalwart leaders in connection with this crime? As you are well known to be a friend of the administration, while not unfriendly to Mr. Conkling and those acting with him, would you mind giving the public your opinion on this point?

_Answer_. Of course, I do not hold Arthur, Conkling and Platt responsible for Guiteau's action. In the first excitement a thousand unreasonable things were said; and when pa.s.sion has possession of the brain, suspicion is a welcome visitor.

I do not think that any friend of the administration really believes Conkling, Platt and Arthur responsible in the slightest degree.

Conkling wished to prevent the appointment of Robertson. The President stood by his friend. One thing brought on another, Mr.

Conkling petulantly resigned, and made the mistake of his life.

There was a good deal of feeling, but, of course, no one dreamed that the wretch, Guiteau, was lying in wait for the President's life. In the first place, Guiteau was on the President's side, and was bitterly opposed to Conkling. Guiteau did what he did from malice and personal spite. I think the sermon preached last Sunday in the Campbellite Church was unwise, ill advised, and calculated to make enemies instead of friends. Mr. Conkling has been beaten.

He has paid for the mistake he made. If he can stand it, I can; and why should there be any malice on the subject? Exceedingly good men have made mistakes, and afterward corrected them.

_Question_. Is it not true, Colonel Ingersoll, that the lesson of this deed is to point the real and overwhelming need of re-knitting and harmonizing the factions?

_Answer_. There is hardly enough faction left for "knitting."

The party is in harmony now. All that is necessary is to stop talking. The people of this country care very little as to who holds any particular office. They wish to have the Government administered in accordance with certain great principles, and they leave the fields, the shops, and the stores once in four years, for the purpose of attending to that business. In the meantime, politicians quarrel about offices. The people go on. They plow fields, they build homes, they open mines, they enrich the world, they cover our country with prosperity, and enjoy the aforesaid quarrels. But when the time comes, these gentlemen are forgotten.

Principles take the place of politicians, and the people settle these questions for themselves.

--_Sunday Gazette_, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., July 24, 1881.

DISTRICT SUFFRAGE.

_Question_. You have heretofore incidentally expressed yourself on the matter of local suffrage in the District of Columbia. Have you any objections to giving your present views of the question?

_Answer_. I am still in favor of suffrage in the District. The real trouble is, that before any substantial relief can be reached, there must be a change in the Const.i.tution of the United States.

The mere right to elect aldermen and mayors and policemen is of no great importance. It is a mistake to take all political power from the citizens of the District. Americans want to help rule the country. The District ought to have at least one Representative in Congress, and should elect one presidential elector. The people here should have a voice. They should feel that they are a part of this country. They should have the right to sue in all Federal courts, precisely as though they were citizens of a State. This city ought to have half a million of inhabitants. Thousands would come here every year from every part of the Union, were it not for the fact that they do not wish to become political nothings. They think that citizens.h.i.+p is worth something, and they preserve it by staying away from Was.h.i.+ngton. This city is a "flag of truce" where wounded and dead politicians congregate; the Mecca of failures, the perdition of claimants, the purgatory of seekers after place, and the heaven only of those who neither want nor do anything.

Nothing is manufactured, no solid business is done in this city, and there never will be until energetic, thrifty people wish to make it their home, and they will not wish that until the people of the District have something like the rights and political prospects of other citizens. It is hard to see why the right to representation should be taken from citizens living in the Capital of the Nation. The believers in free government should believe in a free capital.

_Question_. Are there any valid reasons why the const.i.tutional limitations to the elective franchise in the District of Columbia should not be removed by an amendment to that instrument?

_Answer_. I cannot imagine one. If our Government is founded upon a correct principle there can be no objection urged against suffrage in the District that cannot, with equal force, be urged against every part of the country. If freedom is dangerous here, it is safe nowhere. If a man cannot be trusted in the District, he is dangerous in the State. We do not trust the place where the man happens to be; we trust the man. The people of this District cannot remain in their present condition without becoming dishonored.

The idea of allowing themselves to be governed by commissioners, in whose selection they have no part, is monstrous. The people here beg, implore, request, ask, pray, beseech, intercede, crave, urge, entreat, supplicate, memorialize and most humbly pet.i.tion, but they neither vote nor demand. They are not allowed to enter the Temple of Liberty; they stay in the lobby or sit on the steps.

_Question_. They say Paris is France, because her electors or citizens control that munic.i.p.ality. Do you foresee any danger of centralization in the full enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the citizens of Was.h.i.+ngton?

_Answer_. There was a time when the intelligence of France was in Paris. The country was besotted, ignorant, Catholic; Paris was alive, educated, Infidel, full of new theories, of pa.s.sion and heroism. For two hundred years Paris was an athlete chained to a corpse. The corpse was the rest of France. It is different now, and the whole country is at last filling with light. Besides, Paris has two millions of people. It is filled with factories.

It is not only the intellectual center, but the center of money and business as well. Let the _Corps Legislatif_ meet anywhere, and Paris will continue to be in a certain splendid sense--France.

Nothing like that can ever happen here unless you expect Was.h.i.+ngton to outstrip New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. If allowing the people of the District of Columbia to vote was the only danger to the Republic, I should be politically the happiest of men. I think it somewhat dangerous to deprive even one American citizen of the right to govern himself.

_Question_. Would you have Government clerks and officials appointed to office here given the franchise in the District? and should this, if given, include the women clerks?

_Answer_. Citizens.h.i.+p should be determined here as in the States.

Clerks should not be allowed to vote unless their intention is to make the District their home. When I make a government I shall give one vote to each family. The unmarried should not be represented except by parents. Let the family be the unit of representation.

Give each hearthstone a vote.

_Question_. How do you regard the opposition of the local clergy and of the Bourbon Democracy to enfranchising the citizens of the District?

_Answer_. I did not know that the clergy did oppose it. If, as you say, they do oppose it because they fear it will extend the liquor traffic, I think their reason exceedingly stupid. You cannot make men temperate by shutting up a few of the saloons and leaving others wide open. Intemperance must be met with other weapons.

The church ought not to appeal to force. What would the clergy of Was.h.i.+ngton think should the miracle of Cana be repeated in their day? Had they been in that country, with their present ideas, what would they have said? After all there is a great deal of philosophy in the following: "Better have the whole world voluntarily drunk then sober on compulsion." Of course the Bourbons object. Objecting is the business of a Bourbon. He always objects. If he does not understand the question he objects because he does not, and if he does understand he objects because he does. With him the reason for objecting is the fact that he does.

_Question_. What effect, if any, would the complete franchise to our citizens have upon real estate and business in Was.h.i.+ngton?

_Answer_. If the people here had representation according to numbers--if the avenues to political preferment were open--if men here could take part in the real government of the country, if they could bring with them all their rights, this would be a great and splendid Capital. We ought to have here a University, the best in the world, a library second to none, and here should be gathered the treasures of American art. The Federal Government has been infinitely economical in the direction of information. I hope the time will come when our Government will give as much to educate two men as to kill one.

--_The Capital_, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., December 18, 1881.

FUNERAL OF JOHN G. MILLS AND IMMORTALITY.*

[* Robert G. Ingersoll rarely takes the trouble to answer critics. His recent address over the dead body of his friend John G. Mills has called forth a storm of denunciation from nearly every pulpit in the country. The writer called at the Colonel's office in New York Avenue yesterday and asked him to reply to some of the points made against him.

Reluctantly he a.s.sented.]

_Question_. Have you seen the recent clerical strictures upon your doctrines?

_Answer_. There are always people kind enough to send me anything they have the slightest reason to think I do not care to read.

They seem to be animated by a missionary spirit, and apparently want to be in a position when they see me in h.e.l.l to exclaim: "You can't blame me. I sent you all the impudent articles I saw, and if you died unconverted it was no fault of mine."

_Question_. Did you notice that a Was.h.i.+ngton clergyman said that the very fact that you were allowed to speak at the funeral was in itself a sacrilege, and that you ought to have been stopped?

_Answer_. Yes, I saw some such story. Of course, the clergy regard marriages and funerals as the perquisites of the pulpit, and they resent any interference on the part of the pews. They look at these matters from a business point of view. They made the same cry against civil marriages. They denied that marriage was a contract, and insisted that it was a sacrament, and that it was hardly binding unless a priest had blessed it. They used to bury in consecrated ground, and had marks upon the graves, so that Gabriel might know the ones to waken. The clergy wish to make themselves essential. They must christen the babe--this gives them possession of the cradle. They must perform the ceremony of marriage --this gives them possession of the family. They must p.r.o.nounce the funeral discourse--this gives them possession of the dead.

Formerly they denied baptism to the children of the unbeliever, marriage to him who denied the dogmas of the church, and burial to honest men. The church wishes to control the world, and wishes to sacrifice this world for the next. Of course I am in favor of the utmost liberty upon all these questions. When a Presbyterian dies, let a follower of John Calvin console the living by setting forth the "Five Points." When a Catholic becomes clay, let a priest perform such ceremonies as his creed demands, and let him picture the delights of purgatory for the gratification of the living.

And when one dies who does not believe in any religion, having expressed a wish that somebody say a few words above his remains, I see no reason why such a proceeding should be stopped, and, for my part, I see no sacrilege in it. Why should the reputations of the dead, and the feelings of those who live, be placed at the mercy of the ministers? A man dies not having been a Christian, and who, according to the Christian doctrine, is doomed to eternal fire. How would an honest Christian minister console the widow and the fatherless children? How would he dare to tell what he claims to be truth in the presence of the living? The truth is, the Christian minister in the presence of death abandons his Christianity. He dare not say above the coffin, "the soul that once inhabited this body is now in h.e.l.l." He would be denounced as a brutal savage. Now and then a minister at a funeral has been brave enough and unmannerly enough to express his doctrine in all its hideousness of hate. I was told that in Chicago, many years ago, a young man, member of a volunteer fire company, was killed by the falling of a wall, and at the very moment the wall struck him he was uttering a curse. He was a brave and splendid man. An orthodox minister said above his coffin, in the presence of his mother and mourning friends, that he saw no hope for the soul of that young man. The mother, who was also orthodox, refused to have her boy buried with such a sermon--stopped the funeral, took the corpse home, engaged a Universalist preacher, and, on the next day having heard this man say that there was no place in the wide universe of G.o.d without hope, and that her son would finally stand among the redeemed, this mother laid her son away, put flowers upon his grave, and was satisfied.