The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume VIII Part 30

The trouble is that my arguments cannot be answered. All the preachers in the world cannot prove that slavery is better than liberty. They cannot show that all have not an equal right to think. They cannot show that all have not an equal right to express their thoughts. They cannot show that a decent G.o.d will punish a decent man for making the best guess he can. This is all there is about it.

--_The Herald_, New York, December 14, 1886.

INGERSOLL ON McGLYNN.

The att.i.tude of the Roman Catholic Church in Dr. McGlynn's case is consistent with the history and const.i.tution of the Catholic Church --perfectly consistent with its ends, its objects, and its means-- and just as perfectly inconsistent with intellectual liberty and the real civilization of the human race.

When a man becomes a Catholic priest, he has been convinced that he ought not to think for himself upon religious questions. He has become convinced that the church is the only teacher--that he has a right to think only to enforce its teachings. From that moment he is a moral machine. The chief engineer resides at Rome, and he gives his orders through certain a.s.sistant engineers until the one is reached who turns the crank, and the machine has nothing to do one way or the other. This machine is paid for giving up his liberty by having machines under him who have also given up theirs. While somebody else turns his crank, he has the pleasure of turning a crank belonging to somebody below him.

Of course, the Catholic Church is supposed to be the only perfect inst.i.tution on earth. All others are not only imperfect, but unnecessary. All others have been made either by man, or by the Devil, or by a partners.h.i.+p, and consequently cannot be depended upon for the civilization of man.

The Catholic Church gets its power directly from G.o.d, and is the only inst.i.tution now in the world founded by G.o.d. There was never any other, so far as I know, except polygamy and slavery and a crude kind of monarchy, and they have been, for the most part, abolished.

The Catholic Church must be true to itself. It must claim everything, and get what it can. It alone is infallible. It alone has all the wisdom of this world. It alone has the right to exist. All other interests are secondary. To be a Catholic is of the first importance. Human liberty is nothing. Wealth, position, food, clothing, reputation, happiness--all these are less than worthless compared with what the Catholic Church promises to the man who will throw all these away.

A priest must preach what his bishop tells him. A bishop must preach what his archbishop tells him. The pope must preach what he says G.o.d tells him.

Dr. McGlynn cannot make a compromise with the Catholic Church. It never compromises when it is in the majority.

I do not mean by this that the Catholic Church is worse than any other. All are alike in this regard. Every sect, no matter how insignificant; every church, no matter how powerful, asks precisely the same thing from every member--that is to say, a surrender of intellectual freedom. The Catholic Church wants the same as the Baptist, the Presbyterian, and the Methodist--it wants the whole earth. It is ambitious to be the one supreme power. It hopes to see the world upon its knees, with all its tongues thrust out for wafers. It has the arrogance of humility and the ferocity of universal forgiveness. In this respect it resembles every other sect. Every religion is a system of slavery.

Of course, the religionists say that they do not believe in persecution; that they do not believe in burning and hanging and whipping or loading with chains a man simply because he is an Infidel. They are willing to leave all this with G.o.d, knowing that a being of infinite goodness will inflict all these horrors and tortures upon an honest man who differs with the church.

In case Dr. McGlynn is deprived of his priestly functions, it is hard to say what effect it will have upon his church and the labor party in the country.

So long as a man believes that a church has eternal joy in store for him, so long as he believes that a church holds within its hand the keys of heaven and h.e.l.l, it will be hard to make him trade off the hope of everlasting happiness for a few good clothes and a little good food and higher wages here. He finally thinks that, after all, he had better work for less and go a little hungry, and be an angel forever.

I hope, however, that a good many people who have been supporting the Catholic Church by giving t.i.thes of the wages of weariness will see, and clearly see, that Catholicism is not their friend; that the church cannot and will not support them; that, on the contrary, they must support the church. I hope they will see that all the prayers have to be paid for, although not one has ever been answered.

I hope they will perceive that the church is on the side of wealth and power, that the mitre is the friend of the crown, that the altar is the sworn brother of the throne. I hope they will finally know that the church cares infinitely more for the money of the millionaire than for the souls of the poor.

Of course, there are thousands of individual exceptions. I am speaking of the church as an inst.i.tution, as a corporation--and when I say the church, I include all churches. It is said of corporations in general, that they have no soul, and it may truthfully be said of the church that it has less than any other. It lives on alms. It gives nothing for what it gets. It has no sympathy.

Beggars never weep over the misfortunes of other beggars.

Nothing could give me more pleasure than to see the Catholic Church on the side of human freedom; nothing more pleasure than to see the Catholics of the world--those who work and weep and toil-- sensible enough to know that all the money paid for superst.i.tion is worse than lost. I wish they could see that the counting of beads, and the saying of prayers and celebrating of ma.s.ses, and all the kneelings and censer-swingings and fastings and bell-ringing, amount to less than nothing--that all these things tend only to the degradation of mankind. It is hard, I know, to find an antidote for a poison that was mingled with a mother's milk.

The laboring ma.s.ses, so far as the Catholics are concerned, are filled with awe and wonder and fear about the church. This fear began to grow while they were being rocked in their cradles, and they still imagine that the church has some mysterious power; that it is in direct communication with some infinite personality that could, if it desired, strike then dead, or d.a.m.n their souls forever.

Persons who have no such belief, who care nothing for popes or priests or churches or heavens or h.e.l.ls or devils or G.o.ds, have very little idea of the power of fear.

The old dogmas filled the brain with strange monsters. The soul of the orthodox Christian gropes and wanders and crawls in a kind of dungeon, where the strained eyes see fearful shapes, and the frightened flesh shrinks from the touch of serpents.

The good part of Christianity--that is to say, kindness, morality --will never go down. The cruel part ought to go down. And by the cruel part I mean the doctrine of eternal punishment--of allowing the good to suffer for the bad--allowing innocence to pay the debt of guilt. So the foolish part of Christianity--that is to say, the miraculous--will go down. The absurd part must perish. But there will be no war about it as there was in France. n.o.body believes enough in the foolish part of Christianity now to fight for it. n.o.body believes with intensity enough in miracles to shoulder a musket. There is probably not a Christian in New York willing to fight for any story, no matter if the story is so old that it is covered with moss. No mentally brave and intelligent man believes in miracles, and no intelligent man cares whether there was a miracle or not, for the reason that every intelligent man knows that the miraculous has no possible connection with the moral. "Thou shalt not steal," is just as good a commandment if it should turn out that the flood was a drouth. "Thou shalt not murder," is a good and just and righteous law, and whether any particular miracle was ever performed or not has nothing to do with the case. There is no possible relation between these things.

I am on the side not only of the physically oppressed, but of the mentally oppressed. I hate those who put lashes on the body, and I despise those who put the soul in chains. In other words, I am in favor of liberty. I do not wish that any man should be the slave of his fellow-men, or that the human race should be the slaves of any G.o.d, real or imaginary. Man has the right to think for himself, to work for himself, to take care of himself, to get bread for himself, to get a home for himself. He has a right to his own opinion about G.o.d, and heaven and h.e.l.l; the right to learn any art or mystery or trade; the right to work for whom he will, for what he will, and when he will.

The world belongs to the human race. There is to be no war in this country on religious opinions, except a war of words--a conflict of thoughts, of facts; and in that conflict the hosts of superst.i.tion will go down. They may not be defeated to-day, or to-morrow, or next year, or during this century, but they are growing weaker day by day.

This priest, McGlynn, has the courage to stand up against the propaganda. What would have been his fate a few years ago? What would have happened to him in Spain, in Portugal, in Italy--in any other country that was Catholic--only a few years ago? Yet he stands here in New York, he refuses to obey G.o.d's vicegerent; he freely gives his mind to an archbishop; he holds the holy Inquisition in contempt. He has done a great thing. He is undoubtedly an honest man. He never should have been a Catholic. He has no business in that church. He has ideas of his own--theories, and seems to be governed by principles. The Catholic Church is not his place. If he remains, he must submit, he must kneel in the humility of abjectness; he must receive on the back of his independence the lashes of the church. If he remains, he must ask the forgiveness of slaves for having been a man. If he refuses to submit, the church will not have him. He will be driven to take his choice-- to remain a member, humiliated, shunned, or go out into the great, free world a citizen of the Republic, with the rights, responsibilities, and duties of an American citizen.

I believe that Dr. McGlynn is an honest man, and that he really believes in the land theories of Mr. George. I have no confidence in his theories, but I have confidence that he is actuated by the best and n.o.blest motives.

_Question_. Are you to go on the lecture platform again?

_Answer_. I expect to after a while. I am now waiting for the church to catch up. I got so far ahead that I began almost to sympathize with the clergy. They looked so helpless and talked in such a weak, wandering, and wobbling kind of way that I felt as though I had been cruel. From the papers I see that they are busy trying to find out who the wife of Cain was. I see that the Rev.

Dr. Robinson, of New York, is now wrestling with that problem. He begins to be in doubt whether Adam was the first man, whether Eve was the first woman; suspects that there were other races, and that Cain did not marry his sister, but somebody else's sister, and that the somebody else was not Cain's brother. One can hardly over- estimate the importance of these questions, they have such a direct bearing on the progress of the world. If it should turn out that Adam was the first man, or that he was not the first man, something might happen--I am not prepared to say what, but it might.

It is a curious kind of a spectacle to see a few hundred people paying a few thousand dollars a year for the purpose of hearing these great problems discussed: "Was Adam the first man?" "Who was Cain's wife?" "Has anyone seen a map of the land of Nod?"

"Where are the four rivers that ran murmuring through the groves of Paradise?" "Who was the snake? How did he walk? What language did he speak?" This turns a church into a kind of nursery, makes a cradle of each pew, and gives to each member a rattle with which he can amuse what he calls his mind.

The great theologians of Andover--the gentlemen who wear the bra.s.s collars furnished by the dead founder--have been disputing among themselves as to what is to become of the heathen who fortunately died before meeting any missionary from that inst.i.tution. One can almost afford to be d.a.m.ned hereafter for the sake of avoiding the dogmas of Andover here. Nothing more absurd and childish has ever happened--not in the intellectual, but in the theological world.

There is no need of the Freethinkers saying anything at present.

The work is being done by the church members themselves. They are beginning to ask questions of the clergy. They are getting tired of the old ideas--tired of the consolations of eternal pain--tired of hearing about h.e.l.l--tired of hearing the Bible quoted or talked about--tired of the scheme of redemption--tired of the Trinity, of the plenary inspiration of the barbarous records of a barbarous people--tired of the patriarchs and prophets--tired of Daniel and the goats with three horns, and the image with the clay feet, and the little stone that rolled down the hill--tired of the mud man and the rib woman--tired of the flood of Noah, of the astronomy of Joshua, the geology of Moses--tired of Kings and Chronicles and Lamentations--tired of the lachrymose Jeremiah--tired of the monstrous, the malicious, and the miraculous. In short, they are beginning to think. They have bowed their necks to the yoke of ignorance and fear and impudence and superst.i.tion, until they are weary. They long to be free. They are tired of the services-- tired of the meaningless prayers--tired of hearing each other say, "Hear us, good Lord"--tired of the texts, tired of the sermons, tired of the lies about spontaneous combustion as a punishment for blasphemy, tired of the bells, and they long to hear the doxology of superst.i.tion. They long to have Common Sense lift its hands in benediction and dismiss the congregation.

--_Brooklyn Citizen_, April, 1886.

TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS.

_Question_. What do you think of the trial of the Chicago Anarchists and their chances for a new trial?

_Answer_. I have paid some attention to the evidence and to the rulings of the court, and I have read the opinion of the Supreme Court of Illinois, in which the conviction is affirmed. Of course these men were tried during a period of great excitement--tried when the press demanded their conviction--when it was a.s.serted that society was on the edge of destruction unless these men were hanged.

Under such circ.u.mstances, it is not easy to have a fair and impartial trial. A judge should either sit beyond the reach of prejudice, in some calm that storms cannot invade, or he should be a kind of oak that before any blast he would stand erect. It is hard to find such a place as I have suggested and not easy to find such a man.

We are all influenced more or less by our surroundings, by the demands and opinions and feelings and prejudices of our fellow- citizens. There is a personality made up of many individuals known as society. This personality has prejudices like an individual.

It often becomes enraged, acts without the slightest sense, and repents at its leisure. It is hard to reason with a mob whether organized or disorganized, whether acting in the name of the law or of simple brute force. But in any case, where people refuse to be governed by reason, they become a mob.

_Question_. Do you not think that these men had a fair trial?

_Answer_. I have no doubt that the court endeavored to be fair-- no doubt that Judge Gary is a perfectly honest, upright man, but I think his instructions were wrong. He instructed the jury to the effect that where men have talked in a certain way, and where the jury believed that the result of such talk might be the commission of a crime, that such men are responsible for that crime. Of course, there is neither law nor sense in an instruction like this.

I hold that it must have been the intention of the man making the remark, or publis.h.i.+ng the article, or doing the thing--it must have been his intention that the crime should be committed. Men differ as to the effect of words, and a man may say a thing with the best intentions the result of which is a crime, and he may say a thing with the worst of intentions and the result may not be a crime.

The Supreme Court of Illinois seemed to have admitted that the instructions were wrong, but took the ground that it made no difference with the verdict. This is a dangerous course for the court of last resort to pursue; neither is it very complimentary to the judge who tried the case, that his instructions had no effect upon the jury. Under the instructions of the court below, any man who had been arrested with the seven Anarchists and of whom it could be proved that he had ever said a word in favor of any change in government, or of other peculiar ideas, no matter whether he knew of the meeting at the Haymarket or not, would have been convicted.

I am satisfied that the defendant Fielden never intended to harm a human being. As a matter of fact, the evidence shows that he was making a speech in favor of peace at the time of the occurrence.

The evidence also shows that he was an exceedingly honest, industrious, and a very poor and philanthropic man.

_Question_. Do you uphold the Anarchists?

_Answer_. Certainly not. There is no place in this country for the Anarchist. The source of power here is the people, and to attack the political power is to attack the people. If the laws are oppressive, it is the fault of the oppressed. If the laws touch the poor and leave them without redress, it is the fault of the poor. They are in a majority. The men who work for their living are the very men who have the power to make every law that is made in the United States. There is no excuse for any resort to violence in this country. The boycotting by trades unions and by labor organizations is all wrong. Let them resort to legal methods and to no other. I have not the slightest sympathy with the methods that have been pursued by Anarchists, or by Socialists, or by any other cla.s.s that has resorted to force or intimidation.

The ballot-box is the place to a.s.semble. The will of the people can be made known in that way, and their will can be executed. At the same time, I think I understand what has produced the Anarchist, the Socialist, and the agitator. In the old country, a laboring man, poorly clad, without quite enough to eat, with a wife in rags, with a few children asking for bread--this laboring man sees the idle enjoying every luxury of this life; he sees on the breast of "my lady" a bonfire of diamonds; he sees "my lord" riding in his park; he sees thousands of people who from the cradle to the grave do no useful act; add nothing to the intellectual or the physical wealth of the world; he sees labor living in the tenement house, in the hut; idleness and n.o.bility in the mansion and the palace; the poor man a trespa.s.ser everywhere except upon the street, where he is told to "move on," and in the dusty highways of the country.

That man naturally hates the government--the government of the few, the government that lives on the unpaid labor of the many, the government that takes the child from the parents, and puts him in the army to fight the child of another poor man and woman in some other country. These Anarchists, these Socialists, these agitators, have been naturally produced. All the things of which I have spoken sow in the breast of poverty the seeds of hatred and revolution.

These poor men, hunted by the officers of the law, cornered, captured, imprisoned, excite the sympathy of other poor men, and if some are dragged to the gallows and hanged, or beheaded by the guillotine, they become saints and martyrs, and those who sympathize with them feel that they have the power, and only the power of hatred--the power of riot, of destruction--the power of the torch, of revolution, that is to say, of chaos and anarchy. The injustice of the higher cla.s.ses makes the lower criminal. Then there is another thing. The misery of the poor excites in many n.o.ble b.r.e.a.s.t.s sympathy, and the men who thus sympathize wish to better the condition of their fellows. At first they depend upon reason, upon calling the attention of the educated and powerful to the miseries of the poor. Nothing happens, no result follows. The Juggernaut of society moves on, and the wretches are still crushed beneath the great wheels. These men who are really good at first, filled with sympathy, now become indignant--they are malicious, then destructive and criminal. I do not sympathize with these methods, but I do sympathize with the general object that all good and generous people seek to accomplish--namely, to better the condition of the human race. Only the other day, in Boston, I said that we ought to take into consideration the circ.u.mstances under which the Anarchists were reared; that we ought to know that every man is necessarily produced; that man is what he is, not by accident, but necessity; that society raises its own criminals--that it plows the soil and cultivates and harvests the crop. And it was telegraphed that I had defended anarchy. Nothing was ever further from my mind. There is no place, as I said before, for anarchy in the United States. In Russia it is another question; in Germany another question. Every country that is governed by the one man, or governed by the few, is the victim of anarchy. That _is_ anarchy. That is the worst possible form of socialism. The definition of socialism given by its bitterest enemy is, that idlers wish to live on the labor and on the money of others. Is not this definition--a definition given in hatred--a perfect definition of every monarchy and of nearly every government in the world? That is to say: The idle few live on the labor and the money of others.

_Question_. Will the Supreme Court take cognizance of this case and prevent the execution of the judgment?

_Answer_. Of course it is impossible for me to say. At the same time, judging from the action of Justice Miller in the case of _The People vs. Maxwell_, it seems probable that the Supreme Court may interfere, but I have not examined the question sufficiently to form an opinion. My feeling about the whole matter is this: That it will not tend to answer the ideas advanced by these men, to hang them. Their execution will excite sympathy among thousands and thousands of people who have never examined and knew nothing of the theories advanced by the Anarchists, or the Socialists, or other agitators. In my judgment, supposing the men to be guilty, it is far better to imprison them. Less harm will be done the cause of free government. We are not on the edge of any revolution.