CHAPTER VI
Reason and Passion
1. Susan B. Anthony, Diary, April 14, 1854, quoted in Carol Kolmerten, The American Life of Ernestine Rose (Syracuse, NY, 1999), p. 155.
2. RGI, “At a Child’s Grave,” Works, vol. 12, p. 400.
3. RGI, “A Lay Sermon,” Works, vol. 4, p. 211.
4. RGI to George Schilling, in Ingersoll, Letters, pp. 627–628.
5. Ibid., p. 216.
6. The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude and J. D. Duff (New York, 1997), pp. 110–111.
7. RGI, “Tolstoi and ‘The Kreutzer Sonata,’” Works, vol. 11, p. 313.
8. RGI, “Which Way?” Works, vol. 3, p. 401.
9. Ibid., pp. 448–449.
10. RGI to Philip G. Peabody, May 27, 1890, in The Letters of Robert G. Ingersoll, pp. 710–711.
11. “Vivisection,” New York Evening Telegram, September 30, 1893.
12. RGI to Peabody, May 27, 1890, in Ingersoll, Letters, p. 711.
CHAPTER VII
Death and Afterlife
1. RGI, “Argument Before the Vice-Chancellor in the Russell Case,” Works, vol. 10, p. 592.
2. “Ingersoll Dead,” New York Times, July 22, 1899.
3. RGI, “A Tribute to Ebon C. Ingersoll,” Works, vol. 12, p. 390.
4. Ibid., p. 391.
5. In Cramer, Royal Bob, p. 264.
6. “Sermons on Ingersoll,” Chicago Tribune, July 24, 1899.
7. In Cramer, Royal Bob, p. 189, from unedited clippings in Library of Congress, folder 5.
8. Truth Seeker, October 21, 1899.
9. The Chicago Tribune, July 22, 1899.
10. In Frank Smith, Robert G. Ingersoll: A Life (Buffalo, NY, 1990), p. 403.
11. In Larson, American Infidel, from Arena, March 1909.
12. William Bentley, The Diary of William Bentley (Salem, MA, 1905), vol. 1, p. 82.
13. In “Ingersoll Still Troubling the World,” Current Literature, December 1911 (article unsigned).
14. George E. Webb, The Evolution Controversy in America (Lexington, KY), 1994, pp. 110–114.
15. Michael Monahan, “In re Colonel Ingersoll,” An Attic Dreamer (New York, 1922), pp. 62–63.
Selected Bibliography
Anderson, David D. Robert Ingersoll. New York: Twayne, 1972.
Allen, Frederick Lewis, Only Yesterday. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1931.
Avrich, Paul. The Haymarket Tragedy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Bentley, William. The Diary of William Bentley, Vols. 1–4. Salem, MA: Essex Institute, 1905.
Borden, Morton. Jews, Turks, and Infidels. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984.
Brigance, Willaim Norwood, ed. A History and Criticism of American Public Address. Vols. 1–2. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1943.
Burns, Robert. The Poetical Works of Robert Burns. Ed. Raymond Bentman. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974.
Conway, Moncure Daniel. The Life of Thomas Paine. Vols. 1–2. New York: Cassell, 1892.
Cramer, C. H. Royal Bob: The Life of Robert G. Ingersoll. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1952.
Darrow, Clarence. The Story of My Life. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1932.
Darrow, Clarence, and Wallace Rice. Infidels and Heretics. Boston: Alpine Press, 1929.
Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species: The Orgin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life and The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. New York: Modern Library, 1948.
Fruchtman, Jack, Jr. Thomas Paine: Apostle of Freedom. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1994.
Garland, Hamlin. Roadside Meetings. New York: Macmillan, 1930.
Greeley, Roger. E. Ingersoll: Immortal Infidel. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1977.
Hofstadter, Richard: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. New York: Knopf, 1963.
———. Social Darwinism in American Thought. New York: George Braziller, 1959.
Hubbard, Elbert. Little Journey to the Home of Robert G. Ingersoll. East Aurora, NY: Roycrofters, 1902.
Ingersoll, Robert Green. The Complete Works of Robert G. Ingersoll. vols. 1–12. New York: Dresden, 1901.
———. Letters. With a biographical introduction by Eva Ingersoll Wakefield. New York: Philosophical Library, 1951.
Irons, Peter. A People’s History of the Supreme Court. New York: Penguin Books, 1999.
Jacoby, Susan. Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004.
Kazin, Michael. A Godly Hero. New York: Knopf, 2006.
Kolmerten, Carol A. The American Life of Ernestine L. Rose. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1999.
Larson, Orvin. American Infidel: Robert G. Ingersoll. New York: Citadel Press, 1962.
Lincoln, Abraham. Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vols. 5–7. Ed. Roy P. Basler, Marion Dolores Pratt, and Lloyd C. Dunlap. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953–1955.
MacDonald, George E. Fifty Years of Freethought, vols. 1–2. New York: Truth Seeker Company, 1959.
Marty, Martin E. Modern American Religion, vols. 1–3. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986–1996.
Monahan, Michael. An Attic Dreamer. New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1922.
Mott, James R. The Post-Darwinian Controversies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Paine, Thomas. The Thomas Paine Reader. Ed. Michael Foot and Isaac Kramnick. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.
———. The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine. Ed. Philip S. Foner. New York: Citadel Press, 1945.
Peck, Harry Thurston. What Is Good English? And Other Essays. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1899.
Plummer, Mark A. Robert G. Ingersoll: Peoria’s Pagan Politician. Macomb, IL: Western Illinois Monograph Series, 1984.
Ritter, Lawrence S. The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics. 1962.
Rogers, Cameron. Colonel Bob Ingersoll. New York: Doubleday, Page, 1927.
Roosevelt, Theodore. Gouverneur Morris. Oyster Bay, NY: Theodore Roosevelt Association, 1975.
Tolstoy, Leo. The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories. Ed. Richard J. Gustafson. Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude and J. D. Duff. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Truth Seeker. Vols. 10–37. New York: Truth Seeker Company, 1883–1910.
Twain, Mark. The Bible According to Mark Twain. Ed. Howard G. Baetzhold and Joseph B. McCullough. New York: Touchstone Books, 1996.
Vowell, Sarah. Assassination Vacation. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005.
Warren, Sidney. American Freethought, 1860–1914. New York: Columbia University Press, 1943.
Webb, George E. The Evolution Controversy in America. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1994.
Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. New York: Modern Library, 1921.
Index
abolitionism, 29n, 31, 40, 48, 50, 110, 172; religion and, 32–35, 52–53
Adams, John, 20, 137, 138
“Address to the Colored People” (Ingersoll), 52–53
Adler, Felix, 90
adultery, 120–21, 165
African Americans. See equal rights; racial inequality; slavery
afterlife, 41, 94, 105, 157–58, 164, 201
Age of Reason, The (Paine), 19, 20, 40, 62, 145
agnostics/atheists, 11, 22, 198; afterlife concept and, 94, 157–58, 201; alleged deathbed recantations of, 173–74; enemies’ characterization of, 156–57; as identical, 17–18, 193–94; increased numbers of, 94; Ingersoll’s popularization of, 11, 126, 189; origin of word “agnostic,” 24; political barriers for, 56, 178–79, 200–201; social Darwinists as, 107. See also freethinkers; “new atheists”; secularism
Allen, Frederick Lewis, Only Yesterday, 25–26
Altgeld, John Peter, 163
America (Jesuit publication), 183
Ameri
can Anti-Slavery Association, 29n
American archetype, 7–8
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 187
American Bible Society, 13
American Centennial (July 4, 1876), 5
American Federation of Musicians, 160
American founders. See founders
American Free Religious Association, 171
American politics. See politics and government
American Religious Identification Survey, 30n
American Revolution, Paine’s writings and, 1, 18, 19, 142–43, 146, 147
American Secular Union, 131–32, 162, 163
anesthesia, 78, 79
animal experiments. See vivisection
Anthony, Susan B., 73, 157
anthrax, 80
anti-obscenity laws. See obscenity (Comstock) laws
anti-Semitism, 114
“Apostate’s Creed” (anon.), 85
Arlington National Cemetery, 176
Arthur, Chester A., 115
asceticism, 164–66
asepsis, 79
Atchison (Kansas) Daily Globe, 27
atheists. See agnostics/atheists; “new atheists”
atonement, 88
autodidacts, 7–8, 36, 38, 42–43, 44
bacteria, 5, 79, 80
Baptists, 145
Barlow, Joel, 40
Barton, Clara, 10
Baxter, Richard, The Saint’s Everlasting Rest, 37
Beckwith, Philo D., 72, 73–74, 190
Beckworth Memorial Theater (Dowagiac, MI), 72–76, 190
Beecher, Rev. Henry Ward, 16, 54, 90, 91–94, 96; Ingersoll eulogy for, 92–93; social beliefs of, 108
Beecher, Rev. Lyman, 92, 93
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 73, 161, 190
Bennett, William D., 99
Bentley, Rev. William, 181
Bible, 13, 21, 38–39, 44, 96, 175; creation account of, 9, 14, 16, 80–82, 86–88, 104, 149; liberal Protestant view of, 182; as literal (see biblical literalism); as literary/philosophical work, 153; as metaphoric, 148; officeholders’ sworn oath on, 136–37; as sanctioning corporal punishment, 39; as sanctioning death penalty, 144, 199; as sanctioning slavery, 52–53, 140; as sanctioning women’s inferiority, 122
Bible Institute of Los Angeles, The Fundamentals, 101n
biblical literalism, 11, 14; blasphemy law and, 131–36, 141; evolution belief vs. (see evolution theory); liberal Protestant movement from, 86, 91; persistence of belief in, 94–95, 101n, 148–49; scientific challenges to, 16, 18, 23, 78–79, 81–82, 136, 148–49; turn of twentieth century decline in, 25
Bill of Rights, 65, 134, 144
biology, 23, 148. See also evolution theory
Biology for Beginners (textbook), 187
birth control: Catholic opposition to, 186; Comstock obscenity laws and, 100, 152; Ingersoll’s support for, 118–19, 127, 171, 186
Blaine, James G., 59–60, 64–67
Blaine amendments (1875), 64–66
blasphemy, 129–36, 138, 142
bloggers, 11
Bloomer, Amelia Jencks, 32
Boleyn, Anne, 13
Bolshevism, 70, 183
Book of Mormon, 32
Booth, Edwin, 160
Booth, John Wilkes, 160n
Booth’s Theater (NYC), 71
border areas, North-South, 48–49, 113
Brooklyn Academy of Music, 92n
Brooks, Anna M., 71
Brown, Walston, 172
Bruno, Giordano, 192
Bryan, William Jennings, 22–23, 64, 100, 101, 148–50; biblical literalism and, 23, 148–49; “cross of gold” speech of, 89, 149; grave of, 176
Buchard, Rev. Samuel D., 66
Bunyan, John, Pilgrim’s Progress, 36
Burbank, Luther, 10
Burns, Robert, 45–48, 62, 94, 123; familiar songs of, 46; “Holy Willie’s Prayer,” 46–48
business interests, 11, 101, 149–50; Ingersoll’s legal representation of, 58, 101–2; social Darwinist “selection” beliefs and, 106–7
Byron, Lord, 46, 123
Calvinism, 46, 80, 145, 153
cancer, 86–87
capitalism, 58, 103–7, 159
capital punishment. See death penalty
Carnegie, Andrew, 10, 11
Cathedral of St. John the Divine (NYC), 155n
Catherine of Aragon, 13
Catholicism: as bar to state office holding, 137; birth control opposition of, 186; blasphemy cases and, 130, 132; conservative theology of, 184–86; growth in United States of, 141; Ingersoll animus of, 183–86; Ingersoll’s concerns about, 65–66, 114, 140, 141; obscenity laws and, 152; political influence of, 66–67, 100–101, 121, 139, 141, 185; Protestant dominance and, 65, 66, 177; religious school system of, 64–66, 100–101, 141, 153, 154, 183, 185; suspicion of science and, 141, 183; U.S. presidential candidacy and, 4n
Catholic World (publication), 184
Cazenovia (NY), 35
chastity, 164, 165
Chicago, 73, 162, 177–78
Chicago Times, 59
Chicago Tribune, 174, 177, 180
childbearing: pain alleviation and, 78; women’s rights and, 118–19, 127, 152. See also birth control
children’s rights, 39–40, 200
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 114–15
Chinese immigrants, 114–16
Chopin, Frédéric, 73
Christianity: founders and, 4, 9, 98–99, 129, 137–39, 200; Ingersoll’s stance on, 58, 114, 164–66; political officeholders and, 54–55, 137, 178–79; proposed constitutional amendment endorsing, 98–99, 139; secular constitution and, 195; status of women and, 122–23, 164–65. See also Catholicism; Protestantism
Church of England, 13
church-state separation, 129–55; blasphemy law and, 135; Catholic doctrinal campaign against, 185–86; Christian nation contention vs., 4, 9, 98–99, 129, 139; continuing lack of public consensus on, 9; current political decriers of, 4, 136, 201; divine authority invocation and, 150–51; divorce laws and, 120–21; establishment clause and, 64–65, 136; first Catholic presidential candidate and, 4n; as founders’ intent, 2–5, 129, 137, 138, 139–40, 141, 150, 195, 197, 200–201; Ingersoll’s championship of, 1–5, 11, 20–21, 139–42, 150–51; Jewish immigrant support for, 70; Lincoln Republicans and, 61, 99; obscenity (Comstock) laws and, 100; opponents of, 135–38, 185–86; Paine’s championship of, 1, 18, 20, 107; public schools and, 9, 105, 142, 153–55, 186–87; religious orthodoxy vs., 69, 152–53; religious politicization and, 151–52; religious school tax aid bid and, 4n, 64–66, 67, 70, 100–101, 153, 154, 183, 185; secularist inroads and, 148; state law changes and, 138; theocracy vs., 58, 98, 129, 136, 200, 201
civil rights. See equal rights
Civil War, 48–49, 51–52, 112, 150
Clarke, Adam, 38
Colgate, Samuel, 100n
Columbia University, 68
“Common Sense” (Paine pamphlet), 142
communism, 183
Comstock, Anthony, 99–100, 152–53, 186
Comstock Laws. See obscenity (Comstock) laws
Congregationalists, 32, 178
Congress, U.S., 55–56, 154–55, 186
Connecticut, 138
conservatism, 184–86; two strands of, 108. See also fundamentalism; religious right
Constitution, U.S.: broad interpretation of, 134; claims of Christian basis of, 4, 9, 98, 129, 139; establishment clause and, 64–65, 136; originalists and, 3–4; proposed Blaine amendment (1875) to, 64–65; proposed Christian amendment (1864) to, 98–99, 139; secular spirit and letter of, 2–4, 99, 129, 130–31, 136, 137–38, 139–41, 195, 197. See also Bill of Rights; specific amendments
constitutions, state, 65, 133–34, 137
contraceptives. See birth control
Conway, Moncure Daniel, 146–47
Copernicus, Nicolaus, 82, 192
corporal punishment, 3
9–40
corporations. See business interests
corruption, 59, 101
Council for Secular Humanism, 28
Crawford, Sam (“Wahoo”), 10
creation: biblical account of, 9, 14, 16, 80–82, 86–88, 104, 149; evolution theory and, 94; public school science classes and, 9; theodicy problem and, 86–89; unalienable rights and, 128; “watchmaker” argument and, 37–38, 86
cremation, 176
Crisis Papers, The (Paine), 142–43, 147
“cross of gold” speech (Bryan), 89, 149
culture wars (1980s– ), 4, 6, 9, 90
Darrow, Clarence, 10, 22, 23, 102–3
Darwin, Charles, 2, 5, 14, 23, 24, 87, 91, 95, 187, 192; on civilization vs. nature, 106; The Descent of Man, 83; inspirational language of, 96; On the Origin of Species, 15, 83, 96. See also evolution theory
Dawkins, Richard, 90, 159, 194–95, 198
death: Ingersoll’s last weeks and, 172–74; Ingersoll’s view of, 157–58, 171, 175–76. See also afterlife
death penalty: for blasphemy, 129–30, 132–33; capital crimes and, 145; for Haymarket violence defendants, 162, 163; opponents of, 20, 40, 144–45, 147, 189; religious sanctions for, 144, 199
“Death Test, The” (Ingersoll), 171
Debs, Eugene V., 10, 11, 109; eulogy for Ingersoll by, 179–80
Declaration of Independence, 29n, 128
Declaration of Rights and Sentiments (woman suffrage), 29n
Declaration of Sentiments (antislavery), 29n
deism, 20, 24–25, 131
deity. See God
Delaware, 137
democracy, 24–25, 144n
Democratic Party, 66–67, 89, 110, 115, 163; Ingersoll’s congressional candidacy and, 50; religious belief and, 64, 66, 100–101
Descent of Man, The (Darwin), 83
determinism, 158
Dickinson, Anna E., 114
Dictionnaire Philosophique Portatif (Voltaire), 130
disease, 5, 79, 80, 86, 167
dissidents, 31–32, 70, 107
divine revelation. See God
divine right of kings, 144n
divorce, 120–21, 122n
Dobbs Ferry (NY), 172
domestic violence, 120, 121, 122, 200
Dorsey, Stephen W., 101–2
Douglas, Stephen, 50
Douglass, Frederick, 10, 111, 112
Dowagiac (MI), 72–76, 190–91