Image provided by: Silverton Country Historical Society; Silverton, OR
About Torch of reason. (Silverton, Oregon) 1896-1903 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 24, 1899)
“ TR U TH HOLDS T H E TORCH IN T H E SEARCH FOR T R U T H .” — Lucretius. SILVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY AUGUST 24, ¡899. VOL. 3. Robert 0 . Ingersoll. AN O D E. BY M. C. o’BYRXE. and buckler, sh in in g spear, Mail and h elm et, lay them th ere x At th e w a rrio r’s head ! B orne u nflinchingly in strife, L et th e plum e he loved in life G race th e w a rrio r dead ! S word E a rth to e a rth , and d u st to d u st! Lo! he needs nor u rn nor b u st Nor gilded h a tc h m e n t; see! T he round world is h is m o n u m et, The m in d ’s free tem p le, w here he re n t The vail of slavery. Thou a rt a victor, thou h ast conquered D eath By robbing him of te rro r; henceforth E a rth Shall see its ch ild ren yield th e ir p artin g b reath Free from th e fears th a t whilom m ar red th e ir m irth . Q uenched is th e fiery lake W herein th e u n d y in g snake, R uthless rem orse, was wont to rear his head; Gone are th e g n ash in g tooth And tongue b lasp h em in g : T ru th H a th freed us living, bro u g h t us rest when dead. said in criticism of him that he tore down and did not build up; and while this was true in bare fact, it was not true in effect. For the man who can tear down one error quite justifies himself. No one ever lost a superstition without thereby gain ing a truth. He left work to be done; nevertheless, he should he reckoned as much a builder as any foundation layer. The country is in a good way when it can grow such men.—[Puck. And so we h ail th ee, valorous, gentle k n ig h t! ‘S it tibi te rra le v is!’ T h ro ’ th e years H e lies in peace, th e T hesseus of th e E x u ltin g m an shall greet th e welcome The greatest mau of the century lig h t W e s t; And sm ile a t S u p e rstitio n ’s idle fears. is dead. In the death of Robert G. He lies th ere silen t, in e te rn al rest, Living, we loved th e e , dead, th y nam e W ho rested no t in tim e, Ingersoll, America loses her great shall be W hile grim Chim aera, w ith its p u trid tail O ur w atchw ord in th e strife for liberty. est orator, her greatest poet and And fceted b rea th , polluted every gale, —[Secular T hou g h t. And fouled th e e a rth w ith slim e. her most profound thinker. H<‘ was « a lover of all the arts, a stu- dent of all the sciences and always had the courage to express his con victions on every subject. Most men are political or theological trimmers. Their sails are forever set to catch the favoring gales of public opinion. But Mr. Ingersoll was always true to himself. Every possession of a certain rugged line written by him, and every sen Thy spear-point touched th e idol’s brow, independence of mind, coupled and l o ! tence spoken, was always permeat The clay-concreted im age fell a p a r t ; with a strong, ready sense of hu ed with logic. He was also the And all who would m ig h t see th e frauds mor—a com bi ration that is, we most sympathetic, kindly and lov which go To m ake a d eity , w hen priestly a rt think, a characteristic growth from ing of men. His one work entitled W orking on hu m an fears, the conditions of American life. Prose Poems contains more genu W atered by h u m a n tears, Places on high A pollyon, whom th e awed Most quickly felt in him was his ine sentiment than all the other And servile m u ltitu d e adore as G od. quality of humaneness, his quick poetry of America combined. Ev And L ib erty, blue-eyed and ra d ia n t sympathy with the wronged, ery oration of his is a literary gem. cam e, T r u th ’s to rch -b earer, to lig h t th e som wheth« r by men or by conditions. Any of his political speeches is a bre den W here rack and fagot and th e bones It was this that fired him, that ¡textbook for an entire campaign. would not let him rest while there of m en I had the pleasure of a long ac Bore silen t w itness to th e zealot’s flam e: was error to be pulled down, or quaintance with Mr. Ingersoll, and She cam e a t th y b e h est, what seemed like error to his full- while he was the most democratic F o r everm ore th e guest And guide of m an , and lin k in g h an d s blooded, generous instincts. of men, entirely void of ostentation, w ith th ee There has been so marked a I never shook hands with him with Vowed to rem ain on e a rth till th o u g h t was free. change in religious belief since he out feeling that I was in the pres And lissom L ove,her snowy l>osom bared began his work, that it is hard now ence of an intellectual giant. It R evealing founts of gracious n o u rish to realize the courage his task first took the world two hundred years m en t, W ith spacious brow , w here gentleness required. Of late years the novelty to recognize the wisdom, sentiment was b lent W ith w arm com passion — she who often had gone out of much that he said, and inspiration ot William Shake dared for the reason that ministers with speare. Voltaire is just beginning To brave th e ty ra n t an d his w rath in the church have come to say to be appreciated by thoughtful defy W hen M ight and M alice haled th e very much the same things; the people, and in one hundred years w retch to d ie ; difference being that they say them from now it will be universally ad She who had stood beside T he cross w here Je su s died, as the result of scholarly research, mitted that Robert G. Ingersoll was And poured a m o th e r’s tears on bleeding while he said them from an intense the greatest mad of modern times. feet; She who had filled th e jee rin g R om an ly passionate intuition, the fruit of Lincoln freed four million human stre e t W ith sobs of pity w hen proud B runo a kind heart that could not accept chattels from physical slavery; In strode an alleged god’s inhumanity to gersoll has freed hundreds of mil Toward th e Field of Flow ers as on the i man. But it should be remember lions from intellectual servitude.— road ed to his everlasting credit that he U. S. Marshal W. II. Grimshaw. W hose goal was endless fam e, Achieved th ro u g h scorching flam e. said these things when it required She cam e, wide-eyed a n d lissom Love, to Wonderful as was the great ora courage of the highest order to say share W ith th ee and L iberty th e frag ran t a ir. them, when religious authority had tor’s charm of personality, he will T hus stood th e sisters tw ain but a comparatively little while live in literature independent of Beside th e prison door, W here bolt an d b ar and crim son stain ceased to provide for disbelievers in any association with his personal Survived, m u te evidence of p ain , hell fire a very colorable imitation views or the magnetism of his voice By Bigotry b rought o ’er th e m ain of it right hereon earth. What part and oratorical method. His writ To curse C o lu m b ia’s shore. Now o ’er th e W estern Sea he really did in the work of hu ings have in them a quality which The sp a rk lin g billow s hurled manizing the Christian religion no will outlive all that is perishable. T h eir silver crests in tuneful g lee, And in th e ir g ian t m instrelsy one, of course, may say. Yet it must It is not too much to say that he is W as heard th e chorus of a fiee, have been very great. It was often the Shakespeare of the platform. A liberated world. Thou d id st b u t lau g h , K n ig h t of the K indly Sm ile, Tributes to Ingersoll. And hell rolled back its portals, q u e n c h ed its fire s ; S atan him self en fran ch ised stood, th e | ngersoll was a big, warm w hile hearted poet. In so much T he lig h tened universe itself conspires, To hail th e d isb u rd en ed day he was common to the world W hen s u p e rstitio n ’s sway Shall cease, an d in th e e a rth an d h eav and to all time. But he was pe ens above culiarly the product of his own H ate and her h a rp ies yield to Peace and country and his own day in the Love. I t QO NO. •J* o. It is only a century since Vol taire, but long ago his writings were accorded the place in the world of letters to which their genius gave them title, and their controversial character has ceased to excite either apprehension or resentment. He is freely accorded his proper rank in literature. The genius of Ingersoll may be slow or swift in finding its proper and abiding position. The polemical character of his platform addresses may delay the recogni tion, but it is inevitable that he should be recognized as the great est of prose poets. England was slow to realize that Shakespeare be longed to literature and not merely to the stage. Even Milton, with all his appreciation of Shakespeare’s genius, associated him only with the theatre, having no thought, ap parently, of the delight and inspira tion to be found in the quiet read ing of his dramas. So now the re mark is common that to be appre ciated Ingersoll must have been seen and heard. But in point of fact he is the supreme prose poet of letters. His flights of imagination were untrammeled by the rules of verse. The eagle soared upward on free wing or swooped downward, according to the requirements of the ideas themselves for their most vivid and effective expression. His genius had no teiher of feet or meter. Many passages, it is true, need hardly the changiugof a word to be presentable in faultless blank verse, but no tricking out of lines would add to their poetic splendor. For the most part the sentences are short and the words simple. If one would know the range and beauty, the strength and exquisite delicacy, of the Angio-Saxou language one has only to study the addresses of Ingersoll. Long after their politi cal or controversial purpose has ceased to iuterest they will be trea sured as classics.—[Inter-Ocean. Robert G. Ingersoll was one of the great men of this earth, yet we have no right to bow down to him simply because he was great. We meet to reverence, not the great orator nor the great lawyer, but the man, because he used his marvel ous power for the good of man. When all is cleared men are judged for the purposes which governed their lives and for the love which they bore to their fellow-men. In gersoll is such a sign of moral great ness that all the world should bow down before him. He gave his life to the cause of humanity. In the field and on the rostrum, from be ginning to end, he was the friend of human liberty. Most of the prizes which men desire passed by him be cause of this. Had he been willing to follow the mob and prostitute his gifts for hire, as other men have done, no prize withiu the gift of the American people would have been too high for him.—[C. S. Darrow.