Part 12

Among these sons and daughters are the children of the stage, the citizens of the mimic world--the world enriched by all the wealth of genius--enriched by painter, orator, composer and poet. The world of which Shakespeare, the greatest of human beings, is still the unchallenged emperor. These children of the stage have delighted the weary travelers on the thorny path, amused the passengers on the fated train, and filled with joy the hearts of the clingers to spars, and the floaters on rafts.

These, children of the stage, with fancy's wand rebuild the past. The dead are brought to life and made to act again the parts they played. The hearts and lips that long ago were dust, are made to beat and speak again. The dead kings are crowned once more, and from the shadows of the past emerge the queens, jeweled and sceptred as of yore. Lovers leave their graves and breathe again their burning vows; and again the white breasts rise and fall in passion's storm. The laughter that died away beneath the touch of death is heard again and lips that fell to ashes long ago are curved once more with mirth. Again the hero bares his breast to death; again the patriot falls, and again the scaffold, stained with noble blood, becomes a shrine.

The citizens of the real world gain joy and comfort from the stage. The broker, the speculator ruined by rumor, the lawyer baffled by the intelligence of a jury or the stupidity of a judge, the doctor who lost his patience because he lost his patients, the merchant in the dark days of depression, and all the children of misfortune, the victims of hope deferred, forget their troubles for a little while when looking on the mimic world. When the shaft of wit flies like the arrow of Ulysses through all the rings and strikes the centre; when words of wisdom mingle with the clown's conceits; when folly laughing shows her pearls, and mirth holds carnival; when the villain fails and the right triumphs, the trials and the griefs of life for the moment fade away.

And so the maiden longing to be loved, the young man waiting for the "Yes" deferred; the unloved wife, hear the old, old story told again,--and again within their hearts is the ecstasy of requited love.

The stage brings solace to the wounded, peace to the troubled, and with the wizard's wand touches the tears of grief and they are changed to the smiles of joy.

The stage has ever been the altar, the pulpit, the cathedral of the heart. There the enslaved and the oppressed, the erring, the fallen, even the outcast, find sympathy, and pity gives them all her tears--and there, in spite of wealth and power, in spite of caste and cruel pride, true love has ever triumphed over all.

The stage has taught the noblest lesson, the highest truth, and that is this: It is better to deserve without receiving than to receive without deserving. As a matter of fact, it is better to be the victim of villainy than to be a villain. Better to be stolen from than to be a thief, and in the last analysis the oppressed, the slave, is less unfortunate than the oppressor, the master.

The children of the stage, these citizens of the mimic world, are not the grasping, shrewd and prudent people of the mart; they are improvident enough to enjoy the present and credulous enough to believe the promises of the universal liar known as Hope. Their hearts and hands are open. As a rule genius is generous, luxurious, lavish, reckless and royal. And so, when they have reached the ladder's topmost round, they think the world is theirs and that the heaven of the future can have no cloud. But from the ranks of youth the rival steps. Upon the veteran brows the wreaths begin to fade, the leaves to fall; and failure sadly sups on memory. They tread the stage no more. They leave the mimic world, fair fancy's realm; they leave their palaces and thrones; their crowns are gone, and from their hands the sceptres fall. At last, in age and want, in lodgings small and bare, they wait the prompter's call; and when the end is reached, maybe a vision glorifies the closing scene. Again they are on the stage; again their hearts throb high; again they utter perfect words; again the flowers fall about their feet; and as the curtain falls, the last sound that greets their ears, is the music of applause, the "bravos" for an encore.

And then the silence falls on darkness.

Some loving hands should close their eyes, some loving lips should leave upon their pallid brows a kiss; some friends should lay the breathless forms away, and on the graves drop blossoms jeweled with the tears of love.

This is the work of the generous men and women who contribute to the Actors' Fund. This is charity; and these generous men and women have taught, and are teaching, a lesson that all the world should learn, and that is this: The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray.

ADDRESS TO THE PRESS CLUB.

New Orleans, February 1, 1898.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN of the New Orleans

Press Club: I do not remember to have agreed or consented to make any remarks about the press or anything else on the present occasion, but I am glad of this opportunity to say a word or two. Of course, I have the very greatest respect for this profession, the profession of the press, knowing it, as I do, to be one of the greatest civilizers of the world. Above all other institutions and all other influences, it is the greatest agency in breaking down the hedges of provincialism. In olden times one nation had no knowledge or understanding of another nation, and no insight or understanding into its life; and, indeed, various parts of one nation held the other parts of it somewhat in the attitude of hostility, because of a lack of more thorough knowledge; and, curiously enough, we are prone to look upon strangers more or less in the light of enemies. Indeed, enemy and stranger in the old vocabularies are pretty much of the same significance. A stranger was an enemy. I think it is Darwin who alludes to the instinctive fear a child has of a stranger as one of the heritages of centuries of instinctive cultivation, the handed-down instinct of years ago. And even now it is a fact that we have very little sympathy with people of a different country, even people speaking the same language, having the same god with a different name, or another god with the same name, recognizing the same principles of right and wrong.

But the moment people began to trade with each other, the moment they began to enjoy the results of each other's industry and brain, the moment that, through this medium, they began to get an insight into each other's life, people began to see each other as they were; and so commerce became the greatest of all missionaries of civilization, because, like the press, it tended to do away with provincialism.

You know there is no one else in the world so egotistic as the man who knows nothing. No man is more certain than the man who knows nothing. The savage knows everything. The moment man begins to be civilized he begins to appreciate how little he knows, how very circumscribed in its very nature human knowledge is.

Now, after commerce came the press. From the Moors, I believe, we learned the first rudiments of that art which has civilized the world. With the invention of movable type came an easy and cheap method of preserving the thoughts and history of one generation to another and transmitting the life of one nation to another. Facts became immortal, and from that day to this the intelligence of the world has rapidly and steadily increased.

And now, if we are provincial, it is our own fault, and if we are hateful and odious and circumscribed and narrow and peevish and limited in the light we get from the known universe, it is our own fault.

Day by day the world is growing smaller and men larger. But a few years ago the State of New York was as large as the United States is to-day. It required as much time to reach Albany from New York as it now requires to reach San Francisco from the same city, and so far as the transmission of thought goes the world is but a hamlet.

I count as one of the great good things of the modern press--as one of the specific good things--that the same news, the same direction of thought is transmitted to many millions of people each day. So that the thoughts of multitudes of men are substantially tending at the same time along the same direction. It tends more and more to make us citizens in the highest sense of the term, and that is the reason that I have so much respect for the press.

Of course I know that the news and opinions are written by folks liable to the same percentage of error as characterizes all mankind. No one makes no mistakes but the man who knows everything--no one makes no mistakes but the hypocrite.

I must confess, however, that there are things about the press of to-day that I would have changed--that I do not like.

I hate to see brain the slave of the material god. I hate to see money own genius. So I think that every writer on every paper should be compelled to sign his name to everything he writes. There are many reasons why he has a right to the reputation he makes. His reputation is his property, his capital, his stock in trade, and it is not just or fair or right that it should be absorbed by the corporation which employs him. After giving great thoughts to the world, after millions of people have read his thoughts with delight, no one knows this lonely man or his solitary name. If he loses the good will of his employer, he loses his place and with it all that his labor and time and brain have earned for himself as his own inalienable property, and his corporation or employer reaps the benefit of it.

There is another reason establishing the absolute equity of this proposition, a reason pointing in other directions than to the writer and his rights. It is no more than right to the reader that the opinion or the narrative should be that of Mr. Smith or Mr. Brown or Mr. So and So, and not that of, say, the _Picayune_. That is too impersonal. It is no more than right that a single man should have his honor at stake for what is said, and not an impersonal something. I know that we are all liable to believe it if the _Picayune_ says it, and yet, after all, it is the individual man who is saying it and it is in the interest of justice that the reader be apprised of the fact.

I believe I have just a little fault to find with the tendency of the modern press to go into personal affairs--into so-called private affairs. In saying this, I have no complaint to lodge on my own behalf, for I have no private affairs. I am not so much opposed to what is called sensationalism, for that must exist as long as crime is considered news, and believe me, when virtue becomes news it can only be when this will have become an exceedingly bad world. At the same time I think that the publication of crime may have more or less the tendency of increasing it.

I read not long ago that if some heavy piece of furniture were dropped in a room in which there was a string instrument, the strings in harmony with the vibrations of the air made by that noise would take up the sound. Now a man with a tendency to crime would pick up that criminal feeling inspiring the act which he sees blazoned forth in all its detail in the press. In that view of the matter it seems to me better not to give details of all offences.

Now, as to the matter of being too personal, I think that one of the results of that sort of journalism is to drive a great many capable and excellent men out of public life. I heard a little story quite recently of a man who was being urged for the Legislature, and yet hesitated because of his fear of newspaper criticism of this character. "I don't want to run," said he to his wife, who urged that this was an opportunity to do himself and his friends honor, and that it was a sort of duty in him. "I would if I were you," said his wife. "Well, but there is no saying," he responded, "what the newspapers might print about me." "Why, your life has always been honorable," said she; "they could not say anything to your disparagement." "But they might attack my father." "Well, there was nothing in his career of which any one might feel ashamed. He was as irreproachable as you." "Ay, but they might attack you and tell of some devilment you went into before we were married." "Then you better not run," said his wife promptly. I think this fear on the part of husband and wife is identical with that which keeps many a great man out of public service.

Now, there is another thing which every one ought to abhor. All men and newspapers are entirely too apt to criticise the motives of men. It is a fault common to all good men--except the clergy, of course--this habit of attacking motives. And whenever we see a man do something which is great and praiseworthy, let us talk about the act itself and not go into a speculation or an attack upon the motive which prompted the act. Attack what a man actually does.

But these are only small matters. The press is the most powerful of all agencies for the dissemination of intelligence, and as such I hail it always. It has nearly always been very friendly and kind to me and certainly I have received at the hands of the New Orleans press a treatment I shall never forget.

Our Sunday newspapers, to my mind, rank among the greatest institutions of the present day. One finds in them matter that could not be found in several hundreds of books,--beautiful thoughts, broad intelligence, a range of information perfectly startling in its usefulness and perfectly charming in its entertainment. Contrast, please, how we are enabled by their good offices to spend the Sabbath, with the descriptions of hell with all its terrors and all the gloom characterizing the Sabbaths our forefathers had to spend. The Sunday newspaper is an absolute blessing to the American people, a picture gallery, short stories, little poems, a symposium of brain and intelligence and refinement and--divorce proceedings.

As I have said, the good will and the fair treatment of the American press have nearly always been my lot. There have been some misguided people who have said harsh things, but when I remember all the misguided things I have done, I am inclined to be charitable for their shortcomings.

I do not know that I have anything else to say, except that I wish you all good luck and sunshine and prosperity, and enough of it to last you through a long life.

THE CIRCULATION OF OBSCENE LITERATURE.

* From "Ingersoll As He Is," by E. M. Macdonald.

"ONE of the charges most persistently made against Colonel Ingersoll is that during and after the trial of D. M. Bennett, persecuted by Anthony Comstock, the Colonel endeavored to have the law against sending obscene literature through the mail repealed. That the charge is maliciously false is fully shown by the following brief history of events connected with the prosecution of D. M. Bennett, and Mr. Ingersoll's efforts in his behalf....

"After Mr. Bennett's arrest in 1877, he printed a petition to Congress, written by T. B. Wakeman, asking for the _repeal or modification_ of Comstock's law by which he expected to stamp out the publications of Freethinkers....

"The connection of Mr. Ingersoll with this petition is soon explained. Mr. Ingersoll knew of Comstock's attempts to suppress heresy by means of this law, and when called upon by the Washington committee in charge of the petition, he allowed his name to go on the petition for modification, but he told them distinctly and plainly that he was _not_ in favor of the _repeal_ of the law, as he was willing and anxious that obscenity should be suppressed by all legal means. His sentiments are best expressed by himself in a letter to the _Boston Journal_. He says:

"'Washington, March 18, 1878.

"'To the Editor of the Boston Journal:

"'My attention has been called to the following article that recently appeared in your paper:

"'Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, and others, feel aggrieved because Congress, in 1873, enacted a law for the suppression of obscene literature, and, believing it an infringement of the rights of certain citizens, and an effort to muzzle the press and conscience, petition for its repeal. When a man's conscience permits him to spread broadcast obscene literature, it is time that conscience was muzzled. The law is a terror only to evil-doers."

"'No one wishes the repeal of any law for the suppression of obscene literature. For my part, I wish all such laws rigidly enforced. The only objection I have to the law of 1873 is, that it has been construed to include books and pamphlets written against the religion of the day, although containing nothing that can be called obscene or impure. Certain religious fanatics, taking advantage of the word "immoral" in the law, have claimed that all writings against what they are pleased to call orthodox religion are immoral, and such books have been seized and their authors arrested. To this, and this only, I object.

"'Your article does me great injustice, and I ask that you will have the kindness to publish this note.

"'From the bottom of my heart I despise the publishers of obscene literature. Below them there is no depth of filth. And I also despise those, who, under the pretence of suppressing obscene literature, endeavor to prevent honest and pure men from writing and publishing honest and pure thoughts. Yours truly.

"'R. G. Ingersoll.'

"This is sufficiently easy of comprehension even for ministers, but of course they misrepresented and lied about the writer. From that day to this he has been accused of favoring the dissemination of obscene literature. That the friends of Colonel Ingersoll may know just how infamous this is, we will give a brief history of the repeal or modification movement....

"On October 26, the National Liberal League held its Congress in Syracuse. At this Congress the League left the matter of repeal or modification of the laws open, taking no action as an organization, either way, but elected officers known to be in favor of repeal. On December 10, Mr. Bennett was again arrested. He was tried, and found guilty; he appealed, the conviction was affirmed, and he was sentenced to thirteen months' imprisonment at hard labor.

"After the trial Colonel Ingersoll interposed, and endeavored to get a pardon for Mr. Bennett, who was held in Ludlow street jail pending President Hayes's reply. The man who occupied the President's office promised to pardon the Infidel editor; then he went back on his word, and Mr. Bennett served his term of imprisonment.

"Then preachers opened the sluiceways of vituperation and billingsgate upon Colonel Ingersoll for having interceded for a man convicted of mailing obscene literature. The charges were as infamously false then as they are now, and to show it, it is only necessary to quote Colonel Ingersoll's words during the year or two succeeding, when the Freethinkers and the Christians were not only opposing each other vigorously, but the Freethinkers themselves were divided on the question. In 1879, while Mr. Bennett was in prison, a correspondent of the Nashville, Tenn., _Banner_ said that the National Liberal League and Colonel Ingersoll were in favor of disseminating obscene literature. To this Colonel Ingersoll replied in a letter to a friend:

"1417 G St., Washington, Aug. 21, 1879.

"'My Dear Sir: The article in the Nashville _Banner_ by "J. L." is utterly and maliciously false.

"'A petition was sent to Congress praying for the repeal or modification of certain postal laws, to the end that the freedom of conscience and of the press should not be abridged.

"'Nobody holds in greater contempt than I the writers, publishers, or dealers in obscene literature. One of my objections to the Bible is that it contains hundreds of grossly obscene passages not fit to be read by any decent man, thousands of passages, in my judgment, calculated to corrupt the minds of youth. I hope the time will soon come when the good sense of the American people will demand a Bible with all obscene passages left out.

"'The only reason a modification of the postal laws is necessary is that at present, under color of those laws, books and pamphlets are excluded from the mails simply because they are considered heterodox and blasphemous. In other words, every man should be allowed to write, publish, and send through the mails his thoughts upon any subject, expressed in a decent and becoming manner. As to the propriety of giving anybody authority to overhaul mails, break seals, and read private correspondence, that is another question.

"'Every minister and every layman who charges me with directly or indirectly favoring the dissemination of anything that is impure, retails what he knows to be a wilful and malicious lie. I remain, Yours truly,

"'R. G. Ingersoll.'

"Three weeks after this letter was written the National Liberal League held its third annual Congress at Cincinnati. Colonel Ingersoll was chairman of the committee on resolutions and platform and unfinished business of the League. One of the subjects to be dealt with was these Comstock laws. The following are Colonel Ingersoll's remarks and the resolutions he presented:

"'It may be proper, before presenting the resolutions of the committee, to say a word in explanation. The committee were charged with the consideration of the unfinished business of the League. It seems that at Syracuse there was a division as to what course should be taken in regard to the postal laws of the United States. These laws were used as an engine of oppression against the free circulation of what we understand to be scientific literature. Every honest man in this country is in favor of allowing every other human being every right that he claims for himself. The majority at Syracuse were at that time simply in favor of the absolute repeal of those laws, believing them to be unconstitutional--not because they were in favor of anything obscene, but because they were opposed to the mails of the United States being under the espionage and bigotry of the church. They therefore demanded an absolute repeal of the law. Others, feeling that they might be misunderstood, and knowing that theology can coin the meanest words to act as the vehicle of the lowest lies, were afraid of being misunderstood, and therefore they said, Let us amend these laws so that our literature shall be upon an equality with that of theology. I know that there is not a Liberal here, or in the United States, that is in favor of the dissemination of obscene literature. One of the objections which we have to the book said to be written by God is that it is obscene.

"'The Liberals of this country believe in purity, and they believe that every fact in nature and in science is as pure as a star. We do not need to ask for any more than we want. We simply want the laws of our country so framed that we are not discriminated against. So, taking that view of the vexed question, we want to put the boot upon the other foot. We want to put the charge of obscenity where it belongs, and the committee, of which I have the honor to be one of the members, have endeavored to do just that thing. Men have no right to talk to me about obscenity who regard the story of Lot and his daughters as a fit thing for men, women, and children to read, and who worship a God in whom the violation of [_Cheers drowned the conclusion of this sentence so the reporters could not hear it._] Such a God I hold in infinite contempt.

"'Now I will read you the resolutions recommended by the committee.

"'RESOLUTIONS.

"'Your committee have the honor to submit the following report: "'First, As to the unfinished business of the League, your committee submits the following resolutions: