The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 09 (of 12): Dresden Edition—PoliticalIngersoll, Robert Green
History
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 09 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Political
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
Such another attendance of ladies has never been known at a
political meeting in Chicago. They came by the hundreds, and
the speaker looked down from his perch upon thousands of
fair upturned faces, stamped with the most intense interest
in his remarks.
The galleries were packed. The frame of the huge elevator
creaked, groaned, and swayed with the crowd roosting upon
it. The trusses bore their living weight. The gallery
railings bent and cracked. The roof was crowded, and the sky
lights teemed with heads. Here and there an adventurous
youth crept out on the girders and braces. Towards the
northern end of the building, on the west side, is a smaller
gallery, dark, and not particularly strong-looking. It was
fairly packed--packed like a sardine-box--with men and boys.
Up in the organ-loft around the sides of the organ,
everywhere that a human being could sit, stand or hang, was
pre-empted and filled.
It was a magnificent, outpouring, at east 50,000 In number,
a compliment alike to the principle it represented, and the
orator.--Chicago Tribune., October 21st, 1876.
HAYES CAMPAIGN.
1876.
LADIES and Gentlemen:--Democrats and Republicans have a common interest
in the United States. We have a common interest in the preservation of
good order. We have a common interest in the preservation of a common
country. And I appeal to all, Democrats and Republicans, to endeavor
to make a conscientious choice; to endeavor to select as President and
Vice-President of the United States the men and the parties, which, in
your judgment, will best preserve this nation, and preserve all that is
dear to us either as Republicans or Democrats.
The Democratic party comes before you and asks that you will give this
Government into its hands; and you have a right to investigate as to the
reputation and character of the Democratic organization. The Democratic
party says, "Let bygones be bygones." I never knew a man who did a
decent action that wanted it forgotten. I never knew a man who did some
great and shining act of self-sacrifice and heroic devotion who did
not wish that act remembered. Not only so, but he expected his loving
children would chisel the remembrance of it upon the marble that marked
his last resting place. But whenever a man does an infamous thing;
whenever a man commits some crime; whenever a man does that which
mantles the cheeks of his children with shame; he is the man that says,
"Let bygones be bygones." The Democratic party admits that it has a
record, but it says that any man that will look into it, any man that
will tell it, is not a gentleman. I do not know whether, according to
the Democratic standard, I am a gentleman or not; but I do say that in a
certain sense I am one of the historians of the Democratic party.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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