The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-08-17
LIBERTY HIS DEITY.
Col. Ingersolrs Grafton on the
Swiss Anniversary.
KINGS GONE. GHOSTS GOING.
Not Worth While to Unshackle the
Body and Make Convict Of the
Mind-The Right to Think.

Colonel Ingersoll at the celebration of the
six hundredth anniversary of Swiss indie
pendence, at Butte, Mont, August 2:
Ladies and Gentlemen: We have met to
celebrate one of those sublime events that
history holds in her hand as a torch; one
of those sublime events that has shed
light on the whole civilized world. SIX
centuries ago, six centuries with all their
springs and summers and autumns and
winters, six centuries with all their births
and deaths, six centuries with all their
loves and hatreds, six centuries with all
their sorrows and joys and pains and VIC
tories, have passed since then. Six CEN
turtles ago, a few men, most of them peas
ants, established a republic, and that re-
public still stands. While kings have
been uncrowned, and dynasties have been
dethroned, and the face of the earth has
been swept by storm after storm OF revo-
luton, the eagle of liberty still scars amid
the crags and cliffs of Switzerland.
As this is Sunday may be l had better
take text. / will take line from one OF
the greatest of writer's. 1t is thls-"Ihere
is no darkness but ignorance. And am
going to show that slavery comes from ig-
norance, and that freedom is and always
has been the child of intelligence. In the
old times of the world man did the best he
could. He came out of the dens end caves,
mostly wild, and pressed the matted hair
from his small and cunning eyes. There
have passed year after year and century
after century, until now we enjoy some
thing like freedom of body and mind.
| blame nobody. l do not blame the
ignorant and beastly wretches who
fought on the other side. They did the
best they knew. If there Is anybody in
the world who does not believe in the
absolute freedom of body and mind he is
likewise poor, besotted, ignorant wretch.
Gradually. by the development of brain,
the world has been raised. That is the
only wav to do it, We enjoy something
like liberty today and we ought to re-
member what it has cost. This privilege
has cost the bravest and best blood that
ever coarsed in human veins. For this
privilege millions and millions have per-
ished in dungeons, bound with rusty
chains, and have left their wives and chill
dren and barred their breasts on the battle
field to sword and sabre and cannon ball.
Think of the fagots that have been piled
about their feet, the flames climbing about
their limbs, scorchiDg their eyes to blind
ness that we might see the better day.
member that the priceless pearl of liberty
is in their keeping, and it is for them to
hand it down to their children to the last
generation.
What is it to be free? In the dear old
times when everybody hated everybody,
when every nation hated every nation,
when man was so degraded that he did
not have imagination enough to SYM
pathize with one who differed from him in
nationality, o. in clothing, or in language,
or who knelt to god different from his
and only wanted to rob and kill him, all
power to govern man came from the
clouds. Men were taught that somewhere
in the astronomical spaces. somewhere in
the whirling, circling heavens, was an i'm
who put kings on thrones, who decreed
that peasants should labor and not eat,
work and not enjoy, and that others
should have the Iuxuries of life
/ cannot imagine any man teach
ing this who does not believe
it, nor can imagine one who does believe
it. / can't imagine it, and SO take it for
granted. The king ruled with club, and
so when the people thought of god above
them, they only thought of big chief or
big king. So the priests said and so the
king said, and so the nobility said, all
power comes from the clouds. 1t is poured
in holy oil on the head of the king; few
drops on the head of the nobility and a
drop, may be, on the parish beadle, but
there was not any authority unless one
got drop on his brainless head. So for
ages man was governed from the clouds,
and thefew governed the many. The few
lived on the sweat and blood and agony of
the many. A good deal of that trouble
exists today even in America.
Finally the thought crept into mans
head, or perhaps it had always been there,
that the source of authority is man him
self, not beyond the clouds or by kings or
priests. 1t suddenly occurred that the
source of authority is the consent of the
governed. So it occurred to the Swiss 600
years ago. So 1t occurred to our Revolution
airy fathers in the last century. That the
source of authority is the consent of the
governed, is one of the sublimest declara-
tions that ever fell from mortal lips. 1t
reversed the order of things. The pyra-
mid had been standing on it's top. Our
forefathers turned it over and put it on its
broad base. l want you all to get it into
your brains that no congress or president
governs us. All presidents and congress-
men and officeholders are no more nor less
than our servants. [Great applause That
is the American doctrine and every sover-
eign citizen should stand by his sovereign.
In the Old World it is the custom for
everybody to crawl in the dust, tat on
the stomach, In the presence of royalty
or nobility. The people are the
source of authority. The people are SOW
ereign, and all In power are merely serv-
ants. Our forefathers took the source of
authority from the clouds and gave it back
to the people. They said to the priests:
pray all you desire; preach all you wish,
but don't get it into your heads
that your god beyond the clouds
is president of the United States"
They said to the church: 'You
shall serve, not govern" Our forefathers
retired all the divinities from politics.
They decided that in this government man
should be free not only so far as the state
is concerned, but in his soul. He shall
worship what he believes is worthy of
worship, and no church or government
shall force him on his knees That grand
est of declarations was not made against
religion, but in favor of freedom. Unless
you have liberty of mind you can't have
true worship. Do you suppose god likes
to see slave on his knees? Worship to
be of any value must be the perfume of a
grateful heart.
Our forefathers said it is not enough to
free the mind we must free the body. If
a man works and produces something,
taat something belongs to that man. Yet
few years ago the people of the United
States were in doubt on that question. If
q man plowed a field and planted corn.
and thereupon the arrows of light had
warmed the growing grain, and it had be-
come yellow and he harvested it in the hot
autumn: and there had been a man sitting
on the fence all the time who never struck
lick of work, who never plowed a furrow
and yet who suddenly got Oft the fence and
said, This is my corn" this question
was lett TO the supreme court of the United
States. And the supreme court pushed its
spectacles back on its massive head and
solemnly decided that the man who sat on
the fence should have the corn.
We know better now. But the lesson
cost rivers of brave blood But we found
II out. and are never going to forget it.
Now we say, if man earns anything it
belongs to him and whoever has tho on