El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-08-15
INGERSOLL IN THE CAMPAIGN

IN6ERSOLL IN THE CAMPAIGN
His EloquenCe Influenced By Quak
crosses BY a Men,
Dry
II cannot understand said the doc
tor. why so many of the newspapers
insist that Col Ingersoll will be.remem-
bered Tor his attacks on Christianity,
There are thousands of Ingersoll's adj
mirers who never cared picayune
about his religious views, and who
we're never Influenced in the slightest
degree by bis attacke on Christianity.
When all that the Colonel said and
wrote about religion has been forgot
ten 1ngersoll will be remem bered for
the literary individuality and finish of
his orations. He was born an crater,
and he gave warmer tone to the
oratOry or platform speech of his day
than any other man.
"There was not only magic in his
voice, in his method of speaking, but
there was the power to entrance young
and old in his imagery, his poetry, his
sympathy with humanity. His sem
fences were flung in the faces of listen
ers as though they were full-blown
roses, fresh and fragrant. things to be
priced at the time and treasured ever
afterward. His figures were striking
in their ptcturesqueness, and yet they
were at the level of the average man
and woman. Ingersoll brought to the
platform unstudied grace and warmth
of speech. He spoke from full heart,
in words that had the charm of the best
culture, and yet in words so simple that
they reached the common understand
ing:
''When he was returning from his
wonderful speaking tour in 1876, was
one of the Chicago friends who went
known Ipgersoll for many years, and
had heard him speak, but had never
heard him speak as he spoke at the re-
publican convention at Cincinnati in
nominating Blaine. That speech was
revelation to many of his most init
mate friends, and some of US, reading
every day the reports of the enthusi-
asm created by bis oratory in conserv-
alive New England and the east, went
out to Indiana to see wherein the Bob
Ingersoll of old had changed in his
speaking methods. We met him at
Elkhsrt, where all that section of In
diana had gathered to greet the man
who returned from the east the great
est platform orator of the time.
The train was late, 1 remember,
and there were two great crowds sway
grounds, where the speaking was to
take place, and the other at the rail-
way station. When the train came in
IngersOll was received as though he
were president of the United States.
He paid no heed to the shouting or the
demonstrations of enthusiasm, but
walked straight ahead to where his
wife and daughter were standing wait
ing to greet him for the first time in
his new fame. caught them both
in his arms, and the crowd went wild
over the meeting OF the Ingersoll fami-
ly.
"Then the colonel went to the
grounds where he was to speak and
stilled the clsmor of wild enthusiasm
by raising his hand. He announc. ID
that he followed the good, old-fashion-
speaking, and Hubbard and Hubbard,
and others of the Chicago quartet,
sang one of their favorite selections.
Then these. four men who had heard
Ingersoll forty times on the same sub
ject, sat down on the floor at his feet
and looked up into his face expectantly
as men who knew that they were to be
eotraneed; 1ngerso!l began in his
characteristic way lifting his audience
to climax after climax until men and
women who had been seated stood on
their feet looking up. Looking down
on this great crowd, throbbing to his
every utterance, Ingersoll's eyes fell
on group of twenty or
thirty women in Quaker garb.
"There was on every one of those,
sweet young or old faces = look of alb
soil in his soaring eloquence, unbeliev-
ing as to his power to release them
from the whirlwind swept upward and
let them safely down. He seemed to
catch the meaning on their face and,
with manner as oaressfng and gentle
as that of q mother with q babe, he
spoke as If to them of the preciousiness
of the privilege every one enjoyed, and
he came down from his Lofty flight with
like bird on wing over .the group of
women in drab. We of Chicago knew
then that the oratory of Ingersoll had
grown bp his communion with the
people,"
"Ingersol told me-" said the major,
That his heart grew larger 1every day
OF that great campaign. He told me
also, that as he stood little later be-
fore that tremendous crowd in the old
exposition building memory of his
boyhood came to him and almost choked
his utterance. When the Ingersoll
family was living at Aurora, Bob drove
his father the forty miles to Chicago in
q wagon to take boat here for the
east. He drove up one day, was to
spend the night here and drive back
the next. When the father said good
by to the boy he asked, "Robbie, have
you money enough to get through?"
Ingersoll 1t the time had not a cent in
his pocket. He didn't want his fasher
TO know this. He didn't want to take
any of the sosnt supply of money that
his father carried, did not want the
old gentleman to be uneasy about him,
30 he replied carelessly that he had
money enOuph tn oct home