The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04
LETTERS TO EDITOR
Regarding Ingersoll Review

10 the Editor or The ASe-Herald.
 Assuming, and, as l believe, safely as- suming, that you stand ready to make amends for any injustice for which you, as editor of so reputable and so infiuen- tial journal as The Age-Herald, may be either directly or indirectly responsi- ble. l ask that you publish, near ''The Book Shelf" a correction of some of the inaccurate and misleading statements contained in pr. Mcvoy's review of Tn gersoll: Biographical Appreciation" in your issue of January 2l. The facts to which I particularly desire to invite at tention are as follows:
 1. Nowhere in my book do I myself assert that 1ngersoll twas greater than Shakespeare" ?. Ingersol was not "the son of a Presbyterian minister" He was the son of a Congregational minis ter, and my book so states. 3. The latter does not assert that 'Ingersoll was great CT than any President will be-" 4. The following sentences, placed within quota tion marks, as though extracted from my work, are not contained therein: "Who remembers Presidents? They are forgotten, while Ingersolls memory is ililltllSudblts .. IHStTSbll ulu HDl boast that Shakespeare was his Bible, and Burns his hymbook.'' Nor does my book state, or even imply. that Ingersoll so boasted. G. The statement that Inger- soils doctrine was to give child "spe- ical betting as reward for his mis- deeds" is an unjustifable msrepresenta- tion [. After quoting Ingersoll as say | inG that Christ was not a man, but q myth,'' and then as saying that he Qn- gersolD believe that Christ was a man, 1 pr. McVoy asks how the two statements are to be reconciled. But he is strongly silent as to the fact that, on the very page (266) from which he is quoting, is this foot note: During three succeeding periods 1ngersoll held as many different views of the Christ of the New Testa- ment: First, that he was a man; second, | that he was either a myth or a man. third, tl1t he was a myth The views held during the first two periods were. of course. modified by more comprehensive research and thought" s. Ingersol did not, as Dr. McVoy implies. teach unqual- | ihedly that suicide was not a sin" He | taught-l quote his ow1 words-that "un- ! der many circumstances a man has the | right to kiil himself." There is an im- mense difference between the two doc I trnes g. The man on crutches anecdote,
 
 book, is without the slightest founda- ton, and has many times been authori- tatively dseredited. Nor is it correct that Ingersoll's doctrine invariably broke down when he stood by the open grave. There he showed the white feather" My book proves the opposite.
 pr. McVoy states that Ingersoll was but shooting star in the Armament of the worlds thought and action, and soon will be hardly even memory; that mo father can point to his example as worthy of emulation, no mother can speak his name with reyerence''; that .' Forgotten may we'll be carved upon his tomb: and that the ripple he caused on life's sea has also disappeared" But the fact that. during the P years which have elapsed since his death. more than 15,000 volumes of his works, in addition to hundreds of thousands of copies of his individual lec- lures. have been sold; that his Prose Poems and Selections Is. I think, in its