Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1906 — INGERSOLL ON RUSSIA. [ARTICLE]

INGERSOLL ON RUSSIA.

Current Events Recall Oration When Czar Was Crowned. Chicago Inter Ocean. Robert G. Ingersoll wrote burning words on the coronation of Nicholas. They are being recalled now, when Russian affairs have again reached a serious crisis. Here is what Ingersoll said: “While reading the accounts of the coronation of the Czar, of the pageants, processions and feasts, the pomp and parade, of the barbaric splendor, of cloth of gold and glittering gems, I could not help but think of the poor and melancholy peasants, of the toiling, half fed millions, of the sad and ignorant multitudes who belong body and soul to this Czar. “I thought of the backs that have been scarred by the knout, of the thousands in prisons having dared to say a whispered word for freedom. of the great multitudes who bad been driven like cattle along the weary roads that lead to the hell of Siberia. “The cannon at Moscow were not load enough, nor the clanging of the bells, nor the blare of the trumpets, to drown the groans of the captives. “I thought of the fathers that had been torn from wives and children for the orime of speaking like men. “And when the priests spoke of the Czar as the ‘God selected man,’ the ‘God adorned man,’ my blood grew warm. “When I read of the coronation of the Czarina I thought of Siberia. I thought of girU working in mines, hauling ore from the pits with chains about their waist, young girls, almost naked, at the mercy of brutal officials; young girls weeping and moaning their lives away because between their pure lips the word liberty had burst into blossom. “Yet law neglects, forgets them and crowns the Czarina. The injus tee, the agony, and horror in this poor world are enough to make mankind insane. “Ignorance and superstition crowd impudence and tyranny. Millions of money squandered for the humiliation of man, to dishonor the people. “Back of the coronation, back of the ceremonies, back of all the hypocrisy there is nothing but a lie. “It is not true that God ‘selected this Czar to rule and rob a hundred millions of human beings. 1 “It is all an ignorant, barbaric, superstitious lie—a lie that pomp and pageant, and flaunting flags, and robed priests, and swinging censures, cannot ohange to truth. “Those who are not blinded by the glare and glitter at Mosoow see millions of homes on which the shadows fall; see millions of weeping mothers, whose children have been stolen by the Czar; see thousands of villages without schools; millions of houses without any books, millions and millions of men, women, and children in whose future there is no star and whose only friend is death. “The coronation is an insalt to the nineteenth oentnry. “Long live the people of Russia.” See Baughman & Williams for farm and city loans.