The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 42
[introducing Robert G. Ingersoll]
["A brilliant, genial gentleman; a man of brains, and a heart as tender as a woman's; a man greatly respected and admired by all who know him, greatly detested by many among those who do not, and who do not agree with him in opinion; a man who does his own thinking, and who says what he thinks, and thinks before he says it, is about to address you in review of a great historical character. He will do this from his own standpoint and in his own way. Had he lived one hundred years ago, and succeeded in doing this, he would, under the forms of law, have been imprisoned,—if, indeed, he were suffered to live,—his children taken from him, his property confiscated, his name traduced and his memory vilified. Times have changed. The world of thought and opinion moves as well as the world of matter. He may speak to you here to-day, freely and without reserve. He may give his honest thought. You have come to hear him and not me. Let me introduce him—Col. Robert G. Ingersoll."]