p. 4 | DONE BROWN by Congregationalist

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 23, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 12.

DONE BROWN.

By Congregationalist

REV. C. O. BROWN, Congregational pastor in Dubuque, Iowa, in December last, in a discourse, charged that Mr. Ingersoll had headed a petition to Congress to repeal the laws which guard the mails against obscene, lewd, and indecent books, implements, and pictures. A report of this charge was made in the Dubuque Times of December 21. Mr. Ingersoll then wrote a letter to some person in Dubuque, declaring that he never signed any such petition; that the object of the petition referred to was merely to have the law so changed that it should not include infidel books; that he never went before a committee of the Senate to ask the repeal of the law; and, in general, and as to all these particulars, that "the poor little reverend dog," Mr. Brown, was an "unqualified," "conscious" and "malicious" liar. Mr. Ingersoll's friend caused the letter to be published.

Mr. Brown replied to these charges. He showed first that Mr. Ingersoll did, either with his own hand, or by an authorized agent, head the petition referred to, and proved his assertion by citing the Associated Press dispatch sent all over the country, announcing that "seventy thousand freemen, headed by Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, have petitioned Congress to repeal the Comstock laws;" by showing that, during the more than three months before the committee of the House reported upon that petition, Mr. Ingersoll—being in Washington, and fully cognizant of what was going on—never denied that his name, as was asserted, headed the same; and by citing the House report of May 1, 1878, which begins thus: "The committee . . . to whom was referred the petition of Robert G. Ingersoll and others."

Mr. Brown showed, second, that the object of the petition was not "merely to modify the statute" so as to allow of the transmission of "infidel" books; for the reason that the only clause of the law to which the petition in terms could refer, and that clause to which the committee of Congress confined it, was this:—

"No obscene, lewd, or lascivious book, pamphlet, picture, paper, print, or other publication of an indecent character, or intended for the prevention of conception, or procuring abortion, nor any article or thing intended or adapted for any indecent or immoral use," etc.

It would be taking undue advantage of Mr. Ingersoll to insist that he intended to concede that "infidel" books can fairly be described as above. What he meant to do clearly was to confuse the public mind as to the real facts of the case, trusting that the difficulty of access to the documents might keep out of sight the falsehood under which he had undertaken bravely to retreat.

In the third place, as to Mr. Ingersoll's square denial that he ever went before the committee to plead for the repeal thus asked, Mr. Brown showed that, if he didn't, it was not the fault of his intent, by citing two letters, of date March 23 and April 15, 1878, signed by "J. Weed Corey, secretary of the committee of the petitioners," each of which asked that "Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, chairman of our committee," be allowed to speak before the Senate Committee "on the subject of repealing, or materially modifying, certain postal laws," etc.

Mr. Brown thus triumphantly demonstrated the points which he made. He did more—particularly three things: He convicted the brilliant infidel of being a moral coward, capable of disingenuously skulking behind the shallowest pretexts in the endeavor to escape honest responsibility for things actually done by himself. He stamped upon him the ineffaceable stigma of leading against those laws the onset of free-lovers, and of the scoundrels who, until the "Comstock laws" put a stop to the infamy, had been making money by procuring the catalogues of boarding schools and other seminaries, and covertly sending through the mails the most indecent and filthy books, pamphlets, pictures, and implements to boys, and even girls, at a dangerous age. And—by printing the man's own letter—he has made it clear that Colonel Ingersoll is as far from being a gentleman, as—by his energetic and perpetual affirmation—he must be presumed to be, from being a Christian.—Congregationalist.