The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents / Dresden Edition—Twelve Volumes

by Robert Green Ingersoll

These generous people, filled with the spirit of charity, raised a little money, succeeded in hiring or erecting a humble building, and the money they collected, so honestly given, they honestly used to bind up the wounds and wipe away the tears of the unfortunate, and to save, if possible, some who had been wrecked on the rocks and reefs of crime.

Then some very rich man dies who had no charity and who would not have left a dollar could he have taken his money with him. This rich man, who hated his relatives and the people he actually knew, gives a large sum of money to some particular charity—not that he had any charity, but because he wanted to be remembered as a philanthropist.

Then the organized charity becomes rich, and the richer the meaner, the richer the harder of heart and the closer of fist.

Now, I believe that Trinity Church, in this city, would be called an organized charity. The church was started to save, if possible, a few souls from eternal torment, and on the plea of saving these souls money was given to the church.

Finally the church became rich. It is now a landlord—has many buildings to rent. And if what I hear is true there is no harder landlord in the city of New York.

So, I have heard it said of Dublin University, that it is about the hardest landlord in Ireland.

I think you will find that all such institutions try to collect the very last cent, and, in the name of pity, drive pity from their hearts.

I think it is Shakespeare who says, "Pity drives out pity," and he must have had organized charities in his mind when he uttered this remark. Of course a great many really good and philanthropic people leave vast sums of money to charities.

I find that it is sometimes very difficult to get an injured man, or one seized with some sudden illness, taken into a city hospital. There are so many rules and so many regulations, so many things necessary to be done, that while the rules are being complied with the soul of the sick or injured man, weary of the waiting, takes its flight. And after the man is dead, the doctors are kind enough to certify that he died of heart failure.

So—in a general way—I speak of all the asylums, of all the homes for orphans. When I see one of those buildings I feel that it is full of petty tyranny, of what might be called pious meanness, devout deviltry, where the object is to break the will of every recipient of public favor.