Читать книгу The Essential Works of Robert G. Ingersoll - Robert Green Ingersoll - Страница 186

Table of Contents

Walt Whitman is in the highest sense a believer in democracy. He knows that there is but one excuse for government—the preservation of liberty, to the end that man may be happy. He knows that there is but one excuse for any institution, secular or religious—the preservation of liberty; and that there is but one excuse for schools, lor universal education, for the ascertainment of facts, namely, the preservation of liberty. He resents the arrogance and cruelty of power. He has sworn never to be tyrant or slave. He has solemnly declared:

"I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy, By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms."

This one declaration covers the entire ground. It is a declaration of independence, and it is also a declaration of justice, that is to say, a declaration of the independence of the individual, and a declaration that all shall be free. The man who has this spirit can truthfully say:

"I have taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown. I am for those that have never been master'd."

There is in Whitman what he calls "The boundless impatience of restraint," together with that sense of justice which compelled him to say, "Neither a servant nor a master am I."

He was wise enough to know that giving others the same rights that he claims for himself could not harm him, and he was great enough to say: "As if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same."

He felt as all should feel, that the liberty of no man is safe unless the liberty of each is safe.

There is in our country a little of the old servile spirit, a little of the bowing and cringing to others. Many Americans do not understand that the officers of the government are simply the servants of the people. Nothing is so demoralizing as the worship of place. Whitman has reminded the people of this country that they are supreme, and he has said to them:

"The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who are here for him, The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them. Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you, Sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere are tallied in you."

He describes the ideal American citizen—the one who

"Says indifferently and alike 'How are you, friend?' to the President at his levee, And he says 'Good-day, my brother,' to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field."

Long ago, when the politicians were wrong, when the judges were subservient, when the pulpit was a coward, Walt Whitman shouted:

"Man shall not hold property in man."

"The least develop'd person on earth is just as important and sacred to himself or herself as the most develop'd person is to himself or herself."

This is the very soul of true democracy.

Beauty is not all there is of poetry. It must contain the truth. It is not simply an oak, rude and grand, neither is it simply a vine. It is both. Around the oak of truth runs the vine of beauty.

Walt Whitman utters the elemental truths and is the poet of democracy. He is also the poet of individuality.