A crew from Otto Baum hoists the statue of Robert Ingersoll from its base at Glen Oak Park and loads it in a van for shipment to Philadelphia were it will be cleaned and restored. Peorian Ken Hofbauer learned about the statue’s deterioration and reached out to a number of organizations to help raise funds for a restoration that is expected to cost about $31,000. Donations came through efforts by Freedom from Religion Foundation, Peoria Secular Humanists and the Robert Green Ingersoll Memorial Committee. Ingersoll was a renowned orator and atheist, often referred to as “The Great Agnostic.” Renovations are expected to be completed and the statue re-dedicated sometime this autumn.

Hofbauer, retired from Yeomans Distributing Co., said Ingersoll was one of Peoria’s greatest citizens and the Glen Oak statue is the only Ingersoll statue in existence. Ingersoll’s ashes are interred in Arlington National Cemetery.

“Robert Green Ingersoll was an advocate for all humanity, taking a stand against slavery long before that was popular, and he was a strong believer in equality for women, and all people. He was a great intellect for reason, as well as a renowned orator and author. His works take up a fair amount of shelf space in the library of the Universal Unitarian Church. He was famous worldwide, but almost ignored here in Peoria,” Hofbauer said.

Among Ingersoll’s famous quotes:

“Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.”

“I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot.”

“Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself.”

“The doctrine of eternal punishment is in perfect harmony with the savagery of the men who made the orthodox creeds. It is in harmony with torture, with flaying alive and with burnings. The men who burned their fellow-men for a moment, believed that God would burn his enemies forever.”

“Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers; it is the only prayer that deserves an answer — good, honest, noble work.”

“The book, called the Bible, is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust and atrocious. This is the book to be read in schools in order to make our children loving, kind and gentle! This is the book they wish to be recognized in our Constitution as the source of all authority and justice!”