HOW A FAMOUS QUOTE CAME ABOUT
In the San Francisco Examiner edition of Dec. 16, 1888, Ambrose Bierce is hostile to the newspaper's editor in criticizing Robert G. Ingersoll's negative opinion in the paper about the supposed Deity and the nature of the Christian religion. Ingersoll was a prominent, outspoken agnostic. (William Randolph Hearst, publisher of the Examiner, had given Bierce free rein to write opinions without editorial interference.)
Bierce wrote: "If it is fair for the editor of this paper to print the opinions of his contributors and then discredit them by disparaging headlines and editorial ridicule it is fair for his contributors to "do as much for him"; but in no case does fair play permit misrepresentation of an opponent's views..."
A week later, in his column, Bierce resumed the controversy as it pertained to his defense of Ingersoll: "O yes, I am a child of the devil and plague-spotted with incurable sin, but I fancy that I am credited in the book of the Recording Angel with the most astonishing conversion to religion of which there is any account. In his eagerness to get away from the question that I raised, namely, whether he did or did not misrepresent Colonel Ingersoll, the editor of this paper has run spang into the bosom of the Protestant Church! As camels and Christians receive their burdens kneeling, I suppose there is a pretty lively scramble for prayer cushions."
(Source: Ambrose Bierce: Collected Essays and Journalism, Vol.. 20: 1888-1889, edited by David E. Schultz and S.T. Joseph, Sarnath Press)
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