Greetings Friends,
In doing research on noted botanist Luther Burbank, I found that the otherwise mild-mannered and gentle man found occasion at the end of his life to "go public" in defense of free thought. An inspiring but ultimately sad story ... www.ffrf.org/fttoday/back/burbankbio.html
Luther Burbank was widely known as a botanist and scientist. His fame as an inventor of new fruits, plants and flowers inspired world-wide interest in plant breeding, for which he was recognized by an Act of Congress, among many other honors.
What was not widely known, until just before his death in 1926 at the age of 77, was that Luther Burbank was a freethinker. Those who had read his writings and attended his lectures on evolution knew that he was a "naturalist," in both the scientific and philosophical usages of the word; but the general public, loving him for his work as a gentle horticulturist, knew nothing of his iconoclastic opinions.
Burbank had always been frank about freethought with friends and colleagues. He had read the rationalist press, and was fond of E. Haldeman Julius's "Little Blue Books." Robert G. Ingersoll was one of his favorite writers: "I do not think there is a person in this world who has been a more ardent admirer of [Ingersoll] than I have been. His life and work have been an inspiration to the whole earth, shedding light in the dark places which so sadly needed light," Burbank wrote.
Until 1926, Burbank had preferred not to publicize his freethought views broadly, devoting his energies to the Burbank's Experiment Farms in Santa Rosa, California. But two events caused him finally to go public with his opinions of religion.
The first was the famous Scopes trial of 1925, the "monkey trial" that thrust evolution into the national spotlight. The fact that a high school teacher had been put on trial for teaching the "heresy" of Darwinism (which Burbank had been teaching, and practicing, for many years) "aroused him to a conviction that he ought to speak out, without mincing words, and declare for truth," according to biographer Wilbur Hall (The Harvest Of The Years, by Luther Burbank, with Wilbur Hall, 1927, Houghton Mifflin).
The second event was his friend Henry Ford's newly publicized views in favor of reincarnation. Edgar Waite, a reporter for the San Francisco Bulletin, interviewed Burbank about his reaction to Ford's ideas and wrote a front-page story appearing on January 22, 1926, with the headline: "I'm an Infidel, Declares Burbank, Casting Doubt on Soul Immortality Theory."
In the article, which was reprinted around the world, Burbank expressed his doubts about an afterlife: "A theory of personal resurrection or reincarnation of the individual is untenable when we but pause to consider the magnitude of the idea.
"On the contrary, I must believe that rather than the survival of all, we must look for survival only in the spirit of the good we have done in passing through. This is as feasible and credible as Henry Ford's own practice of discarding the old models of his automobile.
"Once obsolete, an automobile is thrown to the scrap heap. Once here and gone, the human life has likewise served its purpose. If it has been a good life, it has been sufficient. There is no need for another."
"But as a scientist," Burbank continued, "I can not help feeling that all religions are on a tottering foundation. None is perfect or inspired."
"The idea that a good God would send people to a burning hell is utterly damnable to me. I don't want to have anything to do with such a God."
But the phrase that caused the most consternation among believers was, "I am an infidel today.
"I do not believe what has been served to me to believe. I am a doubter, a questioner, a skeptic. When it can be proved to me that there is immortality, that there is resurrection beyond the gates of death, then will I believe. Until then, no."
This story was a bombshell, creating shock waves around the world. "A whirlwind of hatred engulfed him within twenty-four hours," wrote biographer Hale, "tempered only by fluent and admiring congratulations from thousands and thousands of the thoughtful."
Burbank was inundated with thousands of letters--532 one day, according to Waite. The rationalist Joseph McCabe visited Burbank's home during that time and noticed "a pile of opened letters, ankle-deep, on the floor. 'Today's crop,' [Burbank] says. A smaller pile lies on the desk, and must be answered."
Most of the Christians, and many clergy, had hoped that Burbank had either been misquoted or that he had been thoughtless in choosing the word "infidel." But in a follow-up interview, Burbank indicated that he had checked with the dictionary. "I am an infidel," he insisted. "I know what an infidel is, and that's what I am."
This controversy was to be Burbank's last battle. Wilbur Hale, who was with him during those weeks, "saw him growing tired and harassed, not by the dispute or the vilification heaped on him by the regenerate, but by the physical task entailed. He tried to reply to all the letters, using mild but fearless good sense with those who attacked him, and amplifying his original statement for those who supported him."
". . . he was misled into believing that logic, kindliness, and reason could convince and help the bigoted."
"He fell sick. The sickness was fated to be his last.
"What killed Luther Burbank, at just that time and in just that abrupt and tragic fashion, was his baffled, yearning, desperate effort to make people understand. His desire to help them, to clarify their minds, and to induce them to substitute fact for hysteria drove him beyond his strength. He grew suddenly old attempting to make reasonable a people which had been unreasonable through twenty stiff-necked generations. . .
"He died, not a martyr to truth, but a victim of the fatuity of blasting dogged falsehood."