The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1858-03-31
Reform VS.. Qslietism.

A very common opposition to Reform,
nevertheless, springs from kind of OH
etism, that shrinks with dread and disgust
from all agitations and conceits. This is
often the case with men of refinel tastes
and literary culture. They are aloft in the
regions of thought, above the dust and
jar of the street. They sec truth in its
absolute relations, and have but little sym
patty with these partial and changeful
theories. They are in communion with
the past in its mellow serenity and ripe re-
suits, and dislike the credulity of the pres
ent. They are sensitive, and recoil from
these abrupt and angular forces. They
have clear insight and see all the objec-
tons that arc involved. They perceive
the ludicrous side of things, and are ready
with cynical sheer or a pleasant jest.
They laugh at all this no;sc about ''Liber-
ty and Equalty"-at tri colored cockades
and temperance medals. But Quietism
finds room, also, in a very different quar-
ter-among comfortable men, with plenty
of beef and coal, whose ideas are not the
most fruitful, and whose mental perception
is somewhat misty, but who hold tight to
what they do sce-who akeup in obsti-
macy what they lack in knowledge, and
with whom strong assertion stands in lieu
of logic. Fenced in as they are against
sharp necessities, and well to do in the
world, they cannot discern the use of all
this agitation-they do not see but things
are as near right as they can be, and they
class together and denounce all reformers
in discriminatory as rascals and fanatics.
And yet. perhaps one rod from the Qui-
etcst thinker, or the Quietest eater, some
pale mother drains the last drop of susie
nance to mo;sten the lips of dying infant;
some husband and father reels home like
a demon to his trembling and destitute
family, some cbild's soul is seething to tho
lowest pit of evil, some woman's heart of
virtue is struggling between gold and des-
pair, some man is buffeted by starvation
into crime, and all around tempted and
paralytic humanity sends up articulate
croans to heaven! All! men with cool
heads and fat larders can philosophize and
denounce; but it is different thing with
those upon whom misery presses with u
eincture of iron, through whose veins pas
sion runs like lava, for whom in their NOR
al weakness vice opens its doors, and
whose heads are canopied with curses.
And we can easily see why some who have
witnessed these and other forms of guilt
and wrong, wM agitate- cry out Re
form And if others would drop the kali
eidoscope of curious speculation, and look
around with naked eyes-if they would
turn from their faces in the cheerful fire
to the faces in the crowd-they too, per-
haps, would find some justification for re
form. If not, / think the veriest fanatic
of change, with all his vituperation and
eccentricity, who feels stirred to speak fol-
humanity, has a heart more akin to the
great Baptist, nay, TO him who, with 8
sentler spirit, lifted the suffering, and bore
the woes of man in his ALLOWING breast,
than those who have wrought themselves
into selfish indifference, or who msrve
and denounce II easy chairs Reu. E. n
Chaplin.