Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1871-02-26
A WORK AT HOME.

We took occasion, in an article last Tues
day, to suggest what might be done by us
as community towards advancing the
commercial and manufacturing interests
of our city, and making the daily inter-
course of our business men and the occa-
sional coming together of our families
much more agreeable and mutually profit
able, if we could all do away with the pre-
JUDGES and i'll will our passionate mode of
provokes.
One of the great causes of our late war
was that the people of the two sections had
not had that practical business and friend
~ intercourse which they ought to have
had. Men who deal with each other in
dollars and cents, discuss in the interests
of their business religion, education and
the current events of the day, are apt to
learn in time that their differences are not
50 wide but that they can easily be recon-
ciled. But if we carry into our churches
and schools and social circles the animosi-
ties we encourage on the hastings, we
never can get together and become united
community.
These facts, we think, are generally re-
cognized. The question is, how can they
be overcome? We can do something to-
wards it in our churches and schools, if we
will try. Why should boys who sit to-
gether in school, play together in leisure
hours, and grow to be friends by their daily
intercourse, find cause to become estranged
when they become men because one of
them believes in free trade, or votes the
Democratic ticket, and the other fayors
protection and universal suffrage? Where
does the spirit to differ spring from? Does
he gather it in at the home circle, where
the mother and sister spitefully talk about
Mrs. So-and-so as nothing but a Yankee
and Radical sympathizer, or young Mr..
as unfit to be recognized as a gentleman,
because he fought in the Federal army and
votes with the Radicals? If he goes into
his fathers Office or storeroom, he finds
the merchant courteous and obi ging to all
alike. He does't see anything of the sis
ters' spitefulness there. If these expert
ences be true, it would seem that at the
home circle, in the midst Of the young, is
good point at which to begin this work.
Let the boys and girls be taught that merit
Is the true test of manliness and character
in the world; that because man votes
with the Republican party, it does not fol-
low that he is less of a gentleman, or less
public-spirited, or less valuable citizen.
The fact is, that men who have the force of
character to adhere to their honest politi-
cal sentiments, in the face of social ostra-
cism or popular opinion, can always be
relied on as men of courage..an merit. 1t
is the simpering coxcomb, who parts his
hair in the middle and thinks more of the
cut of his clothes than he does of his
brains-who first gives up his principles,
and, under the shelter of popular preju-
dice, joins in detracting those with whom
he in heart sympathizes.
The remedy for these things is in public
sentiment. SO long as these prejudices
continue, we cannot prosper as we ought
to do. They are capital anti-immigration
arguments. They stand up as great wall
dividing people already too far apart. If
we can bring our people together in lecture
rooms, literary associations, churches. char
liable societies and efforts.-to do good, we
can soon drive out all troubles, and work
together for the common good. /