Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1874-02-07
AFALsE STEP.

In cur reading of the proceedings
of the Changers of the northwest, we
felt mortified on learning that some OF
the lecturers travel out of their true
course, to attack the legal profession.
With a complete chart before them,
mapped by the hand of wisdom, and
embracing every point essential to be
touched, it is both bad taste and bad
policy to depart from the limits pre-
scribed, when by SO doing they invite
the hostility of those with whom there
is no need for conflict, because there is
no clash of interests. The profession
of law is as old as the law itself, and
those who follow it. are, as class, |
better informed and as honorable IN
their dealings heightened in their
moral views and sentiments as any
other class of business men. If their
intellectual superiority gives them
prominence in the management OF pub
lie affairs and fitness for Office, it is be-
cause that superiority is felt and tacit-
" acknowledged, and because the
studies of no other class develope
equal intellectual power.
In almost every community this pre-
judice is felt, to greater, or less ex-
tent, but no where is it based upon
other than partizan grounds, personal
pique-the result of disappointment,
or some vague idea that, as class,
lawyers are too ofhcious in every move
ment pertaining to governmental af-
fairs, or the development of the re-
sources of the country. But this is al
mostexclusively, the fault of those, fol-
lowing other pursuits, who take no pains
to prepare themselves, by the acquisi-
ton of knowledge, to take a promi-
nent part in those movements which
involve the well-being of allalike, but
would end often in disaster, were it
not for the efforts of those whose
minds have been expanded, by stud
DIV without which they could never
be successful nor eminet in their
profession. There are cheats in every
vocation, even among the honest
yeomonary of the country, and if
we are to try whole classes and pro-
fessions, upon the assumption that one
knave, in each, is ground for condem-
nation of the whole, all business and
professional pursuits would come to
standstill and society become chaotic
mass. There is DO point of antago-
nism between lawyers and grangers,
and if any of the latter think other
wise, let them keep out of the clutches
of the law, and there will not even be
a pretext for contact between them,
whether of feeling or interest
The grangers have enough to do, in an
encounter with monopolies and rings,
concentrated capital and all cOmbina-
tons to defraud labor of its reward.
They will have enough to do, if they
educate each other up to the point OF
a successful cultivation of the soil to
the point of intelligent resistance to
oppression, in whatever shape it may
come, and to the point Of thorough
development of all the resources
which nature has provided and stored
away in the soil they till. As agricul-
ture is the most important of all the
pursuits of life, it requires, for its full
success, a more thorough and varied
knowledge than any other. A single
branch of science sufices to fit per-
sons for other callings, but to agricul-
ture all the sciences can be made more,
or less tributary. Botany, geology,
mechanics, mathematics and analyti-
cal chemistry-all can be made sub
servient to the interests of the farmer.
Instead, then. of being content with
reading. writing and arithmetic, the
landed proprietor should be man of
extensive learning, and until progress
is made in that direction, agriculture,
will not attain the elevated position it
should occupy. Such a reform must
necessarily be slow, and as a prellmi-
nary step, the grangers first care must
be to lift the burden of oppression
from the shoulders of the farmers, in
order that his legitimate profits may
supply the means for the more
thorough education Of his children.
The better to lift this burden, concili-
alton should be the policy. not the
antagonisms engendered by need ess
assaults upon those not necessarily in
conflict with the interests of produ-
GERS.
But however erratic and aggressive,
the northwestern grangers may be,
We. of the South, are conservative in
feelings and views. and whilst ready to
maintain our rights, have no DISPOSE
ton to assail the rights of others.