Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1877-06-01
THE ROOT DOCTORS' PRESCRlP-
T'TON

circulars, no more represented the views
of the two thousand farmers of Augusta
than they did the views of the professional
itchers for legislative position, or of that
nebulous organization known as the whis-'
key interest--nor as much.
In Virginia when a man has been sick a
long time and gets thoroughly hypochon-
driac he leaves the regular faculty and
looks around for aroot doctor, one of those
people that have roots and YARDS boiled
into deadly concoction which generally
removes the complaint and the complain
ant at the same time. In the present case
the consulting root doctors may be put
down as DR.. FL. D. WILLIAMS, DR.. GEO.
SEAWRIGHT and DIR. S. BROWN ALLEN.
The first thinks he has found out what is
the matter, the second has written the
prescription and the third will gather in
the fee in the shape Of a seat in the legis-
ture. With these learned physicians we
take the liberty of disagreeing to this ex-
tent-that while one doctor thinks he has
found out the cure, he has only found out
that the patient is sick; that while the other
doctor has written a prescription, it points
only to one medicine, which he says isn't
the medicine at all, OR rather he sorter'
says so, going as far as to say that the
compound isn't even named, and the third
doctor, we hold, should not be paid his fee
because his partners and himself have sug-
gested no remedy for the patient and are
mere empires in state-craft. The other
physicians on the committee were DIR. E.
A. Fulcher and DR.. Robert Hansberger,
but as the first is not a candidate for the
legislature, and the second was not, we
believe present at the concoction of the
'yarb' medicine we will have to await de-
velopments to assign them their reward.
That there should be, especially at this
time, more farmers in the General Assem-
bly, is true, but there are farmers
and farmers just as there are lawyers
and lawyers. The men who own and
till the soil in this county should al
ways have had larger representation
in the councils of the State, and it is
their own fault that they have not. They
have been content to sit down at home on
their farms and take their cue from prom
inent men in the county town, and if they
were ever at the front in public affairs it
was only to carry out the behests of
their leaders in party politics. Or they
have been content like Mr.. SEAWRIGHT,
for instance, man of education, mature
age and good mind, to live like recluses on
their farms, never mingling in public mat
tiers and coming out at last to find that the
world has gone by them and that they
neither understand it, nor does it under
stand them. Like him, to come out with
musty theories about public matters that
cannot be fitted on to present neeessitie
and are as awkard as man trying to put
out gas light with an old fashioned can
die extinguisher. IF the farmers of Angus
ia county had been just to themselves and
retained IN their hands at least their fair
share of the representation OF Augusta
county instead Of having allowed them
selves to be made mems men, they would
not now be subjected to the insulting propo-
sition to their intelligence that there was
any way out Of debt except to pay it or re-
pudiate it. Men would not present to their
credulity resolutions pointing unmistake-
ably to reputation, and yet the same mo-
ment pointing with triumph to the fact
that it was not named in them. t is
true that by that course Of non-p rite
ipation they do not lose control Of their
representatives taking the Virgin
la legislature as a body we doubt
whether any set Of rural representa-
tives were ever ia more abject fear of
their agricultural constituency than
they are; but while not losing the con-
troll of their agents, they do lose the abili-
ty and experience to do the legislative work
themselves. A heavy loss as they find WHEN
the State gets in a hard place.
To-day, the farmers of Virginia are the
only people who can set her on her feet.
Suppose the farmers of Augusta AID every
county in the State were to select such
members of the Legislature is VIM. L.
RUSH, q name that happens to strike US
while writing, as a sort of man not likely
to 60 too far in any direction, for debtor
or creditor. Let these men make a practi-
cal examination OF the business of the
State; see what more rigid economy can do
to running the government cheaper, and
bring everything down to the lowest point.
Then let them get an exact and undisputed
statement of the liabilities of the State,
and see where we stand. Then let them
consult on the state of their communities
each man representing the true state OF
his county don't send snivellers, who will
represent well-to-do community as bank
rupt); find out what can bear taxation, and
then have the courage to tax it. Your
politician, who lives On Office, will never
do this-they haven't the courage. If you
want it done, practical business men must
be gotten to do it. # this is done. in one
year the debt CT Virginia will begin to di
minish, and cheerlulness will reign in the
State. For, in truth, that is the part that
prcks the people most They go on pay
ing taxes, and don't hear of the reduction
of the debt, and only see paragraphs about
an empty State treasury. If the people
of Augusta county had any assurance that
by one year Of increased taxation re-
duction of the debt would be commenced,
we believe they are practical enough tosee
the benefits, and patriotic enough to feel
the impulse to bear it. If these clear-head-
ed men decide that at present nothing can
be done, why, all we can do is nothing.
And that is what we have been doing for
some time. The cry of accumulation Of
interest is nothing. Interest "accumu-
latest as fast after saying you wont pay as
it did before. Saying amounts to nothing.
Resolutions, like platforms, don't
amount to anything, compared with the
of Tho ,,nop1a who a6ont hon