The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1880-04-03
DEMAGoGUiSM NOT REFORM.

" hatevcr lIanIc it may assume. whether
Nihilism, yet antagoni>m to law, means
social disorder, and therefore is not to he
tolerated Is Il remedy either for real or
imaginary wrongs. 1t is true that real
abuses may untlerlie the clamorous de
mands of even such blasphemous agita-
tors as Kearney. But whatever sympa-
thy the intelligent public might have for
Il reasonable and temperate statement Of
grievances, it is lost in the brutality of
its advocates. If the sand lots orator
had confined himself to protest against
the personal tilthiness Of the Chinese in
California, and had attempted to show
what the health authorities of San Fran
cisco have recently declared, that the
Chinese in that city, disregarding the
commonest rules of heath, were, to Il
greater or lesser degree, public nui-
sance. he would have been listened to,
with attention and respect. But his
rowdyism and reckless disregard of law
have stamped this class of agitators as
| lawless demagogucs. They have shown
! themselves to be the enemies of law and
order, and therefore not the friends of
the people.
The rampant iconoclasm Of European
| agitators is of precisely the same charac-
ter, inasmuch as it processes murder and
/ the pulling down of governments as its
creed. The nihilists in Russia have very
much more right on their side than our
have, and there are many respectable and
law-loving persons who heartily endorse
| them. This would be the case every
| where if the Nihilists had confined them
selves to peaceful protest against the ut
! terly unreasonable and barbarous form of
government which obtains in Russia
! That grinding despotism is a remnant of
| past ages, and totally at variance with
! the spirit and progress of modern times,
and with the grand awakening to the
! equal rights of men which has taken place
| all over the world, and which our civil
war did a great deal to accelerate and
, confirm. But when the people who call
| themselves Nihilists resort to the tools
and methods of highwaymen and assas-
sins, they repel the sympathy which
would naturally be felt for the people of
Russia, and become outlaws and worthy
| of the severest punishment. The noisy
Socialists of Germany are of the same
breed of macontcnts, and the Commun-
lists of France are 50 bcsutted with their
own cxtravagant notions that they are
not content even under the Republic. but
seem always inclined to burst the bounds
Of law and decency and uproot the very
sort of government for which they have
formerly clamorcd. The extreme Com
munists. however are very few now. and
find no support among the people.
The Irish land agitation smacks a little
Of this somewhat unreasonable opposition
to the established order of things-au OPP
position which, if put forth nationally,
would find sympathy with right thinking
men everywhere, but which, when it as
sumes the guise Of sedition and intlam-
matory defamation, meets only contempt
from those wlio are not Immediately con-
cerned and vigorous suppression from the
authorities the subvcrsion of which is
aimed at. The most ridiculous phase of
this Irish business is the attempt OF the
Fenian, James Stephens, in Chicago, to
make himself a sort Of head centre"
and to gull his confding fellow country