Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1882-09-10
THE PEN VS.. THE SWORD.

THE PEN VS.. THE SWORD.
In this age the pen does, by discus
sion, what the sword did in the earlier
and less reasoning ages. Brute force
ruled; now, discussion and appeals to
reason hold sway. The social, political
and intellectual atmosphere iSfull Of the
dust of discussion. a correct view of a
question which has been thrown into
the, hopper of debate is finally reached,
the process of Illuminating the more
thick-headed or wrong-headed portion
of the public is tediaus one. Once the
world used to fight over questions and
differences of opinion to the extent of
a thirty years war sometimes. Large
portions of mankind are still in the
fighting mood, their skulls being too
thick to be penetrated by mere argu-
ment and reason even of the most con-
yincing kind. Consequently they have
TO be cracked and the brains let out,
they being more useful for manure than
for thinking purposes. Fortunately,
the percentage of reasonable, sensible
people is greatly on the increase every
where, so that a government of the
majority is getting to be more and more
feasible. Still the debates Of the collec-
tive wisdom of these States in Congress
assembled occasionally affords much
ground for a pessimistic view Of popu-
lar, self-goyernment. Such debates
illustrate not only the stupidity, but the
cussedness Of legislative human nature,
particularly of the kind which repre-
sents sparsely settled, only par
TALLY civilized, frontier communities.
Meantime, we have spoken Of hopper.
Every subject which interests the great
public is literally triturated i'll these
days between the upper and neither
millstones of universal discussion.
Whenever such a subject is before the
public, everybody everywhere claims
the right to be heard on it. Everybody
seems to say, using the Terentian for
mula: al am a man, and whatever con-
Germs humanity is of interest to me-"
Every subject of arge human interest
attracts the attention of the whole fam
lily of enlightened communities in both
hemispheres, now that the
daily news is "shot through the
weltering pit of the salt sea-"
Russian despotism, for instance, is
only of immediate personal interest to
its unfortunate subjects, who constitute,
however, a considerate fraction of the
human race. But it is subject for dis
cussion everywhere in the forum of en-
lightened public opinion. The tongues
of an intelligent people are set wagging
about it by every fresh item of Nihilis-
delivers its muSketry fire at it all along
the line; the heavy artillery of the
monthlies and quarterlies is trained on
it, so that Czarism is undergoing a
process of general ventilation, which is
gradually bringing it to grief. In
like manner that harbaric relic
of feudalism, the land monopoly
in Great Britain and Ire
land, is undergoing the ordeal of inter-
national discussion. This monopoly of
a nations soil, of the green bosom of
the au-mother earth, by the few, by
means of primO-geniture and other sub
tie legal devices, must, ere long, be rele-
gated to the same limbo of spent social
iniquities to which American slavery
has been consigned. A hundred years
ago the irish difficulties would long ere
this have passed into the fighting stage,
and armies would have been settling it
by force in the field, according to the
methods of the eighteenth and seven
teenth centuries. In those CEN
turtles, while rebellion was invari-
ably crushed out by the strong hand, it
was crushed only to reappear periodic
ally with an ever increasing bitterness.
Now let the fair thing be done after due
consideration, and so an effective eau
terry be applied to this centuried social
ulcer. The pressure of a mighty inter-
national public opinion, like that uni
yerssl force, gravitation, i'll the uni
verse of matter, will, ere long, be felt in
every nook and corner of human So
ciety, and be needed. The general
discussion of the subject of popu-
lar education is being iraught with the
most salutsry results. European gov
ernments are at last recognizing their
errors in suffering the masses of their
people to dwell 80 long in intellectual
darkness and inacceSsibility to ideas.
The French Republic proposes to make
popular education compulsory, and to
throw open the general French mind to
the sunlight of knowledge. When the
common school gets rooted all over
Europe there will be no further neces-
sity for that myriad-srmed police Of
standing armies to keep the people in
order. Intelligent people are a police
unto themselves.