The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1901-04-05
REnEDIES.
Useless to Discuss Remedies Until
the Majority of the People See the
Need for Remedies and There
is Chance to Apply them.

Communicated.
Sometimes when we point to existing
evils and impending dangers we are met
with the question Well what is your
remedy?
This question is not always as timely as
it seems. In republic, where remedies
for evils can come only through the con.
currence of majority of the people, no
remedy can be tried until majority be-
ieve that the alleged evil is a real one
and needs some remedy. So long as a
majority of the people believe that I'M
perialism is only an imaginary evil, a
bugaboo, we will have no remedy for ini-
perialism, and so of the money trust and
the other trusts.
Clearly the first step to get rid of an
evil or avoid danger is to point it out
and keep on pointing it out until ma
jority of the people see it. Even then
there will be difficulty in getting all ofthe
majority to agree upon what is the best
remedy; but until a majority see the evil
and have an opportunity to apply some
remedy, any discussions of the remedy
are useless waste of energy. What is the
use now of discussing the remedy for i'm
perialism, or militarism, or the railroad
trust, or the paper money trust, or the
single gold standard? No measure to
remedy any one of these evils can be
passed before 1905, because a republican
president, who believes that these evils
are not evils but blessings would veto any
measure against them.
The first opportunity to remedy any OF
these evils will be in the presidential
election of 1904, and they will not be
remedied then unless considerable ma
jority of the people are then fully alive.to
the gravity of the evils aud dangers which
exist and threaten us. 1t behooyes us
therefore TO see these evils, to talk about
them, and keep on talking about them,
until everyone who suffers by them sees
them as we do, and then if we accomplish
this by 1904, it will be time enough TO
discuss the particular remedy to be ap-
piled to each disease.
They that are whole need not a ply
sician, but they that are sick;" and it is
useless to write prescriptions for the peo-
pie until they know they are sick and
know what is the matter with them. If
we know what is the matter with them
let us tell them and let us not be fright
ened if we are called agitators.
In all the history of government, no
evil ever was remedied until it was first
exposed by people who we're called, by
the benefciaries of the evil, agltators; but
history calls them patriots and heroes.
When Patrick Henry said, "Give me
| liberty or give ME DEATH" he was an
agitator and traitor; as were also the
signers of the Declaration of Independ
ence. Thomas Jefferson was great ag-
itator all his life-the bank people called
him maniac, as he himself writes; An
drew Jackson was great agitator; and so
every man who sees an evil and points it
out is called, and in sense is, an agitator.
The man who sees house on fire and
raises the cry of fire and beats on the
doors until the sleeping occupants awake
and escape is quite an agitator for the
time being but he saves human lives.
He does not first decide which is the
best way for the occupants to escape,
whether by the stairs or the roof or win
dow, and then wake them, but he first
wakes them to realization of the fact
that their lives are i'll danger.