The Kalispell bee. [volume] (Kalispell, Mont.) 1900-192?, 1902-11-11

the mount to receive the command
ments from God, the rebellious ma
jCrity of the people left on the plain
began to get themselves an idol by
casting their gold into the fire and
drawing out a golden calf which they
could worship. Aaron protested in
vain and then threatened them with
Moses. But they laughed Aaron to
scorn and said: "As for this fellow,
Moses-we wot not of him!"
And so it has fallen out in all hui
man history that evil men have re-
sorted to contemptuous and false cpl
thets to oppose the good and defeat
righteousness. 1t is the end of argu-
ment and the essence of bulldozing.
| History is full of examples of men
who have been driven from good
works, from power and from the
| honorable regard of their fellow men
| by the use of names that misrepre-
scented them to their fellows and Gre
ated resentment among the great ig-
norant mobs of the nation. The
power of an aptly chosen epithet is
equally strong against the weak and
evil man.
1t is the way of the world, when
a great man, with great purpose,
seeks audience OF hostile state,
whether hostile or political, to first
attack the truth of his doctrine They
may at the beginning acknowledge
hic wi inc icf
that his premises are faulty, his ar
gument weak, and his zeal is but
fanaticism. They will agree with
him until they find that his position
is solidly founded and that his reform
would imperil their prevailing prac-
tees and put them out of the way of
making profit of their schemes and
privileges.
The next resort is to draw off his
converts by whatever devise may be
found suited to the end. To leave him
without followers is to impress the
unreasoning masses that his propos-
ais are unsound and the ends he
seeks impohtic. 1t is a strong trait
in human nature to follow the crowd
to be with the winners, or, in mod
ern phrase, ito ride on the band wa
gon." Great causes have been de-
feated and great reforms delayed for
centuries because the epithets thrown
upon their leaders have deferred men
from associating themselves with
what the opposition and the mob
IN MI
The last resort of evil against good
is to assail the character the YER
acity, the honor and the aims of the
man who is to be undone. Call him
this fellow" and ten thousand men
who were before Indifferent will
prick up their ears and scent a man
hunt and begin to pant for the chase.
Say this fellow" is seeking to per
vert the people and Immediately the
people will seek to pervert them
selves by ignorantly suspicioning the,
mans every word and act. Declare
that he has some secret motive to
advantage himself and at once the
mass of men, as the slaves of the
south were during the civil war, will
| become ready to take up arms to
keep the bonds and evils of their
! slavery undisturbed.
The power of eplthet over argu-
ment to the common mind is in the
picturesquenes of the epithet. The
more concrete and instantaneous is the
picture presented to the mind by the
epithetical word or phrase, the more
potent it is to excite prejudice and
! fix opposition. Examples are not
lacking in our history. A great man
has been hamstrung for life from be-
ing publicly proclaimed a 'pouter
pigeon" A great preacher was al
ways after handicapped in pulpit and
platform by being caricatured as a
bearded monkey. And the fame of
great captain has been dwarfed in
history because he was dubbed "Old
Fuss and Feathers"
Honest men should beware of be-
ing seduced by epithets. In the sin
cere and patriotic and reformatory
work of the world they have no just
place. They are, we say again, the
refuge of towards and sneaks, and
the weapons of wicked men. They
are intended to strangle truth, to be-
cloud Judgment and to fire the mean
est passions of the human heart-At-
lanta Constitution.
Miss Ethleen Tate is an accom-
Roll NVaf