The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1903-11-19
A Boost For the Knocker.

People are prone to look upon the
EmOCker as a person altogether unde-
sirable, which is wrong. 1t was the
knockers who made this world lit to
live in. Had there been no knockers
We would still be wearing bearEldns for
clothes, cooking on hot rock what
food we did not eat raw, sleeping In
caves. travelling on our calloused sOles,
fighting with clubs and bOulders rub
bling sage tea on our broken legs, and
still following in general the customs
OF our fOrbears of the stone age. They
were not nice customs, but they would
be our customs yet had not various
ladies and gentlemen, now deceased,
knocked the bearskin attire, the raw
food, the rheumatic couch on the cave
leor. the bare feet, etc. They had to
knock a long time, but finally their
knocks resulted in the betterment Of
things. Suppose now every body had
been contented with the existing order
of things in the stone age, wouldn't
things be in a nice mess? No knockers,
no progress.
Suppose the English barons had not
made date with King John for Run
nymede in 1915, and rough-housed him
until they had succeeded in WreDching
the Magma Charta from him, wouldn't
England have been a nice place for
succeeding generations to live in? Those
barons were knockers. Then some 300
years later Martin Luther knocked on
religious abuses that had grown up and
made it possible for a man to proclaim
B his honest convictions in that neigh
bOrhOOd without losing his number. His
| first great knock proving successful,
( Luther knocked a little on the Ian
guages of his country and the result is
the high German of today and great
/ Improvement in the English language,
which would have been worse TITAN it
now is had Luther not knocked. Then
something more than 200 years after
Luther's glorious knocks came Voltaire
and others, who did for France some
thing like Luther did for Germany
and the world by the same method
knocking. Then again in the present
century a knOcker fiOurished in South
America-Simon Bolivar BY his knock
/ ing against the Spanish idea Of treat
ing a dependency Bolivar stirred up a
iittle discussion that resulted in prying
a good bit of a continent loose from
/ Spanish rule. Probably one cannot say
much for the present governments Of
; the countries where Bolivar knocked so
Justify. but they are a heap better of
than when they were under Spanish
rule. anyhow. All the result Of knock
ing Our own country furnishes some
conspicuous instances OF knocking that
p
Patrick Henry and a few others had
mot knocked on conditions that existed
prior TO the revolutionary war, where
and what would we be nOw2 William
Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips
were great old knockers. They kept on
knocking until they had started a sem
timent that resulted in knocking the
shackles Off some millions of cOlOred
i brethren. Without going into the race
/ problem, we win all agree that their
knocking brought good results. Ste
venson Knocked on the One-hOrse shay
and Fulton knocked on the canoe, and
we got the locomotive and the steam
boat-inclusive Of the ship building
ltrust-which Fulton did not have in
mind when ne knocked. Bell knocked
or the practice Of running for the doc
/ tor every time the baby had spasms
and. as a result. we have the telephone
and the hello-girl. Field knocked be-
cause he had to wait two weeks before
/ he could tell what the London Times
/ had 70 say about the situation in FlOrO-
dora, and we got the Atlantic cable and
the Paris edition Of the New York Her
( aid, etc, etc.
Instances might be multiplied indefi-
nitely, but this is enough to show that
we owe about everything worth having
that we now enjoy to knockers. past OF
/ present. so the next time you want to
knock a man don't call him a knocker.