The Llano colonist. [volume] (Llano, Calif.) 191?-1937, 1922-12-09
By Charles Lincoln Phifer
For Seven Years an Editor ON The
Appeal to Reason

Appeal to Reason
E. N. Richardson, Badly Rich.' for
SO many years the Army editor Of the
Little Old Appeal writes me from
his new nome in Tonopah. New:
I have just heard Of the death of
the Appeal TO Reason at Girard. It'll
has brought back to me flood Of
memories Of the old days. | have that
feeling which the English language,
witt. all its richness, cannot express.
Someone should write the obituary of
the Appeal, and know of no one bet
tier fitted to do it than you. Write it;
Push. for you and me and the old
bunch, for old times sake
As remembered by the few who
helped in the making Of the Appeal to
Reason during its period Of greatest IN
fluence, and by the members Of the
Appeal Army, who loyalty maintained
1.-THE paper in its work, it was the most
unique paper ever published.
Greeley's New York Tribune did a
great work and had staunch friends; it
was an influence in bringing the Civil
war and the setting aside of the slavery
system by the wages system. But the
Tribune never did have as distinctive
a character as the Appeal to Reason
had. Now that the Appeal has ceased
to be, we who loved it vehemently can
afford to come together to study it and
Its work. To my mind. no student Of
journalism, even in the college, can
rightly complete his instruction without
an understanding of the Appeal to
Reason and the work it did.
| Let it be understood, first, that the
Appeal came in period when the peo-
|ple were beginning to revolt against
certain abuses; that more upheld the
system against which it inveighed than
Opposed it; that it inaugurated specta-
cular and startling expose of many
things; and it will be clear why many
fervently hated it, why misinformation
was circulated relative to it, and why
1t was prosecuted for many years. On
the other hand, let it be remembered
that it was an expression of the hope
ct millions of human beings who had
caught new vision of a good earth,
and that it stated this hope in crude
but very plain language, and the peo-
pie will understand the love for the pa
per that burned with the fierceness all
most Of fanaticism.
When Wayland began publication of
the Appeal, he had something good to
say of almost every new movement of
his day. He combatted what he con-
sidered the evil by keen analysis and
homely humor resembling somewhat
the method of Cervantes in ridiculing
the system of chivalry. For many
years, Wayland had hard time of it.
He wrote the whole paper himself. His
wife and children set it by hand; and
ne put more into the paper, year by
year, than he took out of it. Wayland's
development of socialism was purely
an American approach, as distinct as
Marks German method Of dealing with
it. For this reason, the city movement,
following the MARKHAM argument, for a
long time denounced Wayland as po-
pulist and not a socialist.
Let it be understood that Wayland
was country town man, western
man, fully American in all his way of
thinking. Let it be understood that
Warren, who came into the Appeal af-
ter the first seven years of its life,
was also intensely American in psyche
logy, country editor per Sc. Let it
be further realized that while Debs,
who later came on the Appeal, was an
American, country town man by
birth and training, at the same time
had an inheritance Of French spirit
and ways. Practically all the rest Of
us who had to do with the Appeal dur
ing its period of greatest influence
were American by long generations of
training and were country-town-bred
These facts make it clear why the
Appeal was able to speak the American
language in talking Of socialism. Be-