Evening star., 1940-09-27
Warns Against Trend
Toward Sophistry
Recent Talk by President
Cited in Support
Of Contention


To the Editor of The Star:
In the Sd century BIC. at Athens,
Greece-then center Of culture and
learning-there existed class Of teach
ers who called themselves sophists.
Their business was to teach young men
the use of words and the art of public
speaking. Their instructions in this art
did not include any of the methods by
which true conclusions are reached.
They confined themselves to the means
by which audiences may be persuaded.
Bias, prejudice, self-interest were the
weapons used. They maintained that it
was impossible to find any standard of
truth; neither was there any standard
of morals With the sophists there
existed only body Of opinion. The
majority was always right-and the
minority was always wrong.
A contemporary Of the times, Socrates,
abhorred and opposed the skepticism Of
the sophists Plato became his disciple
and held aloft the science of reason as
against the opinion theory. Then fol-
lowed the thinker-Aristotle-w de-
veloped the theory of syllogistic reason
ing. now known as the rules of logic by
which truth is shown and fallacy is
exposed.
For many centuries, against recurring
recessions, the mind of man has insisted
that there was a standard Of truth and
of morals. Our own Declaration Of Inde-
pendence recites that certain truths are
self-evident.
So long as men and nations adhered
to the standards established by logic,
the curve of civilization and culture was
upward. But when men turned away
from these standards, the curve fiat
tened or descended.
The trend for a number of years has
been away from standards of truth and
morals. and toward the skepticism Of
the sophists and the body Of opinion
theory, or as one cynic expressed it, the
hue and cry theory. Illustrating just
how far we have travelled away from
the standards of truth and morality,
we find the Chief Executive Of great
Nation, in what he termed a non-pollt-
ical address on government, making the
following statement:
Il would rather rely on the aggregate
opirion, on matters affecting govern
ment. of a railroad president and its
superintendents, its engineers, Its FORE
men, its brakemen, the conductors,
tra.nmen and telegraphers and porters
and all of the others. than on the sole
opinion of few in control of the man.
agement or of the principal stockholders
themselves"
An analysis of this statement, besides
showing a naked class appeal to preju-
dice, bias and self-interest, shows that
the speaker had entirely ignored the
framework of the Government. In fact,
the statement implies that there exists
the same kind of democratic govern
ment which was established in Greece
and failed because its nature was tyran-
nical and bloody. In our form OF gov
ernment, neither porters. engineers.
brakemen nor stockholders are supposed
to determine matters of government.
Those matters were to be determined
by elected representatives. There was
left to the voter. the determination OF
issues and Of men.
The fact that the people of the United
States and those of all the world have
travelled long way from the standards
OF truth and morals is evidenced by the
reception of Mr. Roosevelt's speech.
Many approved it and thought it ex-
ceedingly clever. From one point OF
view it was clever: so was the argument
of Satan clever The real question, how
ever, is: Do We want cleverness, or do
We want intelligent action growing out
of a consideration OF the real truths of
the times? j. H. B1LBREY.
Takcma Park, Md.