p. 16 | Calling Names

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 10, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 36.

Calling Names.

When men have no arguments with which to meet their opponents, calling names and misrepresenting the other side are often the next resort. We have a great deal of that in this present political campaign. “Anarchists” and “Anarchy” are just now common expressions afloat. The same thing is sometimes, tho not often, seen in the commercial and business world. It is most manifest perhaps among unions of various sorts, the members of which seem to derive great speakable satisfaction in calling those places of business that will not submit to union rule “ratteries,” and those who work in them “rats.” Sometimes they call them by a milder term, “unfair offices,” when, in fact, they are of the fairest sort, open to all men, without regard to previous or present condition of servitude to some particular cult or guild. The same thing is, sad to say, often seen in the religious world. Christians who observe the same Sabbath that Christ did are called contemptuously “Saturdarians” and “Jews,” yes, and “Anarchists.” Christ was called “glutton and winebibber,” and it was said that he had a demon. And so it has gone, and so it goes, and so it will go to the end. And yet it may be well to remind those who indulge in name-calling that resorts to such practices are and should be to all fair-minded persons the best evidence of lack of argument. A man who knows a better argument will always use it; he may have heard of better, but that he knows no better is evidenced by his calling names.