Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1918 — Futile Disputes. [ARTICLE]

Futile Disputes.

In stating prudential rules for our government in society, I must not omit the Important one of never entering into dispute or argument with- another. I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the othet by argument. I have seen many, on their getting warm, becoming rude and shooting one another. Conviction is the effect of our own dispassionate reasoning, either in solitude or weighing within ourselves, dispassionately, what we hear from others, standing uncommitted in argument ourselves. It was one of the rules which, above all others, made Doctor Franklin the most amiable of men id society, “n<ver, to contradict anybody.” If he was urged to announce an opinion, he did It rather by asking questions, as if for information, or by suggesting doubts — Thomas Jefferson.