People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1895 — How to Agitate. [ARTICLE]

How to Agitate.

It takes some time for a man or woman to get a thing straight in their mind. To illustrate: If a man were to desire to learn mathematics, the reading of the books would not make him a mathematician. If he could read them all in a week he would still not accomplish anything. Th® mind would not have the time to absorb, digest ami arrange the ideas He would require months, or years, t train the mind to think knowingly. And until he did this, his calculations would not be reliable. The same is applicable to political economy, only it is not necessary to have such severe training to understand its fundamental principles. Rut as a man may not become a mathematician in a month, neither may he become a Populist in a month. It takes time. It is not an appeal to the emotions as are the flap doodle tariff arguments of the monopolistic press, but an appeal to the reason. Therefore, all work done a few weeks before an election will do but little if any good, as the mind is not in that pacific state necessary to discern and compare statements, and has not the time for such digestion and understanding even if it were willing. In other words Populists are not made in a month. It takes many months often. The mind must be kept on the problems until it can analyze them—know and feel the reasons for accepting the new philosophy. Therefore, if you intend to do anything toward the propaganda of a new civilization, do it now. Men whom you get interested now will before the next campaign have had time to study, and will then themselves become workers and helpers. Don’t wait. If the money spent for books and papers two months before the election had been spent six or eight months before, it would have influenced tqunderstanding half a million more minds. I have always advised for work a long time before election, but our own people are slow to see the reasons. I hope I have made it plain. Work now. We will win in 1896 if you do your duty in the agitation. A dollar for literature now will do as much good as 310 eighteen months hence in its influence on the results of 1896. Niqe voters out of ten, if a reform paper visits them the next year, will vote with us. Go out in the highways and solicit subscribers to some good reform papers. Get a move on yourself.—The One Hoss Editor.