Having taken 4 years to get through high school Latin, without regret, I’ve always liked the word “radical.” It suggests going to the root of things. To quote Thoreau,

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve. It is the pious slave-breeder devoting the proceeds of every tenth slave to buy a Sunday’s liberty for the rest. Some show their kindness to the poor by employing them in their kitchens. Would they not be kinder if they employed themselves there? You boast of spending a tenth part of your income in charity; maybe you should spend the nine tenths so, and done with it. Society recovers only a tenth part of the property then. Is this owing to the generosity of him in whose possession it is found, or to the remissness of the officers of justice?

See the Radical. By Ellis O. Jones

See the Radical!

What, O Sage, do you mean to tell me that intelligent and earnest looking fellow is a Radical?

Exactly so.

Then I have been misinformed. The editor of my paper always speaks of a Radical in the most contemptuous of terms, as if a Radical were the most reckless and the most ignorant of men.

The trouble is, my son, that your editor is careless in the use of terms. When he uses the word “radical” that is not what he means.

What does he mean, O Sage?

When he uses the word “radical” he means rabid.

But aren’t those—synonymous terms? I always thought so.

Many people think the same way, but it is not so. A Radical is a man who is not content to be superficial, a man who goes to the bottom, to the root, of things. It takes a profound and earnest and careful man to be a Radical.

And one who is rabid?

Is one who flies off the handle because he is superficial. A rabid man would rather be angry than be studious.

Then tell me, O Sage, who would you consider the greatest Radical of the day and who the most rabid?

No, my son, in discussions of this sort it is not safe to be too personal.