Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1881-04-02
WITHOUT A LEADER.

leader, has witnessed a terrible spec
tacle.
On one of the battle-felds of Vir-
ginia during the late war one army
assailed the other before its lines were
formed. A panic enaued; men brave
and true, ready to fight, ready to die
like soldiers, were thrown into help
less Reorganization by the mere mo-
mentum of the stampede. During
those fearful moments the commander
was absent; no one knew what to do,
what was expected of him, who to
follow, and no one himself able to
lead. Tie enemy was bearing down
harder and harder; death was riding
on the iron hail of battle and men
falling and dying in their tracks.
Suddenly the clarion notes of a
bugle call halt; the commander ap-
pears upon the scene, calm-faced, con-
fdent, undismayed-a tower of iron
with victory blazing upon his crest.
He knows what is to be done; a few
orders are issued and the rout is ar
rested; a few electric monosyllables
are uttered; the flying troops stop and
stand shoulder TO shoulder the thrill
flashes down tho line and Yields it
together; the mob, a moment before
weak as a rope Of sand, becomes a
serried column.
Like brave army thus imperiled
stand the phalanxes of labor to-day.
The influences of organization have
not been exerted through all its ele-
ments; its lines haze not been formed,
and its leader or leaders appear not to
know all that labor legitimately de-
sires to accomplish. Divided into as
sociations and among themselves,
comprising constituencies of opposing
olitical influences, there is want Of
unison and purpose. Leaders there
are to tell them what to defend to the
death and what to abandon as unten-
able, but each differing with another.
Thus badly generated both in what
they struggle for and in what they
surrender, they are brave neverthe-
less. 1t sometimes appears that it
were almost better to be without a
leader.
But there is no cause for despair.
The most hopeful institution under
the sun is in the same condition-the
church. Divided by sects, and
sects by factions, there is fearful
want of cohesion. In purpose, unity
in diversity; each full of love for his
faith, ready to labor for it, give to it,
suffer for it, fight for it; to die for it
if need be, yet doubling where to la
Dor, what to give, how to fight and
Ia what cause to die. Sheer at church
history, however the stains which
blush on its pages, but all true
achievement is scrolled in its archives.
Take the church out of our economy
and the pulp of history is elimina ted;
take it out of human effort and what
oil burns there to freshen the torch CT
civil and religious liberty
What is true of one good cause
may reat onably be true of another.
The Declaration of Independence is
at once The moral law and gospel of
labor--a proclamation of
SOY reignty to laborers and defiance
of tho power seeking to enslaye them.
Every man in America enjoys the
cons isutional right to exchange his
labor Tor money; moreover, the right
to combine with his fellow in trade
wLiih brings an enhanced advantage
to e.oh. The right of suffrage itself
end w. them with the highest privil-
ego Of combination, but it has been
us;d, not in the suppression of bad
and Illicit compacts Of cap
ita.l Is and their representatives,
but, election after election, in the en-
doris anent of labor enemies and their
schel.!es labor, moreover, has been
rel cstedly gulled into storming and
destroying the citadel of its own pow
er-into hurting its sovereignty of
suffrage against its right of suffrage
D, for leader for some genius
in stat eeraft-some great constructive
intellect to relay, broader and deep
ar tina ever before, the foundations
of the ancient democracy for sore
slirit in advance of the age, able to
dirlod5e existing error and to work
on: clearly and amicably the undeter-
rnired but general desire for equal
ril hts Who of all the apprentices
now struggling with the crude