Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1886-07-30
PowDERLY, THE POLITICIAN.

The news comes from the East, that
Powderly, Grand Master Workman OF
the Knights OF Labor, has announced
himself as candidate for Governor oi
Pennsylvania, and that he will throw up
his position as such Grand Master Work.
man to run for the political Office. This
article could be ended here by stating
that but for the Knights of Labor, Ter
ence Powderly would never have OBJ
tained prominence beyond the machine
shop, and it is lily becoming his preach
ing, to use the office with which he was
honored rs a stepping stone to political
preierment, leaving the men who made
him, to the tender mercics OF schemers
who joined the order solely for an OPP
portunity TO follow in the path which
Powderly. by this ungrateiul act, has
marked out. In the rush for Office, and
personal gain, the tide has caught the
one man on whom the laboring classes
depended with a faith unequalcd in man
kind in these degenerate days, and now
that their faith in their god is shaken,
they will regard all future aspirants for
office among them with suspicion, and
the esprit du corps so necessary to the
success of the Order being lost, the work
for which it was formed will remain un-
done, and labor will again fall back into
its normal state OF slavery to capital, or,
branch off into that more dreaded path
of riot and boodshed to defend its rights.
When the matter was first broached.
this journal did not entertain a suspicion
that Powderly would so stultify himself
as to make it fact, and confesses to un-
alloyed astonishment and chagrin, that a
man who could make such specious rea
soning as he did, should develop into q
commonplace hunter after office. The
spirit of discord is rife in the higher coun.
ellis of the Knights OF Labor, and no man
other than Powderly could hold il down
and dormant until the objects of the Or
der were in Il measure inaugurated and
placed on working basis. He has seen
ft to turn from his allegiance to the men
who made him, and branch out on their
popularity for selfish ends, and assuredly
he will reap the sweeping condemnation OF
all friends OF labor, for his selfish work
Powderly, nor any laboring man can be
elected Governor in the State OF Pennsyl
vania, and nothing but an everweenins
trust in the men he has deserted coult
induce him 10 run there, and he will finc
that in his race, the men whom he lef
to the mercy of schemers and charlatans
will leave him severely alone and de
to be very much OF political bubble
Just like other agitators who have lef
their honorable calling to accept Office n
the hands of men they undertook to com
bat, While Powderly remained in the
Knights of Labor, the Order had a center
point which held it together, but in hi
leaving it, the Order and himself become
separate objects, one without head anC
the other without following, and both
are destined to downfall. Capital in the
State OF Pennsylvania is n power which
Powderly cannot handle without the ranl
and file OF his Order, and they are no
likely to follow the banner oil man whc
deserted them just when victory wa
within their grasp. We repeat, tina
Powderly and the Knights OF Labor viii
both rue the day he took ii upon himsel
to leave his friends and enter the politi
cal arena