Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1899-10-07
A Lost Opportunity.

the enemy error VI "edhueSS'
Napoleon at Marengo was hardly
the Napoleon that figured at Waterloo.
Johnston at Seven Pines and Lee on
the same ground month later were
not the same men.
Hooker at Charlottesville and
Grant in the Wilderness were wholly
unlike. and 500 uu.
Napoleon whipped d divided .u,uy
at Mareng", hur col.ap>ru Dclor, a oo.Iu
phalanX at Waterloo.
Johnston rushed his forces face to
face against Mcclellan without mate
rally affecting the position of the lat
ter, but Lee, seeing the same vulnera-
BILE right wing. threw his weight
against it, doubled it back and drove
Mcclellan to Harrisons Landing.
He did the same thing with Hooker
at Charlottesville, but Grant, a year
later, avoiding Hooker's error, crossed,
held his army zen cOmpact' aud fought
his way to victory at AppomattoX.
Stonewall jackson marched 81 miles
with Fremont on one wing, Shields on
the other then turning, drove Ere
mont back beyond his camp, and next
day hammered Shields into run down
the great Valley.
These are heavy illustrations prob
ably, but they are ventured to show
that in politics, as IN war, the strategy
which divides, which avails itself of
division in the enemy's ranks and
which rushes through weak places and
fights him in the rear, is the strategy
that wins.
There was no strategy in the MeXi-
can assault upon jefferson Davis regi-
ment of a thousand Mississippians
at Buena Vista, but there was the
highest type of military science in
the movement which made that regi-
ment hollow square and held it six
hours as an immovable wall of fire
against the five thousand cavalry who
beleaguered it.
There was no strategy in Pickett's
charge at Gettysburg, but the tactics
which obscured the decentralization
caused by its failure were the per
lection of modern generalship.
AS before said, these are perhaps
weighty illustrations, but they never
theless serve to prove that rare OPP
portunity was lost by the democrats
last Saturday.
On that day it was plain to every
member of the convention, then as
sembled, that there was serious division
in the battle-line of the ma jority party :
that in the States attorneyship, regis
ter Of wills, and county commits
sioners-notably the two former, there
We're explosive manifestations of in
subordination to the dispositions of
cabal, self-appointed and misrepre-
tatlve of the popular vote.
We repeat it-there was and is no
mistake about this. Hence it was the
tim" Of All tim"S fnr the cnnven'inr. TO-
adopt a Resolutions ot Adjournment u
on, week. ,mb.JGu. pu invitation to
those republican,, who bad suffered
from Their conventions veto of the
popular voice to
Name the places sou ~att, the cuchered men
",fH them, and we will supply the rest of the
ticket. We will give you more votes than
you can bring to us, but bring all you can.
"A fair exchange is no robbery of either
side"
With James f. Macbeth, H. w.
Shuck, Davisson Armstrong and a
tax collector candidate, the architects
of the republican ticket would have
gotten such a shaking-up, if not de-
feat, as would have been Il lesson of
good behavior to both parties for
years to come.
But the men who were against this
proposal, especially those whose OPP
position was energized by the fatal
itch to get on the ticket, " threw away
democratic chances for this year and
postponed indefinitely the collection of
all dividends from factional competi-
tons and sOrenesseS that are inevitable
among republicans next year and
years after. Like Pickett with sin
gle division, they are again charg-
lng uphill corps that already holds
the hill. Under the banner of econ
sistency' they are marching to the
same old stunning impact and ca;am.
itous recoil.
Bad as is any case of deliberate ia.
talism, it were worse if it be true tina,
the county ticket, as constituted, is a
mere formality-a shadow of opposi.
ton whose substance fertiIizes the for.
tunes-not of the republican party
but OF republican faction. In that
event there is in it nothing to invite a
true republican vote, and for a demo.
crat to vote democratic county ticket
whose terminal facilities are located
inside junto of the republican party
Is Sorrowful case of "LOve's Labor
Lost"
Always Gets its Salary,
The calamity howl does service fol