The leader-enterprise. [volume] (Fitzgerald, Ga.) 1912-1915, 1913-06-13

An open address was spread broad
cast through the camp calling upon
the army to use its power to obtain
its rights, and inviting a meeting OF
the officers to devise way.
Can you consent to be the only
sufferers by this revolution?
If you can, go, carry WIN
you the ridicule, and, what Is worse.
the pity of the world. Go, starve, and
be forgotten. -. But II you nave
sense enough to discover, and spirit
enough to oppose, tyranny
awake; attend to your situation, and
redress yourselves" Such were It's
kindling phrases; and no man need
deceive himself with thinking they
would go unheeded.
checkmates the Movement.
Washington showed his tact and
mastery by assuming immediate con-
troll of the movement, with sharp
rebuke for such a breach OF manly
propriety and soldierly discipline, but
with no thought to stay righteous
protest.
He himself summoned the officers,
and when they had come together
stepped to the desk before them, with
no show Of anger or offended dignity.
but very grayely, with sort OF
majesty it moved one strangely to see,
and taking written paper from his
pocket. adjusted his spectacles to read
it. Gentleman" he said, very SIM
ply, you will permit me to put on my
spectacles, for have not only grown
gray, but almost blind, in the service
Of my country"
Again a Victor.
There were wet eyes upon the in
slant in the room; no man stirred
while he read-read words of admoni-
ton, of counsel, and of hope which
burned at the ear; and when he was
done, and had withdrawn, leaving
them to do what they would, they did
nothing of which he could be ashamed.
They spoke manfully, as was right.
of what they deemed it just and i'm
perative the congress should do for
them, but they Resolved, unanimous
ly that at the commencement Of the
present war the officers of the Amer
lean army engaged in the service OF
their country from the purest love
and attachment to the rights and lib
critics of human nature, which motives
still exist in the highest degree; and
that no circumstances of distress or
danger shall induce a conduct that
may tend to sully the reputation and
/ glory which they have acquired at the
price of their blood and eight years
faithful services"
Urges Congress to Act.
| Washington knew, nevertheless,
how black a danger lurked among
these distressed men; did not fail to
speak plainly of it to the congress;
and breathed freely again only when
the soldiers just demands had at last
in some measure been met, by at any
rate the proper legislation.
He grew weary with longing for
peace. when the work seemed done
and his thoughts and leisure to turn
towards his home again.
But once in all the heightened days
of fighting had he seen Mount Yer
non. He had turned aside to spend
a night or two there on his way to
Yorktown, and he had seen the loved
place again for a little after the vic
tory was won.
Now, amidst profitless days at New
burgh, or in counsel with the commit
tees of the congress upon business
that was never finished, while affairs
stood as it were in a sort Of paralysis,
waiting upon the interminable con-
ferences of the three powers who bag
gled over defnitive terms of peace at
Paris, home seemed to him, in his
WEAKNESS, more to be desired than
ever before.
Sorrow at Mount Vernon.
Private griefs had stricken him at
the very moment of his triumph.
Scarcely had the victory at Yorktown
been celebrated when he was called
November, 1781) to the death bed of
loved stepson, and had there to en-
dure the sight of his wife's grief and
the young widows hopeless sorrow
added to his own.
The two youngest children he
claimed for himself, with that wistful
fatherly longing that had always mark
ed him; and Mount Vernon seemed to
him more like a haven than ever,
where to seek rest and soiace.
The two years he had yet to wait
may well have seemed to him the
longest of his life, and may have add
ed a touch of their own to what
strangers deemed his sternness.
Washington had seldom seemed so
stern as in one incident of those try
ing months.
An officer of the American army
had been taken in a skirmish, and the
English had permitted brutal COM
pany of loyalists, under one Captain
Tinpinooff RI falxo him from hia nris-