FOLLOW YOUR LEADERS

“There go thirty thousand men,” shouted the Portuguese, as Wellington, with a few staff-officers, rode along the mountain-side.  The action of the leaders’ minds, in any direction, has a value out of all proportion to their numbers.  In a campaign there is a council of officers,—­Grant and Sherman and Sheridan perhaps.  They are but a trifling minority, yet what they plan the whole army will do; and such is the faith in a real leader, that, were all the restraints of discipline for the moment relaxed, the rank and file would still follow his judgment.  What a few general officers see to be the best to-day, the sergeants and corporals and private soldiers will usually see to be best to-morrow.

In peace, also, there is a silent leadership; only that in peace, as there is more time to spare, the leaders are expected to persuade the rank and file, instead of commanding them.  Yet it comes to the same thing in the end.  The movement begins with certain guides, and if you wish to know the future, keep your eye on them.  If you wish to know what is already decided, ask the majority; but if you wish to find out what is likely to be done next, ask the leaders.

It is constantly said that the majority of women do not yet desire to vote, and it is true.  But to find out whether they are likely to wish for it, we must keep our eyes on the women who lead their sex.  The representative women,—­those who naturally stand for the rest, those most eminent for knowledge and self-devotion,—­how do they view the thing?  The rank and file do not yet demand the ballot, you say; but how is it with the general officers?

Now, it is a remarkable fact, about which those who have watched this movement for twenty years can hardly be mistaken, that almost any woman who reaches a certain point of intellectual or moral development will presently be found desiring the ballot for her sex.  If this be so, it predicts the future.  It is the judgment of Grant and Sherman and Sheridan as against that of the average private soldier of the Two Hundredth Infantry.  Set aside, if you please, the specialists of this particular agitation,—­those who were first known to the public through its advocacy.  There is no just reason why they should be set aside, yet concede that for a moment.  The fact remains that the ablest women in the land—­those who were recognized as ablest in other spheres, before they took this particular duty upon them—­are extremely apt to assume this cross when they reach a certain stage of development.