Trust in Man a Broken Stick
As a practical offset to the supposed benefits of so-called beneficent societies and superfluous religious combinations, we have General Kelly's statement of the composition of the Industrial Army which he recently led to Washington City. Of his 1,200 men he says: "We have among us 73 Masons, 122 Odd Fellows, 76 Knights of Pythias, 28 Ancient Order of United Workmen, 23 Red Men, 850 who bear tradesmen's cards, 150 Young Men's Christian Association men, and a large number of Native Sons." It is also a prominent fact that hundreds of railroad men who placed implicit confidence in the American Railway Union have, as a direct consequence, been compelled to join the great army of unemployed. And we have the Industrial Army itself, combined together for the more effectual enforcement of its varied demands on the public. Yet, while ostensibly seeking work, their leader says they are in sympathy with the strikers, men who voluntarily gave up work at the behest of their organization's leaders. This unemployed army, on the advice of their leaders, would not accept work in the positions voluntarily made vacant by men of another combination, though they saw that they could have made $4.00 a day by going to work. Thus we have the evidence that trust in man, or combinations of men, is simply leaning upon a broken stick. "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass." Ps. 37: 5.