Kelly had the courts and the
police, the moneyed class, the employers of labor, had the clergy
and well-dressed respectability, the newspapers, all the
customary arbiters of public sentiment. Also, he had the
criminal and the semi-criminal classes. And what had the League?
The letter of the law, guaranteeing freedom of innocent speech
and action, guaranteeing the purity of the ballot--no, not
guaranteeing, but simply asserting those rights, and leaving the
upholding of them to--Kelly's allies and henchmen! Also, the
League had the power of between a thousand and fifteen hundred
intelligent and devoted men and about the same number of women--a
solid phalanx of great might, of might far beyond its numbers.
Finally, it had Victor Dorn. He had no mean opinion of his value
to the movement; but he far and most modestly underestimated it.
The human way of rallying to an abstract principle is by way of a
standard bearer--a man-- personality--a real or fancied
incarnation of the ideal to be struggled for. And to the
Workingmen's League, to the movement for conquering Remsen City
for the mass of its citizens, Victor Dorn was that incarnation.
Kelly could use violence--violence disguised as law, violence
candidly and brutally lawless. Victor Dorn could only use lawful
means--clearly and cautiously lawful means. He must at all costs
prevent the use of force against him and his party--must give
Kelly no pretext for using the law lawlessly.
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