204 HISTORY OF THE WHEEL AND ALLIANCE. 



they saw their opportunity to use the organization for the 

 purpose of airing their views, and, possibly, riding into 

 some lucrative office on this promising young steed. 

 Many others had a vague idea that something was going to 

 happen. They did not know exactly what, or how, but 

 saw there was a great popular uprising which would 

 revolutionize things, and they permitted themselves to be 

 carried along with the current, not knowing where or why, 

 and really too lazy and indolent to make the proper effort 

 to learn. "It takes all kinds of people to make a world;" 

 and it might truly be said that we have, or did have, a 

 sample of each kind in the Union. But of all classes of 

 so-called members, we have the greatest contempt for that 

 class who had some little private imaginary wrong which 

 they desired to revenge, or some political axe to grind, 

 and when they learned they could not use the organiza- 

 tion to accomplish their purpose, turned their backs upon 

 it, and, Judas-like, went over to the enemy. There is 

 another class of individuals, however, for which the word 

 contempt fails to express our feeling. It is for the man 

 who, by his own acts and professions of loyalty, secured 

 the confidence of the organization to the extent that it 

 placed him in a position of trust, and he then turned and 

 "burned the bridge that had carried him over the 

 stream. " It is little wonder that with all these characters 

 in the organization, and fierce opposition without, that it 

 "tried men's souls" to stand at the helm and preserve the 

 organization intact. But the Order has passed its "trial 

 period." It is now established on a firm foundation the 

 solid rock of human rights. 



One of the chief causes for a lack of the proper under- 

 standing of the objects of the Order, has been the want of 

 means to keep lecturers in the field to instruct the mem- 

 bers. Another prominent cause is the lack of newspapers 

 devoted to the interests of the organization; and still 



