"Rank and file" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of getting rooms in the barracks," said Shortridge; "but it is not pleasant for a lady to be in the midst of the rank and file." ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... for Buni, and arrived there the same evening. Here he left a young native officer and thirty-three rank and file while, with Lieutenant Jones and the rest of his little force, he marched for Reshun, where Lieutenant Edwards' party were detained. They halted in the middle of the day; and arrived, at one o'clock, at a hamlet halfway ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... high-minded conspirators and socialists of continental Europe for half a century; of the best of those, that is to say, who have borne the most unsparing testimony against the present ordering of society, and against the theological and moral conceptions which have guided and maintained it. The rank and file of the army has been equally inspired by the same fiery and rebellious strains against the order of God and the order of man. 'The day will come,' wrote Mazzini, thirty years ago, 'when Democracy will remember all that it owes ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley
... received a report at nine o'clock in the morning of the direction Cavalier and his troops had taken, and immediately left Sommieres, followed by six companies of Fimarqon dragoons, one hundred Irish free-lances, three hundred rank and file of the Hainault regiment, and one company each of the Soissonnais, Charolais, and Menon regiments, forming in all a corps over nine hundred strong. They took the direction of Vaunages, above Clarensac; but suddenly hearing the rattle of musketry behind them, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Whatever may be thought of the rank and file of China's mandarins, her viceroys are nearly always men of exceptional ability. They are never novices, but as a rule old in years and veterans in experience. Promoted for executive talent or for signal services, their office ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... is not saying much, is it? The cruelty of our rule to-day is due rather to ignorance than to ill will. A few of the men higher up are working off their old grievances and are profiting enormously, but the rank and file of the movement ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... spears, bow they quiver and flash Where the clouds send their cavalry down! Rank and file by the million the rain-lancers dash Over mountain and river and town: Thick the battle-drops fall—but they drip not in blood; The trophy of war is the green fresh bud: Oh, ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... habit of clear and decisive gazing. Not by a first casual glance, but by a steady deliberate aim of the eye are the rare and characteristic things discovered. You must look intently and hold your eye firmly to the spot, to see more than do the rank and file of mankind. The sharp-shooter picks out his man and knows him with fatal certainty from a stump, or a rock, or a cap on a pole. The phrenologists do well to locate, not only form, color, and weight, in the region of the eye, but also a faculty which they call individuality—that ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... brilliancy to which he had become accustomed. New York was not only the hot-bed of Toryism, but even such ardent Republicans as William Livingston, George Clinton, and John Jay were aristocrats, holding themselves fastidiously aloof from the rank and file that marched and yelled under the name of Sons of Liberty. To Hamilton the conflict had been spectacular rather than real, until he met and moved with these sombre, undemonstrative, superficially unpleasing men of Boston; then, almost in a flash, he realized that the colonies were struggling, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... once the working executive, the guiding agency in legislation, and the leaders and spokesmen of this party. Confronting them constantly is the Opposition, consisting of influential exponents of the contrary political faith who, in turn, lead the rank and file of their party organization; and if at any time the ministers in power lose their supporting majority in the Commons, whether through adverse results of a national election or otherwise, they retire and the Opposition assumes office. The parliamentary system ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... population, its vast wealth, and its boundless energy, should think it madness on our part that we are not knocking untiringly at their door for admission, and that the only explanation of our attitude that they can give is that we are "swelled heads", or "the rank and file of jingoism." But, after all, they must know that this question is not to be settled by them. It must be settled by genuine Canadians. We, like Cartier, are Canadians avant tout. Most of us have been born in the land, have ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... scene, at the Spaniards in their blue linen uniforms, the red and lacquer of the guarda civile, the ordered Mausers, the trumpeters resting their trumpets on their hips, at our own array, McKibben in his black shirt, Ludlow in his white leggings, and the rank and file of the escort, the bronzed, blue-trousered troopers, erect and motionless upon their mounts. It was war, and it was magnificent, seen there under the flash of a tropic sun with all that welter of green to set it ...
— The Surrender of Santiago - An Account of the Historic Surrender of Santiago to General - Shafter, July 17, 1898 • Frank Norris
... consequence, a hundred thousand regular soldiers of the United States has been called out to put a frightful end to the whole affair. A number of the labor leaders had been executed; many others had been sentenced to prison, while thousands of the rank and file of the strikers had been herded into bull-pens** and ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... for the faithful rank and file, Who know their proper stations, Perhaps it may be worth their while To try the rice plantations. Let Hale exult, let Wilson scoff, To see us southward scamper; The slaves, we know, are "better off Than laborers in ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... mistaken, is his native county. This bent of his mind towards the material improvement of the condition of the Irish people, and the development of the resources of Ireland, is not only a mark of his superiority to the rank and file of the Irish politicians—it goes far to explain the stronger hold which he undoubtedly has on the people in Ireland. "Home Rule," as now urged by the Irish politicians, certainly excites much more attention and emotion in America and England than ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... those as can, of course, has a better chance of promotion if they distinguish themselves. I should have got it last year in the Low Country, and Marlborough himself said, 'Well done!' when I, with ten rank and file, held a bridge across a canal for half an hour against a company of French. He sent for me after it was over, but when he found I couldn't read or write he couldn't promote me; but he gave me a purse of twenty guineas, and I don't know but what that suited me better, for ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... that, in future, Divorce Shadowing should be put under the protection of the State. There should be a special department, and the Shadowers should be of the distinguished position of Mr. MCDOUGALL of the London County Council, and the like. The office of the rank and file of the Shadowers should be honorary, as the pleasure of following in (possibly) unsavoury steps in the cause of virtue, would be to them, I presume, ample reward for any trouble the labour might entail. I would willingly myself undertake the responsibilities ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various
... not find any self-conscious patriotism among the rank and file of the New Army. The word itself meant nothing to them. Unlike the French soldier, to whom patriotism is a religion and who has the name of France on his lips at the moment of peril, our men were silent about the reasons for their coming out and the cause for which ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... had the cunning, when the time of trial arrived, to bend to the popular storm, and even to affect a zeal for citizenship. Comparatively few of them were at once blase and brainless. It may be doubted if a single one of them combined—as did many of the rank and file of the second generation of the Family Compact of Upper Canada—the pretensions of an aristocrat with the sentiments of a boor and the intellectual development of a child. Yet further. The feeling of veneration with which the ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... affiliated unions to find out exactly how the proposed great social revolution was to be carried out. For several years the Confederation had sought to launch a revolutionary general strike, but so many of the rank and file were asking, "What would we do, even if the general strike were successful?" that it occurred to the leaders it might be well to find out. As a result, they sent out ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... branches of the public service connected with that Department. The operations of the Army have been of a satisfactory and highly gratifying character. I recommend to your early and favorable consideration the measures proposed by the Secretary of War for speedily filling up the rank and file of the Regular Army, for its greater efficiency in the field, and for raising an additional force to serve ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... Berlin. I also remember with distinctness of detail a chorusman who took part in a new Lehar opera, there in Berlin. I do not remember him for his dancing, because he was no clumsier of foot than his compatriots in the chorus rank and file; or for his singing, since I could not pick his voice out from the combined voices of the others. I remember him because be wore spectacles—not a monocle nor yet a pair of nose-glasses, but heavy-rimmed, double-lensed German spectacles with gold bows extending up behind his ears ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... compared with boys as their increase has been greater. When but few were found in these institutions they were usually picked girls with superior tastes and ability, but now the average girl of the rank and file is, despite advanced standard, of admission, of an order natively lower. From this deterioration both boys and teachers suffer, even though the greatest good for the greatest number may be enhanced. Once more, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... fantastic array of soldiers, sailors, the old, the young, grandfathers and infants, the simple rank and file and the elegant regiments of H. M. that are continually trailing on ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... roll-call. Bad example to the rank and file," murmured the Captain, with some remnant of a camp-dream lingering ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... the year 1914, the strength of the regiment was raised to a peace establishment of 867, rank and file, and the field training of the corps took place at Petawawa, where Lord Brooke had command of the Canadian forces in training. The regiment behaved well and showed evidence of the high standard of efficiency which it subsequently reached. The greatest enthusiasm ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... a simple and efficacious formula in the rank and file of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. It has made volumes of stirring history, because it means a great deal and has been lived up to. Twice before, the words had been uttered to Blake—in extreme cases. The first time they had taken him ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... the Legislature the more is expected from it by every little section of voters to whom it owes its victory at the polls. The impelling force of responsibility which makes all Governments "go slow" creates the greatest discontent among impatient followers of the rank and file, and where a few votes may turn the scale at any general election a Government is often compelled to choose between yielding to the demands of its more clamorous followers at the expense of the general taxpayer or submitting to ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... to see this shell of a court in miniature, mounting ponderous stairs—it would be a solecism to say a flight—up which a regiment of men might have marched, shouldering their firelocks to exercise in vast galleries, where all the generations of the Princes of Hesse-Cassel might have been mustered rank and file, though not the phantoms of all the wretched they had bartered to support their state, unless these airy substances could shrink and expand, like Milton's devils, ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... for action transmitted. It is the home of the Staff, not of the Armies, and contains more "brass hats" than all the other Headquarters put together. Beyond the "details" in the barracks it contains few of the rank and file, and its big square betrays little of the crowded animation of the towns nearer the fighting line, with their great parks of armoured cars, motor lorries, and ammunition waggons, their filter-carts, and their little ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... finding it would save time, they agreed that plain grass would look as well on a firescreen, as all the crocodiles and elephants which with literal deference to natural history Mrs. Mellicent had drawn up rank and file, on each side Adam and Eve. The young architects anticipated the departure of their friends with eagerness, and set about their scheme the moment the calash drove off. The business was got through with great alacrity, and though there were a few mistakes, and certainly no nice finish as a whole, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... slaughter during these first four awful days and nights of the war, both sides had lost the command of the sea, and the capture of the Hohenzollern in broad daylight less than a dozen miles from the English coast had produced such a panic among the rank and file of the invaders, and the reinforcements of men waiting on the other side of the Channel and the North Sea, that communication save ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... soon discovered that what I wanted from the Red Cross for my purpose was not the organization nor the equipment but the people—the rank and file of the people in the Red Cross who had made themselves the soul of it and who would make the soul of anything—particularly the men and women who partly before and partly after the armistice, had come to cool a little—had come to feel the ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... in gorgeous clothing of pink and yellow hue, accordingly gladdened the eyes of the Abertaffians as they paraded the streets and hung about the court-house. Each man of the rank and file carried a weapon the like of which had not often been looked upon. It resembled an axe with an exaggerated handle, only the back of the blade was prolonged into a formidable spike, while the handle extended beyond into a species of ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... of the firing party has fallen, sergeant as well as rank and file, the two officers are still untouched. So far they have been saved by the interposition of the formed line. But straggling shots succeed, and bullets ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... that clears St. Helen's shore Holds Burrard, Hope, ill-omened Moore, Clinton and Paget; while The transports that pertain to those Count six-score sail, whose planks enclose Ten thousand rank and file. ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... paper. All I can really say is, I am peering about in the dark for the strongest candidate, the most available man on an available platform, and even then we shall have desperate hard work to win in the face of the immense losses our party is suffering from the ravages in the rank and file, committed by the prohibitionists. We shall have to face a loss of fifty thousand in New York. How is that to be made good? and twenty-five to thirty thousand in Illinois and five to seven thousand in Indiana, and thirty thousand ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... spectators, a fresh inspection was instituted, and all the tea men were ordered to take off their shoes and empty them, which was supposed to be done. Pitts, who was a military man, and a prominent Son of Liberty, was appointed commander-in-chief; the company was formed in rank and file by his directions, with the aid of Barber, Proctor, and some others, and "shouldering arms,"—such as they had, tomahawks included,—they marched up the wharf, to what is now the east end of Pearl Street, back into town, and then ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... skirt the windings of the Antietam, the long battle had travelled, like one of those tornadoes which tear their path through our fields and villages. The slain of higher condition, "embalmed" and iron-cased, were sliding off on the railways to their far homes; the dead of the rank and file were being gathered up and committed hastily to the earth; the gravely wounded were cared for hard by the scene of conflict, or pushed a little way along to the neighboring villages; while those who could walk were meeting us, as I have said, at every step in the road. It was ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... for all tastes, we have in our rank and file a serio-comic artiste from the lower rungs of the music-hall ladder. We had a busy time with him at our Great Inoculation Ceremony (First Performance) on Saturday. We could not put too strict a discipline ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... the Greek epics, the rank and file of the army are to be marshaled by the kings, and to raise the shout of battle, they actually disappear from the action, and leave the field perfectly clear for the chiefs to perform their deeds of valor. There is not, perhaps, an example in all the Iliad of a chief falling, or even being wounded, ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... the Grange had been so eminently suitable for a school. Seven little bedrooms placed side by side served exactly to accommodate the members of the Sixth Form, while the great chamber, running from end to end of the house, with its nineteen snow-white beds, provided quarters for the rank and file. Just for a moment the girls had stared rather aghast at their vast dormitory, contrasting it with the numerous small rooms of their former school; but the possibilities of fun presented by this congregation of beds outweighed the disadvantages, and they had decided that the arrangement ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... makers, the experimental workmen, the machinists, and the pattern makers. They are as good as any men in the world—so good, indeed, that they should not be wasted in doing that which the machines they contrive can do better. The rank and file of men come to us unskilled; they learn their jobs within a few hours or a few days. If they do not learn within that time they will never be of any use to us. These men are, many of them, foreigners, and all that is required before they are taken on is that they should be potentially able to do ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... an emergency such as makes severity the truest mercy? Who is to determine whether it be or be not necessary to lay a thriving town in ashes, to decimate a large body of mutineers, to shoot a whole gang of banditti? Is the responsibility with the commanding officer, or with the rank and file whom he orders to make ready, present and fire? And if the general rule be that the responsibility is with the commanding officer, and not with those who obey him, is it possible to find any reason for pronouncing the case of Glencoe an exception to that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and purples and hardly able to walk. At his morning drill his sergeant had knocked him down by a blow in the face and then kicked him in the knee. The little philosopher was a good deal of a dreamer and had failed in strict and prompt attention. To strike down and boot the rank and file are, of course, a normal part of ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... which the beer contained. This sort of fat instead of indicating health points to disease. This general teaching as to the worthlessness of alcohol as a food had been set forth by the leaders in medical profession, and accepted largely by the rank and file of practitioners for about twenty-five years. An occasional cry came from the other side, however, and late in 1899 Dr. W. O. Atwater, professor in Wesleyan University, announced that he had, by an extended series of experiments, proved the truth of the claims ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... community where the general level of character was a high one and where men were, therefore, in the habit of placing implicit trust in one another. The relationship of confidence between a member of Parliament and his constituents, or a Trade Union leader and his rank and file, is a thing of which public men are rightly proud: for it reflects honour on both parties and testifies to an underlying community of purpose which no passing disagreement ...
— Progress and History • Various
... winter. The heaviest anxieties which beset a gondolier are then disposed of. Having entered private service, they are not allowed to ply their trade on the traghetto, except by stipulation with their masters. Then they may take their place one night out of every six in the rank and file. The gondoliers have two proverbs, which show how desirable it is, while taking a fixed engagement, to keep their hold on the traghetto. One is to this effect: il traghetto e un buon padrone. The other satirises the meanness ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... been a regular knock-down and drag-out," he cried, "and no bones broke! How now, old trapper, you have been one of your training, platoon, rank and file soldiers in your day, and have seen forts taken and batteries stormed before this—am ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... my companions the night previous, I had discovered that only the leaders of the party knew our destination. The rank and file were as ignorant of the intentions of their commanders as is usually the case among the armies of more civilized peoples. The young braves who were my chosen companions on the march and in the camp, neither knew ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... one hundred and two thousand nine hundred and eighty-five enlisted men of all services to a strength of seven thousand one hundred and thirty-six officers and one hundred and thirty-four thousand seven hundred and seven enlisted men, or 141,843, all told, all services, rank and file, by the addition of fifty-two companies of coast artillery, fifteen companies of engineers, ten regiments of infantry, four regiments of field artillery, and four aero squadrons, besides seven hundred and fifty officers required ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... After winding through the narrow lanes among the vineyards, our cavalcade was joined by one of the gentlemen on whom we had called with a letter of introduction, and his son, who mixed freely with our rank and file. There is a happy fellowship in field sports which, to a great degree, levels for the time distinctions of rank; and this we found particularly in Sardinia, where all classes are so devoted to these sports, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... general questions, which affect only the woman with intellectual aspirations, we pass to consider what would be the effect of feminism upon the rank and file of women if it made of these co-partners with man in work. They would suffer not only because woman's physiological disabilities and the restrictions which arise out of her sex place her at a great disadvantage when she has to enter into competition with man, ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... strapped over big saddle cloths of crimson silk, edged with stout gold cord and adorned at the corners with tassels of gold bullion. There was a standard-bearer with them whose trappings were even richer and more ornate than those of the rank and file, and who bore aloft upon a slender lance a small standard of crimson silk, deeply edged with gold fringe, and beautifully emblazoned in gold thread with a device which seemed to be a hieroglyphic of some sort, of which I could ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... the rank and file of the spectators had been reinforced by the arrival of Marsh; who, discovering a scene so unexpected, and quickly perceiving that Lemoine was doing his utmost, wondered what Payton's thoughts were. ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... criticism, became influential in the party. Whenever the party gained any success at the polls, the socialists in public office and the party leaders found it necessary to "do something" immediately. The rank and file might be willing to talk of the millennium, but preferred to take it in instalments instead of waiting for it to come some centuries after they were dead. And so the socialist party, as fast as it ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... and fifty horse, and with it three pieces of cannon. They took up their position at a cross road behind hedges, and in the narrow way behind which it was supposed that the Duke of Albemarle would come, the foot lying in the field with their arms in rank and file, the horsemen holding their bridles in their hands. Every moment they expected to be up and doing, but the night drew on and no enemy appeared. At length day dawned; the men rose to their feet. They had taken their first lesson in campaigning, and felt the better prepared for ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... voluptuary, king of Zeboiim; and the king of Bela, the city that devours its inhabitants. The five were routed in the fruitful Vale of Siddim, the canals of which later formed the Dead Sea. They that remained of the rank and file fled to the mountains, but the kings fell into the slime pits and stuck there. Only the king of Sodom was rescued, miraculously, for the purpose that he might convert those heathen to faith in God that ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... citizens were there, but especially soldiers. There were all sorts of soldiers—soldiers of rank, and soldiers of rank and file; attached soldiers (very much attached, apparently) and soldiers unattached; stout soldiers, thin soldiers; old soldiers, young soldiers. Four very young soldiers sat opposite us, drinking beer. I never saw such young soldiers out by themselves ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... that needs reconstruction in the United States. I should like to take a census of the business men—I mean the rank and file of the business men—as to whether they think that business conditions in this country, or rather whether the organization of business in this country, is satisfactory or not. I know what they would say if they dared. If they could vote ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... this engagement told us that the Turkish rank and file heartily hated their German officers. One prisoner said that he had been an officer, but since the outbreak of this war had been replaced by a German. At present the Turks ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... the mission were Major W.C. Harris, Bombay Engineers, Captain Douglas Graham, Bombay army, principal assistant, with others, naturalists, draftsmen, &c., and an escort of two sergeants and fifteen rank and file, volunteers from H.M. 6th foot and the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... of warfare were further complicated by a change in the character of Napoleon's army. After Austerlitz many men of German speech were to be found among the rank and file, and after Jena the character of the soldiery grew more and more cosmopolitan. On the first appearance of the imperial eagles of France in Poland, Jerome was at the head of a whole corps of Wuertembergers and Bavarians; many Poles, Italians, Swiss, and Dutch ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... spontaneous and independent movement, and its success necessarily depended upon the wisdom of its action and not the force of party obligation. There were doubtless political schemers and mercenaries in attendance, but the rank and file were unquestionably conscientious and patriotic, and profoundly in earnest. I never saw a finer looking body assembled. It was a more formidable popular demonstration than the famous Convention at Buffalo, in 1848, and gave promise of more immediate and decisive results. There was a very ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... foot with sword and lance, in some hasty serviceable formation. Fatteh Khan therefore shouted to all the non-commissioned officers, who carried lances, to dash to the front and hold the outskirts of the camp, while the rank and file who were armed with swords should fall into knots of five or six, and prepare ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... Now this, said the rank and file, was proof positive of something radically wrong, either in his disposition or his record. It was entirely comprehensible and fully in accordance with human nature and the merits of the case that ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... our national life to have an opportunity to propagate themselves and to extend to the many. Leaving aside the need of a differently organized social life in the school, we might say that there is hardly a greater need in democratic countries now than that of recruiting the rank and file of teachers from a socially superior class. These socially favored individuals have given themselves loyally to the service of country in a time of war, for two if no more of their deepest motives ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... sense. But he remained true to the cause of the workingmen while abandoning the organization which assumed to voice their needs and their wishes. Probably these more ulterior aims of their leaders were never fully appreciated by the rank and file of those who followed them. Yet the genesis of the present purely secular school system, against whose workings and results nearly all Christian denominations are too late beginning to protest, is clearly traceable to the propaganda carried on half a century ago by men and women ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... Bowdoin and McMurtagh were all eyes. The boat rowed up to the slippery wharf steps; in the bow were the two ringleaders and the ship's captain, in the waist of the boat the rowers, and in the stern the rank and file of the pirates, some eight or ten ill-looking fellows chained together. (The rest of them, the captain remarked casually, had been shot or lost in the battle; and not ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... as a means of justice is an idea which a man of an enlightened mind will not dwell upon with pleasure. To march forth in rank and file, and all the pomp of streamers and trumpets, for the purpose of shooting at our fellow-men as a mark; to inflict upon them all the variety of wound and anguish; to leave them weltering in their blood; to wander ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... of defiance. In the Freethinker of May 14 I denounced the bigots as cowards for pouncing on a comparatively obscure member of the Freethought party, and I challenged them to attack its leaders before they assailed the rank and file. This challenge was cited against me on my own trial, but I do not regret it; and indeed I doubt if any man ever regretted that his sense of duty triumphed over ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... easily on his saddle, like one who had not mounted a horse for the first time when he first put on his sword-belts; the Captains of the various companies stepped out boldly and clearly in front of their men, turning occasionally to see that the line was properly kept; and the rank and file tramped on, their step almost steady enough for the march of veteran troops, and the dull thunder of the fall of each thousand of feet on the solid pavement, making the most impressive sound in the world except that supplied by the multitudinous clink of the iron ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... character—viz., by presenting its dimensions in a new form, and supposing the city to be uncrested, as it were; its upper tiers to be what the sailors call unshipped; and the dethroned stories to be all drawn up in rank and file upon the ground; according to which assumption he implies that the city would stretch from the mare Superum to the mare Inferum, i.e., from the sea of ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... stripes and spangles, And our hearts are filled the while With love for the brave commanders, And the boys of the rank and file. The grandest deeds of valor Were never written out, The noblest acts of virtue ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... to accept or refuse civilities as they please. Society never does this; it has too much on its hands; a few conspicuously beautiful and gifted people may occasionally receive such an ovation, but it is not for the rank and file. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... you usually find in the villages many fully-grown people whose noses have not been pierced; though as to this I may say that nose-piercing is more generally indulged in by chiefs and important people and their families than by the village rank and file. It commonly happens, however, that a good many people have to be done when the occasion arises. Each person to be operated upon has to provide a domestic pig for the big feast. I have been unable to discover the origin and meaning ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... this came an event which, for the first time, gave John Wingfield, Sr. a revelation of the side of his son that had won Little Rivers and the interest of the rank and file of the store. Among Jack's many suggestions, in his aim to carry out his father's talk about the creative business sense the first night they were together, had been one for a suburban clubbing delivery system. It had been dismissed as fantastic, but Jack had asked that it be given a trial ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... very number makes men hard By the infinities of agony, Which meet the gaze, whate'er it may regard— The groan, the roll in dust, the all-white eye Turned back within its socket,—these reward Your rank and file by thousands, while the rest May win perhaps a riband ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... be noted at the outset that such reforms as are advocated by the committee will never come into general use while the rank and file of teachers throughout the country merely approve the reports so carefully compiled and submitted each year: these reforms will become effective only as individual teachers make up their minds that the end to be attained is worth the trouble of being careful to use only correct terminology ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... has said, I am not one of the set speakers. I just blew in here, and blew in my good money to attend this feast, like the rest of the rank and file, and now I have to work my passage as well. I am simply put in as a filler. The President, with his awe-inspiring, chill-producing gavel, is the "wrapper," and I am the filler; and you, who smoke, have observed ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... of their faults. His arbitrary irresponsibility shook the confidence of the nation in his sincerity. Two parties, the Whigs and the Tories, came into being, and party spirit and party strife ran high. The question at issue was chiefly one of religion. The rank and file of Protestant England was determined against the revival of Romanism, which a continuation of the Stuart line seemed to threaten. Charles was a Protestant only from expediency, and on his deathbed accepted the Roman Catholic faith; his brother James, Duke of York, ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... professional men who shared the dissatisfaction and restlessness of the common laborers.[55] For this group, moving from the South became a necessity because the migration had deprived it of the patronage of the rank and file from which its means of subsistence had been derived. Many of these, however, were in good circumstances, having been in possession of good positions, cash money and considerable property. That ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... other detachments. In less than two hours after the sounding of the alarm bell, the "law and order" party had surrendered; all their arms were secured; the leaders of their troops dismissed on parole; and the rank and file placed in safe keeping; without the shedding of a drop of blood. The people looked on with astonishment to see with what precision and dispatch the whole work had been accomplished. At eleven o'clock the next day, the prisoners, with the ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb
... culture; and for the simple reason, that French culture remains as heretofore, and that we depend upon it as heretofore. It did not even help towards the success of our arms. Severe military discipline, natural bravery and sustaining power, the superior generalship, unity and obedience in the rank and file—in short, factors which have nothing to do with culture, were instrumental in making us conquer an opponent in whom the most essential of these factors were absent. The only wonder is, that precisely what is now called "culture" in Germany did not prove an obstacle to the military operations ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... careful cultivator will in good time look for patches of eggs and clusters of young Caterpillars on the under sides of leaves, and will carefully nip off the leaves on which the colonies are feeding, and make an end of them. This enemy cannot be raked in rank and file, but must be taken in detail, as ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... lengthy comment on the character of his last volume. He hopes that its contents will be found equal to either of its predecessors; and, if any superiority be observed, he begs that it may be attributed to the "march of mind," in whose rank and file he may be allowed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - No. 291 - Supplement to Vol 10 • Various
... in rank and file by the shore, and the pike gave the signal with his tail, on which they all started. Like an arrow, the pike darted away, and with him the herring, the gudgeon, the perch, the carp, and all the rest of them. Even the sole swam with them, and hoped to reach the ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... to be benefited by such friendly criticism. It would discourage some boys, and they would despair of any future excellence. The rank and file of boys would not be aroused by it to overcome the difficulty and go up higher. But Benjamin was aroused, and he resolved that his composition should yet be characterized by elegance and perspicuity. He set about that improvement at once. We shall see, ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... distinguished guests had all spoken, the master of ceremonies, General Gordon, proposed a toast to "The Democracy of Illinois," and called upon me to respond. I confessed that I was only an average Democrat from Illinois; that way out there we were content to be of the rank and file, and of course to follow the splendid leadership and the gallant Democracy of which we had heard so much. To vote for a New York candidate had by long usage become a fixed habit with us, in fact, we would hardly know how to go about voting for a candidate ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... swallow that a pert little boy of ten should be admitted, as a grown-up person, to all the hard-won privileges of their order. Mary Grace Burmington came back from her visits to the cottagers, reporting disaffection here and there, grumblings in the rank and file. But quite as many, especially of the women, enthusiastically supported my Father's wish, gloried aloud in the manifestations of my early piety, and professed to see in it something of miraculous promise. The ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... Religious houses en bloc were hotbeds of vice. But it was shown beyond question that even among the great Abbeys there were to be found appalling examples of corruption and profligacy, where the heads were the worst offenders and the rank and file imitated their superiors; and that small houses were not infrequently conducted in the most scandalous manner—for the simple reason that, when once corruption had found an entry, there was no supervising external authority sufficiently ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... best known of the modern fire-eaters was Barnello, who was a good business man as well, and kept steadily employed at a better salary than the rank and file of his contemporaries. He did a thriving business in the sale of the various concoctions used in his art, and published and sold a most complete book of formulas and general instructions for those interested in the craft. ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... government than anything which had happened since the days of Cromwell. The day of the King's funeral—it was early in July and beautifully fine—was marked, of course, by official signs of mourning, but the rank and file of the people rejoiced, and, according to a contemporary record, the merry-making and junketing in the villages round London recalled the scenes of an ordinary ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... friend, Sir GEORGE BENTINCK, whose patronage had been invaluable as investing him with an air of respectability, stood by him to the last. Resigning the post of Leader of the Protectionists, he nominated DISRAELI as his successor. The Tory rank and file would have none of him. Lord STANLEY, acknowledged leader of the Party in the House of Lords and the country, hesitated and chaffered, in the end reluctantly giving in. Something of the same thing happened ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... officers killed and seventy wounded, itself a striking evidence of the prompt response to Prescott's orders before the action began. Of rank and file, two hundred and seven were killed and seven hundred and fifty-eight were wounded. Total, ten ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... of a captain's commission, and turns wearily away on finding the preposterous price (L3,694) is wholly beyond his means. Fortunately for us (for events proved that in trusting to French assistance we were leaning on a broken reed indeed!) the Russian rank and file, besides being badly led, were as inferior to our own in endurance and pluck as they were superior to us in the mere matter of numbers. Justly wondering why forty thousand men, supported by twenty thousand reserves, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... sergeant-majors of both A and B Companies were hit. Of the officers, Barton, commanding B, and Tilly, of A, were killed. Aitken and Wayte were wounded. Nearly 40 of rank and file were casualties. ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... remark, half apologetically for their enthusiasm, 'Really, they were wonderful affairs. The Adjutant was quite a marvel in the conception of a big thing and the ability to carry it out.' As for the general rank and file, they bubble and burst with joyful acclamation at the recollection of red letter days ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... 1 in the Awkward Squad of the rank and file of life, and yet had his glimmering notions of standing true to his colors, and in instinctive refinement of feeling was much above others who outranked him ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... the offerings—mouldy fruit spread out upon a rude altar, or hanging in half-decayed baskets around some uncouth jolly-looking image; I was present during the continuance of the festival; I daily beheld the grinning idols marshalled rank and file in the Hoolah Hoolah ground, and was often in the habit of meeting those whom I supposed to be the priests. But the temples seemed to be abandoned to solitude; the festival had been nothing more than a jovial mingling of the tribe; the idols were quite harmless as any other logs of ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... and Montigny had laid down their lives, was the nuptial benediction for Berghen's heiress; for it was to the chief wedding guests upon, that occasion that the disaster was justly attributed. The rank and file of the states' army were mainly mercenaries, with whom the hope of plunder was the prevailing motive; the chief commanders were absent; while those officers who were with the troops were neither heartily friendly to their own flag nor sufficiently experienced ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... its fund by the sale of titles: which in many instances meant the sale of hereditary governing powers, since those higher titles which carry with them a seat in the House of Lords were sold like the others, at a higher rate naturally. For the rank and file member, a political career no longer meant the chance for talents and courage to win recognition in an open field. A man who believed that his first duty was to represent his constituents stood no chance of advancement. Certainly a private member could not introduce a bill as his own and get ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... Territory could determine the character of their institutions, a position which the Buchanan party denounced as inconsistent with Democratic principles. Mr. Douglas indorsed the Dred Scott decision, but maintained his position on popular sovereignty. He became at once unpopular with the rank and file of the Southern Democracy, with whom he had long been a favorite. He was also estranged from the administration, and it was evident that he would have no easy matter to be reelected United States Senator. This election came off in the fall of 1858. It was clear to him that, ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... English, without any difficulty. We sincerely hope that the exercises of the evening may interest you and may show our appreciation of the instruction and innumerable benefits which have been conferred upon us by this Society. We are now prepared to take our place in the rank and file of the world's army of workers. The elevating and benevolent influence of stenography and typewriting in the life of women is becoming more and more recognized. What the sewing machine is to the needle, ...
— Silver Links • Various
... a Battalion of Volunteers with its full complement of field, company, and non-commissioned officers, and rank and file. And according to experts the Regiment was a most valuable addition to the national defence. One day a General, covered over with gold lace and wearing a cocked hat, rode up to the Colonel ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various
... experience in war, but by more scientific strategy. As Henderson says: "Even the French generals of divisions and brigades had had more actual experience (in war) than those who led the German army corps. Compared with the German rank and file, a great part of their non-commissioned officers and men were veterans, and veterans who had seen much service. Their chief officers were practically familiar with the methods of moving, supplying, and maneuvering large masses of troops; their marshals were valiant and successful soldiers. ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... consists of communications between the rank and file, and the superiors at Rome, and vice versa, and includes the letters which passed between the General and the kings, archdukes and other reigning princes, who were ostensibly friends of the Society, but who did their best to put frequent spokes in ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... censured by every one. The transports are here. With a better system our men might be shipped as soon as they arrive in this God-forsaken hole. Instead of this, however, unnecessary delay results in sickness among the rank and file. According to my orderly, who saw them, fifteen men were picked up this morning whom the surgeons had declined to embark. ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... it should be easy to understand why our efficiency engineers and scientific management experts find the average organization only 25 per cent efficient. And this is not the only trouble we make for ourselves as the result of unscientific selection in the rank and file. In many cases we use no better judgment in the selection of even our highest and most responsible executives. If it is true, as has been so often stated, that a good general creates a good army and leads it to victory, and a poor ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... Holmes, and Colonel Higginson to deliver lectures in Cambridge under their auspices. This was a pretty bold stroke, but Holmes evidently liked it. He said to the committee that waited upon him: "What is your rank and file? How deep do you go down into the class?" He also promised to lecture, and that he did not was more the fault of the students than his own. He was by no means a radical in religious matters, but he hated small sectarian differences— the substitution of dogma for true religious ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... to the superior character, ability, and experience of its representatives, do not seem to be aware that the choice of such representatives and their prolonged tenure show that in politics, at least, the education of the Southerner had not been neglected. The rank and file then were not swayed simply by blind passion or duped by the representations of political gamesters. Nor did the lump need the leavening of the large percentage of men of the upper classes who served as privates, some of them from the beginning to the end of the war. The rank and ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... has been to present the explanations and instructions so clearly and in such an untechnical form as to make the book of use, not only to the psychologist, but also to the rank and file of teachers, physicians, and social workers. More particularly, it is designed as a text for use in normal ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman |
