Leaders of The Ballarat Reform League
George Black, a well-educated Englishman was editor of the "Digger's Advocate." Through his paper he worked to form the diggers into a cohesive group which would resist oppressive laws. A Welshman, Humffray, took the conservative view and believed the solution should be gained by constitutional means. Frederic Vern, a Hanoverian, was full of fine talk about righting wrongs and because of the noise he made, was wrongly believed by the Government to be directing the forces. But the man who held the loyalty of the diggers was Peter Lalor, an Irish engineer. Because of his courage and integrity he was a man whom other men would follow loyally. The most picturesque personality among the leaders was an Italian, Carboni Raffaello, and it is to his dynamic and emotional narrative that we owe much of the detail of those bitter days. The sixth man, Timothy Hayes, was an Irishman and a rousing speaker.
Read more about this topic: Ballarat Reform League
Famous quotes containing the words leaders, reform and/or league:
“People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher—a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It’s the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“There is no such thing as accomplishing a righteous reform by the use of “expediency.” There is no such thing as sliding up- hill. In morals the only sliders are backsliders.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best—it’s all they’ll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money—provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don’t need it.”
—Peter De Vries (b. 1910)