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Rank and file   /ræŋk ənd faɪl/   Listen
Rank and file

noun
1.
The ordinary members of an organization (such as the enlisted soldiers of an army).  Synonym: rank.  "He rose from the ranks to become a colonel"
2.
People who constitute the main body of any group.






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"Rank and file" Quotes from Famous Books



... leading Liberals of which Mr. Blapton was the centre, assuming an almost Whig-like expression and bearing to mask the fires within, and had then suddenly accosted him. It was one of those great occasions when the rank and file of the popular party is privileged to look upon Court dress. The ministers and great people had come on from Buckingham Palace in their lace and legs. Scarlet and feathers, splendid trains and mysterious ribbons and stars, gave an agreeable ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... under its roof. Here and there, the presence of sentinels indicated the location of generals. The hotels were crowded from basement to attic, folks who let lodgings for hire had made bargains long before, whilst the very poorest made up beds, or turned out of their own, to accommodate the rank and file. At the extreme end of the town, close to the ancestral home of the Dantons, stands the straggling old-fashioned Hotel de la Poste, a hostelry, I should suppose, not in the least changed since the ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... have spontaneously adopted these anti-social distinctions. At the apex stand covenanted civilians; whose service is now practically a close preserve for white men. It is split into the Secretariat, who enjoy a superb climate plus Indian pay and furlough, and the "rank and file" doomed to swelter in the plains. Esprit de corps, which is the life-blood of caste, has vanished. Officers of the Educational Service, recruited from the same social strata, rank as "uncovenanted"; and a sense of humiliation ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... a quiet drive back to the Towers. How very quiet the latter end of a drive often is, as far as talk goes! Does the Ozymandian silence on the box react upon the rank and file of the expedition, or is it the hypnotic effect of hoof-monotony? Lady Gwen and Miss Grahame scarcely exchanged a word until, within a mile of the house, they identified two pedestrians. Of whom their conversation ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... 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. Apart from the wager, it was clear that if Lemoine had not met his match, the Captain had; ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... marched into the market-place, and—all but those told off for sentries—we were dismissed; and Captain Dyer then stood talking earnestly to Lieutenant Leigh, for it had fallen out that they two, with a short company of eight-and-thirty rank and file, were to have the guarding of the women and children ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn

... it has sometimes forgotten its statistical tables long enough to look thoughtfully into this old Patmos looking-glass, has now and then made answer, in a few of its thoughtful leaders, while the rank and file push on absorbed in their Ephesian or Sardisian or ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon

... colony. It is true that most of the leaders came from the aristocracy, but it was the small farmer who owned the bulk of the land, produced the larger part of the tobacco crop, could outvote the aristocrat fifty to one, made up the rank and file of the army in the ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... the performers to maintain the illustrated positions for a single moment. As in dancing, there is constant motion and change, while the music secures concert. When, by marks on the floor, the performers are kept in linear rank and file, the scene is most exhilarating to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... neither are the most popular English novels, except occasionally to subscription libraries. For representative Australian work, then, there is a fair field but no favour. It is as though the function and existence of the authors apart from the rank and file of English letters were not recognised. There is an exception to this rule in the poet Gordon, as a portion of his writings, the Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes, irresistibly commemorate the national love of ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... in all other respects, but one especially commending itself to him on account of the simplicity of its mechanism, which he believed would prove to be a very strong point in its favour when put into the hands of such comparatively unintelligent persons as he strongly suspected the rank and file of the Cuban insurgents would prove to be. He also decided upon an exceedingly useful pattern of sword-bayonet to go with the rifle, and also a six-shot revolver of an especially efficient character; and there and then gave ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... off his hat to it. No agency in the community can more quickly stir up or allay strife. Public opinion to no small extent takes its cue from the papers. They are great educators, great molders of the minds of the rank and file. Let the papers whisper war or national calamity and the stock markets all over the world are affected. And that is but one of the vital influences the paper wields. The temper of the whole people is colored by what they read. ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett

... Utopia, or the golden age. A few in each generation might reach that clear, chill region of sublime thought; but the rank and file of womankind, and perhaps of mankind, ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter

... occurred, but I have forgotten it. It appeared that this force was harassed and beset by parties of citizens, who, by pursuing a guerilla system of warfare, surprising small parties, and firing entirely in ambush, made great havoc amongst the rank and file of the invaders, almost every straggler falling a victim. One evening, during this state of things, two of the citizens, whilst prowling in a coppice, within a few miles of the camp, on the look-out, came suddenly upon an infantry soldier, who was off his guard at the moment, and whose firelock ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... informed by Lydus[168], that in his time the Exceptores in the Eastern Empire were divided into two corps, the higher one called Augustales, who were limited in number to thirty, and the lower, of indefinite number and composing the rank and file of the profession. The Augustales only could aspire to the rank of Cornicularius; but in order that some prizes might still be left of possible attainment by the larger class, the rank of Primiscrinius was tenable by those who remained 'on the rolls of the Exceptores.' The reason ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... and satisfied perception of these advantages was uppermost in the minds of this local audience, as they waited for the Bishop to begin his reading. They had entertained this Bishop and his Presiding Elders, and the rank and file of common preachers, in a style which could not have been remotely approached by any other congregation in the Conference. Where else, one would like to know, could the Bishop have been domiciled in a Methodist house where he might ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... the Republicans were in the beginning provincial in their concern and outlook. Their attachment to America was, certainly, as strong as that of Hamilton; but they regarded the state, rather than the national government, as the proper center of power and affection. Indeed, a large part of the rank and file had been among the opponents of the Constitution in the days of its adoption. Jefferson had entertained doubts about it and Monroe, destined to be the fifth President, had been one of the bitter foes of ratification. The former went so far in the direction of local autonomy that he exalted ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... influence of the French Revolution. One must realize the intense interest, the mingled exultation and terror with which conservatives who, though they might differ in their religious preferences, were yet the rank and file of the state, watched its varying aspects from its outbreak in 1789 on through the years of its earliest experiments in statecraft, of its exaggerated exploitation of "liberty, equality, and fraternity," and of its casting off of all religious bonds and trammels. As the ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... of blood, could not build that house to the Lord, which peaceable Solomon, that man of rest, afterwards did (1 Chron 28:3,6). When armies are engaged, and hot in battle, 'tis harder to keep them in rank and file, than when they have rest, and time for discipline. Jared therefore is the fruits of thanksgiving, as thanksgiving is the fruits ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... who composed this new regime, the men who voted for Andrew Jackson and who shouted at and derided sturdy John Quincy Adams as he retired from the Presidency that 4th of March, were the rank and file of the United States. But the nucleus of the party of Jackson was the West. In the region which extends from Georgia to the Sabine, save in New Orleans alone, no name equaled that of the man who had driven the Indians like chaff before the wind ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd

... their tenants and dependants into regiments of volunteers, of which they took command themselves, and strained their resources to the utmost in order to bear the expense of the undertaking. And the rank and file—farmers and labourers—seemed fired by the same enthusiasm. The movement spread rapidly over the country, but it possessed more vitality in Ulster than elsewhere. It soon became evident that Ulster volunteers may form a body ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous

... however, brings the backs all right again. It is to these devotees what the "Attention!" is to the rank and file of an army; and the moment the first tinkle is heard, backs up is the movement, and all become suddenly elevated several inches above their former standard. Thus they remain, stiff and erect, while the priest mumbles a fresh "Ave Maria," or "Pater noster," and goes through a fresh exhibition ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... it might have seemed all loss, yet it had its advantages, and especially demonstrated the fact that there was a fine discipline and the necessary unity among the rank and file. The next great work was to find out how that unity could be guided and that discipline perfected—how to find a common ideal for the men. This was Robert Smillie's task, and who shall say, looking at the rank and file to-day, ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... 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 ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... weariness to keep pace with the rest, and had dropped by the wayside, till the vultures and the jackals should pick his bones. Neither do we read that he was a general, at the head of an advancing army, and that the poor sufferer was one of his own rank and file, crippled by wounds or by disease, watching, as many a poor soldier does, his comrades march past to victory, while he is left alone to die. Still less do we hear that the sufferer was the child of some poor soldier's wife, or even of some drunken camp-follower, who had lost her place on ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... music of the sea-breeze in the pine-forests below, and watching the ships sinking into the ocean from view or dropping through the sky into sight at the rim of the horizon, and the clouds changing their picturesque sunrise-dress for a uniform of sober white, forming into rank and file, marching and countermarching, sending off scouts into the far distance and foraging-parties to scour the yellow fields of air, pitching their tents and placing sentinels on guard around the camp,—amusing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... 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, they wheeled ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... We represent the rank and file against office-bearers that have lost the confidence o' the workingman. But I'm no socialist, and I would have ye keep mind of that. I'm yin o' the old Border radicals, and I'm not like to change. I'm for individual liberty and equal rights and chances ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... save this, where the inhabitants were of a deadly average in so far as being commonplace was concerned, could such a man as Stener have been elected city treasurer. The rank and file did not, except in rare instances, make up their political program. An inside ring had this matter in charge. Certain positions were allotted to such and such men or to such and such factions of the party for such and such ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... of the Stuarts and most 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 ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden

... stood unmoved while Casey was talking, and apparently unconcerned. The signal was given at twenty minutes past one o'clock and the cord cut, letting the bodies drop six feet. They hung for fifty-five minutes and were cut down and turned over to the Coroner. We, the rank and file of the Vigilance Committee, were immediately afterwards drawn up in a line on Sacramento street, reviewed and dismissed after stacking our arms in the Committee room, taking up our pursuits again as ...
— California 1849-1913 - or the Rambling Sketches and Experiences of Sixty-four - Years' Residence in that State. • L. H. Woolley

... Germany, are mostly educated in one of the state Kadetten-Anstalten, military academies, of which Gross-Lichterfelde bei Berlin is the most famous. The real backbone and stiffening of the German army and navy is the noncommissioned officers recruited from the rank and file. In fact, this body of men is the mainstay of the thrones in the German Empire, especially of Prussia. These men, after about twelve years of service in an army where discipline, obedience, and efficiency are the first and last word, are ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves

... reconstruction; after State forms of government had again been organized, the nation exercised its power over the ballot by restoring thousands of men to their political rights—to citizenship. And from the general law of amnesty for the rank and file, the leaders in the rebellion were again and again, by special Acts of Congress, re-endowed with the ballot. No amendment was submitted or expected. The authority of Congress thus to restore to these men the use ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... the charm of his expressive face shone in his joy over the new treasure which he was clasping tight. What to the little Dauphin was the silver star embroidered on his left shoulder, which showed his princely rank and removed him from the rank and file of other boys? What was a crown, a title—even the throne itself? They were less than nothing to him in comparison with the little dog nestling in his arms and licking his face, and while the King and Queen watched the pretty ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... man makes or mars his future. Chillingly Gordon spoke from the third row behind the Government; he had been duly cautioned by Mivers not to affect a conceited independence, or an adhesion to "violence" in ultra-liberal opinions, by seating himself below the gangway. Speaking thus, amid the rank and file of the Ministerial supporters, any opinion at variance with the mouthpieces of the Treasury Bench would be sure to produce a more effective sensation than if delivered from the ranks of the mutinous Bashi Bazouks divided ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... was the disillusionment when a measure, introduced for the purpose of abolishing "judicial disqualifications based on race distinctions," not only provoked fierce opposition amongst the whole European community and even amongst the rank and file of the civil service, but was ultimately whittled down in deference to that opposition until the very principle at issue was virtually surrendered. Indians resented this fresh assertion of racial superiority, ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... color. But my parents had money, which always and everywhere has a magic charm. I was also of a persevering habit; and what therefore I could not get in the schools I sought among the soldiers in the garrison, and succeeded in obtaining. Many of the rank and file of the American army are highly educated foreigners; some of them political refugees, who have fled to America and become unfortunate, oftentimes from their own personal habits. I now learned something of several languages, and considerable music. My German teacher, ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen

... themselves 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 ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... men of mature age; but the rest of the company consisted of young fellows from eighteen to twenty-five, the ready and capable agents who carried out the commands of their seniors. Among the older men were many whose features showed the tigerish, lawless souls within; but looking at the rank and file it was difficult to believe that these eager and open-faced young fellows were in very truth a dangerous gang of murderers, whose minds had suffered such complete moral perversion that they took a horrible ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle

... confirmed by the rank and file of the Socialist Party of America in their referendum vote identifying their party with the Revolutionary Third (Moscow) International. (See Chapters ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... up with measures equally fearless and decisive. On the fourth day of the session, the Provincial Congress resolved to raise fifteen hundred infantry, rank and file, in two regiments; and four hundred and fifty horse, constituting another regiment. The troops so to be raised, were to be subjected to military discipline, and to the articles of war, in like manner ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... 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 for a great variety of extra service, especially ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson

... of the government to combine with it a scheme of redistribution. The prominent, and on the whole judicious and successful, part he played in the debates on these questions, still further increased his influence with the rank and file of the Conservatives in the constituencies. At the same time he was actively spreading the gospel of democratic Toryism in a series of platform campaigns. In 1883 and 1884 he invaded the Radical stronghold of Birmingham itself, and in the latter year took part in a Conservative garden party ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... authority was supreme, as Macaulay says, on all matters from orthodoxy in architecture to the proper cut of a courtier's clothes. Her monarchs were the first gentlemen of Europe. Her nobility set the social standards of the day. The rank and file of her people—and there were at least twenty million of them in the days of Louis Quatorze—were making a fertile land yield its full increase. The country was powerful, rich, prosperous, and, for the ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro

... 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

... villages, Cossack villages, all or most of them fishers' homes and fishing establishments—a population of 20,000 to 30,000 souls being thus scattered on the bare sand-hills and dunes; men of all race, colour, and faith, all employed in the same fishing pursuit; the Tartars and Calmucks usually as rank and file, the Russians and other Europeans as overseers, foremen, ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... Wales. These catalogues were, of course, the ABC of his subject to Mr Williams: but as his museum already contained an enormous accumulation of topographical pictures, he was a regular, rather than a copious, buyer; and he rather looked to Mr Britnell to fill up gaps in the rank and file of his collection than ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James

... rear waves were now fast coming up, bombs and bombers were called for, and an immediate counter-attack organised. But the losses were now very heavy. Within a minute, one Captain and two Subalterns were killed, two Captains and two Subalterns wounded, and a heavy proportion among the rank and file also fell. The smallest hesitation, the slightest wavering, and the Turks had made good their success. But there was no hesitation and, though only one unwounded officer remained, there was no wavering. ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous

... had been a falling out between Senator Alcorn and himself, for which reason Senator Alcorn decided to use his influence to prevent the reelection of Senator Ames. This meant that there would be a bitter factional fight in the party, because both Senators were popular with the rank and file ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch

... Peterkin's remark seemed to me to be correct; for, at the distance from which we saw them, they appeared to be an army of soldiers. There they stood, rank and file, in lines and in squares, marching and countermarching, with blue coats and white trousers. While we were looking at them, the dreadful cry came again over the water, and Peterkin suggested that it must be a regiment sent out to massacre the natives in cold ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... connection I am not speaking of any of the trained orchestras, but solely of the band music that one hears all through the Rhine land. It is only tradition that Germans are the most musical people in the world, for in my opinion the rank and file of Germans have no ear for key. That they listen well and perform earnestly is perfectly true. That they respect music and give it proper attention is equally true, but that they know the difference between a number performed with no expression, with one or two instruments ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell

... deal 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... time, the alarm had spread, and spectators of every age, and either sex, thronged the shore, to witness this singular pursuit. The civil and military authorities prepared for defence, should it prove necessary; a battery, which protected the harbor, was hastily manned, and the militia drawn up, in rank and file, with a promptitude, not often displayed by the heroes of a train-band company. For several years, no foreign or internal enemy had disturbed the public repose, and the fortifications on Castle Island gradually fell into decay; and, from motives of economy, at this time not a single ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... our injecting our issue into their campaign, but the rank and file will be won when they see the loyalty of ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... 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, had failed to hold their ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... 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 ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... and efficient measures were at once adopted, which speedily checked this alarming depletion of the ranks. Furloughs in reasonable quantity were allowed to deserving men and a limited number of officers. Work was found for the rank and file in drill and outpost duty sufficient to prevent idle habits. The commissariat was closely watched, and fresh rations more frequently issued, which much improved the health of the army. The system of ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... death. Taken in armed defiance of the Republic, identity established, the hollow square and shooting squad, such was the routine prescribed. But the lesser official relics of the Empire, six hundred in all, escaped generally with a few months of prison. The rank and file of the betrayed army had already melted away. But for the three arch-culprits a trial was deemed requisite, and President Juarez, in San Luis Potosi, so ordered. Hence the stage ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... was making to its defence. The detachment arrived on the 29th; the British army was thirteen miles distant on the other side of the river. Petersburg, Chesterfield Court House, and part of our vessels had fallen into their hands. Our regular force consisted of 900 men, rank and file; that of the enemy, of 2,300, at ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... these soldiers were what is familiarly known as "a queer lot!" The uniform of the rank and file consisted of a tunic and trousers of white material, with a narrow-brimmed straw hat painted white, cross-belts and cartouche-box—by no means an unbecoming dress. But it was worn only at drills and reviews and state ceremonies. At other times, when on duty, soldiers ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne

... order with the military Milesianism, "Youse fellers wants to keep your mouths shut barrin' you're atin'." The wounded in the Pullman ate and drank gratefully and heartily at the lieutenant's expense, and these are matters the rank and file remember. Lance Corporal Brannan, made comfortable for the night in the sleeper, had a few murmured words with the dark-eyed and more intelligent-looking of the two recruits before they were remanded to their own car for the night, where they went, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... on the throne—as in Alfred the Great, Saint Louis, and Henry the Sixth; in the hierarchy—as in Anselm, Bradwardine, and Grosteste; in the cloister—as in Bernard de Morlaix; but perhaps most frequently in that rank and file of whom the world never hears, and of some of whom, however low their place in it, the world is ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... and suggestions in the matter are but those of a humble soldier who belongs to the rank and file of the great Catholic army. But often a private in the firing line can suggest a plan of action which, when corrected or modified at headquarters, proves to be of some benefit to his battalion. This explains the dedication of our humble effort to the Hierarchy of Canada. For in ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... the Madisonian as the rank and file of the executive standing army of office-holders in the State of New York. How hardly can the freedom of elections be maintained against the natural enemies of that freedom, when their efforts are seconded by the assaults of such an army of placemen, whose ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... states of New York and Ohio, the rank and file of the militia are not required to train in time of peace. Persons liable to perform military service, except those connected with the uniformed companies, are enrolled in the militia; but instead of doing duty, they pay annually a small tax, which is in New York fifty cents, and in Ohio fifty cents, ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young

... 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

... long, slender 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

... Herbert Greyson went on shore to the military rendezvous to see the new recruits exercised. While he stood within the enclosure watching their evolutions under the orders of an officer, his attention became concentrated upon the form of a young man of the rank and file who was marching in a line with many others having their backs turned toward him. That form and gait seemed familiar—the circumstances in which he saw them again—painfully familiar. And yet he could not identify the man. While he gazed, the recruits, at the word of command, suddenly wheeled ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... Still more remarkable, the rank and file glorified in being men of peace, to whom strife was abhorrent. They were recruited from a people who had been driven from a home of prosperity and who at the time were encamped in most temporary fashion, awaiting the word of their ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... silenced the shamans vile tom-tom. All Fetish Spirit-medicine she has tabooed, banished away Except bourbon and rye, sour-mash, hand-made And copper-distilled, licensed, taxed and gauged, Then stored in bond to ripen, mellow, age. God bless the Army, rank and file who fight our souls to save! Modern disciples of the Son of Man, true followers of Christ, They work by day, then preach and pray and pound ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... congregation stands here under a sentence of ecclesiastical death. A few weeks perhaps, and this mighty church will know its white-haired Bishop no more. Bishop and Chapter will have been driven out; and we, the rank and file, whose only desire is to cling to the Church in which we were baptized and bred, will find ourselves exiles ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... juxtapositions he would need no classifications. The intentions, acts, and antecedents of every mortal would be seen in their precise places, with no imputed qualities or scope; and when those intentions had been in fact fulfilled, the fulfilments too would occupy their modest position in the rank and file of marching existence. To omniscience the idea of cause and effect would be unthinkable. If all things were perceived together and co-existed for thought, as they actually flow through being, on one flat phenomenal level, what sense would there be ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... officers and men did not understand her wonderfully complicated construction nor know how to handle her. The officers of the United States navy are given this important instruction at the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and the rank and file of the men of the navy, those who fill the positions of seamen and petty officers, are trained at the station in Coaster's Island Harbor, near Newport, R.I., and in ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... 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 his ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote

... spy two hosts of fighting men, The blue coats and the red. For mile on mile in rank and file They come with ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue

... 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 Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... for the loaves and fishes. As a matter of fact, no men were hungrier for office than the gentlemen who had done so much for civil service reform. They were so earnest in the advocacy of that principle that they insisted that only their followers should have place; but the real rank and file, the men who had been Democrats through all the disastrous years, and who had prayed and fasted, became utterly disgusted with Mr. Cleveland's administration and they were not slow to express their feelings. Mr. Cleveland saw that he was in danger of ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... which governed his conduct in the chair of the party, as indeed it governed that of nearly all the rank and file, was his horror of the years which Ireland had gone through since Parnell's fall. He loathed faction and he had struggled through murky whirlpools of it; for the rest of his life he was determined, almost at any cost, to maintain the greatest possible degree of unity among Irish ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... privations which circumstances have obliged them to endure. The high spirit of an English gentleman might have sustained him under circumstances which he could not have anticipated to encounter; but the same proud patience has been found among the rank and file. And it is these moral qualities that have contributed as much as others apparently more brilliant to those great victories which we are ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... 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 rule? It is remarkable that no member ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the unwitting Clare, "I should have been glad to know you to be descended exclusively from the long-suffering, dumb, unrecorded rank and file of the English nation, and not from the self-seeking few who made themselves powerful at the expense of the rest. But I am corrupted away from that by my affection for you, Tess (he laughed as he spoke), and made selfish likewise. For your own sake ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... any other issue. Our resources of the materiel of war were well nigh infinite. Men could be had almost without number, at least equal to the Rebels in courage. There was, then, no excuse for inaction, and none knew it better than our reflecting rank and file. ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... the present, I put these matters on one side and think only of this one thing—of the changes in our fiscal system which may best serve to open once more the free channels of prosperity to a great people whom we would serve to the utmost and throughout both rank and file. ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson

... wedding. The news of this additional massacre inflicted upon a nation, for which Berghen 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 ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... mysticism and beauty and the immortal idealism of the soul, is unconcerned with practice—theories and his pipe bound all for Schramm; while Lutwyche is close-set as any predatory beast upon his prey; and the rank and file are but the foolish, heartless boys of all time, all place, the "students," mere and transient, who may turn into decent men ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... unmistakable. Seventeen Freethinkers have been converted to Christianity! Wonderful! But how many Christians have been converted to Freethought? Ay, there's the rub. For every specimen Dr. Hitchens produces we will produce a thousand. Not only were the rank and file of the Freethought party very largely brought up as Christians, but its leaders are of the same category. Charles Bradlaugh was brought up as a Christian, so was Colonel Ingersoll. Can Dr. Hitchens produce two ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... Ceremoniale of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, l. ii. c. 44, p. 176-192. A critical reader will discern some inconsistencies in different parts of this account; but they are not more obscure or more stubborn than the establishment and effectives, the present and fit for duty, the rank and file and the private, of a modern return, which retain in proper hands the knowledge of these ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... Front are registered and plans 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 clusters and eddies of men resting in billets. The Military ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... resource. But he shook his head with a sort of suppressed smile, a faint blush, and an air of proud humility that was natural to him: 'I think,' he said, 'we have had enough of leaders; it is not in my way; I shall remain the last of the rank and file.' ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli

... that of the rank and file of recent minor poets in being impassioned rather than ingenious, luxuriant rather than finished. Neither symboliste nor decadent, he was a pessimist in so far as that character applies to a man who ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... built and founded the house on Calumet Square. For a time she had been the superintendent of nurses here, until her own theories and ideas had obtained and prevailed in its management. Then, her work fairly started, she had resigned her position to an older woman, and had taken her place in the rank and file of the nurses themselves. She wished to be one of them, living the same life, subject to the same rigorous discipline, and to that end she had never allowed it to be known that she was the founder of the house. The other nurses knew that she was very rich, ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... accurately. Queen Elizabeth, if she never expounded the doctrine in relation to the leadership of a nation, at least acted on it. The English people have always proved themselves equal to the demand thus made upon them; if initiative be lacking in the leaders, there is plenty of it among the rank and file. The leaders themselves, once they are buoyed up and carried forward by the rising tide, often seize their opportunity, ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh

... on, your last brave mile! Salute him, Star and Lace, Form round him, rank and file, And look on the kind, rough face; But the quaint and homely smile Has a glory and a grace It never had known erewhile,— Never, in time ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... conferring honors upon me, unless it was my lasooing that ram and dragging him into camp, when we were out of meat. But it was not my place to inquire into the cause that had led to my sudden promotion over the rank and file. I thought if I made too many inquiries it would be discovered that I was not such an all-fired great soldier after all. If the government had somehow got the impression that I was well calculated to lead hosts to victory, and it was an ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck

... University Professors would fain assign to them. But apart from the widening influence of the Tropics on these picked minds, there is a widening influence exerted insensibly on the very planters or merchants, the rank and file of European settlers, which can hardly fail to impress all those who have lived amongst them. The cramping effect of the winter cold and the artificial life is all removed. Men live in a freer, wider, warmer air; their doors ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... 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 ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens

... but a citizen, after all; and, as a citizen, he stands in precisely the same relation to the law as does his brother of the rank and file. Of all men, he should be obedient, and should labor to surround the law with every possible safeguard; for it is among the most precious and sacred of our earthly possessions. It is the charter of all true freedom. It is a ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.

... many others who miss merely the polish of their accomplishment. It is perhaps worth noticing, in passing, that most of the poets are men of university training, and that certain literary strains are common to the rank and file of them. The influence of Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne, and Rossetti is almost entirely absent. The only one of the great Victorians whom they seem to have read is Matthew Arnold, but it is impossible ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... 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

... so much. Those who did know something, moreover, did not have the same knowledge or experience. This raw material was given no officer training whatsoever but was turned directly to the task of training the rank and file. Nor were the appointments of new officers confined to the lower ranks. The country, still mindful of its earlier wars, was charmed with the sentimental elevation of confederate generals to the rank of major general in the new army, ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... 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 off, and there was a bigness about it so that to be there seeing it ...
— The Surrender of Santiago - An Account of the Historic Surrender of Santiago to General - Shafter, July 17, 1898 • Frank Norris

... inhabitants of which were estimated at twenty thousand souls, he was by no means disposed to delay or to indulge doubts or to foster compatriot commiseration in meting out the penalty of the malefactors. The united militia of South Carolina and Georgia at this time numbered but thirty-five hundred rank and file, these colonies being so destitute of white men for the common defense that a memorial addressed to his majesty King George II. a little earlier than this event, bearing date April 9, 1734, pathetically states that "money itself cannot here raise a sufficient body of them." The search ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... Dorfield and the cookery class was soon formed. Alora confessed she had no talent whatever for cooking, but all the other five were ready to undertake the work and a selection was made from among the other Liberty Girls—of the rank and file—which brought the total number of culinary endeavorers up to fifteen—as large a class as Mrs. Manton ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... charge; they arrived breathless and exhausted at the guns, where a terrific and hitherto concealed fire of musketry awaited them. The native corps came up and well sustained their European comrades; but both were repulsed—not until twenty-one English officers, twelve sergeants, and 450 rank and file of the 24th had been killed or wounded.... Oakfield counted the bodies of nine officers lying dead in as many square yards; there lay the dead bodies of the two Pennycuicks side by side; those of the men almost ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... not, there can be no question of the astounding stupidity of the West Indian rank and file, a stupidity amusing if you are in an amusable mood, unendurable if you neglect to pack your patience among your bag of supplies in the morning. Tropical patience, too, is at best a frail child. The dry-season sun rarely even veiled ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... 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 a man should quit drinking when he quit the army, but that a man with ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King

... South accept the present situation of affairs in good faith.... The citizens of the Southern States are anxious to return to self-government within the Union as soon as possible." Truman came to the conclusion that "the rank and file of the disbanded Southern army... are the backbone and sinew of the South.... To the disbanded regiments of the rebel army, both officers and men, I look with great confidence as the best and altogether the most hopeful element of the South, the real basis of reconstruction ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... power, was shattered in the attempt to carry it, and lost the support of numbers of its most conspicuous adherents, including Chamberlain, Hartington, Goschen, and John Bright, besides a multitude of its rank and file, who entered into political partnership with their former opponents in order to withstand the new departure of ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... 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 during the war ...
— 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

... effectively united could win its dues, whatever they may be. The difficulties of such association have lain in the undeveloped mental and moral condition of the rank and file of the hosts ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... of the day. The army was seriously implicated. The revolutionists desired a constitutional government, and their rallying cry of "CONSTITUTIA!" was explained to the soldiers as the name of Constantine's wife. The real design of the movement was not confided to the rank and file, who supposed they were fighting for Constantine and the ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... crack of a whip was unheard on the trail. A whispered order, followed by a signal to the men, and the herd turned, grazed to its contentment, fell into column formation, and took up its march—a peaceful march that few armies have equaled. Contact with these men, the rank and file of that splendid cavalry which once patrolled the range industry of the West, was ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams

... whose commission would place him properly at the head of a brigade, and nobly led, too. Here, when so favourable an occasion offers to add a regiment or two to the old permanent line of the army, and thus infuse new life into its hope deferred, the opportunity is overlooked, and the rank and file are to be obtained by cramming, instead of by a generous regard to the interests of the gallant gentlemen who have done so much for the honour of the American name, and, unhappily, so little for themselves. The extra-patriots ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... suffered, or to see the young transgressor transformed, by the judgments of heaven, out of the proper semblance of womanhood. But when she appeared in the streets, with her sister maidens, performed her appointed tasks in rank and file with them, talked and chatted as heretofore—though perhaps gossiped less—and bore her pitcher as deftly on her head as ever, the matter began to die away, and she was only pointed out as the one who had first sinned. True, the High Priest shook his ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... the rank and file of armies vast, That muster under one supreme control; I hear the trumpet sound the signal-blast— The calling of ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... touch the imagination of most men, of the rank and file of the people, ninety-nine times where other people can touch it once. And every time he touches it, he touches ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... only the very slightest acquaintance with those gorgeous creatures—the L200 a week men—who top the bill to-day; only the acquaintance of an occasional drink in their rooms. But I have known, and still know, many of the rank and file, and delightful people they are. As a boy of fifteen, I remember meeting, on a seaside front, a member of a troupe then appearing called The Boy Guardsmen. He was a sweet child. Fourteen years old ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... you," Nasmyth assured her. "There have been wholesome changes in the village since you grew up and made your influence felt. And that leads to a question: How does Clarence get on with his tenants and the rank and file? George understood them, but they're difficult folks ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... sad gaps among our old friends of the rank and file. Ogg and Hogg, M'Slattery and M'Ostrich, have gone to the happy hunting-grounds. Private Dunshie, the General Specialist (who, you may remember, found his true vocation, after many days, as battalion chiropodist), is reported "missing." But his comrades are positive that no harm ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)

... were deprived of their weapons; and commissioners went through the different parishes administering the oath and collecting arms. A firelock was left to each native militia officer, and, under certain conditions, the rank and file also could ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... asked me whether we two at least should not get out, as he could not ask it of the others. As a matter of fact, it was high time to leave the coach, as some new contingents of revolutionaries had formed up in rank and file all along the highway to salute the provisional government and receive orders. Heubner strode down the line with great dignity, acquainted the leaders with the state of affairs, and exhorted them to keep their trust in the righteousness of the cause for which so many had shed their blood. All ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... Smith's doctrine been conscious invention, it would have lent sufficient power to carry him through persecutions in which his life hung in the balance, and his cause appeared to be lost, or that the class of earnest men who constituted the rank and file of his early following would have been so long deceived by a deliberate hypocrite. It appears to me more likely that Smith was genuinely deluded by the automatic freaks of a vigorous but undisciplined brain, and that, yielding to these, he became confirmed ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... of December, before daybreak, the army began its retreat, which was conducted with great skill by Lord George Murray. Never were men more disappointed than the rank and file of the army when they found that a retreat had been resolved upon. Expressions of chagrin and disappointment were to be heard on every hand. But the necessity of the retreat was soon apparent to all, for the regulars were now closing in on us from every hand. By out-marching and ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... of the new civilization is awake in the third and fourth dimensions of his mind, and those in higher reaches are awake in the fifth and sixth, a few are in the seventh and eighth, but the rank and file are familiar to some degree with ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.

... material of the finest order to work upon. There was nothing the matter with Bob. In Bob he would turn out a good, sound article. Bob would be a Blue in his third or fourth year, and probably a creditable performer among the rank and file of a county team later on. But he was not a cricket genius, like Mike. Saunders would lie awake at night sometimes thinking of the possibilities that were in Mike. The strength could only come with years, but ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... 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 English commonalty have for centuries regarded the House of Lords is ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... Meade, about ninety thousand. Both armies were composed mainly of seasoned veterans, trained to the highest point by campaign after campaign and battle after battle; and there was nothing to choose between them as to the fighting power of the rank and file. The Union army was the larger, yet most of the time it stood on the defensive; for the difference between the generals, Lee and Meade, was greater than could be bridged by twenty thousand men. For three ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... me explain how I came to be sitting in so unsavoury a place as Gorson's "fifteen cent oyster and chop house" that night. Most newspaper men—the rank and file—receive remuneration by the week. Those not given over to domesticity, those who enjoy that alluring regularity identical with liberty, fare sumptuously, as a rule, on "pay-day." Thereafter the quantity and quality of the good things ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... lines of the military, drawn up on each side of the street, with arms supported and bayonets fixed. This was not only a novel scene, it was such a one as had never before been exhibited at an election in England. As I passed the first rank and file I halted, and taking off my hat, said, "Come, my lads, let us give our friends, the soldiers, three cheers." This was instantly complied with, and as I went on, each soldier exclaimed, "Hunt for ever;" and this was kept up by the whole line till I reached ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... deal 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 secretly they would vote overwhelmingly that the ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson

... On the rank and file, the idea of drugless healing has about the same effect as a red rag on a mad bull. There are still very few physicians in general practice today who would not lose their bread and butter if they attempted to practice drugless healing on their patients. Both the ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... lulled himself with no false hopes. As one after the other Senator Hanway found his prospects ablaze, the knowledge broke on him, and he accepted it, that the immediate future held for him no Presidency. It would be party madness to put him up; the party rank and file were in ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... the birth of a new epoch, it is meet that the rank and file remain silent; and at this Congress of the Church of England no jarring interruptions marred the solemnity of the moment. No old-fashioned doctor was there to utter a futile protest, and there was no simple-minded clergyman to ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland

... The Naturalist rank and file are so far below Zola and Maupassant that they cannot now, whatever they might have done twenty years ago, claim much notice in such a history as this. The most remarkable of them was probably J. K. Huysmans. It has been charitably suggested or admitted ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury



Words linked to "Rank and file" :   force, armed services, military machine, people, enlisted man, rank, personnel, armed forces, military, war machine



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