PROGRAM SUCCESS – MAY 2009
PAGE 23
THE PENALTY OF
Leadership
In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually
live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested
in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are
ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and
the punishment are always the same.
The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and
detraction. When a man’s work becomes a standard for the whole world,
it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be
merely mediocre, he will be left severely alone. If he achieve a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a-wagging.
Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a
commonplace painting. Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play or sing,
or build, no one will strive to surpass or to slander you, unless your work
be stamped with the seal of genius.
Long, long after a great work or a good work has been done, those
who are disappointed or envious continue to cry out that it cannot be
done.
Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountebank,
long after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius.
Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while the little group of
those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued angrily that he was no musician at all.
The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big
world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by.
The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely
added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to
depreciate and to destroy - but only confirms once more that superiority of
that which he strives to supplant.
There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as the
human passions: envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing.
If the leader truly leads, he remains the leader. Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman, each in his turn is assailed, and each
holds his laurel through the ages. That which is good or great
makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. That
which deserves to live - lives.