energetically he would lay hold of it. Still the visible results continued meager; after a year of further work his Association and its branches counted only 4610 members, and Lassalle himself began to fear that nothing effective would come of his plan. But his influence had gone deeper than the figures indicate. Many other thousands, while standing aloof, had been moved by the socialist lecturer, had seen the generous ardor of his soul, felt the force of his reasoning and the winsome charm of his speech; and to these, though to the living teacher they did not commit themselves, the shock of his tragic and untimely death came as a decisive, irresistible call to declare their adhesion, and the Social Democracy, as we shall later see, rose apace. KARL MARX The fires of social discontent through all the eventful mid-years of the nineteenth century were fanned by that greatest of agitators and thinkers on these lines, Karl Marx. German by birth, at twenty-four years of age he was editor of a radical journal at Cologne, the suppression of which in 1843 led him to remove to Paris. There he continued his German newspaper under another name until expelled from France in 1845. Going then to Brussels, he was driven in turn from Belgium. Returning to Cologne, he commenced there the publication of another journal, which soon brought him under the condemnation of the government, and he was obliged definitely to leave his native land. Thus banished from every part of the continent where he had sought domicil, he went over to England and established himself in London in 1850, where till his death in 1883 he continued his work undisturbed. Under his leadership socialism assumed an international character which greatly extended its influence. A veritable fellowship among the workers of all lands was instituted, giving new depth and vigor to the movement as well as a world-wide sweep, lending to previously isolated holders and defenders of the new ideas a much needed encouragement and support. A powerful organization was formed The International- which held its meetings where it could, and became the besetting terror of absolutism in government. Linking the peoples together, socialism naturally makes for peace among the nations. But in 1870 it had not become enough of a power to prevent a needless and wicked war. The poor workers, who have nothing to do with making war, but bear the brunt of it when it is made, rallied on both sides, fought and bled and died, as their class has ever done, for the phantom going by the name of glory. The world looked on with admiration of the victors, or sympathy for the vanquished, with little disapproval of those whose machinations brought on the conflict. But when at the end the working-men of Paris rose in assertion of what they held to be their own rights, and fought for a principle, for autonomy in city government, as London, or New York, or Chicago would do if dominated by the State as Paris was, the world stood aghast, horrified at the spectacle. And when the Commune was crushed under such monstrous atrocities as it had never dreamed of perpetrating, such in fact as had rarely, if ever, disgraced modern civilization, the same world looked on complacently. The number of working-men slaughtered was far greater than in 1848, and the slaughter was greatly more inhuman, as it included thousands of the captured. As many more were deported to die in malarious regions. THE UNREST PROVOKED BY MORE RECENT CONDITIONS The uprising of the Commune of Paris, though not distinctively a socialist movement (the socialists in it were a small minority), was attended with such destruction, such horrors-obscuring the equal, even greater horrors of its suppression as to discredit for a time all efforts to bring the working-men forward into the control of affairs, and gave the socialist propaganda a serious set-back. This, however, was only temporary. The unprecedented increase of wealth, becoming more and more astonishing, and the corresponding augmentation of the evils of capitalism, arouse in reflecting minds of the present generation a feeling of profound and well-nigh universal discontent. That the bulk of this newly created wealth falls into the hands of a comparatively few persons, while the great mass of the workers out of whose toil it comes live from hand to mouth, is a fact which to the latter and to all lovers of social justice cannot but be the more exasperating the more it is considered. In the United States, where of late riches have most rapidly multiplied, more than half the wealth is now reported to be in the hands of one per cent. of the population; creating an aristocracy most menacing to democratic institutions. When these people reach over the heads of the rest of us and direct the making and the administration of law, as they are beginning to do, what will it avail to call this a republic and ours a republican form of government? In the general eagerness to get hold of dollars men are found to let go of all higher considerations; and if at the polls numbers continue to count for something, with legislatures the one per cent. who hold the great fortunes often count for more, and manage with alarming frequency to bear down the expressed wish of the people. The merging of corporations and the general swallowing up of minor business interests are fast bringing the capital of the country where it can act unitedly in any emergency, and where, acting with the sagacity and freedom from moral restraint which inhere in it, it will inevitably be, if present tendencies go on, the "power behind the throne." In the meantime the multitude, possessors of little or nothing, are in a state of bewilderment and deep dissatisfaction. The better wages paid in America, the unavoidable participation of the great part of the people in the advantages of a rapidly developing country, have contributed thus far to bring a considerable measure of comfort to some of them; but one has only to go into the large cities or into the great manufacturing centers to find that there are thousands upon tens of thousands of whose lot no such pleasant thing is to be said. Corporations rolling in wealth witness (if things which proverbially have no souls may be supposed to have eyes) without compunction the squalor in which live the operatives out of whose toil others are made rich witness it, and complacently go on declaring generous dividends. Under such circumstances community of interest between employers and employed cannot exist; on the contrary, incessant antagonism arises, breaking ever and anon into open war. Strike follows strike on both sides of the sea, recurring quite as frequently in our country where wages are highest as elsewhere, indicating that the provoking cause lies deeper than in the inadequacy of wages paid, lies in the wage-system itself, which does not directly relate the reward of labor to the value of the product of that labor. - As yet we have not in this country given so much attention to social questions as have the people of some of the European countries. These questions have been less pressing here, partly because life in America has been generally easier for the poor. Population being less crowded, opportunities for employment have been better; a great work of development has called loudly for labor; food has often |