Read Ebook: Anarchy and Anarchists A History of the Red Terror and the Social Revolution in America and Europe; Communism Socialism and Nihilism in Doctrine and in Deed; The Chicago Haymarket Conspiracy and the Detection and Trial of the Conspirators by Schaack Michael J
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 2997 lines and 357857 words, and 60 pages
The Beginning of Anarchy--The German School of Discontent--The Socialist Future--The Asylum in London--Birth of a Word--Work of the French Revolution--The Conspiracy of Babeuf--Etienne Cabet's Experiment--The Colony in the United States--Settled at Nauvoo--Fourier and his System--The Familist?re at Guise--Louis Blanc and the National Work-shops--Proudhon, the Founder of French Anarchy--German Socialism: Its Rise and Development--Rodbertus and his Followers--"Capital," by Karl Marx--The "Bible of the Socialists"--The Red Internationale--Bakounine and his Expulsion from the Society--The New Conspiracy--Ferdinand Lassalle and the Social Democrats--The Birth of a Great Movement--Growth of Discontent--Leaders after Lassalle--The Central Idea of the Revolt--American Methods and the Police Position, 17
Dynamite in Politics-Historical Assassinations--Infernal Machines in France--The Inventor of Dynamite--M. Noble and his Ideas--The Nitro-Compounds--How Dynamite is Made--The New French Explosive--"Black Jelley" and the Nihilists--What the Nihilists Believe and What they Want--The Conditions in Russia--The White and the Red Terrors--Vera Sassoulitch--Tourgenieff and the Russian Girl--The Assassination of the Czar--"It is too Soon to Thank God"--The Dying Emperor--Two Bombs Thrown--Running Down the Conspirators--Sophia Perowskaja, the Nihilist Leader--The Handkerchief Signal--The Murder Roll--Tried and Convicted--A Brutal Execution--Five Nihilists Pay the Penalty--Last Words Spoken but Unheard--A Deafening Tattoo--The Book-bomb and the Present Czar--Strychnine-coated Bullets--St. Peter and Paul's Fortress--Dynamite Outrages in England--The Record of Crime--Twenty-nine Convicts and their Offenses--Ingenious Bomb-making--The Failures of Dynamite, 28
The Eight-hour Movement--Anarchist Activity--The Lock-out at McCormick's--Distorting the Facts--A Socialist Lie--The True Facts about McCormick's--Who Shall Run the Shops?--Abusing the "Scabs"--High Wages for Cheap Work--The Union Loses ,000 a Day--Preparing for Trouble--Arming the Anarchists--Ammunition Depots--Pistols and Dynamite--Threatening the Police--The Conspirators Show the White Feather--Capt. O'Donnell's Magnificent Police Work--The Revolution Blocked--A Foreign Reservation--An Attempt to Mob the Police--The History of the First Secret Meeting--Lingg's First Appearance in the Conspiracy--The Captured Documents--Bloodshed at McCormick's--"The Battle Was Lost"--Officer Casey's Narrow Escape, 112
The Air Full of Rumors--A Riot Feared--Police Preparations--Bonfield in Command--The Haymarket--Strategic Value of the Anarchists' Position--Crane's Alley--The Theory of Street Warfare--Inflaming the Mob--Schnaubelt and his Bomb--"Throttle the Law"--The Limit of Patience Reached--"In the Name of the People, Disperse"--The Signal Given--The Crash of Dynamite First Heard on an American Street--Murder in the Air--A Rally and a Charge--The Anarchists Swept Away--A Battle Worthy of Veterans, 139
The Dead and the Wounded--Moans of Anguish in the Police Station--Caring for Friend and Foe--Counting the Cost--A City's Sympathy--The Death List--Sketches of the Men--The Doctors' Work--Dynamite Havoc--Veterans of the Haymarket--A Roll of Honor--The Anarchist Loss--Guesses at their Dead--Concealing Wounded Rioters--The Explosion a Failure--Disappointment of the Terrorists, 149
My Connection with the Anarchist Cases--A Scene at the Central Office--Mr. Hanssen's Discovery--Politics and Detective Work--Jealousy Against Inspector Bonfield--Dynamiters on Exhibition--Courtesies to the Prize-fighters--A Friendly Tip--My First Light on the Case--A Promise of Confidence--One Night's Work--The Chief Agrees to my Taking up the Case--Laying Our Plans--"We Have Found the Bomb Factory!"--Is it a Trap?--A Patrol-wagon Full of Dynamite--No Help Hoped for from Headquarters--Conference with State's Attorney Grinnell--Furthmann's Work--Opening up the Plot--Trouble with the Newspaper Men--Unexpected Advantage of Hostile Criticism--Information from Unexpected Quarters--Queer Episodes of the Hunt--Clues Good, Bad and Indifferent--A Mysterious Lady with a Veil--A Conference in my Back Yard--The Anarchists Alarmed--A Breezy Conference with Ebersold--Threatening Letters--Menaces Sent to the Wives of the Men Working on the Case--How the Ladies Behaved--The Judge and Mrs. Gary--Detectives on Each Other's Trail--The Humors of the Case--Amusing Incidents, 183
The Difficulties of Detection--Moving on the Enemy--A Hebrew Anarchist--Oppenheimer's Story--Dancing over Dynamite--Twenty-Five Dollars' Worth of Practical Socialism--A Woman's Work--How Mrs. Seliger Saved the North Side--A Well-merited Tribute--Seliger Saved by his Wife--The Shadow of the Hangman's Rope--A Hunt for a Witness--Shadowing a Hack--The Commune Celebration--Fixing Lingg's Guilt--Preparing the Infernal Machines--A Boy Conspirator--Lingg's Youthful Friend--Anarchy in the Blood--How John Thielen was Taken into Camp--His Curious Confession--Other Arrests, 230
Completing the Case--Looking for Lingg--The Bomb-maker's Birth--Was he of Royal Blood?--A Romantic Family History--Lingg and his Mother--Captured Correspondence--A Desperate and Dangerous Character--Lingg Disappears--A Faint Trail Found--Looking for Express Wagon 1999--The Number that Cost the Fugitive his Life--A Desperado at Bay--Schuettler's Death Grapple--Lingg in the Shackles--His Statement at the Station--The Transfer to the Jail--Lingg's Love for Children--The Identity of his Sweetheart--An Interview with Hubner--His Confession--The Meeting at Neff's Place, 256
Engel in the Toils--His Character and Rough Eloquence--Facing his Accusers--Waller's Confession--The Work of the Lehr und Wehr Verein--A Dangerous Organization--The Romance of Conspiracy--Organization of the Armed Sections--Plans and Purposes--Rifles Bought in St. Louis--The Picnics at Sheffield--A Dynamite Drill--The Attack on McCormick's--A Frightened Anarchist--Lehman in the Calaboose--Information from many Quarters--The Cost of Revolvers--Lorenz Hermann's Story--Some Expert Lying, 283
The Legal Battle--The Beginning of Proceedings in Court--Work in the Grand Jury Room--The Circulation of Anarchistic Literature--A Witness who was not Positive--Side Lights on the Testimony--The Indictments Returned--Selecting a Jury--Sketches of the Jurymen--Ready for the Struggle, 376
The Great Trial Opens--Bonfield's History of the Massacre--How the Bomb Exploded--Dynamite in the Air--A Thrilling Story--Gottfried Waller's Testimony--An Anarchist's "Squeal"--The Murder Conspiracy Made Manifest by Many Witnesses, 404
"We are Peaceable"--Capt. Ward's Memories of the Massacre--A Nest of Anarchists--Scenes in the Court--Seliger's Revelations--Lingg, the Bomb-maker--How he cast his Shells--A Dynamite Romance--Inside History of the Conspiracy--The Shadow of the Gallows--Mrs. Seliger and the Anarchists--Tightening the Coils--An Explosive Arsenal--The Schnaubelt Blunder--Harry Wilkinson and Spies--A Threat in Toothpicks--The Bomb Factory--The Board of Trade Demonstration, 419
A Pinkerton Operative's Adventures--How the Leading Anarchists Vouched for a Detective--An Interesting Scene--An Enemy in the Camp--Getting into the Armed Group--No. 16's Experience--Paul Hull and the Dynamite Bomb--A Safe Corner Where the Bullets were Thick--A Revolver Tattoo--"Shoot the Devils"--A Reformed Internationalist, 445
Reporting under Difficulties--Shorthand in an Overcoat Pocket--An Incriminating Conversation--Spies and Schwab in Danger--Gilmer's Story--The Man in the Alley--Schnaubelt the Bomb-thrower--Fixing the Guilt--Spies Lit the Fuse--A Searching Cross-Examination--The Anarchists Alarmed--Engel and the Shell Machine--The Find at Lingg's House--The Author on the Witness-stand--Talks with the Prisoners--Dynamite Experiments--The False Bottom of Lingg's Trunk--The Material in the Shells--Expert Testimony--Incendiary Banners--The Prosecution Rests--A Fruitless Attempt to have Neebe Discharged, 457
The Programme of the Defense--Mayor Harrison's Memories--Simonson's Story--A Graphic Account--A Bird's-eye View of Dynamite--Ferguson and the Bomb--"As Big as a Base Ball"--The Defense Theory of the Riot--Claiming the Police were the Aggressors--Dr. Taylor and the Bullet-marks--The Attack on Gilmer's Veracity--Varying Testimony--The Witnesses who Appeared, 478
The Close of the Defense--Working on the Jury--The Man who Threw the Bomb--Conflicting Testimony--Michael Schwab on the Stand--An Agitator's Adventures--Spies in his Own Defense--The Fight at McCormick's--The Desplaines Street Wagon--Bombs and Beer--The Wilkinson Interview--The Weapon of the Future--Spies the Reporter's Friend--Bad Treatment by Ebersold--The Hocking Valley Letter--Albert R. Parsons in his Own Behalf--His Memories of the Haymarket--The Evidence in Rebuttal, 506
Opening of the Argument--Mr. Walker's Speech--The Law of the Case--Was there a Conspiracy?--The Caliber of the Bullets--Tightening the Chain--A Propaganda on the Witness-stand--The Eight-hour Movement--"One Single Bomb"--The Cry of the Revolutionist--Avoiding the Mouse-trap--Parsons and the Murder--Studying "Revolutionary War"--Lingg and his Bomb Factory--The Alibi Idea, 525
Foster and Black before the Jury--Making Anarchist History--The Eight Leaders--A Skillful Defense--Alibis All Around--The Whereabouts of the Conspirators--The "Peaceable Dispersion"--A Miscarriage of Revolutionary War--Average Anarchist Credibility--"A Man will Lie to Save his Life"--The Attack on Seliger--The Candy-man and the Bomb-thrower--Conflicting Testimony--A Philippic against Gilmer--The Liars of History--The Search for a Witness--The Man with the Missing Link--The Last Word for the Prisoners--Captain Black's Theory--High Explosives and Civilization--The West Lake Street Meeting--Defensive Armament--Engel and his Beer--Hiding the Bombs--The Right of Revolution--Bonfield and Harrison--The Socialist of Judea, 545
The Instructions to the Jury--What Murder is--Free Speech and its Abuse--The Theory of Conspiracy--Value of Circumstantial Evidence--Meaning of a "Reasonable Doubt"--What a Jury May Decide--Waiting for the Verdict--"Guilty of Murder"--The Death Penalty Adjudged--Neebe's Good Luck--Motion for a New Trial--Affidavits about the Jury--The Motion Overruled, 578
The Last Scene in Court--Reasons Against the Death Sentence--Spies' Speech--A Heinous Conspiracy to Commit Murder--Death for the Truth--The Anarchists' Final Defense--Dying for Labor--The Conflict of the Classes--Not Guilty, but Scapegoats--Michael Schwab's Appeal--The Curse of Labor-saving Machinery--Neebe Finds Out what Law Is--"I am Sorry I am not to be Hung"--Adolph Fischer's Last Words--Louis Lingg in his own Behalf--"Convicted, not of Murder, but of Anarchy"--An Attack on the Police--"I Despise your Order, your Laws, your Force-propped Authority. Hang me for it!"--George Engel's Unconcern--The Development of Anarchy--"I Hate and Combat, not the Individual Capitalist, but the System"--Samuel Fielden and the Haymarket--An Illegal Arrest--The Defense of Albert R. Parsons--The History of his Life--A Long and Thrilling Speech--The Sentence of Death--"Remove the Prisoners," 587
The Last Legal Struggle--The Need of Money--Expensive Counsel Secured--Work of the "Defense Committee"--Pardon, the Only Hope--Pleas for Mercy to Gov. Oglesby--Curious Changes of Sentiment--Spies' Remarkable Offer--Lingg's Horrible Death--Bombs in the Starch-box--An Accidental Discovery--My own Theory--Description of the "Suicide Bombs"--Meaning of the Short Fuse--"Count Four and Throw"--Details of Lingg's Self-murder--A Human Wreck--The Bloody Record in the Cell--The Governor's Decision--Fielden and Schwab Taken to the Penitentiary, 620
The Last Hours of the Doomed Men--Planning a Rescue--The Feeling in Chicago--Police Precautions--Looking for a Leak--Vitriol for a Detective--Guarding the Jail--The Dread of Dynamite--How the Anarchists Passed their Last Night--The Final Partings--Parsons Sings "Annie Laurie"--Putting up the Gallows--Scenes Outside the Prison--A Cordon of Officers--Mrs. Parsons Makes a Scene--The Death Warrants--Courage of the Condemned--Shackled and Shrouded for the Grave--The March to the Scaffold--Under the Dangling Ropes--The Last Words--"Hoch die Anarchie!"--"My Silence will be More Terrible than Speech"--"Let the Voice of the People be Heard"--The Chute to Death--Preparations for the Funeral--Scenes at the Homes of the Dead Anarchists--The Passage to Waldheim--Howell Trogden Carries the American Flag--Captain Black's Eulogy--The Burial--Speeches by Grottkau and Currlin--Was Engel Sincere?--His Advice to his Daughter--A Curious Episode--Adolph Fischer and his Death-watch, 639
Anarchy Now--The Fund for the Condemned Men's Families--,000 Subscribed--The Disposition of the Money--The Festival of Sorrow--Parsons' Posthumous Letter--The Haymarket Monument--Present Strength of the Discontented--7,300 Revolutionists in Chicago--A Nucleus of Desperate Men--The New Organization--Building Societies and Sunday-schools--What the Children are Taught--Education and Blasphemy--The Secret Propaganda--Bodendick and his Adventures--"The Rebel Vagabond"--The Plot to Murder Grinnell, Gary and Bonfield--Arrest of the Conspirators Hronek, Capek, Sevic and Chleboun--Chleboun's Story--Hronek Sent to the Penitentiary, 657
The Movement in Europe--Present Plans of the Reds--Stringent Measures Adopted by Various European Governments--Bebel and Liebknecht--A London Celebration--Whitechapel Outcasts--"Blood, Blood, Blood!"--Verestchagin's Views--The Bulwarks of Society--The Condition of Anarchy in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, St. Louis and other American Cities--A New Era of Revolutionary Activity--A Fight to the Death--Are we Prepared? 682
APPENDICES, 691
ANARCHY AND ANARCHISTS.
The Beginning of Anarchy--The German School of Discontent--The Socialist Future--The Asylum in London--Birth of a Word--Work of the French Revolution--The Conspiracy of Babeuf--Etienne Cabet's Experiment--The Colony in the United States--Settled at Nauvoo--Fourier and his System--The Familist?re at Guise--Louis Blanc and the National Work-shops--Proudhon, the Founder of French Anarchy--German Socialism: Its Rise and Development--Rodbertus and his Followers--"Capital," by Karl Marx--The "Bible of the Socialists"--The Red Internationale--Bakounine and his Expulsion from the Society--The New Conspiracy--Ferdinand Lassalle and the Social Democrats--The Birth of a Great Movement--Growth of Discontent--Leaders after Lassalle--The Central Idea of the Revolt--American Methods and the Police Position.
THE conspiracy which culminated in the blaze of dynamite and the groans of murdered policemen on that fatal night of May 4th, 1886, had its origin far away from Chicago, and under a social system very different from ours.
In order that the reader may understand the tragedy, it will be necessary for me to go back to the commencement of the agitation, and to show how Anarchy in this city is the direct development of the social revolt in Europe. After "the red fool fury of the French" had burnt itself out, the nations of the Old World, exhausted by the Titanic struggle with Napoleon, lay quiet for nearly a quarter of a century. The doctrines which had brought on the Reign of Terror had not died. After a period of quiet, the evangel of the Social Revolution again began. There was uneasiness throughout Europe. In France the Bourbons were driven out, although the cause of the people was betrayed by Louis Napoleon. In Germany the demand for a constitution was pushed so strongly that even the sturdy Hohenzollerns had to give way before it. In Hungary there was a popular ferment. Poland was ready for a new rising against Russia. In Russia the movement which subsequently came to be known as Nihilism was born. In Italy Garibaldi and Mazzini were laying the foundations for the throne which the house of Savoy built upon the work of the secret societies.
Nor must the reader believe that all this turmoil had not beneath it real grievances and honest causes. The peasantry and the laboring classes of Europe had been oppressed and plundered for centuries. The common people were just beginning to learn their power, and, while the excesses into which they were led were deplorable, it is not difficult to understand the causes which made the crisis inevitable.
There is nothing ever lost by endeavoring to enter fairly and impartially into another's position--by trying to understand the reasons which move men, and the creeds which sway them. Anarchy as a theory is as old as the school men of the middle ages. It was gravely debated in the monasteries, and supported by learned casuists five centuries ago. As a practice it was first taught in France, and later in Germany. It caught the unthinking, impressible throng as the proper protest against too much government and wrong government. It was ably argued by leaders capable of better things,--men who turned great talents toward the destruction of society instead of its upbuilding,--and the fruit of their teachings we have with us in Chicago to-day.
Our Anarchy is of the German school, which is more nearly akin to Nihilism than to the doctrines taught in France. It is founded upon the teachings of Karl Marx and his disciples, and it aims directly at the complete destruction of all forms of government and religion. It offers no solution of the problems which will arise when society, as we understand it, shall disappear, but contents itself with declaring that the duty at hand is tearing down; that the work of building up must come later. There are several reasons why the revolutionary programme stops short at the work of Anarchy, chief among which is the fact that there are as many panaceas for the future as there are revolutionists, and it would be a hopeless task to think of binding them all to one platform of construction. The Anarchists are all agreed that the present system must go, and so far they can work together; after that each will take his own path into Utopia.
Their dream of the future is accordingly as many-colored as Joseph's coat. Each man has his own ideal. Engels, who is Karl Marx's successor in the leadership of the movement, believes that men will associate themselves into organizations like co?perative societies for mutual protection, support and improvement, and that these will be the only units in the country of a social nature. There will be no law, no church, no capital, no anything that we regard as necessary to the life of a nation.
The theory of Anarchy will, however, be sufficiently developed in the pages that follow. It is its history as a school which must first be examined.
England is really responsible for much of the present strength of the conspiracy against all governments, for it was in the secure asylum of London that speculative Anarchy was thought out by German exiles for German use, and from London that the "red Internationale" was and probably is directed. This was the result of political scheming, for the fomenting of discontent on the continent has always been one of the weapons in the British armory.
In England itself the movement has only lately won any prominence, although it was in England that it was baptized "Socialism" by Robert Owen, in 1835, a name which was afterwards taken up both in France and Germany. The English development is hardly worth consideration in as brief a presentation of the subject as I shall be able to give. Before passing to an investigation of the growth and the history of Socialism and Anarchy, I wish to express here, once for all, my obligations to Prof. Richard T. Ely's most excellent history of "French and German Socialism in Modern Times." This monograph, like everything else which has come from the pen of this gifted young economist, contains so clear a statement and so complete a marshaling of the facts that it is not necessary to go beyond it for the story of continental discontent.
The French Revolution drew a broad red line across the world's history. It is the most momentous fact in the annals of modern times. There is no need for us to go behind it, or to examine its causes. We can take it as a fact--as the great revolt of the common people--and push on to the things that followed it.
Etienne Cabet was a Socialist before the term was invented, but he was a peaceful and honest one. He published, in 1842, his "Travels in Icaria," describing an ideal state. Like most political reformers, he chose the United States as the best place to try his experiment upon. It is a curious fact that there is not a nation in Europe, however much of a failure it may have made of all those things that go to make up rational liberty, which does not feel itself competent to tell us just what we ought to do, instead of what we are doing. Cabet secured a grant of land on the Red River in Texas just after the Mexican War, and a colony of Icarians came out. They took the yellow fever and were dispersed before Cabet came with the second part of the colony. About this time the Mormons left Nauvoo in Illinois, and the Icarians came to take their places. The colony has since established itself at Grinnell, Iowa, and a branch is at San Bernardino, California. The Nauvoo settlement has, I believe, been abandoned.
Babeuf and Cabet prepared the way for Saint Simon. He was a count, and a lineal descendant of Charlemagne. He fought in our War of the Revolution under Washington, and passed its concluding years in a British prison. He preached nearly the modern Socialism,--the revolt of the proletariat against property,--and his work has indelibly impressed itself upon the whole movement in France.
Charles Fourier, born in 1772, was the son of a grocer in Besan?on, and he was a man who exercised great influence upon the movement among the French. He was rather a dreamer than a man of action, and, although attempts have been made to carry his familist?re into practice, there is no conspicuous success to record, save, perhaps, that of the familist?re at Guise, in France, which has been conducted for a long time on the principles laid down by Fourier.
All these men had before them concrete schemes for a new society in which the evils of the present system would be avoided by what they considered a more equable division of wealth, and each made the effort to carry his scheme from theory into practice, so that the world might see the success and imitate it. Following them came the men who held that, before the new society can be formed, the old society must be got rid of--the men who see but one way towards Socialism, and that through Anarchy.
Louis Blanc was the first of these, although he would not have described himself as an Anarchist, nor would it be fair to call him one. He represented the transition stage. He attempted political reforms of a most sweeping character during the revolution of 1848. The government of the day established "national work-shops" as a concession to him. Of these more is said hereafter.
Pierre Joseph Proudhon, born in Besan?on July 15, 1809, is really the father of French Anarchy. His great work, "What Is Property?" was published in 1840, and he declared that property was theft and property-holders thieves. It is to this epoch-making work that the whole school of modern Anarchy, in any of its departments, may be traced. Proudhon was fired by an actual hatred of the rich. He describes a proprietor as "essentially a libidinous animal, without virtue and without shame." The importance of his work is shown by the effect it has had even upon orthodox political economy, while on the other side it has been the inspiration of Karl Marx. Proudhon died in Passy in 1865.
Since his time until within the last year or two, French Socialism has been but a reflex of the German school. It has produced no first-rates, and has been content to take its doctrine from Lassalle. Karl Marx and Engels, the leaders of the German movement, and Bakounine and Prince Krapotkin, the Russian terrorists, have impressed their ideas deeply upon the French discontented ones. The revolt of the Commune of Paris after the Franco-German war was not exactly an Anarchist uprising, although the Anarchists impressed their ideas upon much of the work done. The Commune of Paris means very much the same as "the people of Illinois." It is the legal designation of the commonwealth, and does not imply Communism any more than the word commonwealth does. It was a fight for the autonomy of Paris, and one in which many people were engaged who had no sympathy with Anarchy, although certainly the lawless element finally obtained complete control of the situation. The rising in Lyons several years later was distinctly and wholly anarchic, and it was for this that Prince Krapotkin and others were sent to prison.
At the present day there is no practical distinction between Socialism and Anarchy in France. All Socialists are Anarchists as a first step, although all Anarchists are not precisely Socialists. They look to the Russian Nihilists and the German irreconcilables as their leaders.
German Socialism is really the doctrine which is now taught all over the world, and it was this teaching that led directly to the Haymarket massacre in Chicago. It began with Karl Rodbertus, who lived from 1805 to 1875. He first became prominent in Germany in 1848, and he was for some time Minister of Education and Public Worship in Prussia. He was a theorist rather than a practical reformer, but competent critics assign to him the very highest rank as a political economist. His first work was "Our Economic Condition," which was published in 1843, and his other books, which he published up to within a short time of his death, were simply elucidations of the principles he had first laid down. His writings have had a greater effect on modern Socialism than those of any other thinker, not even excepting Karl Marx or Lassalle. His theories were brought to a practical issue by Marx, who united into a compact whole the teachings of Proudhon and of Rodbertus, his own genius giving a new luster and a new value to the result. Marx is far and away the greatest man that the Socialism of the nineteenth century has produced. He was a deep student, a man of most formidable mental power, eloquent, persuasive, and honest. His great book, "Capital," has been called the Socialist's Bible. Ely places it in the very first rank, saying of it that it is "among the ablest political economic treatises ever written." And while the best scientific thought of the age agrees that Marx was mistaken in his premises and his fundamental propositions, there is accorded to him upon every hand the tribute which profound learning pays to hard work and deep thinking.
Coming from theory to practice brings us naturally from Marx to the International Society. It was founded in London in 1864 and was meant to include the whole of the labor class of Christendom. Marx was the chief, but he held the sovereignty uneasily. The Anarchists constantly antagonized him. Bakounine, the apostle of dynamite, opposed Marx at every point, and finally Marx had him expelled from the society. Bakounine thereupon formed a new Internationale, based upon anarchic principles and the gospel of force. The Internationale of which Marx was the founder has shrunk to a mere name, although the organization is still kept up, and the body with which the civilized world has now to reckon is that which Bakounine formed after his expulsion from the old body in 1872. It is a curious fact that many of the Socialists in Chicago to-day are enthusiastic admirers of Marx and at the same time members of the society and followers of the man Marx declared to be the most dangerous enemy of the modern workingman.
Marx is dead, however; many things are said in his name of which he himself would never have approved, and the "Red Internationale" proclaims the man a saint who refused either to indorse its principles or to consult with its leaders. It is the same as though, twenty years hence, the men who last year followed Barry out of the Knights of Labor were to hold up Powderly to the world as their law-giver and their chief.
Ferdinand Lassalle, like Marx of Hebrew blood, and of early aristocratic prejudices, was the father of German Anarchy as it exists to-day. He was a deep student, and a remarkably able man. He took his inspiration from Rodbertus and from Marx, but applied himself more to work among the poor. Marx was over the heads of the common people. His "Capital" is very hard reading. Lassalle popularized its teachings. On May 23, 1863, a few men met at Leipsic under the leadership of Lassalle and formed the "Universal German Laborers' Union." This was the foundation of Social Democracy, and its teachings were wholly anarchic. It aimed at the subversion of the whole German social system, by peaceful political means at first, but soon by force.
Lassalle was shortly afterwards killed in a duel over a love-affair, but he was canonized by the German Social Democrats as though his death were a martyrdom. Even Bismarck in the Reichstag paid a tribute to his memory. Lassalle died just about the time that a change was occurring in his convictions, and had he lived longer, and if contemporary history is to be believed, he would have taken office under the German Government and applied himself heartily to the building up of the Empire.
After Lassalle's death the movement which he had initiated went forward with increased force. The German laborer was finally, as the Internationalists put it, aroused. The German Empire, following the example of the Bund, decreed universal suffrage in 1871. Before this, in Prussia especially, the laborer had but the smallest political influence. The vote of a man in the wealthiest class in Berlin counted for as much as the vote of fifteen of the "proletariat," so called. Lassalle died in 1864, and suffrage was first granted in 1867. The Social Democrats at first were in close accord with Bismarck. It was the Social Democratic vote which elected Bismarck to the Reichstag in the first election after the suffrage was granted. In the fall of 1867 they sent eight members to the parliament of the Bund. In the elections after the formation of the Empire the Socialistic vote stood: In 1871, 123,975; in 1874, 351,952; in 1877, 493,288; in 1878, 437,158. The Social Democrats poll nearly 10 per cent of the whole vote of Germany at the present time.
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page