aloud the statutes. We favored them, and could perceive no inconvenience in joining. A vote was taken in our Union, and twelve hundred of us became members of the International." With this wholesale fashion of propagation, it is not wonderful that by the next year the Association was so strong in numbers all over the world as to render the convocation of a General Congress a foregone success. Therefore, in September, 1866, the International openly proclaimed and demonstrated its organization and numerical importance by an Assembly at Geneva, Switzerland.

There was little attempt at symmetry in the system upon which the International was constructed. All the workingmen in a town might constitute a "Section," or the members of a certain trade could do the same thing. The Sections in a particular part of a country were to make "Federations." All the Federations in France or any other country were called a "Branch," and the different Branches formed the International. There was a lack of uniformity, also, in the relations existing between the Federations. Some of them dealt. directly with the International Council, while in other Branches or countries there was a central power between the Federation and the Council. There never was found to exist any such centre in France, although there was a Belgic Council. Investigation led to a belief that the Federation of Paris wielded authority over the other Federations of France which must have been usurped and irregular. In fact, the whole system of directing the affairs of the International was intensely arbitrary. When a "Section" joined that body, the General Council named a certain person to be the Correspondent of that Section. This correspondent's functions were those of a chief executive officer, and he was never changed by the Section. The member of a Section could not correspond with the General Council except through the correspondents of his Section and Federation.

The dues assessed upon members were placed at a point so low as to create no obstacle whatever to the spread of the power of the Order of the International. The expenses of the general officers were amply borne by the payment of 21⁄2

cents initiation fee on the part of each new member of a Section and an annual donation of one-half of a cent.

We are principally interested in the Federation of Paris, and it is necessary to say that it was represented at the First Congress by Murat, engineer; Varlin, bookbinder; Tolain, graver; Malon, bookseller's assistant; Camelinet, worker in bronze; Gaillard, cobbler, and five others whose names will not point so strong a moral. From Rouen, France, Aubry was sent. Jung, of Geneva, presided. The number of delegates in the Congress was sixty.

The General Council placed before this First Congress a programme embracing twelve groups of subjects, three of which they would hardly have dared to meddle with a few years before. In the fourth group were the significant words: "Obligation of labor for all"; in the sixth, "Relations of labor and capital "; and in the tenth, "Standing armies in their relations with production." It is plain that the social reformers were now in a position to think about something beside theory.

The Second Congress convened in Lausanne, Switzerland, September 2, 1867. Dupont, a bank-clerk, of Paris, was President, he being also a high officer in the General Council of London. Seventy-one delegates sat in this body, among whom were Murat, Tolain, Martelet, decorative painter, Pindy, joiner, and five others from the Paris Federation.

Certain of the old co-operative societies, founded partially on the principles of the early theorists, had succeeded in accumulating a capital, and securing to themselves comforts which. the parents of the members had not enjoyed. The International had, in the beginning, sought the alliance of these co-operative associations, and claimed special sympathy, as late as 1866, with their noble efforts to emancipate themselves from the slavery of capital. But, with the Second Congress, came a change. The co-operative societies, by the very reason of their honest thrift, had become capitalists, and, therefore, enemies. The International declared: "Social transformation can only work in a radical and definite manner by means acting upon the whole of society, and conformable to reciprocity

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I

SECOND CONGRESS.

29

and justice. Co-operative societies tend to constitute a fourth state of existence, having below it a fifth state, still more miserable. Effort must be extended to make disappear from the inner workings of these associations the predominance of capital over labor - that is to say, to introduce the idea of mutuality and federation." It is obvious that these little associations, although rebels from the toil-gangs of the rich master, still, by their entire independence of the International, and their refusal to support strikers while the strikers were obeying the commands of the General Council, had incurred the envy and hostility of the lovers of the laborer, almost to an equal extent with the capitalist.

At this Second Congress the declaration was made that the State should own the means of transportation, in the view of abolishing the powerful corporations, "which, in submitting the working-classes to their arbitrary laws, attacked both the dignity of man and individual liberty.”

There existed in French society a class of people called Radicals, much higher up the social ladder than the artisans forming the masses of the International. Perhaps the best translation of their party designation would be Unreasonables. Their sentiments toward the prevailing Government were akin to those of the Irishman just landed in America. A blower and striker from a close ward comes down to Castle Garden that was, and asks which party Pat has favored while reading of American politics. "Have yese a government ?" asks Pat. "Yes," says the ward bummer. "I'm agin it!" declares Pat. However, the want of reason of these Unreasonables had up to this time extended only to political matters. But here, in this new International, was a body of men who were beginning to abolish, not only the Government, but every thing else as well. To be Unreasonable, and yet fail to exhaust the limits of aberration, was annoying to these eclipsed Radicals. The first communications between the two classes were therefore hedged about by the most uncordial suspicions, and yet the real badness of the secret designs of each party drew them unwillingly together. The enemies of human gov

ernment, or Nihilists, or Radicals, gathered at Geneva in a Congress of Peace, and passing to Lausanne, formally joined, at the Second International Congress, with the enemies of wealth.

Up to this point the International had sailed smoothly. It was not likely that such a voyage could continue. A Society infusing, with untiring industry, the principle of active opposition among employés to the interests of the employer could not expect to be without strikes on its hands. These strikes. came thick and fast. If one strike could have been attended to singly, the International would have been in an impregnable position, being able by the large funds in its hands to sustain any one class of workmen until their employers were worn out. But the employers had not been asleep during the rapid organization of their hired people, and, when they saw the drift of things, also consolidated into a union of manufacturers, and precipitated such a number of strikes upon the Internationals as nearly distracted the leaders of the workingmen. Failling very often in their lockouts, the International managers made what they thought to be equivalent "social progress" by instilling into the multitudes following their guidance a yet more diabolical hatred of employers. Out of such circumstances could arise nothing but disorder. At Roubaix, in Paris, certain cloth-manufacturers introduced new labor-saving machines. Upon this the workmen demanded an advance in wages. To such proposition the employers replied with the application of onerous regulations and arbitrary fines. Thereupon the workmen rose in the wildest spirit of insurrection, pillaged the houses of two of the manufacturers, destroyed the machines in seven mills, and burned two of the manufactories entire. A large force of troops at once marched to the scene of chaos, the workmen were overawed, and the strike was confined to its legal means for success. The effect of this chapter in the experience of the French Federation was to number the Regular soldiers of the French Army among its direst enemies. Scenes similar to those of Roubaix were enacted all over Europe. The International began to attract

*Nihil-Latin for "nothing."

the attention of uneasy Cabinets. The International desired this Governmental uneasiness, and implored further attention. It must be prosecuted and offer the blood of its martyrs as the seed of the Universal Church.

The new alliance of Unreasonables brought to the International none else but literary madmen, the very ilk of those who had from the first stood in the pilot-house of the piratical craft now sailing in the social seas. It was not strange that they should demand a new effort to use the political power of all the trade-unions. The policies of the Ministry of the Empire of course displeased the Radicals: The International published, in April, 1868, a manifesto calling upon the Paris Congressmen to resign, in order that the voters of Paris might express themselves energetically against the Ministry in the election of new candidates. The tone of this document was insolent. The public at large was amazed, and the Government determined to arrest the pamphleteers who so openly declared their uncompromising enmity. Fifteen men, composing the Committee of the Federation, were arrested, charged with membership in an unauthorized society. Among them it will be useful to mention Chemale, architect, Tolain, chiseler, Camelinet, worker in bronze, Murat, machinist, and Gauthier, saddler. Tolain conducted the defense. The men were let off lightly, by the dissolution of their Federation and fines of $20. The International immediately appointed a new Committee. On the 22d of May, 1868, this second Committee was arrested. Their names were Varlin, Malon, Combault, jeweler, Moilin, physician, Charbonneau, Landrin, Granjon, Bourdon, and Humbert, literary man. Varlin did most of the talking for the defense. He boldly proclaimed himself and comrades as Republicans and Communists. Himself and comrades were given three months' imprisonment. Some of the accused were allowed to "escape," and betook themselves to London.

The scenes attending the strikes under the bid and beck of the International had made that dreaded and unknown body an object of strong curiosity. Yet the public knew little of its inner workings. The events of 1868 had, as may be opined,