Workmen's advocate., 1886-07-25
MIME. DELESCLUZE
ADDS HER VALUABLE TESTl-
 MONY.
\ Letter From a Noble Woman. Thanks to PiNley-Facts of a Mo mentOus Struggle Kefus-
 ing a CroWn-BOur-
 geois Republic.
To the lt'DrhmeHs Adrocate:

l To the HOrhmeH's Adrocate: Accept my warm thanks for your re- publication of the lrjoaaufs vindication of the Paris Commune Mir. Frank Pix ley IS well known as being opposed to everything like Socialism and Com
 munlsm; he is well known as the de- lender ol the present drastic whirl in winch the production and distribution of
 wealth is carried on his statement, there lore, cannot fail to have some weight with those who have increasingly desig- mated the men of the Commune as
 thieves, murderors and incendaries. 9
 There are great nuhbers of people who sincerely believe that the sole purpose of the uprising of the Commune was plum der. There IS a deplorabIe lack of in- lormatlon concerning this struggle and It's real motives even among Assemblies of the Knights of Labor and Trades Union. The chief source of information has been the capitalistc press; that press. on this side of the Atlantic ocean, took its color from the monarchieal press of Europe which, rejecting the terror of en throned society, poured forth from all points delirious screams of denunciation and calumny whose wild passion was only equaled by the ecstatic joy shown at the defeat and bloody massacre of the valiant men so fouIly slandered.
 offer to Mir. Pixley my heartfelt thanks for the earnest defence published long ago in his columns as the testimony 1f . llvlng witness to most monentous struggle.
 What were the facts?
 l. A fight between two unscrupuIous and corrupt political pirates for what is called 'the mastery of Europe ing the liberty to murder and pIunder at will
 ,. Victory of pirate Bismarck k-the most reactionary and cynical of the twain, who had used the war cry German Unity, as a cloak for Prussian despot- ism.
 3 Installation (through plot and con nivanee of the German colnnanders) of three disorganized and demoraIzed fac tions Bonapartists, Legitimists and Or
 eanists, with the lifelong trickster, poii- tician, and millionaire Thiers at their head-these reactionary factions having been in no wise clothed by the people of France with constituent power but elect ed solely toarrange preliminaries of peace or war, after the truce.
 I. Paris, worn, weary. haggard and wan with the starvation, desoiation and death of a five months siege, petitioning this usnrping assembly of Bonarchists for local municipal liberty, the overthrow of the centralized despotic system of Ma poleon III which was still in force.
 6. Answer of the usurping assembly. \ demand for the artillery and arms of the National Guard. Dufaure laws on overdue commercial bills and house. rents. A tax of two centimes upon every copy of every imaginable publication. Sentence of death agaiost BIanqui and fiourens for "sedition.' Suppression of Republican newspapers. The appoint ment of Gen. Ninoy, one of the military aids of the war of December, as governor of Paris; of Nalentin, an lmperialist ye'tdn,he, as it's prefect of police. Thiers had already sent titled Orieanist ambas sadors to the several European courts. Paris then knew that she had nothing to hope for m the way of municipal liberty from the three factions who, having full filled the sole mission for which they were fraudulently elected, |. c., to arrange the prelimnaries of peace, refused to re- tire, and audacionsly assumed authority as if clothed with constituent power From the first day of their assumption of power the Republicans of Paris had been on the watch. The second Empire had more than doubled the national debt, and plunged all the large towns into heavy municipal debts. The war had fearfully swelIed their liabilities France was prostrate; her territory dismenibered her fields laid waste, her villages burned, the blood of her people spilled, labor brought to q standstiIl; and the Prussian Shylock was there claiming his bond of five iniiiiaris
 But in the face of their immense ruin the usurping assembly could think of nothing better than the miserable in- tngues of It's several factions to restore some one of the Imperial or monarchical pretenders to the sovereignty of France these pretenders who had now for the second time brough with the foot of the invader the most stupenduous sacrifices ,n her people.
 These conspirators regarded the work
 Continued on third p00e.1