Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1896-06-19
PARIS, FRANCE.

PARIS, FRANCE.
Special Letter of Deputy valiant
Written to London Justice.
From the time when Dupuy and Perier,
by resIscitating personal power and by put
ting in operation all the forces of the State,
made an effort to keep Socialism in check,
the struggle of the working class against
the capitalist class, of the revolutionary
party against the coalition parties of reac
ton, has assumed character increasingly
ardent and violent-that is to say, it has
taken a more and more marked political
character.
BY the efforts of the Socialist party Du-
puy and Perier were overthrown, and in
spite of all the alliances, combinations and
intrigues of the party of reaction, every
day adds to their discontinue. Capitalism
has been driven to bay; for it comprehends
thoroughly that from the moment power
escapes from the hands of its governors
and Wallets, that from the moment it passes
| Va
cialism, it is utterly lost.
And it is not only in France; it is every
where, in each country, that by the very
fact of the progress of Socialism the strug-
gle has grown sharper, more political.
In Germany the powerfully constituted
Social Democratic party has engaged open
ly in conflict with the empire and the en-
| nI1ipa1 70 rafiro
and to capltulate. Even in England, at the
last two general elections, it is not only
program of labor reform, Of trades union
ist demands, that the Socialists opposed to
the Liberal and Conservative parties; it
then entered upon, and it still pursues,
clearly defined policy of political action.
While admiring the courage of so many
heroic citizens, have we not the right to
regret that the Italian Socialist party has
not succeeded by more political and re-
publican line of action in securing, for the
ll-being and emancipation of their coun-
try, more important results from recent
painful and deplorable events? Italy, it
may be, would then have rid itself of more
than Crispi.
Without carrying this summary too far,
it appears that veritable transformation
of Socialist action, a development growing
| from this action, manifests itself. The
| proletarat is no longer content to elaborate
its programs, to protest against privilege
and injustice, to urge its claims. 1t de-
mands its rights, and makes ready to defeat
the resistance of its masters, to vanquish
them in open conflict, by taking hold OF
political power.
1t can only do this by Socialist political
action. And such action must be interna-
tional as we'll as national.
Is it not odious and disgraceful that the
private interests of capitalists, that the
speculations of colonial policy, that the in
trigues of Governments, should endanger
international peace and compromise that
accord between France and England which
is the guarantee of civilization and prog
ress, without allowing the voice of the pro-
letariat, of the Socialist party, to make
itself better heard, without their interven
ton, and consequent assurance as well Of
peace as of the establishment Of conditions
necessary to the emancipation of the work.
ers and to international solidarity.
1t is this solidarity as well as inferno tional
action, political as well as economic, on the
part of the workers and of Socialists, that
must be celebrated at the First of May
demonstrations, that the next International
Congress in London must decide and organ
ize. That is the object of the resolutions
proposed by the Central Revolutionary
Committee to the Committee organizing the
Congress.
At the outset the most general and the
most simple demand of the workers, that
for the amelioration of the conditions OF
labor, the claim which is still urgent and
which must be kept still in the front-the
claim of the proletariat everywhere for the
legal eight hours-was the only suitable one.
But we have gone ahead since then, and
Socialism has developed. Proletarians and
Socialists alike must show themselves a
militant body, ready to act, ready forcibly
to impose international peace, ready to at
tack and conquer the fee internationally as
nationally, whether he be the capitalist
employer or the reactionary. That is why,
on the First of May, with the will to organ
ize it and to put it in practice, it is their
duty to proclaim their political and social
international solidarity
EpoUARp VALIANT,
Deputy for Paris.