Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1896-04-17
THE ONLY TRUE WAY.
DIRECT LEGISLATION VS.. REP
RESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT.
A Document Well Worth Reading BY
Those who Believe in Pure Govern
ment-soclal Democracy tho Political
From Appeal to Reason
(Translated from Swiss Pamphlet
Published In 1861

From Appeal to Reason
(Translated from Swiss Pamphlet
Published in 1862
The experience of the past twenty
years has entirely cured the working
classes of Europe of the idea that i'm
perlal democracy and imperial social
ism, that is, the dictatorship of a single
person, are capable or even willing, to
do anything for the social education or
the working classes. These have been
merely apparent reforms, dust thrown
In the eyes of the people, while in
reality the workman is more than ever
victim of taxation and food for
powder.
Since the coup d. etat Of Bonaparte
1S52), the belief has, with great as
tuteness, been spread among the work
ing classes that political or state re-
forms have nothing to do with social
reforms, and that therefore the work.
ingman should not occupy his attention
with politics. but solely with the I'M
provement of his social position. The
ruling classes know only too we'll by
experience what great advantage
they derive from political forms favor
able to themselves, and that so long as
the working population allows itself
| to be led without volition in political
matters. and has no direct influence
upon legislation, it will not devise
form Of government favorable to the
| interests of labor. Socialism, even OF
the most radical kind, is mere bug
bear, without any danger, because the
political fulcrum is wanting to its So
cial lever, wherewith 1t may lift from
its hinges the old form OF society, with
| it's poverty of the masses and Its indl-
| vidual wealth. Social reform is con-
demned to remain in state of theory
until the right means are found to put
it into practice, and these means can
be no other than, above all. to bring
about n governmental reform OF such
| nature that the laws shall henceforth
be made by the voice Of all the citi-
zens, and no longer according to the
wishes of the privileged few.
But how is this social-democratic
state to be organized? This is the all
important question for the workman.
The International Workingmen's asso-
citation should be perfectly clear and
united upon the point as to which kind
of republic it prefers, SO that in the
event of the breaking out of a revolu-
ton the working classes may every
where know what to do.
The political movement in Switzer-
land during the last two years QS67-
69). chiefly in the canton of Zurich, Is
perhaps only symptom, prelude to
the great and deeply penetrating move
ment which is about TO agitate Euro
pean politics. The bourgeois republic,
or representative democracy, is on the
point Of dying out in Switzerland; for
1t has been found insufficient to COM
bat the injurious influence of Jesuit
ism; and pure democracy now steps
forward, by which people take direct
part in legislation, and can, therefore,
transform 1t in accordance with its
social requirements.
Representative government is every
where the same. The workmen of Paris
remember only too we'll how, in the
days of June, 1S4S, those middle-class
representatives endeavored to solve the
social problem with grapeshot; and,
quite recently, the miners of Belgium
have found out that their constitution
alists, too, know Of no other means
than powder and shot. Nay, even in
the representative democracy of Zu-
rich, there existed for more than TWEEN
ty years QS45-6O severe laws against
the coalition Of workmen, and against
the ocial-democratic press. So long
as the workmen allow the laws of the
state to be manufactured and forced
upon them by those who live by using
up the workmen, so long will the laws
be unfavorable to the toiling masses,
and favorable to the masters only.
When did a monarch ever make laws
in the interest of his people and against
the interest Of his dynasty? First
comes himself, his interest, his dynas-
ty, and then the welfare Of the tools
who support him in working the COM