Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1896-04-15
From Appeal to Reason
Translated from a Swiss Pamphlet
Published in 1862

Translated from Swiss Pamphlet
Published in 1869
The experience Of the past twenty
years has entirely cured the working
classes of Europe of the idea that i'm
perial democracy and imperial social
Ism, that is, the dictatorship of single
person, are capable OF even willing, to
DO anything for the social education of
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
QS52) the belief has, with great as
tuteness, been spread among the work
ing classes that policial or state re-
forms have nothing to do with social
reforms, and that therefore the work
lngman 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 a 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 Yolition in political
matters, and has no direct influence
upon legislation, it will not devise a
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 it may lift from
its hinges the old form OF society, with
its poverty of the masses and its indi-
vidual wealth. Social reform is con-
demned to remain in state of theory
it into practice, and these means can
be no other than, above all, to bring
about a governmental reform of such
a 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 Workingmens asso-
ciation should be perfectly clear and
united upon the point as to which kind
of republic it prefers, sc that in the
event of the breaking out of a revolu-
where know what to do.
The political movement in Switzer-
land during the last two years Q867-
69), chiefly in the canton of Zurich, is
perhaps only a symptom, prelude to
the great and deeply penetrating move
ment which is about 10 agitate Euro
pean politics. The bourgeois republic,
or representative democracy, is on the
point of dying out in Switzerland; for
it 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,
social requirements.
Representative government is every
where the same. The workmen of Paris
remember only too we'll how, in the
days of June, 1S48, those middle-cla
representatives endeavored to solve the
social problem with grapeshot; and,
quite recently, the miners of Belgium
have found out that their constitutions
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 twen-
ty years QS45-6O severe laws against
the coalition Of workmen, and against
the social-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 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 ip working the eem-