Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-06-30
America and Revolution

of the first sittings of the Legislative
Assembly. in 1889, the abolition OF all
privileges was unanimously and &C.
statically voted by the ariStocrats and
the representatives of the church
themselves. They were in the era
of new deal" a new deal which
was to establish the millennium.
What then produced the horrors OF
1892 and onward-that spectacle OF
France insanely destroying itself in
wholesale fratricide? AS in Russia,
there was tiny party of determined
quasi-professional revolutionists who
were by no means satisfied with the
first act of the new deal. That party
was the secret society Of the Hum
matt, vowed to the determination OF
all monarchy and all privileges, pro-
Tossing egaltarian ideals indistinguish-
able from those of the modern Com
munist.
For years back, In an atmosphere
Of humanitarian philosophy whose
god was Rousseau, the illuminate had
progressively captured French Free
Masonry. ruled by the Grand Orient.
They allied themselves with the con-
| spiratorial clique of the Due dor
| leans determined TO dethrone Louis
XVI and substitute the Duke, and also
with Prussia, unscrupulous to break
| the Franco-Austrian alliance, which
was a barrier to Prussian ambitions.
England also, resentful Of French aid
to her successfully rebelling colonies,
| was not displeased to see France de-
| posed from her position of the leading
nation In Europe.
Ruffians Were Victors.
For these people the new DEAL of
1889, inaugurating the millennium
with the abolition of privileges and
Louis XVI accepting his new status
of constitutional King" amid the
adoring enthusiasm Of his people, was
emphatically not enough. 1t was the
agents and the money of the Due
d'Orleans which organized the riots
of June and August, 1792-ten or
twenty thousand ruffians at most,
while the people of Paris kept trem-
blingly within doors-which swept
Louis XVI from his throne.
Then came the struggle between
the victors, which ended in the Due
d'Orleans, vainly clubbing himself
Philip Equality" perishing on the
scaffold whittier he had sent his
cousin. And then came anarchy. And
behind it all, in an obscurity which
history is only just beginning to
pierce, were the ignoble scoundrels
! who grew rich on the loot, and the
bands Of gangsters who terrorized and
plundered the countryside in perfect
immunity.
The French Revolution is still full
of lessons. The Bolsheviks particularly
have made an anxious study of them.
and are never tired of drawing the
morals. For them there were to be
! no romantic conveys to the guillotine,
but anonymous execution in cellar.
For them--if they can help it-there
Is to be no Ninth Thermidor.
The chief lesson of the French
Revolution, as Of the Commune, and
of Russia and of Hungary in 1879,
and indeed of all revolutions, is that
there can be no revolution unless
facilitated by the ineptitude of the
government. The proper business of
a government is to secure the life
| and property of its citizens, to afford
them the maximum of opportunity to
conduct their legitimate affairs, and
as possible.
Steps to Revolution.
| When, as in the years precedent to
1889, it identifies itself with an un-
assailable bureaucracy whose main
! function is to harass the citizens with
| multitude of pettifogging restrictions
tthose of the ancient regime were in
credible in their petty complexity):
when by ill-judged interference with
trade and industry it produces hosts
of despairful voorhees,; when 1t piles up
such crushing load Of public debt
as did the Bourbon ministers-that
violent humiliation of liabilities seems
the only way out; when its financial
juggleries-as in the last years OF
Louis XVI-have utterly killed conf
dence-then it has created the condi-
lions prerequisite to revolution and its
own destruction.
But even then no revolution can
succeed unless the government viz
tually abdicates-does not resist while
yet it has the power. If at the Tuil-
cries, on that fateful August 10, 1892,
Louis XVI had ordered his Swiss
Guards to fire Gnstead of forbidding
them to do so), that rabble would have
| run for its life, all France would have
enthusiastically applauded its beloved
monarch and q million men would not
have died violent deaths unnecessarily.
For in August, 1892, the Revolution
and all the glorious principles it estab-
lished was long ago peacefully won.
The King was hurled from his throne
to the scaffold by what was nothing
more than q gangster's hold-up.
Similarly. in Russia, after the abor-
tive Bolshevik attempt Of July, 1917,
Lenin, Trotsky and the other leaders
were surrounded in their Petrograd
headquarters By the troops of the Ker-
ensky government. A battery OF guns
was trained at close range on the edi-
flee (the commander Of that battery
is. I believe, in New York;. Kerensky
sent an order forbidding the battery to
fire. Had those guns spoken. RUSSIA
these 10 years would have been some
sort of Liberal Republic and the Boil
shevik rising would have been mem