ABSTRACT
We left the socialists, on September 30, 1890, in the midst of jubilation over the great victory they had just won in Germany. The Iron Chancellor, with all the power of State and society in his hands, had capitulated before the moral force and mass power of the German working class. And, when the sensational news went out to all countries that the German socialists had polled 1,427,000 votes, the impulse given to the political organizations of the working class was immense. Once again the thought of labor throughout the world was centered upon those stirring words of Marx and Engels: “Workingmen of all countries, Unite!” First uttered by them in ’47, repeated in ’64, and pleaded for once again in ’72, this call to unity began to appear in the nineties as the one supreme commandment of the labor movement. And, in truth, it is an epitome of all their teachings. It is the pith of their program and the marrow of their principles. Nearly all else can be waived. Other principles can be altered; other programs abandoned; other methods revolutionized; but this principle, program, and method must not be tampered with. It is the one and only unalterable law. In unity, and in unity alone, is the power of salvation. And under the inspiration of this call more and more millions have come together, until to-day, in every portion of the world, there are multitudes affiliated to the one and only international army. In ’47 328it was not yet born. In ’64 efforts were made to bring it into being. In ’72 it was broken into fragments. In ’90 it won its first battle—its right to exist. Now, twenty- three years later, nothing could be so eloquent and impressive as the figures themselves of the rising tide of international socialism.
