liberalism. The liberal position was
substantially that the workingmen, though without effective
voting-power, were honorary members of the Progressive party, and
hence needed no independent party of their own, and that, for the
rest, they could best promote their special economic interests by
"self-help," that is, through voluntary and unassisted cooeperation.
Liberal leaders, especially Schulze-Delitzsch, labored strenuously to
improve the well-being of the working-classes along these lines, and
their efforts were not in vain. The Progressive watchword, "right
makes might," sophistical as it seemed to Lassalle, appealed to the
idealism of the German people, and the party was in the heyday of its
success. More and more Lassalle found himself forced by the
necessities of his struggle with the Progressives into compromising
relations with the government of Bismarck. His last great speech
delivered at Ronsdorf on the first anniversary of the foundation of
the Workingmen's Association betrays the dilemma into which he had
fallen. Under the conditions of the time there was not enough room
between the contending forces of progress and reaction for the great
independent labor party which Lassalle had hoped to create. There was
room for a humble beginning, but that was all.

It is not necessary to dwell on the details of Lassalle's last twelve
months and tragic end. The story is brief: a year of exhausting toil
and small result, then a short vacation, an unfortunate love-affair, a
foolish challenge to a duel, a single pistol-shot, and three days
later, August 31, 1864, the end. Thus he died, and on his tomb in
Breslau was written: "Here lies what was mortal of Ferdinand Lassalle,
the Thinker and Fighter."

The name of Lassalle is most frequently connected with that of Marx.
Certainly the two had much in common. They worked together in 1848 and
would have done so again in 1862 if Lassalle had had his way. For
fourteen years they were personal friends. Though they ultimately
drifted apart, they never became enemies. Lassalle was seven years
younger than Marx and was unquestionably strongly influenced by the
ideas of the founder of scientific socialism. At the same time he was
a man who did his own thinking, and his speeches and writings, even
those dealing most particularly with the philosophy of socialism, are
by no means mere paraphrases of Marx. His ideas betray resemblances to
those of various contemporary writers on socia