of siege
had been proclaimed. The year 1886 was a sensational one. Nine of the
socialists, including Bebel, Dietz, Auer, Von Vollmar, Frohme--all
deputies--were charged with taking part in a secret and illegal
organization. All the accused were sentenced to imprisonment for six or
nine months, Bebel and his parliamentary associates receiving the
heavier penalty. The Reichstag asked for reports upon the working of the
law. Again the discouraging news came that the movement seemed to be
growing faster than ever before.

The crushing by repressive measures did not, however, exhaust Bismarck's
plans for annihilating the socialists. At the same time he outlined an
extraordinary program for winning the support of the working classes.
Early in the eighties he proposed his great scheme of social
legislation, intended to improve radically the lot of the toilers.
Compulsory insurance against accident, illness, invalidity, and old age
was instituted as a measure for giving more security in life to the
working classes. Insurance against unemployment was also proposed, and
Bismarck declared that the State should guarantee to the toilers the
right to work. This began an era of immense social reforms that actually
wiped out some of the worst slums in the great industrial centers,
replaced them with large and beautiful dwellings for the working
classes, and made over entire cities. The discussions in the Reichstag
now seemed to be largely concerned with the problem of the working
classes and with devising plans to obliterate the influence of the
socialists over the workers and to induce them once more to ally
themselves to the monarchy and to the _Junkers_.

For some reason wholly mysterious to Bismarck, all his measures against
the socialists failed. Every assault made upon them seemed to increase
their power, while even the great reforms he was instituting seemed
somehow to be credited to the agitation of the socialists. Instead of
proving the good will of the ruling class, these reforms seemed only to
prove its weakness; and they were looked upon generally as belated
efforts to remedy old and grievous wrongs which, in fact, made necessary
the protests of the socialists. The result was that tens of thousands of
workingmen were flocking each year into the camp of the socialists, and
at each election the socialist votes increased in a most dreadful and
menacing manner. When the anti-socialist law was put into effect, the
party polled