_"[35] Certainly, the moral victory was immense.
There had been a twelve-years-long torture of a great party, in which
every man who was known to be sympathetic was looked upon as a criminal
and an outlaw. Yet, despite every effort made to drive the socialists
into outrages, they never wavered the slightest from their grim
determination to depend solely upon peaceable methods. It is indeed
marvelous that the German socialists should have stood the test and
that, despite the most barbarous persecution, they should have been able
to hold their forces together, to restrain their natural anger, and to
keep their faith in the ultimate victory of peaceable, legal, and
political methods. Prometheus, bound to his rock and tortured by all the
furies of a malignant Jupiter, did not rise superior to his tormentor
with more grandeur than did the social democracy of Germany.

Violence does indeed seem to be a reactionary force. The use of it by
the anarchists against the existing regime seems to have deprived them
of all sympathy and support. More and more they became isolated from
even those in whose name they claimed to be fighting. So the violence of
Bismarck, intended to uproot and destroy the deepest convictions of a
great body of workingmen, deprived him and his circle of all popular
sympathy and support. Year by year he became weaker, and the futility of
his efforts made him increasingly bitter and violent. At last even those
for whom he had been fighting had to put him aside. On the other hand,
those he fought with his poisoned weapons became stronger and stronger,
their spirit grew more and more buoyant, their confidence in success
more and more certain. And, when at last the complete victory was won,
it was heralded throughout the world, and from thousands of great
meetings, held in nearly every civilized country, there came to the
German social democracy telegrams and resolutions of congratulation. The
mere fact that the Germany party polled a million and a half votes was
in itself an inspiration to the workers of all lands, and in the
elections which followed in France, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, and
other countries the socialists vastly increased their votes and more
firmly established their position as a parliamentary force. In 1892
France polled nearly half a million votes, little Belgium followed with
three hundred and twenty thousand, while in Denmark and Switzerland the
strength of the socialists was quadruple