onsequent and just conclusions.
Here, again, the question of means is of no importance. A reform may be
effected by insurrection and bloodshed, and a revolution may take place
in the deepest peace."[18]

Through the agitation of Lassalle, the Universal German Working Men's
Association was organized, and it was his work for that body that won
him fame as the founder of the German labor movement. Not a laborer
himself, nor indeed speaking to them as one of themselves, he led a life
that would probably have ended disastrously, even to the cause itself,
had it not been for his dramatic ending through the love affair and the
duel. Fate was kind to Lassalle in that he lived only so long as his
influence served the cause of the workers, and in that death took him
before life shattered another idol of the masses. "One of two things,"
said Lassalle once before his judges. "Either let us drink Cyprian wine
and kiss beautiful maidens--in other words, indulge in the most common
selfishness of pleasure--or, if we are to speak of the State and
morality, let us dedicate all our powers to the improvement of the dark
lot of the vast majority of mankind, out of whose night-covered floods
we, the propertied class, only rise like solitary pillars, as if to show
how dark are those floods, how deep is their abyss."[19] With such
marvelous pictures as this Lassalle created a revolution in the thought
and even in the action of the working classes of Germany. At times he
drank Cyprian wines, and what might have happened had he lived no one
can tell. But he was indeed at the time a "solitary pillar," rising out
of "night-covered floods," a heroic figure, who is even to-day an
unforgettable memory.

Bebel and Liebknecht appeared in the German movement as influential
figures only after the disappearance of Lassalle. And, while the labor
movement was already launched, it was in a deplorable condition when
these two began their great work of uniting the toilers and organizing a
political party. One of the first difficult tasks placed before them was
to root out of the labor movement the corruption which Bismarck had
introduced into it. That great and rising statesman was a practical
politician not excelled even in America. In the most cold-blooded manner
he sought to buy men and movements. For various reasons of his own he
wanted the support of the working-class; and, as early as 1864, he
employed Lothar Bucher, an old revolutionist who had been in