Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

contending societies, each of which claimed to be the White Lick quarterly meeting of Friends. If those who had withdrawn from the Western yearly meeting to form a new yearly meeting had never been recognized in accordance with the usages of the Society of Friends as a regularly and properly organized yearly meeting, they had no rights, powers, or authority which the civil courts could recognize as such; and if, as was also alleged, the defendant society had never been recognized by the established Western yearly meeting, within whose territorial jurisdiction they seemed to have attempted to organize, as properly organized, then they had no rights as such organization which the civil courts could protect or enforce. It might appear to the court or jury that the recognized Western yearly meeting, or the recognized White Lick quarterly meet ing, had utterly abandoned the ancient faith and practices, doctrines and teachings of the Society of Friends; yet when the superior organizations have decided otherwise, when they continued to recognize and fellowship these organizations, notwithstanding such apparent change, as regular and orthodox, and refused to recognize or admit to fellowship the new organization which might appear to adhere strictly and tenaciously to such ancient faith and practices, courts and juries must respect their action, and in the judgment of the court could not go behind it.

Issue was afterward joined upon the questions of facts involved in the suit.

FUSION DISK. A simple apparatus has

GAMBETTA, LEON MICHEL, a French statesman, born April 3, 1838, at Cahors, where his father, a Genoese of Jewish origin, was engaged in commercial pursuits. After attaining high honors at the lyceum of his native town, he studied law in Paris, and was there admitted to the bar in his twenty-second year. For some time secretary to the late M. Crémieux, the young advocate's talents soon won for him the admiration and friendship of the veteran democrat, in whom he afterward found a firm supporter. During the interval between 1859 and 1868 he gained notice and distinction both as an eloquent forensic orator and as a writer, alternately pleading the causes of political offenders (mostly journalists), publishing essays on eminent members of the Paris bar, and contributing to the daily press articles on politics, finance, art, and other topics. In the electoral campaign of 1863, the first in which he took an active part, he acquired considerable popularity as an ultra-Liberal. But 1868 found him popular and left him famous. The empire, which sprang from the coup d'état of December 2, 1851, and silenced for a time the nation's voice, had now become an impossible thing.

been invented by Jacob Reese, of Pittsburg, which is found very useful in its industrial applications, while the principle of its action is a puzzling problem to scientific men. It is a circular, revolving saw, with which steel bars are cut in two. The material of the circular saw is soft iron. It fuses steel bars which are brought into close proximity to it without touching. The bar to be cut is made likewise to revolve, in the contrary direction, with a speed of 200 revolutions a minute. The revolving disk is 42 inches in diameter and inch thick. It turns with a velocity of 2,300 revolutions, equal to a tangential velocity of 25,250 feet a minute. The circular disk is mounted on an arbor and set in motion with pulleys and belts, like an ordinary circular saw. When the bar is brought almost into contact with the revolving disk, a small drop of molten metal first appears on its surface. In a few seconds a notch is made, the molten metal flowing downward in a stream of sparks, and being thrown in sparks in all directions. A singular circumstance is the fact that the incandescent sparks, when they first leave the bar, are not hot. These sparks or drops of fused metal are of dazzling whiteness, yet their temperature differs but little from that of the surrounding atmosphere. In their path through the air those sparks which are projected sidewise acquire heat from the friction. At the distance of five feet or more they burn like a red-hot poker, while their vivid incandescence has given place to a dullred color.

G

The luster of a period marked by military successes in the Crimean and Italian Wars, and efficient to repress but not subdue the opposition, had been dimmed by the sorry issue of the Mexican expedition, and the disastrous Treaty of Prague; both indicative of the enfeeblement, or, as it has been aptly termed, the precocious dotage, of the head of the dynasty. Public discontent was at the full, and the people looked forward to a solution not long to be deferred, and already foreshadowed in overt democratic demonstrations of hostility to the Government. As an instance of such manifestations, we may cite the popular tribute to the memory of Deputy Baudin, the circumstances of whose death while endeavoring to shield the people from the fury of the troops on December 2, 1851, had been vividly recalled in a recent publication on the coup d'état. Numerous arrests followed; the press protested, and a subscription for a monument to Baudin was opened in the columns of "Le Réveil." Delescluze, the editor-in-chief of that journal, was prosecuted, and Gambetta called to his defense. In his speech on that occasion (November 14, 1868), the cause of

"Le Réveil" was to some extent overlooked, doubtless by design; but the authors of December 2d were lashed unsparingly in a torrent of eloquence unparalleled for impetuosity and daring since the days of Mirabeau :

Why talk here of plebiscites and ratifying clauses? A specious argument, in sooth, to draw from article 1338 of the civil code, and drag to this gloomy domain where it was little expected! Ah! you are not content with five million votes! After a reign of seventeen years, you perceive that it would be well to prohibit the discussion of your deeds by means of a posthumous ratification emanating from a criminal court? No; it shall not be. No; you shall not, you can not have that satisfaction. For such a cause there exists no court of appeals. It has been judged already, yesterday; it will be judged to-morrow, and the day after, and for ever, until justice shall have received her supreme satisfaction. The cause of December 2d, do what you may, will survive indelible in Paris, in London, in Berlin, in New York, and the verdict of the human conscience everywhere will be the same. But our adversaries have, besides, another accuser. Hearken: For seventeen years you have been the absolute masters of France. We would not ask what use you have made of her treasures, her blood, her honor, her glory; nor speak of her integrity jeopardized, or of what has become of the fruits of her industry: for no one needs to be told of the financial catastrophes now, at this very moment, springing as mines beneath our feet. Your most relentless accuser, because it is the attestation of your own remorse, is the fact that you have never dared to say, "We will celebrate, we will add to the list of solemnities in France, the 2d of December, as a national anniversary!" Yet each successive régime in our country has so honored the day of its birth. July 14th and August 10th have had their fetes; and the days of July, 1830, and February 24th, in like manner. Two anniversaries only-the 18th Brumaire and 2d of December-have never been included among the solemnities of accession; for you know that the nation could not in conscience sanction them. Hear, then! that anniversary, which you have neglected, we will take for ourselves; we will celebrate it year after year; and it shall be the anniversary of our dead, until the day when the nation, once more in possession of her sovereignty, shall visit upon you the great national expiation in the name of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.

Rather than a defense of Delescluze, there was here an indictment of Cæsarism, and the knell of the second empire; for the structure, still so brilliant without, must be decayed within and tottering to ruin, when the very judges whose first duty it was to silence the seditious orator, heard him, as if spell-bound, to the end. Unanimous acclamations of the Liberals throughout France signified the adhesion of that party to the young advocate, thenceforward one of its chieftains. During the ensuing six months he won new laurels, in the defense of the "Progrès du Nord," at Lille, and of the "Emancipation," at Toulouse. In the general elections of 1869, M. Gambetta was presented as a Republican candidate to the Legislative Assembly for Belleville (first electoral district of Paris) and Marseilles, he announcing that he would accept no mission but that of an opposition irréconciliable. He was elected in both districts by an immense majority, the rival candidate for the first being M. Carnot, one of the favorite names of the democ

racy, but twice the age of Gambetta; and those for the second, such men as Thiers, the civil engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps, and the Marquis de Barthélemy. He chose to sit for Marseilles, and took his place on the Extreme Left. After an absence of several months, occasioned by a severe throat affection brought on by the fatigues of an arduous electoral campaign, he returned to the Corps Législatif and made a series of remarkable speeches, especially one in which he protested (February 7, 1870) with indignation against the arrest of his colleague Henri de Rochefort, deputy-elect for Belleville in the place of Gambetta; and more particularly the memorable one in which (April 5th) he denounced the plebiscitum as unconstitutional; juridically reviewed the value, essence, and economy of the various political systems; and, pointing out why the republican system ought to be preferred, seemed to invite that avowed anti-republican assembly to make the trial. It was no small triumph to be heard on such a theme for the space of three hours, with admiration and almost without interruption, by a House notoriously hostile no less to the person than to the ideas of the speaker. He could charm, but not persuade. But events already in preparation would soon place him in a sphere of action with the difficulties of which only abilities of a superior order, united to an indomitable energy and marvelous activity, could cope.

M. Gambetta's opposition to the war with Prussia was at first more measured than that of many of his colleagues; so much so, that he refused to seek, in the embarrassments to the Government consequent upon the early disasters of the campaign, a favorable opportunity for revolutionary movements. After the capitulation at Sedan, however, hesitancy gave place to decision: the republic was now to be established, and he joined the ranks of its zealous promoters. On September 3d he signed, as member of the Provisional Government of the National Defense, Jules Favre's proposition declaring the Napoleonic dynasty deposed; the next day saw him in possession of the portfolio of the Interior; and on the 7th he signed the convocation of the electoral colleges for the 18th of October, for the purpose of appointing a Constituent Assembly. The new Minister of the Interior remained but a short time at Paris. His colleagues counting, and with reason, upon his energy and the magic power of his eloquence to rouse the inhabitants of the provinces against the invader, and meet the cruel necessities of the hour, he was attached, by decree of October 7th, to the delegation (Crémieux, Glais-Bizoin, and Fourichon) already sent to Tours, and whose tardiness in the or ganization of the national defense in that region was a source of anxiety to the Central Government. He set out from the capital in a balloon on the 8th of October, and, reaching Tours on

*On the 16th, an earlier date, October 2d, was fixed upon; but the elections were in the event postponed indefinitely

the 9th, issued proclamations appealing to the patriotism of the inhabitants in terms so earnest and irresistible as to produce a profound impression throughout the departments. Combining in his own direction the cumbrous functions of three ministries-Interior, War, and Finance his energy presided in all branches of the public service, in the Cabinet and on the battle-field; now at Orleans, Lille, or Lyons; again at Tours, or, after December 7th, at Bordeaux-wherever there were measures to be concerted, discouragement to be dispelled, disorders to be repressed, armies to be organized, or even military operations to be planned. Thus Gambetta, vigorously seconded by M. de Freycinet, maintained his authority for a period of nearly four months, in the midst of the situation here briefly sketched. In a word, he was dictator by force of circumstances. True, this dictatorship has been rudely criticised by some, and sneered at as the dictature de l'incapacité; but such harsh reflections on the "inutility and impotence of the dictator's impetuous efforts" did not find utterance until near the end. Among the acts and speeches pertaining to that period, French biographers cite the decree for the mobilization of the National Guards, at the expense of the respective departments; the proclamation containing the announcement to France of the surrender of Metz, and the denunciation of Bazaine as a traitor-the loan of 250,000,000 francs negotiated with British capitalists; the dissolution of the Councils-General elected under pressure of the imperial administration; the successive organization of the two Armies of the Loire under Generals Aurelle de Paladines and Chanzy; the organization of the Army of the North, commanded in turn by Generals Bourbaki and Faidherbe; the disastrous issue of the campaign of the east (under Bourbaki), hastened by the armistice, and the removal from office of such members (even life-members) of the magistracy as had taken part in the mixed_committees in 1852. After the surrender of Paris, which he spoke of as an act of culpable haste, he issued the convocation of electors for the National Assembly, but stipulating the ineligibility of such persons as had been candidates for or had held office under the empire. The Central Government, however, annulled that stipulation, and, on Gambetta's refusal to comply, dispatched one of its members, Jules Simon, to Bordeaux, with orders to execute the decree as at first drawn up. On this, M. Gambetta resigned all his functions, and withdrew from a government with which he was now in open disagreement. The elections of February 8, 1871, afforded abundant proof of the continued prestige of his name. He was spontaneously proposed as candidate in a number of departments, and elected in nine, among these being that of Bas-Rhin, for which he chose to sit, as a protest against all measures entailing the dismemberment of France, although the cession of that province to the German Em

pire would deprive him of his seat in the Chamber. At the complementary elections of July 2d, he was returned by three departments, and gave his option this time for Paris. He took his place at the Extreme Left, became a member, and was chosen President of the Union Républicaine. During the turbulent period of the Commune, and before the July elections, M. Gambetta had spent a brief vacation at San Sebastian, in Spain. After his return he was for a long time seldom seen at the Chamber, the Extreme Right being then in majority. And later, when he again took part in the debates, his attitude was uniformly conciliatory, spite of incessant and petulant attacks on the part of his colleagues of September 4th, and to which he had decided never to reply. On more than one occasion he prevailed upon his party to sustain the government of Thiers, notwithstanding the latter had frequently assailed him in parliamentary discourses; but once he left Thiers to support the candidature of M. Barodet against that of M. de Rémusat. In 1871 and 1872 it was usual to see Gambetta's name associated with the preparation of a government party in the republic, with its Whigs under Gambetta and its Tories under Thiers. The year 1872 was marked by two notable speeches from the leader of the Left. In one of these, on the anniversary of the taking of the Bastile (July 14th), he dwelt on the necessity of reconstituting the union of the middle classes, of adopting secular and compulsory instruction, universal military service, and a policy of conciliation, crowned by an amnesty without restriction. In the other, delivered at a private reunion, he referred to the advent of a "new social stratum, by no means inferior to its predecessors." The theme of this latter speech and its tone of hostility to the existing administration alarmed the public mind in the south, and provoked the open resentment of the Government. His most important speech in 1873 was one against the Septennate (November 19th). On June 9, 1874, he interpellated the De Fourtou Ministry concerning Bonapartist intrigues, and M. Rouher, in the course of his reply, having touched upon the revolution of September 4th, Gambetta retorted: "There are certain men to whom I deny the right and privilege to arraign the revolution of September 4th-I mean the wretches who have been the ruin of France." On being called to order, he added, "My expression undoubtedly implies more than an outrage-it implies a brand of dishonor, and I maintain it."

In the course of the winter of 1874-'75, for the most part occupied in the task of effecting a union between the several subdivisions of the Left and the Right Center, with a view to the adoption of the constitutional laws, M. Gambetta delivered one of his most effective and most finished speeches (February 12, 1875). From that day forward the so-called policy of "opportunism" has been the distinctive policy of the entire Left, save the

small groups of Intransigeants, then headed by Louis Blanc and Alfred Naquet. Throughout the remainder of 1875, Gambetta was the most formidable adversary of the Buffet Cabinet, though without any departure from those principles of conciliation embodied in his own maxim, "Moderation is the true course in politics." In the ensuing senatorial elections, his influence preponderated, as usual; and in those for the Chamber he busied himself, besides his own candidatures (Paris, Lille, Marseilles, Bordeaux, and Avignon), in suggesting or ratifying the choice of other candidates in the several departments.

In an address to his constituents of Belleville he found occasion to explain the philosophy of his political creed: "I deny the absolute in all things, so you may well imagine that I will not admit it in politics. I am of a school that believes only in relation, analysis, and observation, the examination of facts, the comparison and combination of ideas; a school that takes into account mediums, races, tendencies, prejudices, and antagonisms. Politics are not, nor can they be, always the same." As the acknowledged leader of the Republican majority in the new Chamber he again essayed, but in vain, to accomplish the unification of the Left; and combated clericalism, denouncing pulpit interference in electoral concerns.

The position of President of the Budget Committee (April 5, 1876) offered him an opportunity for the introduction of needed reforms. But the preparation of his vast financial schemes for the future, and in which he revealed surprising skill, did not prevent him from following up the politique opportuniste, on which he had staked his name and parliamentary success. Thus he supported M. Margue's proposition of amnesty by categories against M. Raspail, the advocate of universal amnesty; adopted the bill for reducing the period of service in the army to two years; protested energetically against the attacks leveled at him from the rostrum and through the press by a certain group of Intransigeants; and reiterated his decisions in favor of amnesty by categories, stigmatizing "those disreputable men who had sought to turn the Commune's despair to their own advantage." On January 28, 1877, he was re-elected President of the Budget Committee.

M. Jules Simon, appointed Premier and Minister of the Interior in December, 1876, was early assailed by the Bonapartists and the prelates; but Gambetta's preponderant influence was such that he obtained the passage by the Chamber of a resolution requesting the Government "to use all the legal means at its disposal to repress the anti-patriotic agitation." Some time afterward, in a famous speech before his Belleville constituents, he exclaimed, at the close of a vehement tirade against the Church party, and referring to the concluding words of his address to the House in behalf of Jules Simon: Yesterday we said, 'Clericalism

66

there is the enemy!' to-morrow we must be able to say, 'Clericalism-behold the vanquished!' Yet the Premier had another enemy behind the Churchmen. M. Simon was the genuine representative of Thiers in the Government, and MacMahon regarded his presence in the Council as a check upon his own movements, and the Marshal-President preferred to be surrounded by men willing to adopt his mode of thinking. More than all this, there existed a strong personal animosity between the two men, which was not likely to be diminished by the recollection of the disparaging if not contemptuous terms in which Simon had spoken of MacMahon, when the reelection of the latter had been proposed. On May 16th the Premier received a note of dismissal from the President, who assigned as the reason for such a sudden determination the attitude of the Cabinet in the debate on the press law the day previous, when, by the immense majority of 398 to 56, the House resolved to abrogate the law passed by the reactionary Assembly of 1875. Gambetta protested, and the resolution was adopted that "the Chamber, considering that it is of importance in the present crisis, and with a view to the fulfillment of the mission which it has received from the country, to remember that the preponderance of the parliamentary power, exercising itself through the ministerial responsibility, is the first condition of the government of the country by the country, declares that confidence of the majority can not be obtained except for a Cabinet free in its action, and resolved to govern according to those republican principles which alone can guarantee order and prosperity at home and peace abroad."

M. Gambetta thenceforward concentrated all his forces on the one grand object of forcing the Marshal-President to resign, and triumphed in the end, though he himself did not pass unscathed through the struggle. The time had come to precipitate the overthrow of an administration now grown obnoxious to all parties,. save the two which were themselves most obnoxious to the majority of the French people and to republicanism. Division had been extinguished in the republican ranks, and Gambetta held the command more firmly than ever. To add to the unpopularity of the Government, Jules Simon and his ministers had been succeeded by the Broglie-De Fourtou Cabinet, called by Gambetta a "government of priests." In the ensuing electoral campaign, the ubiquitous orator kept the public mind vividly impressed with the real interests at stake, reiterating at every stage of the crisis his protest against personal régime. "When France makes her sovereign voice heard," he cried, in his speech of August 15th, at Lille, and pointedly alluding to the Marshal-President, he must quit or submit (il faudra se soumettre ou se démettre)." For his temerity he was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, and fined two thousand francs; but the event proved the

« AnteriorContinuar »