But Bismarck, once the courteous and agreeable host of Lassalle, was now becoming the avowed enemy of the Social Democrats. Formerly perceiving in them a useful foil to the hated Progressives, he now recognized their growth as a grave menace to his newer national policies. On May 20, 1878, closely following an unsuccessful attempt of a madman to take the emperor's life, the chancellor, with the consent of the Bundesrat, introduced an anti-Socialist bill in the Reichstag. So serious were its proposed infringements of personal liberty, however, that it was promptly rejected by the decisive vote of 251 to 57. On June 2 another attempt was made to assassinate William I., and this time Bismarck did not try to win the existing Reichstag to his measure; taking advantage of the excitement throughout the country, he caused the Bundesrat to dissolve the inconvenient lower house and to order new elections. The ensuing campaign was waged on the single issue of the proposed coercion of the Socialists, and the government, in order to secure a popular verdict in its favor, spread broadcast throughout the empire the idea that the Socialists were enemies of Kaiser, country, morality, and the family, that they were inciting to murder, rapine, and most bloody revolution, that they were outlaws de facto and should be outlaws de jure. The bulk of the electorate responded to these charges by appropriate shiverings and tremblings and by choosing a compliant Reichstag, which on October 18 enacted the anti-Socialist bill by a vote of 221 to 149, the squeamish minority being composed chiefly of Centrists and Radicals.
It is not necessary to define again the general scope or the many details of this anti-Socialist law, which, through various re-enactments,[1] remained in force until 1890, for these things are known to all students of German history. There are, however, certain aspects of the measure which have often been subordinated or quite neglected, but which, in view of their effects upon the German Social Democracy and likewise upon the empire as a whole, merit at least passing mention. In the first place, the tactics of Bismarck in securing the passage of the bill were largely responsible both for the popular fears of Socialism and for the resulting recoil from the Liberalism of the 'seventies to the Conservatism of the 'eighties. The electoral campaign of 1878 was the first occasion (though by no means the last) on which the government flaunted before the
- ↑ The law as enacted in October, 1878, was to remain in force until March 31, 1881. It was re-enacted in May, 1880, to September 30, 1884; May, 1884, to September 30, 1886; April, 1886, to September 30, 1888; and February, 1888, to September 30, 1890.
