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MARX, ENGELS, AND MARXISMS

Selected Writings of
Jean Jaurès
On Socialism, Pacifism
and Marxism

Edited by
Jean-Numa Ducange
Elisa Marcobelli
Translated by David Broder
 Marx, Engels, and Marxisms

Series Editors
Marcello Musto, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
Terrell Carver, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
The Marx renaissance is underway on a global scale. Wherever the critique
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Jean-Numa Ducange · Elisa Marcobelli
Editors

Selected Writings
of Jean Jaurès
On Socialism, Pacifism and Marxism
Editors
Jean-Numa Ducange Elisa Marcobelli
University of Rouen University of Rouen
Mont St. Aignan, France Mont St. Aignan, France

Translated by
David Broder
London School of Economics
Paris, France

ISSN 2524-7123 ISSN 2524-7131 (electronic)

Marx, Engels, and Marxisms
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 Series Editor’s Preface

Titles Published
1. Terrell Carver & Daniel Blank, A Political History of the Editions
of Marx and Engels’s “German Ideology” Manuscripts, 2014.
2. Terrell Carver & Daniel Blank, Marx and Engels’s “German Ideol-
ogy” Manuscripts: Presentation and Analysis of the “Feuerbach
chapter,” 2014.
3. Alfonso Maurizio Iacono, The History and Theory of Fetishism,
2015.
4. Paresh Chattopadhyay, Marx’s Associated Mode of Production: A
Critique of Marxism, 2016.
5. Domenico Losurdo, Class Struggle: A Political and Philosophical
History, 2016.
6. Frederick Harry Pitts, Critiquing Capitalism Today: New Ways to
Read Marx, 2017.
7. Ranabir Samaddar, Karl Marx and the Postcolonial Age, 2017.
8. George Comninel, Alienation and Emancipation in the Work of
Karl Marx, 2018.
9. Jean-Numa Ducange & Razmig Keucheyan (Eds.), The End of the
Democratic State: Nicos Poulantzas, a Marxism for the 21st Century,
2018.
10. Robert X. Ware, Marx on Emancipation and Socialist Goals:
Retrieving Marx for the Future, 2018.

v
vi SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE

11. Xavier LaFrance & Charles Post (Eds.), Case Studies in the Origins
of Capitalism, 2018.
12. John Gregson, Marxism, Ethics, and Politics: The Work of Alasdair
MacIntyre, 2018.
13. Vladimir Puzone & Luis Felipe Miguel (Eds.), The Brazilian
Left in the 21st Century: Conflict and Conciliation in Peripheral
Capitalism, 2019.
14. James Muldoon & Gaard Kets (Eds.), The German Revolution and
Political Theory, 2019.
15. Michael Brie, Rediscovering Lenin: Dialectics of Revolution and
Metaphysics of Domination, 2019.
16. August H. Nimtz, Marxism versus Liberalism: Comparative Real-
Time Political Analysis, 2019.
17. Gustavo Moura de Cavalcanti Mello and Mauricio de Souza Saba-
dini (Eds.), Financial Speculation and Fictitious Profits: A Marxist
Analysis, 2019.
18. Shaibal Gupta, Marcello Musto & Babak Amini (Eds.), Karl
Marx’s Life, Ideas, and Influences: A Critical Examination on the
Bicentenary, 2019.
19. Igor Shoikhedbrod, Revisiting Marx’s Critique of Liberalism:
Rethinking Justice, Legality, and Rights, 2019.
20. Juan Pablo Rodríguez, Resisting Neoliberal Capitalism in Chile:
The Possibility of Social Critique, 2019.
21. Kaan Kangal, Friedrich Engels and the Dialectics of Nature, 2020.
22. Victor Wallis, Socialist Practice: Histories and Theories, 2020.
23. Alfonso Maurizio Iacono, The Bourgeois and the Savage: A Marxian
Critique of the Image of the Isolated Individual in Defoe, Turgot and
Smith, 2020.
24. Terrell Carver, Engels Before Marx, 2020.
25. Jean-Numa Ducange, Jules Guesde: The Birth of Socialism and
Marxism in France, 2020.
26. Antonio Oliva, Ivan Novara & Angel Oliva (Eds.), Marx and
Contemporary Critical Theory: The Philosophy of Real Abstraction.
27. Francesco Biagi, Henri Lefebvre’s Critical Theory of Space.
28. Stefano Petrucciani, The Ideas of Karl Marx: A Critical Introduc-
tion.
29. Terrell Carver, The Life and Thought of Friedrich Engels, 30th
Anniversary Edition.
 SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE vii

30. Giuseppe Vacca, Alternative Modernities: Antonio Gramsci’s Twen-

tieth Century.
31. Kevin B. Anderson, Kieran Durkin & Heather Brown (Eds.),
Raya Dunayevskaya’s Intersectional Marxism: Race, Gender, and the
Dialectics of Liberation.
32. Marco Di Maggio, The Rise and Fall of Communist Parties in
France and Italy.
33. Ryuji Sasaki, A New Introduction to Karl Marx: New Materialism,
Critique of Political Economy, and the Concept of Metabolism.
34. Kohei Saito (Ed.), Reexamining Engels’s Legacy in the 21st Century.
35. Paresh Chattopadhyay, Socialism in Marx’s Capital: Towards a De-
alienated World.
36. Marcello Musto, Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation.

Titles Forthcoming

Michael Brie & Jörn Schütrumpf, Rosa Luxemburg: A Revolutionary

Marxist at the Limits of Marxism
Miguel Vedda, Siegfried Kracauer, or, The Allegories of Improvisation
Gianfranco Ragona & Monica Quirico, Frontier Socialism: Self-
organisation and Anti-capitalism
Vesa Oittinen, Marx’s Russian Moment
Kolja Lindner, Marx, Marxism and the Question of Eurocentrism
Adriana Petra, Intellectuals and Communist Culture: Itineraries, Problems
and Debates in Post-war Argentina
George C. Comninel, The Feudal Foundations of Modern Europe
James Steinhoff, Critiquing the New Autonomy of Immaterial Labour: A
Marxist Study of Work in the Artificial Intelligence Industry
Spencer A. Leonard, Marx, the India Question, and the Crisis of
Cosmopolitanism
Joe Collins, Applying Marx’s Capital to the 21st century
Levy del Aguila Marchena, Communism, Political Power and Personal
Freedom in Marx
Jeong Seongjin, Korean Capitalism in the 21st Century: Marxist Analysis
and Alternatives
Marcello Mustè, Marxism and Philosophy of Praxis: An Italian Perspective
from Labriola to Gramsci
viii SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE

Satoshi Matsui, Normative Theories of Liberalism and Socialism: Marxist

Analysis of Values
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Meeting of Traditions in Global Comparative Philosophy
Stefano Petrucciani, Theodor W. Adorno’s Philosophy, Society, and Aesthetics
Francesca Antonini, Reassessing Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire: Dictatorship,
State, and Revolution
Thomas Kemple, Capital After Classical Sociology: The Faustian Lives of
Social Theory
Tsuyoshi Yuki, Socialism, Markets and the Critique of Money: The Theory
of “Labour Note”
V Geetha, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and the Question of Socialism in
India
Xavier Vigna, A Political History of Factories in France: The Workers’
Insubordination of 1968
Attila Melegh, Anti-Migrant Populism in Eastern Europe and Hungary:
A Marxist Analysis
Marie-Cecile Bouju, A Political History of the Publishing Houses of the
French Communist Party
Gustavo Moura de Cavalcanti Mello & Henrique Pereira Braga (Eds.),
Wealth and Poverty in Contemporary Brazilian Capitalism
Peter McMylor, Graeme Kirkpatrick & Simin Fadaee (Eds.), Marxism,
Religion, and Emancipatory Politics
Mauro Buccheri, Radical Humanism for the Left: The Quest for Meaning
in Late Capitalism
Rémy Herrera, Confronting Mainstream Economics to Overcome Capi-
talism
Tamás Krausz, Eszter Bartha (Eds.), Socialist Experiences in Eastern
Europe: A Hungarian Perspective
Martin Cortés, Marxism, Time and Politics: On the Autonomy of the
Political
João Antonio de Paula, Huga da Gama Cerqueira, Eduardo da Motta
e Albuquer & Leonardo de Deus, Marxian Economics for the 21st
Century: Revaluating Marx’s Critique of Political Economy
Zhi Li, The Concept of the Individual in the Thought of Karl Marx
Lelio Demichelis, Marx, Alienation and Techno-capitalism
Dong-Min Rieu, A Mathematical Approach to Marxian Value Theory:
Time, Money, and Labor Productivity
 SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE ix

Salvatore Prinzi, Representation, Expression, and Institution: The Philos-

ophy of Merleau-Ponty and Castoriadis
Agon Hamza, Slavoj Žižek and the Reconstruction of Marxism
Kei Ehara (Ed.), Japanese Discourse on the Marxian Theory of Finance
Éric Aunoble, French Views on the Russian Revolution
Elisa Marcobelli, Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis: The Second
International and French, German and Italian Socialists
Paolo Favilli, Historiography and Marxism: Innovations in Mid-Century
Italy
Terrell Carver, Smail Rapic (Eds.), Friedrich Engels for the 21st Century:
Perspectives and Problems
Juan Dal Maso, Hegemony and Class: Three Essays on Trotsky, Gramsci and
Marxism
Patrizia Dogliani, A Political History of the International Union of
Socialist Youth
Alexandros Chrysis, The Marx of Communism: Setting Limits in the Realm
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 Introduction

Jean Jaurès is one of France’s most famous political figures. Many French
people have heard of Jaurès because of the streets and public buildings
named after him, or even the shops situated on a “Rue Jean-Jaurès,” in
their own way recalling the socialist tribune’s memory. In early 2014,
Toulouse University was renamed in his honor, as part of the buildup
to commemorations marking the centenary of his assassination in July
1914. But outside the ranks of history buffs and a few hardened militants,
how many people actually know Jaurès’s works? Surely, very few. Beyond
France itself he is even less well known. Only specialists in the history of
French socialism or the Third Republic know his name and his writings.
Indeed, as soon as we cross the Alps from France into Italy his name
disappears from the toponymy: Milan’s “Via Jean Jaurès” is ’the only
one nationwide. This anthology is intended to help those little-familiar
with Jaurès to discover him. It does so through a selection of his most
emblematic texts, covering some of the great political questions of his
time.

From the Republic to Socialism

Born in 1859 to a bourgeois family in Castres, Jaurès was hardly fated
to become one of history’s great socialist leaders. His first steps in public
life did little to distinguish him from other “opportunist” republicans—
as the men of the center-left were called, in this period. This brilliant

xi
xii INTRODUCTION

student, educated at the École normale supérieure (where he achieved

an agrégation in philosophy) and university lecturer, then became deputy
mayor of Toulouse and, already in 1885, a young MP. Initially hostile to
the socialists, he could have settled for a comfortable political career in
the South of France, just like many others did.
But over the years from 1889 to 1892, Jaurès gradually “passed across
to socialism.”1 There were two major factors at work in this “conver-
sion,” which has long been a subject of discussion among historians. One
was Jaurès’s study of German philosophy: he devoted his complemen-
tary thesis to The Origins of German Socialism (1892), a topic which
he discovered especially thanks to his discussions with the École normale
supérieure librarian Lucien Herr. The other was the importance of the
social question, of which he became conscious through his contact with
the miners of Carmaux—men facing often horrific working conditions,
whom he met during a major strike in 1892. By this point, Jaurès had
very much become a socialist. In that era, socialists were still a scattered
array of loosely organized circles; ten years later, Jaurès would urgently set
about uniting these different currents. For the moment, he was, at least,
certainly to be counted among socialist ranks, and in 1893 he was elected
an MP for the Tarn on the basis of the programme of the Parti Ouvrier
led by Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue—men both close, in this period,
to the ideas of Karl Marx. But more than these others, Jaurès’s socialism
would preserve its republican moorings, which a good proportion of the
socialists influenced by Marxism in fact considered rather suspect. Was
the Republic not fundamentally “bourgeois”—as its violent anti-worker
repression tended to demonstrate?
Jaurès, for his part, thought that there was a deep bond of continuity
between the Republic and socialism. For sure, the current Republic was
imperfect. But for him, it remained the best political regime in existence,
and it was within the Republic that socialism could be gradually devel-
oped. For Jaurès, the social Republic could not spring from some great
cataclysm, as Marx and Engels had forecast in 1848, but rather would arise
from a gradualist approach which took proper account of republicanism’s
achievements. This political outlook also ought to be set in connection
with Jaurès’s great admiration for the legacy of the French Revolution of

1 Jean Jaurès, ‘Le Passage au socialisme (1889–1893)’, in Œuvres, vol. II, Paris, Fayard,
2011.
 INTRODUCTION xiii

1789. Over 1889–90, he established a close continuity between the revo-

lutionary struggles of 1789 and contemporary socialism. Between 1900
and 1904 he published the first volumes (and they were several thousand
pages long!) of a vast Histoire socialiste de la France contemporaine he
had launched; these initial tomes were dedicated to the early years of the
French Revolution from 1789 to 1794. To read the introduction (1900)
and conclusion (1908) to these volumes—texts reproduced in this present
anthology—offers us a marvelous understanding of who Jaurès was and
what his vision of socialism was. These pages are deeply imbued with an
incorrigible optimism in the future, which especially shines through from
the 1908 conclusion.

Jaurès, the Republicans,

the Socialists, and the Syndicalists
If we cannot understand Jaurès without reading him, we also need to
situate him in relation to the other great political figures and forces of
his time. During his own lifetime, Jaurès was no better known than Jules
Guesde or other republican personalities, even though posterity has often
had much less of a place for these latter. Fundamentally, he never broke
with the republicans and especially the radicals, with whom he had, as
Rémy Pech put it, “a dispute but not a rupture.”2 His relations with the
different socialist currents (of which there were five, at the end of the
nineteenth century!) varied with the times. Jaurès had difficult relations
with the “Guesdists,” the partisans of Jules Guesde considered to have
first introduced Marxism to France. An important cleavage divided him
from the allies of Jules Guesde and Édouard Vaillant over the decisive
question of the state, or more precisely, of governmental participation.
In 1899, Alexandre Millerand became the first socialist minister to join
a government, as part of Waldeck-Rousseau’s cabinet. In the context of
the Dreyfus affair and the threat to the republican regime, for some the
notion of a government of “republican defense” justified participation in
exercising power. Jaurès was part of this latter camp, while Guesde and
Vaillant damned what they saw as an inadmissible compromise.

2 Jean-Michel Ducomte and Rémy Pech, Jaurès et les radicaux: une dispute sans rupture,
Toulouse, Privat, 2011.
xiv INTRODUCTION

This dividing line would split them also with regard to their attitudes
toward captain Dreyfus: whereas Guesde considered it damaging to throw
workers into struggle on behalf of a bourgeois army officer, Jaurès—
after a little hesitation—invoked a principle of humanity that stood above
class divides. For the socialist tribune, it was necessary to stand along-
side figures like Zola, who accused the justice system of partiality and
complicity in the military’s efforts to cover up its institutional failings. Les
Preuves —whose foreword is included in this volume—was one of Jaurès’s
great texts on this subject. Yet on some points, there were bridges between
Jaurès and the Guesdists; sometimes these latter were fairly quick to give
up on some of their more doctrinaire aspects, for instance on the ques-
tion of small peasant property. While in some Marxists’ estimation, the
small property would disappear together with capitalist concentration, the
majority of French socialists considered it something that needed to be
defended. At the Nantes Congress of the (Guesdist) Parti ouvrier français
in 1894, there was agreement between Jaurès and Karl Marx’s son-in-law
Lafargue—a Guesde ally—on this point.3 But from 1899 onward, such
areas of agreement rather thinned out. There were, indeed, two different
methods—the deux méthodes which Guesde and Jaurès debated at a
memorable public meeting in 1900, upon the invitation of the mayor of
Lille.4 Two years later, Jaurès’s support for Émile Combes’s new govern-
ment followed this same logic: backing the Radicals’ reform measures,
but this time without direct socialist participation in government, Jaurès
was elected vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies. He now became
the most important political figure, alongside Aristide Briand, in allowing
the vote on—and then the promulgation of—the law on the separation of
churches and state in late 1905. Some socialists asked why Jaurès went so
far in this alliance with the Radicals on the question of state secularism:
wasn’t the essential thing to conquer new social and political rights for
workers, taking up a perspective of overthrowing capitalism? For Jaurès,
who never abandoned the horizon of revolution, it was necessary to break
workers from the grip of Catholicism. How could anyone imagine that a
society still operating under the orders of the Church could be recep-
tive to socialist ideas? Anything that could allow for a secularization of

3 Gilles Candar and Jean-Numa Ducange, ‘Paul Lafargue: la propriété paysanne et

l’évolution économique’, Cahiers Jaurès, no 195–196, pp. 70–80.
4 Jean Jaurès, Jules Guesde, Rosa Luxemburg, Les Discours des deux méthodes, Paris, Le
Passager clandestin, 2014 (2nd edition).
 INTRODUCTION xv

citizens’ minds, even while respecting individual religious beliefs, was a

step forward for socialism. Again, here, there was a sharp difference of
method. Yet in the meantime, a few months before the law on separa-
tion of churches and state, the splits among France’s socialists had finally
been healed: whatever their differences, they all came together at the Le
Globe congress in Paris in April 1905 to found the Section française de
l’Internationale ouvrière (SFIO), the now unified socialist party. More
than anything, Jaurès feared that this unity would crack and thus socialism
would fall back into the fragmented condition it had been in before 1905.
Unity had been one of his life’s great works, and he had a particular
attachment to it. The subsequent splits in the French Left would likely
have badly wounded him…
Formally speaking, the rhetoric of Guesde’s supporters prevailed in the
new party’s statutes.5 But at the SFIO’s Toulouse Congress in 1908, there
was no doubt that Jaurès’s viewpoint chalked up some decisive victories.
When, two years later, Guesde expressed opposition to the first law on
“worker and peasant” pensions—to his eyes, the bill offered only weak
guarantees to those on the lowest incomes—he was very much isolated
compared to Jaurès who, despite the law’s distinct weaknesses, voted for
it because it would at least mean that the Republic would recognize the
principle of pensions.6 In the long run, it was, indeed, his perspective that
prevailed among France’s socialists, even though it would continue to be
counterbalanced by other political choices.
What, at root, was Jaurès’s perspective? A sensible gradualist and
reformist attitude, as against the other socialists who wanted to over-
throw capitalism? We should be careful not to plaster the realities of
another era onto the socialism of 1900: the oppositions and ruptures
that emerged after the Russian Revolution of 1917 were not already
evident in Jaurès’s own time. Some have spoken of a typically Jaure-
sian “revolutionary reformism”,7 a “Jauresian synthesis” which resists any
over simplistic oppositions incapable of capturing the thought of a plural
and complex French socialism. Indeed, there was no ready-made model

5 Claude Willard, Jules Guesde, l’apôtre et la loi, Paris, Éditions ouvrières, 1991.
6 Gilles Candar et Guy Dreux, Une loi pour les retraites. Débats socialistes et syndicalistes
autour de la loi de 1910, Lormont, Le Bord de l’eau, 2010.
7 See especially Bruno Antonini, État et socialisme chez Jean Jaurès, Paris, L’Harmattan,
2004.
xvi INTRODUCTION

for revolution such as the Bolshevik revolution later proposed, notably

including the centralized party-form as theorized by Lenin. Jaurès had no
theory of the party, and even if he opposed the most centralizing tenden-
cies among the Guesdists inspired by the German model, he proposed
no alternative conception. This, even as he remained attached to the exis-
tence of a political party that would be pluralist yet united on the essential
questions. Doubtless, he had no hesitation in referring to the example of
the French Revolution of 1789–1794. But he did this less with a view
to repeating the particular phases it had gone through, than as a matter
of drawing inspiration from the great principles which had bloomed in
that era. And when great upheavals struck other countries and revolu-
tion again seemed to be on the order of the day, Jaurès’s thoughts would
spontaneously turn to the French Revolution. When, in January 1905,
a revolution began on the soil of the Tsar’s despised authoritarianism—
raising hopes across Europe—his lyrical speeches spontaneously mobilized
the glorious French revolutionary tradition. The word “revolution” was,
indeed, very much part of the Jauresian vocabulary, but it did not appear
to stand in contradiction with partial victories through reforms. Tellingly,
in expounding his political vision Jaurès used the formula “revolutionary
evolution,” which he had early on adopted from a formula used by Karl
Marx.8 If one wanted to apply a label to Jaurès, at the very limit one could
term him a “radical reformist”: deeply pacifist, he was distrustful of violent
and brutal ruptures and, in this sense, he clearly distinguished himself
from many other socialists with a stronger inclination toward a revolu-
tionary rupture with the existing order. But he also distrusted the repub-
licans’ conservatism—and had no hesitation in speaking up for political
and social reforms that some considered dangerous or impossible. Here
again, his decision to defend particular laws (on pensions, on secularism)
was well-indicative of his approach.
Jaurès was, moreover, a socialist attentive to other sensibilities,
convinced as he was that the appropriateness of a given political line
would become clear through debate—even if that debate was robust and
sometimes violent. This is the spirit in which we should understand his
creation of l’Humanité in April 1904. He never saw this “socialist daily”
as an organ subservient to the party, but rather as a free tribune for
the working-class and socialist movements of the time. He stuck to this

8 Jean-Paul Scot, Jaurès et le réformisme révolutionnaire, Paris, Seuil, 2014.

 INTRODUCTION xvii

pluralist decision to the last, even if it sometimes risked stormy polemics

and splits with some of his friends. For evidence of this, we need only
look to a 1911 editorial in l’Humanité where he paid an emphatic tribute
to Paul Lafargue, who had just committed suicide together with his wife.
This article came just a few weeks after Lafargue and Jaurès had clashed
over major disagreements with a manifest harshness of tone. For Jaurès,
his activity as a journalist was essential: before (and sometimes in parallel
with) his work for l’Humanité, he was an active contributor to La Dépêche
and La Petite République. A man of action, he published hundreds of
newspaper articles, often much longer and denser than one might read
today; for proof of that, one need only consult some of his pieces, which
could at times even be difficult to follow given the sheer volume of histor-
ical and philosophical references they mobilized. Jaurès the journalist was
a remarkable example of a politician who kept pace with the most imme-
diate current events, without ever losing a depth of analysis that was
bound to a vast culture.9
One particular point worth mentioning regards trade unionism. The
situation in the France of this period was rather particular. The Confédéra-
tion générale du travail (CGT), founded in 1895 was animated by a
revolutionary-syndicalist majority very hostile to political parties and
parliamentarism, who considered the “general strike” as the working
class’s main means of action and who characterized universal suffrage as a
sham which prevented the active mobilization of the popular masses.10
At the Amiens congress in 1906, the CGT jealously defended its
autonomy from the SFIO, in a text that has gone down in history as the
“Charter of Amiens.” Jaurès obviously opposed the CGT members’ ideas
as expressed in this document, for he remained attached to parliamen-
tary, republican forms of political action. But there was a notable evolu-
tion in his understanding of the general strike after 1905: well aware of
the strength that the CGT’s syndicalism represented, and perhaps also
conscious of the limits of parliamentary democracy, which could not alone
suffice, he came to consider specific uses of the general strike as a useful
means of action. A real—and fruitful—dialogue thus developed between
Jaurès and the revolutionary-syndicalist CGT starting in the years from

9 Charles Silvestre, Jaurès, la passion du journaliste, Pantin, Le Temps des cerises, 2010.
10 Miguel Chueca, Déposséder les possédants. La grève générale aux « temps héroïques »
du syndicalisme révolutionnaire (1895–1906), Marseilles, Agone, 2008.
xviii INTRODUCTION

1906 to 1908, in a context in which Georges Clemenceau’s government

repressed workers’ strikes.11 Jaurès again distinguished himself from the
partisans of Guesde, who wanted to subordinate the union to the party
and saw the former only as an appendage of the latter. We again see this in
Jaurès’s attitudes toward the cooperative movement: unlike other social-
ists who held that it had to be placed in service of the party, Jaurès saw it
as one of the means of social emancipation, alongside the SFIO and the
union. He arrived at the consideration that a socialist militant must find
their place in all three poles of party, union and cooperative. This showed
his real feeling for the workers’ movement’s diverse forms of expres-
sion, where others insisted that one form must necessarily be prioritized
over the others. He paid occasional tributes to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,
father of anarchism and an influential figure in the workers’ movements
of the 1840s–60s, himself attached to the cooperative idea. Obviously, as
against the anarchists, Jaurès believed in the regulating action of the state.
But he also sometimes showed his attentiveness to arguments criticizing
the bureaucracy and authoritarianism of certain republican and socialist
currents. There was a Proudhonian or even libertarian streak in Jaurès,
even though it was not the dominant one.

Jaurès, Germany and Marxism

Jaurès could understand and read German much better than English—
indeed, this was often true in the international socialist milieu of the
time. He had many friends in Europe, especially among the Belgian social-
ists, like Émile Vandervelde, leader of the Parti ouvrier belge and some-
time president of the Socialist International. But in this period, German
socialism was very much the model. Jaurès entertained a rather particular
relationship with German socialism and its developments. As we have said,
his thèse complémentaire, written in Latin, was a study of the origins of this
movement and, most importantly, he regularly referred to it in many arti-
cles and speeches. There were several reasons for this focus. Firstly, Jaurès
was a philosopher by training, and the Germany of Kant and Hegel was
an essential reference point in this era. When Jaurès became a historian,
with his Histoire socialiste de la France contemporaine, he took a close

11 Alain Boscus, Jean Jaurès, la CGT et le syndicalisme révolutionnaire, Toulouse, Institut

CGT d’histoire sociale, 2010.
 INTRODUCTION xix

interest in the French Revolution’s impact on Germany, and he person-

ally wrote the 1907 volume dedicated to the Franco-German war of 1870.
Germany was also the country where the first independent workers’ party
in Europe had been founded, by Ferdinand Lassalle back in 1863; this
was one of the components of what would become the Social Democratic
Party in 1890. Of course, this was also the land of origin of Marx and
Engels, and indeed of “Marxism” (a term which entered general use in
the 1880s)—the doctrinal reference point for the SPD, the most powerful
party in the Socialist International founded in 1889. Without this Interna-
tional, coordination among Europe’s socialists and their collective action
in the face of the danger of war would have been impossible. This explains
why, despite the distance which separated Jaurès’s republicanism from the
Marxism of the German Social Democrats, the French socialist tribune
always maintained a keen eye toward developments in that party and was
active in the International’s own structures. He published multiple articles
on the SPD’s internal debates and especially with regard to the “revision”
of Marxism, revolving around Eduard Bernstein.
One of the great moments of this friendship, colored by intense debates
and even sharp opposition, was the Amsterdam Congress of the Socialist
International in 1904, which saw a notable clash between Jaurès’s ideas
and those of SPD party president August Bebel. Amsterdam was a deci-
sively important congress, for the French: a motion was passed strongly
exhorting the French socialists to unite, and this would encourage the
creation of the SFIO in 1905. But the Republic was also a focus of debate.
Formally at least, the SPD continued to call for a German Republic, in
continuity with the ideals of the revolution of 1848. But this demand
was increasingly pushed into the background. As we have seen, Jaurès
remained firmly attached to the republican form, an imperfect founda-
tion but a necessary one for any further advance to be made. Yet Bebel
as well as many German Marxists like Karl Kautsky—the great intellec-
tual authority of this era—considered Jaurès imbued with “republican
superstitions.” For them—and, as we have emphasized, French Marx-
ists like Guesde and Lafargue—the republican form at most opened the
way to a clearer expression of class struggles, allowing the clash between
bourgeoisie and proletariat to appear with sharper contours. Sometimes
they considered it outright superfluous, in light of political developments
in France and Germany: had Bismarck’s German empire not granted
much more generous social guarantees than those offered by the French
Republic? What good was there in celebrating a Republic which seemed
xx INTRODUCTION

to lag behind the Reich when it came to social policy? Jaurès challenged
this interpretation of the political struggle in France, which he considered
an overly narrow reading, wasn’t it, rather, that the Social Democrats no
longer demanded the establishment of a Republic because they no longer
dared to confront the imperial powers that be in Germany? In other
words, behind their oh-so radical Marxist formulas, were there perhaps
concealed other motives which they would have been less eager to admit?
Paradoxically, though she was very critical of the French socialist tribune,
a few years later Rosa Luxemburg recognized that he was correct on this
point, at least. In 1910, she broke with her old friend Karl Kautsky when
he refused to publish an article… which demanded that the party should
propagandize for the German Republic!
From this point of view—and beyond what was specifically at stake
in the republican question—there was a real distance between Jaurès and
Marxism such as his German counterparts understood it. For Jaurès, there
were indeed “class struggles”: in his writings, we regularly find the expres-
sion “working class”; historical materialism was very much part of his
intellectual hinterland, especially when it came to interpreting a process
like the French Revolution. Moreover, Jaurès did not stand so far from
Friedrich Engels’s late reflection (before his death in 1895) considering
the state not only as the instrument of a social class (“the bourgeois state”)
but as one of the sites where the contradictions among social classes
expressed themselves. In such a reading, it was thus necessary to inter-
vene at the state level and embrace compromises, but this did not invari-
ably mean an abandonment of the perspective of socialism. But Jaurès
accorded a much higher importance to institutional forms of politics and
believed in the virtue of republican values.
There was also a certain moral dimension in Jaurès. This was apparent
in his appreciation of the Republic, which made him rather unique—
even if this aspect ought not be overstated. After all, on this point the
French socialist could certainly be compared to those in Germany who
made a “return to Kant” the better to attack what they considered the
analytical rigidities resulting from the dialectical method. The religious
dimension of Jaurès’s political engagement has also been the focus of
several important studies; it would, indeed, be senseless to portray this
socialist leader as an intransigent atheist, given the mystical strands that
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Exploring the Variety of Random
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 CHAPTER XXIII.
"YOU ARE A PRISONER OF THE GOVERNMENT!"
He found it without much difficulty. It was located in a building in
the centre of the town. The Stars and Stripes hung from the
doorway. Ned saluted the flag as he passed under it. His heart beat
more hopefully, and his step lightened and quickened. Already he
felt as if his troubles were over.
A rather gruff-looking, red-faced quartermaster was in charge. He
looked up sharply from a paper-littered desk as Ned entered.
"Well," he said quickly, "what can I do for you?"
"A good deal," rejoined Ned, and launched into his story forthwith.
"Humph!" said the man, when he concluded, "and so you want
money to rejoin the fleet at Blackhaven?"
"Yes," said Ned. "I have, as I hinted, a good reason for my request.
If I had had the money, I should have lost no time in communicating
with Lieutenant De Frees."
"Humph! By the way, just tell me your name, young man."
"Strong—Ned Strong," rejoined Ned.
The red-faced man grew redder than ever, and burrowed among his
papers like an industrious rabbit. At last he unearthed what he
wanted and scanned it closely. He kept glancing from the paper to
Ned, and from Ned to the paper, till the lad felt quite embarrassed.
At last he finished.
"Humph!" he said, with his usual preparatory clearing of the throat,
"so you are Ned Strong. It's a lucky thing you came in here, Strong."
"How is that?" asked Ned, with a smile. "Of course, I hope it's lucky
for me," he added quickly.
"Humph! No, it's lucky for me," insisted the other.
"Is that so?" asked Ned, not knowing just what else to say.
The red-faced man rose to his feet, and, without another word, went
into an adjoining room. Ned could hear him telephoning, but could
not catch the words. He came back presently and sat down at his
table once more.
"Can you advance me the money?" demanded Ned. "It's very
important, you know, that I should start as soon as possible."
"Oh, yes; humph! by all means; humph! the money is on its way
from the bank now."
"Thank you," said Ned simply.
"It must be a large sum," he thought to himself.
He picked up a paper that lay near at hand. Idly, to pass the time,
he scanned it. Sandwiched in amidst the sensational news—for
which Ned's wholesome mind did not care—was a headline that
caught his eye:

"Fleet Sails for Blackhaven."

Ned's heart pounded violently. The recollection of that fluttering

wireless message he had caught came back to him. With it, also,
came a vivid remembrance of the torpedoes under the floor of the
anarchists' craft.
Suddenly another item caught his eye:

"Mysterious Happening at Naval Aero Station—Two Navy Aviators

Missing With Sum of Money."

All at once Ned caught his own name and then Herc's. The type
swam before him for an instant, but he steadied his vision and read
on. The paper gave a sensational account of their mysterious
disappearance from the hotel in Bartonville. It also stated that Herc
had drawn some of the money intrusted to their care just before he
left.
"The men are being sought for by the department," the despatch
added, "and when arrested will be summarily dealt with. Every
recruiting office and naval station in the country, as well as the
police, have been notified."
Ned looked up from his paper with startled eyes. He caught the gaze
of the red-faced quartermaster fixed accusingly on him.
"So you've read it?" said that dignitary.
"I've read a lot of sensational rubbish," was the hot reply.
"Not half so sensational or rubbishy as what you've told me," sniffed
the quartermaster.
"That being the case," said Ned hotly, "I shall not bother you further.
Good afternoon."
"Hold on there! Humph! humph! Not so fast!" exclaimed the other,
rising and stepping swiftly between Ned and the door, "you've to
wait here a while."
"Wait!" echoed Ned. "I can't wait. Why, man alive, the safety of the
fleet depends on my reaching there."
"Oh, nonsense! You don't mean to say you've brooded over that
story so much you believe it yourself?"
Ned was first thunderstruck and then horrified. In living through the
extraordinary events of the recent past, it had never struck him how
fantastic and impossible they would seem to the average man.
"But it's true, I tell you! I can prove it, every word!" he burst out.
"How?"
"Why, by my shipmate, Hercules Taylor."
"Where is he?"
"A prisoner on that sloop."
"Come, come, young man. You've been reading too many dime
novels. Why, there isn't a court martial in the land that would believe
such a cock-and-bull story. I'll wager that your chum Taylor is hiding
some place around town while you came up here to try and raise
some more money. I must say it was a nervy thing to do."
"Good heavens!" cried Ned. "Do you mean to say that you don't
credit a word of my story?"
"Nary a word. A wilder yarn I never listened to, and I've served on
all kinds of craft, man and boy, for a good many years. Now, let me
give you a bit of advice, young fellow. When you are on trial, don't
spring any such gammoning as you've told me. Just stick to the plain
truth and you may get off lighter than you otherwise would."
Ned gasped. For an instant he almost lost control of himself. But he
realized that, if he was to be of service to the fleet, he must keep his
self-possession.
"When I rejoin the fleet," he said, "it won't be as a prisoner."
"Won't, eh? Don't be too sure of that," was the response.
A sudden heavy tramping was heard on the stairs.
The quartermaster flung open the door.
"Here he is now," he called out, "the fellow Strong. Take him into
custody and lock him up till I arrange with the naval authorities to
have him sent back to his ship."
As he spoke, several heavy-footed men filed into the room. They all
bore the unmistakable stamp of the country constable.
Ned's tongue almost stuck to the roof of his mouth, it grew so dry.
Every nerve in his body quivered. Was it possible that all this was
real? It seemed more like an ugly nightmare.
"Look here," he exclaimed, in a voice he tried to render calm and
collected, "this has gone far enough. Everything can be explained.
But you mustn't lock me up now. Let me go back to the fleet. There
is a conspiracy on foot to destroy some of the ships. I must warn
——"
A rough laugh interrupted him.
"What kind er moonshine be that, young chap?" grinned the
constable. "Yer don't go ter thinkin' we puts any stock in such talk as
thet, do yer? If yer do, yer mus' think we're 'dunderheads' jes 'cos
this is Dundertown. Na-ow, come on! Air you comin' quiet, or air yer
comin' rough?"
Ned turned to the quartermaster, who stood pompously puffed up,
surveying the civil authorities with a patronizing air.
"Remember, officer," he said, "humph! the prisoner is not a civil
prisoner. He is only placed in your temporary care by me as a
representative of the United States government."
"Ve-ree well," rejoined the constable; "we'll take care of him, by
heck! Jes' bin pinin' ter put some 'un in ther new jail. Thet reminds
me, we've got another prisoner ter pick up daown ter ther circus
grounds."
"His name isn't Taylor, this chap's companion, humph?" demanded
the quartermaster.
"No. It's jes' a pickpocket. We'll go by the circus on our way to ther
lock-up. It's only a step out'n our way. Come on, young feller."
He extended a pair of handcuffs. Ned burned with shame and
mortification. Suddenly he bethought himself of Sam and all the
picnic party at the circus. What if they should see him with handcuffs
on? What would they think?
"For heaven's sake," he begged, "don't put those things on me. I'll
give you my word of honor not to try to escape if you don't."
"Wa-al, I dunno," said the constable doubtfully, "handcuffs is reg-lar,
but——"
"Put them on him—humph!" shrilled the quartermaster.
Luckily, this ill-natured interruption turned the tide in Ned's favor.
"Say, quartermaster," snapped the constable, "this man is er civil
prisoner, fer the time being, an' what I say goes. Don't you go ter
buttin' in."
"Ain't you going to put handcuffs on him?" exclaimed the naval
officer.
"No, I bean't."
"I order you to."
"Keep yer orders fer ther navy. I'm constable uv this taown, an' I say
this prisoner don't wear 'em."
"I'll report you to—to the president," was the tremendous threat of
the pompous quartermaster, who had turned as red as an angry
turkey cock.
"Even ther president of this United States ain't a-goin' ter say ha-ow
things is to be run in Dundertown," snapped the constable. He laid a
hand on Ned's elbow.
"Come on, young man," he said, "you promised to come quietly,
remember."
Ned turned imploringly to the quartermaster.
"You have taken the oath of allegiance to the navy," he said
passionately. "Now act up to it. Find some means to warn the fleet
at Blackhaven that anarchists are going to try to torpedo some of
the ships. Warn them against a black sloop with a red line round her
bulwarks."
"Warn them against a fiddlestick!" sniffed the quartermaster. "Who
ever heard such nonsense? Humph!"
Ned almost groaned aloud as he was ushered out, with a deputy on
either side of him. But he managed to control himself. The lad had
been in many tight places in foreign lands, and in active service. But
not one of them had been more trying to bear up under than this
disaster that had befallen him in a peaceful country town in his
native land.
"When will my case be heard?" Ned asked, as they reached the
street. He was in hopes that if it was to come up immediately he
could convince the magistrate, or whatever dignitary he was tried by,
that his arrest was absolutely unjustified.
"Wa-al, squire won't be back to ta-own till day arter ter-morrer," was
the reply that dashed his hopes. "Anyhow, he couldn't do nuthin' fer
yer. We're only holding yer here. You're a prisoner of the United
States government."
Those were the bitterest words that Ned had ever heard. They
seemed to sear his very being.
 CHAPTER XXIV.
A DASH FOR FREEDOM.
To Ned's intense relief, the little cortege did not attract much
attention as it passed down the street. Most of the town was at the
circus, attracted, doubtless, by the prospect of a big, free aeroplane
flight.
At last they reached the circus grounds. The performance had
commenced, and the spaces outside the tents in which it was going
on were almost deserted. Only a few canvasmen and hangers-on
lounged about. From time to time a loud blare of music or a shout of
applause came from the tent. Over by the main entrance Ned saw
Professor Luminetti, still tinkering with his aeroplane. Some men
were helping him. Among them was the man with the big
moustache, who had addressed Ned so roughly when he pointed out
the defective link.
"There, professor," he was exclaiming, as the constable came up,
"that's done. I guess everything is all right now for the night
performance."
"It all came from not paying attention to what that young chap
said," put in one of them.
"Yes, the professor thought he knew it all," put in another.
"Hullo! There's the young chap now," said the black-moustached
man, who was the manager of the show. "Say, young feller, you're
all right. Any time you want a——"
He was about to shake Ned by the hand, when the constable
interposed.
"You the manager of this sheebang?"
"Yes. What of it?"
"Wa-al, I'm ther constable. Whar's that pickpocket yer telephoned
about?"
"Right inside the sideshow tent. We put him in there under the
guard of two canvasmen."
"All right. I'll come and git him. Two uv you boys guard the prisoner
here while I'm gone."
He hastened off. Ned felt his face burn as some of the men who had
been clustered about Professor Luminetti gazed curiously at him.
The word "prisoner" had attracted their attention.
The professor was too busy with his machine to pay any attention.
He was starting up the engine to test it. The motor burred wildly and
emitted flashes of flame and blue smoke. Suddenly he looked
around.
"Say, young feller," he said to Ned, "if you know so much about
aeroplanes, just tell me what ails this motor?"
Ned looked at his two guardians. They, perhaps curious to see if the
lad really knew anything about air-craft, nodded permission. After
all, they argued to themselves, there was no chance for the lad to
escape. Ned, forgetting his troubles for a time in his joy at again
being able to "fuss" over an aeroplane, bent over the refractory
engine.
"The trouble's in one of the footpedals," he announced before long.
"Have to climb into the seat to fix it?" asked Luminetti.
"Reckon so."
Ned looked at his guardians. They nodded.
"Don't fly away," cried one of them jokingly, as Ned seated himself,
grasped the levers and placed his foot on the pedals to test the
mechanism.
"It would be a good joke if——"
Professor Luminetti, standing by the machine, was suddenly brushed
off his feet and rolled over on the sward.
"Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!"
A terrific whirring, like the voice of a multitude of locusts, filled the
air.
Something huge and winged and powerful flashed by the amazed
deputies, and launched itself into the air. Before they recovered their
wits, it was out of reach.
"It's the aeroplane! He's stolen my aeroplane!" screamed Professor
Luminetti.
"Hi! Come back!" yelled the deputies.
But so swiftly had the aeroplane shot into space that Ned was
already out of ear-shot.
Hearing the babel of excited sounds, the constable came dashing
from the tent. In the excitement, he let go of the pickpocket's collar,
and that miscreant at once darted off.
"Get him! Bring him back!" shouted the arm of the Dundertown law.
"What do you think we are—a couple of birds?" demanded his
deputies. "Get him yourself!"
The constable drew out his revolver and began firing into the air. He
might as well have fired at the moon as at Ned. The aeroplane
dwindled swiftly to a winged blot, then to a speck, and, finally,
vanished altogether.
"I'll swear out a warrant for him!" shouted the manager.
"Well, don't do any more swearing, then," warned the constable, "er
I'll arrest you fer usin' profane langwidge. I've lost two prisoners, an'
I've got ter lock up somebody."
Luckily, at that moment, a small boy was captured as he was
creeping under the canvas. In the act of giving him a sound
spanking, the irate group left behind found some salve for their
wounded feelings. Luminetti raved and tore his hair. The manager
promised to wreak dire vengeance on Ned as soon as he got hold of
him. As for the populace, when the story leaked out, some of them,
among these being Sam, were so unfeeling as to laugh heartily. As
for the quartermaster, he at once set about to report the constable
to all the authorities in the United States, from the president down.
In the meantime, what of Ned?
If any of our readers imagine that he took the aeroplane on
purpose, they are mistaken. What seemed like a cleverly executed
plan of escape was, in reality, the result of an accident, pure and
simple, but a fortunate one, as it proved.
When Ned had placed his foot on the starting pedal, to his
astonishment the bit of machinery refused to budge. He pressed
harder, and, suddenly something snapped. The next instant Ned felt
himself being hurtled forward over the ground.
To prevent the aeroplane plunging into a tent or wagon and being
wrecked, he had resorted to the only mode of procedure possible.
He had set the rising planes.
Instantly the aeroplane responded. Behind him Ned could hear
shouts and cries, and guessed that those he had left behind were
imagining he was attempting to escape.
"If I land I'll have a hard job convincing them I wasn't," said Ned to
himself.
But nevertheless, the lad tried with all his might to check the
aeroplane's flight. But whatever had broken rendered this
impossible. Try as he would, he could not stop the engine. His only
safety, therefore, lay in keeping aloft. As the aeroplane rushed on
through space, it gathered speed instead of diminishing the fury of
its course.
It was all Ned could do to cling to the seat and control the frantic
buckings and plungings of his aerial steed. The fact that though
similar to the one he used, he was unfamiliar with the particular
aeroplane in which he found himself, complicated his difficulties.
"I guess the only thing to do is to keep on till the gasolene gives
out," he thought, after his twentieth attempt to check his runaway
engine. "Reminds me of Don Quixote's ride with Sancho Panza to the
palace of the magician in cloudland," was the whimsical thought that
occurred to him. "Poor old Herc! It's not very complimentary to him
to compare him to Sancho, but I wish he was here with me."
The fuel tank of the aeroplane must have been well filled, for the
engine ran just as strongly at the end of an hour of aerial traveling
as it had at the beginning of the trip.
"I'd turn round if I dared," thought Ned; "but I can't check the speed
of the thing, and it would be suicidal to try to switch my course
while going at this speed."
Ned's plight may be compared to that of a lad on a runaway bicycle
on a steep hill. He did not dare turn for fear of disaster, and yet he
didn't quite know what would happen if he kept on. However, he
didn't have to be scared of colliding with a wagon!
Suddenly, to Ned's huge joy, the engine showed signs of slackening
speed. He gently manipulated a lever, and found that he had partial
control of the machine now. This being so, he decided to land as
soon as practicable. From a clump of trees some distance ahead, the
white spire of a church told him of a village. To his left hand lay the
sea. Ned gazed at it longingly, as he dropped nearer and nearer to
the ground.
He landed at the edge of a meadow adjoining a building which was
occupied by the village post-office and telegraph office. A sign on a
house across the way made his heart leap:
"Blackhaven Hotel."
Chance had actually brought him within close range of the fleet. It
seemed too good to be true. But a crowd of villagers, who came
rushing to inspect the visitor from cloudland, soon put all other
thoughts but the safety of his machine out of his mind. If he had not
watched it carefully, there seemed to be danger of its being ripped
to bits by souvenir hunters.
A brief inspection showed Ned that a broken tension-spring had
caused the runaway. It was soon adjusted. Then he peeped into the
gasolene tank. It was almost empty.
"They sell gasolene in ther store there, mister," said a bright lad.
"Gasolene gigs come through here onct in a while."
"When they's lost," struck in another lad.
This was good news to Ned. Leaving the lads to guard the machine,
he entered the post-office. The postmaster imperturbably sold him
five gallons of gasolene. Ned recollected that he couldn't pay for it.
But, unfortunately, this did not occur to him till he had emptied it
into the tank.
Hardly had he done so, and was starting back to the store with
explanations, when the postmaster, who was also telegraph operator,
appeared in the doorway of his emporium. He was waving a yellow
telegram.
"Hold that feller, one of yer!" he shouted. "That thar's a stolen sky-
buggy, and he's no better than a thief!"
A dozen men started forward to lay hands on Ned.
But a sudden determination had come to the lad. He was within
striking distance of the fleet. It was his duty to warn the officers of
the peril that menaced their vessels.
A rough hand seized his arm. Ned flung it off. At the same instant
his fists drove full at a big fellow—the village blacksmith—who tried
to bar his path, swinging a heavy hammer.
"Stand clear!" shouted Ned, as he sprang into the seat of his
machine—or rather Professor Luminetti's—"this machine isn't stolen
—it's borrowed on Uncle Sam's service!"
The next instant the machine skyrocketed upward, leaving behind it
a trail of smoke, and sensation that furnished talk for the village of
Blackhaven for more than a year.
 CHAPTER XXV.
THE MYSTERIOUS SCHOONER—CONCLUSION.
"Bulkley, do you see some object in the air—off there to the
northwest?"
Commander Dunham, of the Dreadnought Manhattan, paused in his
steady pacing of the after deck, and turned to Ensign Bulkley, the
officer of the deck.
Ensign Bulkley brought into play the insignia of his diurnal office, a
powerful telescope, done in brown leather, with polished, black
metal trimmings. With it, he swept the sky in the direction indicated
by his superior, for some minutes.
"I do see something, sir," he said presently, "a black object, like a
large bird. But it's bigger than any bird I ever saw. By Jove, sir, it's—
it's an aeroplane!"
"An aeroplane! Impossible. How could one find its way to
Blackhaven Bay? And what could be its errand here?"
"I've no idea, sir. But I'll wager my commission that it is one.
Suppose you look yourself, sir?"
The officer of the deck handed his telescope to his commanding
officer. Commander Dunham gazed intently through it for a few
moments. Then he turned to Bulkley.
"By all that's wonderful, you're right, Mr. Bulkley. It seems to be
coming this way, too."
"Not a doubt of it, sir. But at the rate it is advancing it should not be
long before we are aware of its errand."
"At all events, it will relieve the monotony, Bulkley. Anchored here
since yesterday and no orders yet. However, I suppose mine practice
and general gunnery will be the program."
"I expect so, sir," was the response.
Both officers gazed over the leaden expanse of the landlocked bay
about them.
Five battleships, two cruisers, and three torpedo-boat destroyers lay
at anchor, in regular files. Hard by was a "parent ship," with her
flotilla of submarines nestling alongside, like small chickens round a
motherly old hen.
"Desolate country hereabouts," said Commander Dunham presently.
"I shouldn't have thought that an airman could have found his way
here."
"It hardly seems possible," agreed his junior; "it's as barren a bit of
coast as can be imagined."
The aeroplane drew closer. Its outlines were quite apparent now. On
every vessel of the fleet excitement over its approach was now
visible. Bright bits of bunting began to "wig-wag" the news from ship
to ship. On every foredeck jackies almost suspended the tasks in
hand to watch the oncoming of the aerial craft.
"What a contrast, Bulkley," observed Commander Dunham presently.
"See that old sloop off there to seaward? She is of an almost
obsolete type, while above us is coming the herald of a new era in
peace, as well as war."
"That is so, sir. But that sloop, obsolete as she may appear, is quite
fast. I understand she has been tacking about the fleet all day. I
wonder what she wants?"
"Some fisherman, probably. However, see that she does not come
too close. In confidence, Bulkley, I have been warned, in common
with every other commander of the fleet, to beware of a band of
daring anarchists who, it appears, have made no secret abroad of
their intention to damage the United States navy."
The navy officer showed no surprise. It is a common enough
incident for warnings of the same character. The mail of the navy
department at Washington is always full of letters—some of them
menacing in tone—from over-zealous apostles of "universal peace."
Occasionally, too, a spy is unearthed serving in Uncle Sam's uniform.
Such fellows are usually deported quietly and swiftly.
"I shall keep an eye on that sloop, sir, in that case," said the ensign,
"but I'm afraid it will be difficult to do so before very long."
"How is that, Bulkley?"
The ensign waved his hand seaward. A hazy sort of atmosphere
enveloped the horizon.
"Fog, eh?" commented the commander.
"Yes, sir. It will be all about us soon, or I'm mistaken. But look, sir,
that aeroplane is almost above us."
"By George!—so it is. What's the aviator doing? He's signalling us.
He's pointing downward, Bulkley, too."
"Looks as if he wanted to land on our decks, sir."
"It does. Hark! What's that he's shouting? Pshaw, I can't hear. Tell
you what, Bulkley, order the aerial landing platform rigged at once.
It ought not to take more than fifteen minutes."
"I'll have it done at once, sir."
The officer hastened off on his errand. A scene of bustle ensued. A
hundred jackies were busy transporting sections of the adjustable
platform on which Ned had landed on the occasion of his great
triumph. The scene appeared to be involved in inextricable
confusion. But each man had his task to perform, and each pursued
it industriously. Before long the platform was up—all but the flooring.
The work of laying this on the steel uprights and skeleton supporting
structure was soon accomplished.
All this time the mysterious aerial visitant had been hovering aloft.
But his task of keeping above the battleship was getting
momentarily more and more difficult. The atmosphere was rapidly
thickening. In white wraiths and billows the fog, which Ensign
Bulkley had prophesied, came rolling in. Beads of moisture gathered
on everything. From the deck the tops of the basket-like military
masts grew every minute more difficult to espy. The aeroplane,
circling in space, was a mere blur.
"All ready, sir," announced Ensign Bulkley before long. By this time
the after-deck was crowded with officers. All were gazing upward
into the steamy fog.
"Give him a signal, Bulkley," ordered the commander.
"He'll find it hard to see one, sir."
"Signal the bridge, then, to blow three blasts on the siren. He can
hear that."
"Hoo-oo-o-o-o! Hoo-oo-o-o-o! Hoo-o-o-o-o!"
A few seconds later the uncanny voice of the siren cut the mist.
Without hesitation, the dim object in the fog above them, began to
come downward. It swung through the thick air rapidly. In a short
time it was off the stern of the Manhattan, and ten minutes after the
signal had sounded Ned Strong ran his aeroplane upon the landing
platform so speedily erected.
But if the manner of his arrival had been sensational, the effect it
created was even more so.
"It's Strong! The man we were wirelessed had decamped with part
of Lieutenant De Frees' funds!" exclaimed Captain Dunham
amazedly.
Ned half staggered from his seat and came toward him. The sailors
stood to one side, in a half-awed fashion. Ned's face, after his long
and trying strain, was ghastly. His eyes shone with an unnatural
brightness.
"Well, my lad," said the commander briskly, "what is the meaning of
all this?"
"I—I—can I speak——" began Ned.
But suddenly the decks and the eager faces about him seemed to
join in a mad dance. He swayed weakly, and would have fallen, had
not some jackies near at hand caught him.
"Send that man to the sick bay," ordered Commander Dunham.
"There's something out of the ordinary in all this," he said in a lower
tone to his officers.
Ned was half-carried, half-supported, to the ship's hospital. He soon
recovered from his temporary weakness, and asked to see the
doctor at once. When that dignitary responded to the summons, he
drank in, with eager ears, Ned's astonishing story. The result was,
that Commander Dunham was at once requested to visit the sick
bay. A conference ensued, which lasted till almost dark. By that time
Ned was fully recovered.
It was after dark that a torpedo-boat destroyer, with Ensign Bulkley
in command, slipped away from the fleet and vanished in the fog.
On the conning tower, beside the officer, was Ned Strong.
The powerful searchlight cut a bright path through the mist ahead.
Somewhere in that smother lay the craft they were in search of, the
anarchists' sloop, on board of which Herc was a prisoner. How
eagerly Ned longed for the fog to lift, may be imagined. But they
cruised all night without a sign of its lifting. By daylight they were
some distance out at sea. When, at eight o'clock, the fog began to
lift, the shore was revealed, before long, as a dim, blue streak in the
distance.
But nobody had eyes for that when a sudden shout went up from
the lookout forward.
The man had sighted a sail on the horizon. But as they drew closer
to it, the craft was seen to be a schooner with a short, stumpy
mizzen-mast.
"That's not our boat," said the ensign disappointedly.
"But what can have become of the sloop, sir?" wondered Ned.
"Surely, she couldn't have vanished from sight during the night.
She's not a fast enough sailer for that."
"True," said Bulkley. "By Jove!" he exclaimed suddenly, "you don't
think those chaps have disguised her, do you?"
"They might have, sir. Don't you think it's worth while to board that
schooner, anyhow?"
"I do, Strong," agreed the officer.
The destroyer was headed toward the schooner. The wind had
dropped and the vessel was rolling idly on the oily sea.
"Aboard the schooner there!" cried the officer, as they came up close
to the vessel with the peculiar-looking after-mast. "Stand by! We are
going to board you."
A bearded man stood at the helm. He was the only person visible.
Ned scrutinized his face eagerly, but could not recognize him. This
individual only waved a hand in response to the officer's order. But,
as the destroyer's way was checked, and she lay idly on the waves,
he suddenly vanished into the cabin. The next instant a square port
at the schooner's bow was swung open, and, without the slightest
warning, a long, shining, cylindrical object was shot forth.
It struck the water with a swirl of spray, and then, with a line of
white wake, in its swift course, headed straight for the destroyer.
"A torpedo!" exclaimed the officer, who, with Ned, was just about to
clamber into one of the lowered boats.
The men on board set up a horrified shout. So short was the
distance between the two craft that between the launching of the
torpedo and the dreaded impact of its "war head" against the side of
the destroyer seemed but an instant. It was a fearful instant,
though, and lived long in the recollection of those who endured it.
The torpedo struck the side of the destroyer with a metallic clang.
But no explosion followed. Instead, the implement floated
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