IN THE DEBATE ON SOCIALISM WITH CLEMENCEAU[1]
(1906)
Born in 1859; became a Professor at Toulouse: elected to the French Chamber in 1885; returned to Toulouse and took part in the foundation of the Academy of Medicine; having become a Socialist, was elected to the French Chamber in 1893, becoming Chief of the Socialist Party and notable for his eloquence; active in the Dreyfus affair; a member of the Cabinet of Waldeck-Rousseau.
The other day M. Millerand, when he brought to this tribunal certain projects regarding compulsory arbitration and the collective contract, said that it was necessary, so far as possible, to put an end to these strikes, which are, he added, an economic civil war. The economic civil war manifests itself by strikes on the surface of society; but it is not only in strikes that it exists. It is at the very bottom of society; it is at the very bottom of a system of property which gives power to some and inflicts servitude on others.
- ↑ The occasion of this speech was certain interpellations in the French Chamber in June, 1906, relative to the measures taken by the minister of the interior, M. Georges Clemenceau, to suppress disorders attending the great strikes which had just taken place in Paris. Jaurès began his speech on June 12, before a house "crowded with deputies and blossoming with elegant ladies in the galleries," and continued until the 14th. The orator was harassed throughout by the disorders and sarcastic interruptions for which the French Chamber is notorious. At one time he was forced to
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