The first general election under this law resulted as follows:
| Total vote cast | 2,105,270 | |
| Socialists | 467,326 | electing 32 deputies. |
| Clericals | 995,056 | electing 85 deputies. |
| Liberals | 449,521 | electing 31 deputies. |
| Radicals | 47,783 | electing 3 deputies. |
| Christian Democrats | 55,737 | electing 1 deputies. |
The Clerical majority was cut from seventy to eighteen and at last the Liberal elements were hopeful of gaining the government and effecting universal suffrage "pure and simple."
We have now seen how popular agitation wrested, first, a law permitting plural voting; second, a law permitting proportional representation, from an unwilling government. The contest for universal suffrage "pure and simple" has continued to the present day. In 1901 the Labor Party at its congress at Liège decided to renew the agitation in favor of universal suffrage, "even to the extent of the general strike, and agitation in the streets, and not to cease until after the conquest of political equality." Vandervelde introduced a bill into the Chamber providing for "one man, one vote," and it was defeated by a vote of 92 to 43. Immediately Vandervelde and the Radical leader proposed a revision of the Constitution. The debate on this motion continued until the spring of 1902. All the old spirit of unrest and violence broke out anew. To the violence of protesting mobs was added the coercive force of the general strike. Three hundred thousand men stopped work and began demonstrating. Troops were called out to guard the government buildings in Brussels and to hold the crowds at bay in the provinces. In Louvain eight strikers were killed by the soldiers, and in other localities there was bloodshed and destruction of property.
Finally the Chamber of Representatives voted to close the debate and dismiss the question entirely for the session. The strike was declared off and quiet restored.
In the elections the following May the Socialists lost three seats. This had its effect. A meeting of the party was called and it was decided not to resort to further violence. A delegate from Charleroi, the seat of the most tumultuous element in the party, expressed regret that the Labor Party had compromised with the bourgeois parties in calling off the strike. Vandervelde defended the action of the council on the ground that the continuance of the strike threatened internal dissensions because of the misery of the strikers and the violence of the government.
The party organ, Le Peuple, said on June 5, 1902: "We are no longer in 1848. The days of barricades have gone by. The narrow little streets of former years have expanded into wide avenues. The soldiers are armed with Albinis and Mausers. Even if all the people were armed it would only be necessary to plant a few cannon at strategic places in the city to put down an insurrection in spite of the greatest heroism of the insurgents."[9]
Van Overbergh, in his history of the strike, says: "The period of romantic Socialism in Belgium is past; the days of realism have commenced."[10] And Bertrand, the historian, adds the reason: "Its [the general strike's] effect was to keep down the vote. Even in the elections of 1904 and 1906 the vote has remained quite stationary."[11]
Whether this means the apotheosis of the general strike in Belgium will depend no doubt upon circumstances, it is significant that the words were uttered, and still more significant that political coalition has taken the place of industrial warfare. The Liberals and Radicals now plan with the Socialists. They no longer stand aside and let the Socialists march, but they join step with them and carry banners.
The greatest of all Belgian demonstrations for universal suffrage and free schools took place in August, 1911. In spite of the extreme heat, nearly 200,000 Radicals, Liberals, and Socialists gathered in the capital, "not so much to impress the government," a Socialist leader said to me, "but to impress the people that we are in earnest, and then to prepare for the coming elections."