The Belgian movement has displayed great absorptive powers and facility of adaptation. It has absorbed all the labor activities of the Radical and Socialist workmen. It has adapted itself to the necessities of the hour, giving up the daydreams of intangible things. In all this, it has displayed a saneness, in spite of its revolutionary traditions and anarchistic blood.[16] It has the most "modern" program of the European Socialist parties, and the most worldly efficiency.
In visiting one of the large workingmen's clubhouses found in the cities, the visitor is impressed with the beehive qualities of the Belgian movement. At the "Maison du Peuple" in Brussels—that was built by these underpaid workmen at a cost of 1,000,000 francs—you find activity everywhere. The savings-bank department is swarming with women and children, come to conduct the business of the family. The café, the headquarters of the party, the offices of the co-operative societies, all are busy. In the evening there are debates, gymnasium contests, moving-picture shows, classes for instruction in the elementary branches, in art, and literature.[17] A temperance movement, started by the workmen some years ago, has attained a great deal of influence. Placards are on the walls of the clubhouses, setting forth the evils of the drink habit.
Or you visit a co-operative bakery or butcher-shop or grocery store, and the same spirit of diligence, thrift, and reasonableness is there. And you are quite convinced that here is Socialism approximating somewhere near its ultimate form. If the Belgian Labor Party should secure control of the government to-morrow it would be more competent to assume the actual obligations of power than would the Socialists in any other European country. For they have not built a structure in mid-air, with merely an underpinning of more or less indifferent theories.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] L'Enquête Gouvernementale, Vol. XVIII.
[2] L'Annuaire Statistique.
[3] Bertrand, Histoire de la Démocratie et du Socialisme en Belgique depuis 1830, Vol II, p. 331.
[4] This conference sent the following telegram to the King: "You have asked what is the watchword of the country; the watchword is universal suffrage."
[5] The candidates are arranged in groups or "lists," and the voter votes the list as well as for the individual names on the list. Any 100 electors may prepare such a list. The successful candidate must receive a majority. This often necessitates a second ballot between the two receiving the highest number of votes.