Socialist leaders, including even the internationalists, have perceived this. The murdered Jaurès saw it clearly. But in the very nature of things, the vast majority of the adherents of these doctrines are not profound thinkers. Socialism naturally recruits itself from the lower classes, and it is no disparagement to these to say that they are the least educated. Even in states where the higher institutions of learning are free--and there are very few such places--the ability of the poor man's son to attend them is limited by the necessity resting upon him to make his own living or to contribute to the support of his family. The tenets of national Socialism naturally appeal to the young man, who feels that he and his fellows are being exploited by those who own the "instruments of production," and who sees himself barred from the educational advantages which wealth gives. From the acceptance of the economic tenets of national Socialism to advocacy of internationalism is but a small step, easy to take for one who, in joining the Socialist party, finds himself the associate of men who address him as "comrade" and who look forward to a day when all men, white, black or yellow, shall also be comrades under one flag and enlisted in one cause--the cause of common humanity. These men realize no more than himself the fact that existing social conditions are the result of historical development and that they cannot be violently and artificially altered without destroying the delicate balance of the whole machine. And since this is the state of mind of the majority of the "comrades," even the wisest leaders can apply the brakes only with great moderation, for the leader who lags too far behind the majority of his party ceases to be a leader and finds his place taken by less intelligent or less scrupulous men.
Ferdinand Lassalle, the brilliant but erratic young man who organized the first Socialist party in Germany, was a national Socialist. His party grew slowly at first, and in 1864, when he died, it had but 4,600 members. In 1863 Marx aided by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht,[8] formed the rival Confederation of German Unions upon an internationalistic basis. This organization joined the _Internationale_ at its congress in Nuremburg in 1868. The parties of Marx and Lassalle maintained their separate identities until 1875, when they effected a fusion at a congress in Gotha. The Marx adherents numbered at that time about 9,000 men and the Lassalle adherents some 15,000, but the latter had already virtually accepted the doctrines of international Socialism and the _Internationale_, and the German Socialists had until the breaking out of the World War maintained their place as the apostles and leaders of internationalism.