526 



OBITUARIES, FOREIGN. (LEOXCE LIEBKXECHT.) 



11877) ; Old Testament Prophecy: Its Witness as 

 a Record of Divine Foreknowledge (1880); The 

 Foundations of Morality (1882); Characteristics 

 of Christianity (1883); Christ and the Bible 

 (1885); and The Law in the Prophets (1891). 

 Prebendary Leathes was a very thorough but ex- 

 tremely conservative scholar, and had little sym- 

 pathy with the modern school of higher criticism. 



Le"once (Nicole), ^Idouard Theodore, a 

 French actor, born in Paris, in 1820; died in 

 Kaincy, Feb. 20, 1900. He was educated at the 

 Ecole'de Droit in Paris. He first appeared as a 

 singer at Belleville, whence he went to the 

 Theatre Vaudeville, Paris, and eventually to the 

 Bouffes, then under the management of Offen- 

 bach. He was a very popular figure in all the 

 original productions of that composer's operas, 

 and was especially notable in Orphee aux Enfers. 

 Other creations m which he became a favorite 

 were Croquefer and M. Choufleur in Deux Aveu- 

 gles. At the Theatre des Varietes he was the 

 original player of Menelas in La Belle Helene, of 

 the role of the banker in Les Brigands, of Pepitt 

 in Trente Millions de Gladiator, and Loriot in 

 Mam'zelle Nitouche. In 1888 Leonce retired, and 

 \\as soon forgotten by the world he had so long 

 amused. 



Liebknecht, Wilhelm, a German politician, 

 born in Giessen in 1826; died in Charlottenburg, 

 Aug. 7, 1900. He was educated in the universities 

 of Giessen, Bonn, and Marburg, studying deep into 

 philosophy, plunged into journalism when he went 

 out into the world, and made a name as a strong 

 political controversialist. The revolutionary move- 

 ment of 1848 drew him into its vortex, and in the 

 insurrection in Baden he took a lively part. On 

 its failure he fled into Switzerland, and from there 

 to England, where he lived for twelve years, con- 

 sorting with the revolutionists from all parts of 

 Europe who sought asylum in that country from 

 the reaction prevailing all over the Continent. The 

 general amnesty of 1862 allowed him to return to 

 Germany. His mind seethed with the labor ques- 

 tion. He had become a thorough Marxist, and 

 was determined to make the organization of the 

 proletariat the aim of his life, convinced that the 

 political solidarity of the working classes, facili- 

 tated by the formation of trade unions, could alone 

 bring about the economic emancipation of the la- 

 borer. He entered into the socialist propaganda 

 with a stern energy, a fanatic zeal, a dauntless and 

 uncompromising spirit, that soon made him a lead- 

 er. He became an editorial writer after his arrival 

 in Berlin on the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 

 an Opposition journal then, which was later pur- 

 chased by Bismarck and turned into an official 

 organ. The repression of the labor troubles of 

 1st;.') involved Liebknecht among the earliest vic- 

 tims. Expelled from Prussia, he became editor of 

 the Mitteldeutsche Volkszeitung in Leipsic, which 

 was soon suppressed. Though dogged by the polit- 

 ical police, tie preached socialism in all the towns 

 of Germany and taught the workingmen to form 

 themselves into groups. He even essayed a propa- 

 gandist tour in Prussia, and was arrested and con- 

 demned to three months' imprisonment. By this 

 time the Social- Democratic party that he had or- 

 gani/ed, disciplined, inspired with a devotion to 

 the Marxist ideal approaching religious zeal, and 

 instructed in a method of incessant missionary 

 effort for the recruitment of the party, began to 

 l>e a power in the land. In 1807 a Saxon constitu- 

 ency elected him to the North German Reichstag, 

 lie created at this time an organ for the German 

 Socialist party, the Demokratisches Wochenblatt. 

 In fhe Reichstag Liebknecht boldly assailed the 

 foreign and military policy of Bismarck. He op- 



posed the war against France, and later the procla- 

 mation of the empire and the annexation of Al- 

 sace-Lorraine. At the risk of compromising the 

 future of his young party he steered a course di- 

 rectly counter to the enthusiastic sentiment of the 

 nation, declaring that socialism must necessarily 

 be international and antimilitary. Bismarck stig- 

 matized this attitude of the Social-Democrats as 

 unpatriotic and detestable, and on March 26, 1872, 

 the two Socialist leaders, Liebknecht and Bebel, 

 were condemned to two years' imprisonment on 

 a charge of high treason. They were confined in 

 the fortress of Hubertusburg. When he was free 

 again Liebknecht was elected in 1875 to the Reichs- 

 tag in spite of prodigious efforts that the Govern- 

 ment made to hinder his election. Bismarck tried 

 to keep him out of the Reichstag, nevertheless, 

 by having the Reichstag pronounce the election 

 invalid. Liebknecht then in a series of violent 

 articles demonstrated the official interference in 

 the election, and charged the Government with 

 violating the mails by opening his letters. This 

 accusation created a scandal that excited all Ger- 

 many and led to an investigation which led to no 

 conclusion. He was re-elected to the Reichstag by 

 the workingmen of Mayence in 1881, and took the 

 parliamentary leadership among the small group 

 of Socialists, the champion of the party who 

 bearded the Iron Chancellor who denounced and 

 oppressed. The audacious affronts that he flung 

 at the all-powerful Reichskanzler in his supreme 

 hour of greatness, for which he was often disci- 

 plined by the Reichstag, the unbecoming anger to 

 which he stirred Prince Bismarck, and the far 

 more unbecoming petty tricks and abuses of power 

 that he showed up as inherent in Bismarckian 

 political methods, the debasement of the police, 

 the prostitution of the press, the coercion of voters 

 by officials, the telling blows that Liebknecht dealt 

 Bismarck in relation to his own conduct, as well 

 as the constant attacks on the imperial policies. 

 excited the interest of everybody, the admiration 

 of the Socialists, and the sympathetic delight of 

 the South Germans, who dreaded the overweening . 

 influence of Prussia. The Conservative journals 

 characterized Liebknecht himself as a Prussian 

 hater, and did not fail to hold up to general odium 

 the internationalist principles that he had en- 

 grafted on the programme of the German Socialist 

 party. He was the principal leader and organizer, 

 almost the dictator, of the party in the country, 

 under whose stern discipline it waxed in spite of 

 repressive laws and police persecution. Before 

 Bismarck passed off the scene the policy of pro- 

 scription was found to be useless. The Socialist 

 party became co-extensive with the industrial 

 working population of Germany, and forced Bis- 

 marck to offer accident, invalid, and old-age in- 

 surance, the most daring innovation in economic 

 legislation yet attempted in any country. Other 

 measures for the protection and benefit of labor 

 were extracted from the Government, and wen- 

 treated by Liebknecht and his comrades, not with 

 jealous mistrust nor with boasting triumph, but 

 with malicious complacency, with benevolent neu- 

 trality. They had brought the anti-Socialist Gov- 

 ernment to its knees, drawn it into inaugurating 

 Socialistic legislation on its own responsibility, 

 without entangling themselves with any condi- 

 tions or pledges and less danger than ever of losing 

 their following. If the authors of the Socialistic 

 legislation, which was at bottom inspired from the 

 same source as that from which the Social-Demo- 

 crats drew their doctrines, the teachings of tin- 

 great German philosophers, were disappointed in 

 the hope of weakening the Socialistic party, but 

 rather added to its strength and importance, the 



