Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/123

 done to further universal peace. Nor was it enough as a politician to be tireless in criticism of all acts, especially secret acts, which tended to produce unrest among the nations and ultimately war, whether they took the form of capitalist "adventures," of colonial expansion, of secret treaties and alliances or of anything else, and meanwhile to press forward the education of the workers of France and of other nations towards a closer and closer solidarity and understanding of one another. No one was more active than Jaurès in all these ways, but he was too united to France, too much one with everything French, and had too practical a nature to leave the matter there. He believed that the Army was now in the hands of those who do not love the people, but he believed it could be democratized. He wanted a democratic army supporting a Socialist State, though to an onlooker it might seem that the Socialist State must first be brought about before a democratic Army could emerge. For while the Capitalistic State lasts will not the Army be under the influence of the privileged classes? Can the constitution of armies ever be democratic? Jaurès believed that it can, and pointed to Switzerland as an example. Even there, as he owns, it has been used to suppress strikes. That there is some radical divorce between the idea of real democracy and a successful army was surely implied