Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/155

 Jaures spent his last day, July 31st, in an effort to influence the French Ministers to put such pressure on the Russian Government that war might by chance yet be averted.… Then came the end, and the unhappy people were left to plunge forward into the horrible darkness without their great leader. Not only France needed him, but all Europe, and his death remains one of the most cruel blows of this tragic time.

He has not been here to see the fearful new chapter of the world's history which began in August, 1914. One cannot help asking the futile questions: What would he have said? What would he have done? We cannot know, and each will perhaps answer the questions according to his own conception of Jaurès and possibly according to his own bias. Of one thing we may be sure. No wailing voice would have arisen from him. He would not have said: All is lost; we have lived in vain. However bitter his disappointment, whatever agony he had endured at the wreckage of so many of his hopes, we cannot doubt that his ardent, living spirit would have risen above the gloom and despair, and that, whatever had been his position during the war (and it is certain that his presence would have been of great service), after the war he would have set to work again with the same tireless energy as before. "An immense work of education lies