Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/36

 like Zola, and with other mere Liberals, in the Dreyfus case. Afterwards the split became wider when, with the co-operation and leadership of Jaurès, the French Socialists in the Chamber of Deputies helped to form the bloc which, composed of men of advanced views of various shades, fought the Church and the reactionary forces and, under M. Waldeck-Rousseau and M. Combes, succeeded in passing the Law of Associations by which the Catholic teaching orders were destroyed, and ultimately brought about the complete separation of Church and State.

It cannot be said that the course which Jaurès took with regard to the bloc was without danger, nor that the expostulations and fears of Jules Guesde, who led the idealistic party, were without weight. What should exonerate Jaurès even in the eyes of the most idealistic was his disinterestedness. While backing his friends in taking office under Republican leaders, from the conviction that this was the right way to further the progress of Socialism, he himself remained outside the ministry. And when the Socialist Congress at Rheims, and the International Socialist Congress at Amsterdam, decided against the policy of Socialist participation in progressive ministries, and urged on French Socialists the necessity of reconciliation, Jaurès loyally agreed to the termination of the bloc and joined the