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were discussing their problems. As election after election wasdebated and ideas flowed in upon the people—and from other partsof the world stories of the better life in other lands were retold—a wholly new temper displayed itself.The rise of the socialist movement played a powerful role in allthis. Socialism arrived late in Italy—around 1890. At first it wasa revolutionary party, but by the beginning of the century it becamea reformist party collaborating with the liberals for reformsnot essentially socialist—universal suffrage, pay for deputies, fullliberty of the press and of religion, government neutrality in labordisputes. The alliance with the liberals lasted until two years beforethe Great War. Together these groups submitted the capitalisteconomic philosophy to merciless analysis. Socialism grew, but theeffects of socialist preaching grew far more than the party. Labororganized. Unions, dominated by the socialists, became numerousand powerful politically. Employers organized in trade associationswith their budget of claims upon the government. Even the Catholicsabandoned indifference to the political scene and were summonedto action by the famous encyclical Return novarwm of LeoXIII, which contained some sentences that read like excerpts fromsocialist literature.Everywhere there was the ferment of ideas that characterizedthe late nineteenth century. Anarchism and syndicalism, alongwith co-operative movements, focused attention upon the growingproblem of poverty and crisis. The poor said: "We were better offwhen we were worse off." The middle classes, better off, becameacutely aware of their own problems, namely the retention of whatthey had against the onslaughts of depressions and the programs ofthe reformers. Labor, businessmen, farmers, all sorts of minoritiesorganized and produced those indefatigable pressure groups thatrob modern governments of their rest. Thus the government wasunder ceaseless demand for further solutions.A serious phenomenon appeared that one day was to devourmuch of the effective strength of the parliament. The new Germanywas a federal state. The individual states that formed theempire held fast to the power to legislate upon and administer theirlocal affairs. The task of government was split into many fractions,10