Quotes4study

Here is the text of the resolution carried at this meeting of the Petrograd garrison, by 61 votes against 11, and 12 not voting:

John Reed     Ten Days That Shook the World

Remember, comrades, that two of these deserters, Kameniev and Zinoviev, even before the uprising in Petrograd, appeared as deserters and strike-breakers, by voting at the decisive meeting of the Central Committee, October 23d, 1917, against the insurrection; and even AFTER the resolution passed by the Central Committee, they continued their campaign at a meeting of the party workers.... But the great impulse of the masses, the great heroism of millions of workers, soldiers and peasants, in Moscow, Petrograd, at the front, in the trenches, in the villages, pushed aside the deserters as a railway train scatters saw-dust....

John Reed     Ten Days That Shook the World

"So far as Louis XVI. was concerned, I said 'no.' I did not think that I had the right to kill a man; but I felt it my duty to exterminate evil. I voted the end of the tyrant, that is to say, the end of prostitution for woman, the end of slavery for man, the end of night for the child. In voting for the Republic, I voted for that. I voted for fraternity, concord, the dawn. I have aided in the overthrow of prejudices and errors. The crumbling away of prejudices and errors causes light. We have caused the fall of the old world, and the old world, that vase of miseries, has become, through its upsetting upon the human race, an urn of joy."

Victor Hugo     Les Miserables

“Answer: This is the argument of a sophomore with no practical experience, who reads that the Constituent Assembly is being called and trustfully accepts the legal and constitutional way. Even the voting of the Constituent Assembly will not do away with hunger, or beat Wilhelm.... The issue of hunger and of surrendering Petrograd cannot be decided by waiting for the Constituent Assembly. Hunger is not waiting. The peasants’ Revolution is not waiting. The Admirals who ran away did not wait.

John Reed     Ten Days That Shook the World

South and south-west the Soviets had fled before Kerensky, and the garrisons of Gatchina, Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo were divided--half voting to remain neutral, the rest, without officers, falling back on the capital in the wildest disorder.

John Reed     Ten Days That Shook the World

“Blind people are surprised that hungry people, betrayed by admirals and generals, do not take an interest in voting.

John Reed     Ten Days That Shook the World

At the centre of all this opposition was the Duma, and its militant organ, the Committee for Salvation, protesting against all the decrees of the Council of People’s Commissars, voting again and again not to recognise the Soviet Government, openly cooperating with the new counter-revolutionary “Governments” set up at Moghilev.... On the 17th of November, for example, the Committee for Salvation addressed “all Municipal Governments, Zemstvos, and all democratic and revolutionary organisations of peasants, workers, soldiers and other citizens,” in these words:

John Reed     Ten Days That Shook the World

“Now that the insurrection is over, we have absolutely no desire to suppress the papers of the other Socialist parties, except inasmuch as they appeal to armed insurrection, or to disobedience to the Soviet Government. However, we shall not permit them, under the pretence of freedom of the Socialist press, to obtain, through the secret support of the bourgeoisie, a monopoly of printing-presses, ink and paper.... These essentials must become the property of the Soviet Government, and be apportioned, first of all, to the Socialist parties in strict proportion to their voting strength....”

John Reed     Ten Days That Shook the World

The movement towards forming a parliamentary Labour party was not confined to New South Wales; on the contrary, it was common to all the states, having its origin in the failure of the Great Strike of 1890. The experience of the party was also much the same as in New South Wales, but its greatest triumphs were achieved in South Australia. The Labour party has been in power in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia, and has, on many occasions, decided the fate of the government on a critical division in all the states except Tasmania and Victoria. Different ideals dominate the party in the different states. The one ideal which has just been described represents the Labour party from the New South Wales standpoint. The only qualification worth mentioning is the signing of the pledge of solidarity. The other ideal, typified by the South Australian party, differs from this in one important respect. To the Labour party in that state are admitted only persons who have worked for their living at manual labour, and this qualification of being an actual worker is one that was strongly insisted upon at the formation of the party and strictly adhered to, although the temptation to break away from it and accept as candidates persons of superior education and position has been very great. On the formation of the Commonwealth a Labour party was established in the federal houses. It comprises one-third of the representation in the House of Representatives, and perhaps a still larger proportion in the Senate. The party is, however, formed on a broader basis than the state parties, the solidarity pledge extends only to votes upon which the fate of a government depends. Naturally, however, as the ideals of the members of the party are the same, the members of the Labour party will be generally found voting together on all important divisions, the chief exception being with regard to free trade or protection. The Labour party held power in the Commonwealth for a short period, and has had the balance of power in its hands ever since the formation of the Commonwealth. (T. A. C.) Entry: 6

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 8 "Atherstone" to "Austria"     1910-1911

MANILIUS, GAIUS, Roman tribune of the people in 66 B.C. At the beginning of his year of office (Dec. 67) he succeeded in getting a law passed (_de libertinorum suffragiis_), which gave freedmen the privilege of voting together with those who had manumitted them, that is, in the same tribe as their patroni; this law, however, was almost immediately declared null and void by the senate. Both parties in the state were offended by the law, and Manilius endeavoured to secure the support of Pompey by proposing to confer upon him the command of the war against Mithradates with unlimited power (see POMPEY). The proposal was supported by Cicero in his speech, _Pro lege Manilia_, and carried almost unanimously. Manilius was later accused by the aristocratical party on some unknown charge and defended by Cicero. He was probably convicted, but nothing further is heard of him. Entry: MANILIUS

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 17, Slice 5 "Malta" to "Map, Walter"     1910-1911

On the 2nd of December Disraeli, who had succeeded Lord Derby as premier in the preceding February, announced that he and his colleagues, recognizing their defeat, had resigned without waiting for a formal vote of the new parliament. On the following day Gladstone was summoned to Windsor, and commanded by the queen to form an administration. The great task to which the new prime minister immediately addressed himself was the disestablishment of the Irish Church. The queen wrote to Archbishop Tait that the subject of the Irish Church "made her very anxious," but that Mr Gladstone "showed the most conciliatory disposition." "The government can do nothing that would tend to raise a suspicion of their sincerity in proposing to disestablish the Irish Church, and to withdraw all state endowments from all religious communions in Ireland; but, were these conditions accepted, all other matters connected with the question might, the queen thinks, become the subject of discussion and negotiation." The bill was drawn and piloted on the lines thus indicated, and became law on the 26th of July. In the session of 1870 Gladstone's principal work was the Irish Land Act, of which the object was to protect the tenant against eviction as long as he paid his rent, and to secure to him the value of any improvements which his own industry had made. In the following session Religious Tests in the universities were abolished, and a bill to establish secret voting was carried through the House of Commons. This was thrown out by the Lords, but became law a year later. The House of Lords threw out a bill to abolish the purchase of commissions in the army. Gladstone found that purchase existed only by royal sanction, and advised the queen to issue a royal warrant cancelling, on and after the 1st of November following, all regulations authorizing the purchase of commissions. Entry: GLADSTONE

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 1 "Gichtel, Johann" to "Glory"     1910-1911

Napoleon began by removing the gag which was keeping the country in silence. On the 24th of November 1860, "by a _coup d'état_ matured during his solitary meditations," like a conspirator in his love of hiding his mysterious thoughts even from his ministers, he granted to the Chambers the right to vote an address annually in answer to the speech from the throne, and to the press the right of reporting parliamentary debates. He counted on the latter concession to hold in check the growing Catholic opposition, which was becoming more and more alarmed by the policy of _laissez-faire_ practised by the emperor in Italy. But the government majority already showed some signs of independence. The right of voting on the budget by sections, granted by the emperor in 1861, was a new weapon given to his adversaries. Everything conspired in their favour: the anxiety of those candid friends who were calling attention to the defective budget; the commercial crisis, aggravated by the American Civil War; and above all, the restless spirit of the emperor, who had annoyed his opponents in 1860 by insisting on an alliance with Great Britain in order forcibly to open the Chinese ports for trade, in 1863 by his ill-fated attempt to put down a republic and set up a Latin empire in Mexico in favour of the archduke Maximilian of Austria, and from 1861 to 1863 by embarking on colonizing experiments in Cochin China and Annam. Entry: A

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 7 "Fox, George" to "France"     1910-1911

In the discussions upon the Petition of Right, Bristol supported the use of the king's prerogative in emergencies, and asserted that the king besides his legal had a regal power, but joined in the demand for a full acceptance of the petition by the king after the first unsatisfactory answer. He was now restored to favour, but took no part in politics till the outbreak of the Scottish rebellion, when he warned Charles of the danger of attacking with inadequate forces. He was the leader in the Great Council held at York, was a commissioner to treat with the Scots in September 1640 at Ripon, and advised strongly the summoning of the parliament. In February 1641 he was one of the peers who advocated reforms in the administration and were given seats in the council. Though no friend to Strafford, he endeavoured to save his life, desiring only to see him excluded from office, and as a witness was excused from voting on the attainder. He was appointed gentleman of the bedchamber on the king's departure for Scotland, and on the 27th of December he was declared an evil counsellor by the House of Commons, Cromwell on the 28th moving an address to the king to dismiss him from his councils, on the plea that he had advocated the bringing up of the northern army to overawe parliament in the preceding spring. There is no evidence to support the charge, but Digby was regarded by the parliamentary party with special hatred and distrust, of which the chief causes were probably his Spanish proclivities and his indifference on the great matter of religion, to which was added the unpopularity reflected from his misguided son. On the 28th of March 1642 he was sent to the Tower for having failed to disclose to parliament the Kentish petition. Liberated in April, he spoke in the Lords on the 20th of May in favour of an accommodation, and again in June in vindication of the king; but finding his efforts ineffectual, and believing all armed rebellion against the king a wicked violation of the most solemn oaths, he joined Charles at York, was present at Edgehill and accompanied him to Oxford. On the 1st of February 1643 he was named with Lord Herbert of Raglan for removal from the court and public office for ever, and in the propositions of November 1644 was one of those excepted from pardon. In January he had endeavoured to instigate a breach of the Independents with the Scots. Bristol, however, was not in favour of continuing the war, and withdrew to Sherborne, removing in the spring of 1644 to Exeter, and after the surrender of the city retiring abroad on the 11th of July by order of the Houses, which rejected his petition to compound for his estate. He took up his residence at Caen, passing the rest of his life in exile and poverty, and occasionally attending the young king. In 1647 he printed at Caen _An Apology_, defending his support of the royal cause. This was reprinted in 1656 (Thomason Tracts, E. 897, 6). He died at Paris on the 16th of January 1653. Entry: BRISTOL

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 "Brescia" to "Bulgaria"     1910-1911

Mr Ewart's motion was defeated, but the movement of which Cobden and Bright were the leaders continued to spread. In the autumn the League resolved to raise £100,000; an appeal was made to the agricultural interest by great meetings in the farming counties, and in November _The Times_ startled the world by declaring, in a leading article, "The League is a great fact. It would be foolish, nay, rash, to deny its importance." In London great meetings were held in Covent Garden theatre, at which William Johnson Fox was the chief orator, but Bright and Cobden were the leaders of the movement. Bright publicly deprecated the popular tendency to regard Cobden and himself as the chief movers in the agitation, and Cobden told a Rochdale audience that he always stipulated that he should speak first, and Bright should follow. His "more stately genius," as Mr John Morley calls it, was already making him the undisputed master of the feelings of his audiences. In the House of Commons his progress was slower. Cobden's argumentative speeches were regarded more sympathetically than Bright's more rhetorical appeals, and in a debate on Villiers's annual motion against the Corn Laws Bright was heard with so much impatience that [v.04 p.0568] he was obliged to sit down. In the next session (1845) he moved for an inquiry into the operation of the Game Laws. At a meeting of county members earlier in the day Peel had advised them not to be led into discussion by a violent speech from the member for Durham, but to let the committee be granted without debate. Bright was not violent, and Cobden said that he did his work admirably, and won golden opinions from all men. The speech established his position in the House of Commons. In this session Bright and Cobden came into opposition, Cobden voting for the Maynooth Grant and Bright against it. On only one other occasion--a vote for South Kensington--did they go into opposite lobbies, during twenty-five years of parliamentary life. In the autumn of 1845 Bright retained Cobden in the public career to which Cobden had invited him four years before. Bright was in Scotland when a letter came from Cobden announcing his determination, forced on him by business difficulties, to retire from public work. Bright replied that if Cobden retired the mainspring of the League was gone. "I can in no degree take your place," he wrote. "As a second I can fight, but there are incapacities about me, of which I am fully conscious, which prevent my being more than second in such a work as we have laboured in." A few days later he set off for Manchester, posting in that wettest of autumns through "the rain that rained away the Corn Laws," and on his arrival got his friends together, and raised the money which tided Cobden over the emergency. The crisis of the struggle had come. Peel's budget in 1845 was a first step towards Free Trade. The bad harvest and the potato disease drove him to the repeal of the Corn Laws, and at a meeting in Manchester on 2nd July 1846 Cobden moved and Bright seconded a motion dissolving the league. A library of twelve hundred volumes was presented to Bright as a memorial of the struggle. Entry: BRIGHT

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 "Brescia" to "Bulgaria"     1910-1911

AYLESFORD, HENEAGE FINCH, 1st EARL OF (_c._ 1640-1719), 2nd son of Heneage Finch, 1st earl of Nottingham, was educated at Westminster school and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he matriculated on the 18th of November 1664. In 1673 he became a barrister of the Inner Temple; king's counsel and bencher in 1677; and in 1679, during the chancellorship of his father, was appointed solicitor-general, being returned to parliament for Oxford University, and in 1685 for Guildford. In 1682 he represented the crown in the attack upon the corporation of London, and next year in the prosecution of Lord Russell, when, according to Burnet, "and in several other trials afterwards, he showed more of a vicious eloquence in turning matters with some subtlety against the prisoners than of strict or sincere reasoning."[1] He does not, however, appear to have exceeded the duties of prosecutor for the crown as they were then understood. In 1684, in the trial of Algernon Sidney, he argued that the unpublished treatise of the accused was an overt act, and supported the opinion of Jeffreys that _scribere est agere_.[2] The same year he was counsel for James in his successful action against Titus Oates for libel, and in 1685 prosecuted Oates for the crown for perjury. Finch, however, though a Tory and a crown lawyer, was a staunch churchman, and on his refusal in 1686 to defend the royal dispensing power he was summarily dismissed by James, He was the leading counsel in June 1688 for the seven bishops, when he "strangely exposed and very boldly ran down"[3] the dispensing power, but his mistaken tactics were nearly the cause of his clients losing their case.[4] He sat again for Oxford University in the convention parliament, which constituency he represented in all the following assemblies except that of 1698, till his elevation to the peerage. He was, however, no supporter of the House of Orange, advocated a regency in James's name, and was one of the few who in the House of Commons opposed the famous vote that James had broken the contract between king and people and left the throne vacant. He held no office during William's reign, and is described by Macky as "always a great opposer" of the administration. In 1689 he joined in voting for the reversal of Lord Russell's attainder, and endeavoured to defend his conduct in the trial, but was refused a hearing by the House. He opposed the Triennial Bill of 1692, but in 1696 spoke against the bill of association and test, which was voted for the king's protection, on the ground that though William was to be obeyed as sovereign he could not be acknowledged "rightful and lawful king." In 1694 he argued against the crown in the bankers' case. In 1703 he was created baron of Guernsey and a privy councillor, and after the accession of George I. on the 19th of October 1714, earl of Aylesford, being reappointed a privy councillor and made chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, which office he retained till February 1716. He died on the 22nd of July 1719. According to John Macky (_Memoirs_, p. 71; published by Roxburghe Club, 1895) he was accounted "one of the greatest orators in England and a good common lawyer; a firm asserter of the prerogative of the crown and jurisdiction of the church; a tall, thin, black man, splenatick." He married Elizabeth, daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Banks of Aylesford, by whom, besides six daughters, he had three sons, of whom the eldest, Heneage, succeeded him as 2nd earl of Aylesford. The 2nd earl died in 1757, and since this date the earldom has been held by his direct descendants, six of whom in succession have borne the Christian name of Heneage. Entry: AYLESFORD

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon"     1910-1911

The educational system of California is one of the best in the country. The state board of education is composed of the governor of the state, who is its president; the superintendent of public instruction, who is its secretary; the presidents of the five normal schools and of the University of California, and the professor of pedagogy in the university. Sessions are long in primary schools, and attendance was made compulsory in 1874 (and must not be less than two-thirds of all school days). The state controlled the actual preparation and sale of text-books for the common schools from 1885 to 1903, when the Perry amendment to the constitution (ratified by popular vote in 1884) was declared to mean that such text-books must be manufactured within the state, but that the texts need not be prepared in California. The experiment of state-prepared text-books was expensive, and its effect was bad on the public school system, as such text-books were almost without exception poorly written and poorly printed. After 1903 copyrights were leased by the state. Secondary schools are closely affiliated with, and closely inspected by, the state university. All schools are generously supported, salaries are unusually good, and pension funds in all cities are authorized by state laws. The value of school property in 1900 was $19,135,722, and the expenditure for the public schools $6,195,000; in 1906 the value of school property was $29,013,150, and the expenditure for public schools $10,815,857. The average school attendance for all minors of school age (5-20 years) was 59.9%; of those native-born 61.5, of those foreign-born 34.6; of coloured children, including Asiatics and Indians, 35.8, and of white, 60.8%. In 1900, 6.2% of the males of voting age, and 2.4% of the native-born males of voting age, were illiterate (could not write). Some 3% of the total population could not speak English; Chinese and Japanese constituting almost half of the number, foreign-born whites somewhat less, and Indians and native-born whites of foreign parentage together less than a tenth of the total. Of the higher educational institutions of the state the most important are the state university at Berkeley and Leland Stanford Jr. University at Palo Alto. The former is supported with very great liberality by the state; and the latter, the endowment of which is private (the state, however, exempting it from taxation), is one of the richest educational institutions of America. In 1906 there were also five state normal schools (at Chico, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, and San José), and a considerable number of denominational colleges. There is also a state polytechnic school at San Luis Obispo (1903). Entry: A

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 1 "Calhoun" to "Camoens"     1910-1911